[Minnesota-Talk] Letter to Uber CEO to Stop Recent Ad Promoting Negative Perception of Blindness

[David Andrews]

>
>As we've discussed at the Metro and At-Large 
>Chapter meetings this month, here is the open 
>letter from our national president to Uber’s 
>CEO about their recent ads. Please continue to 
>share this with your friends, family, and social networks.
>
>
>
><https://nfb.org/programs-services/advocacy/policy-statements/letter-uber-ceo-stop-recent-ad-promoting-negative>https://nfb.org/programs-services/advocacy/policy-statements/letter-uber-ceo-stop-recent-ad-promoting-negative
>
>
>Letter to Uber CEO to Stop Recent Ad Promoting 
>Negative Perception of Blindness
>
>
>
>February 15, 2024
>
>Dear Dara Khosrowshahi,
>I am writing to you today concerning an Uber ad 
>that has been brought to my attention by the 
>members of the National Federation of the Blind. 
>Considering Uber’s core values and the prior 
>messaging provided to our community about its 
>awareness of concerns from the blind community 
>and its desire to work with the Federation to 
>resolve those issues, the messaging of the 
>advertisement has the opposite effect. We call 
>on you to immediately stop use of this ad. We 
>continue to provide you with clear and honest 
>feedback from our community with the hope that 
>we might make progress in getting our concerns 
>addressed. I share our concerns with you 
>trusting that you will in turn share them with 
>the appropriate teams within Uber. We will also 
>be sharing this communication with our 
>membership so that everyone is aware that we 
>have reached out to Uber about this most recent issue.
>
>The ad in question features a blind woman 
>speaking about how Uber has increased her 
>ability to travel independently. As you know, 
>blind people deeply appreciate the increased 
>freedom of movement that comes from having Uber 
>as an option in their local community. We also 
>recognize that Uber can be a useful tool 
>wherever an individual may be on their journey 
>of coping with changing eyesight. Nonetheless, 
>as an organization focused on raising 
>expectations and empowering blind people, we 
>feel that the ad sends negative messages about 
>blindness and its effect on our lives. These 
>messages encourage the public to pity us and to 
>see Uber as the only means of saving us from 
>lives of constant fear, isolation, and physical 
>harm, rather than as one tool that can enhance 
>our independence. This is particularly 
>problematic considering the unaddressed harmful 
>treatment that blind people have received from 
>many drivers in the Uber community.
>
>The ad begins, as just one example, with the 
>narrator suggesting that people can experience 
>what it is like to be blind by simply closing 
>their eyes. Years of experience have taught us 
>that vicariously experiencing blindness through 
>temporarily blocking one’s eyesight increases 
>people’s fear of blindness without 
>meaningfully enhancing their understanding of 
>how blind people live our lives. Because people 
>who are just closing their eyes and trying to 
>accomplish some tasks do not have the tools, 
>training, and skills that blind people develop 
>and acquire, often over many months or years, 
>the experience tends to suggest to them that 
>blindness is more of a barrier than it is for 
>those of us who are accustomed to dealing with it on a daily basis.
>
>In another example of problematic messaging, the 
>narrator says that “you have to have really 
>good mobility skills to use the white cane, 
>there's cracks in the sidewalk, I can't see the 
>black ice, I've had broken bones just trying to 
>get to my bus stop.” This suggests that the 
>white cane is not an effective mobility tool for 
>blind people. This sends a message to the public 
>that is clearly different than the experience of 
>thousands of blind people who have learned to 
>use the white cane with ease and grace. 
>Furthermore, the specific examples here are 
>flawed: While black ice is a hazard even to 
>people who have perfect eyesight, white canes 
>often detect it without issue, since its 
>slipperiness contrasts with the texture of 
>surrounding surfaces. An effectively used white 
>cane will also usually detect sidewalk cracks. 
>Of course, coping with vision loss is a journey, 
>and it can be particularly difficult for people 
>whose eyesight has changed suddenly. While we 
>respect individual lived experience, exploiting 
>negative incidents in an advertisement sends a 
>message of helplessness and dependence, rather 
>than one of hope and empowerment. It is 
>important for blind and low-vision people, 
>wherever they are on their individual journey, 
>to understand that their lives can still be full 
>of possibility and even joy. Uber missed a 
>significant opportunity to portray blind people 
>living that kind of life. Instead, the ad 
>suggests that blind people’s lives are a 
>series of physical catastrophes unless they have 
>Uber to “save” them from this painful and 
>frightening fate. As I have said, Uber is a 
>valuable and powerful tool, but millions of 
>blind people traveled safely and independently 
>before it existed, and many still get along quite well without it.
>
>It should be possible for Uber to market how it 
>meaningfully addresses a true barrier faced by 
>blind people, access to reliable motor vehicle 
>transportation, without exploiting fear and 
>stereotypes. Uber should treat us not as 
>pitiable recipients of its beneficence, but as 
>people who use the service to participate fully 
>in work, school, and community life. Uber’s 
>failure to portray us as we are is a direct 
>result of its failure to reach out to us and 
>meaningfully collaborate on this marketing 
>campaign. This failure would be regrettable 
>enough in isolation, but given that Uber has 
>already developed a negative reputation in our 
>community because of its handling of the guide 
>dog issue, this misstep compounds the problem. 
>The creation and dissemination of this ad sends 
>the unfortunate signal that Uber is willing to 
>exploit us to obtain the goodwill of the public, 
>while still failing to address the issues we 
>have raised with you over the years. This may 
>not have been the intent, but our community 
>cannot be blamed for interpreting it that way.
>
>I hope that you will take this letter in the 
>spirit of constructive feedback in which it is 
>meant. The marketing campaign that gave birth to 
>this ad can only serve to further alienate many 
>of the same people that Uber claims are its 
>valued passengers. I hope that you will end use 
>of this ad immediately. I also hope that this 
>communication will produce a more positive and 
>constructive approach across the board. We are 
>prepared to inform your work with the authentic 
>experience of blind people if Uber truly desires 
>to have our community as valued customers.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Mark A. Riccobono, President
>National Federation of the Blind
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