[nabs-l] Custodializm and sighted=blind interactions

[Jim Reed]

Hey all, 
In an earlier post, I told a breif story about going into a grocery store with a blind guy, and I expressed my perceptions of that situation. Well, I wrote the man who was the subject of that post, and I asked him some questions. I don't think I posed the same questions to you all as I just posed to him, so I have copied and pasted the relevant sections of my letter, and I would like to hear your opinions and answers to the questions I posed.

Thanks, 

Jim
Here is the letter
_______________________________________________________________-

"...
Yesterday, when we went into the
grocery store, I offered you an elbow which you refused. No problem.
Since you refused my elbow, I assumed you knew the store and/or could
keep up with me, so, without giving you much of a second thought, I
took off looking for one soda cooler or another. However, several times
I looked back, and you were standing in almost the same place I left
you, or you were very slowly walking towards my general direction. I
tried walking slower, but within two steps I was already way in front
of you. Then, I would stop (or walk) and purposefully tap my cane to
give you a noise to follow, but the tapping did not really seem to make
a difference (aat least not in terms of your speed). 


In general, I felt kind of uncomfortable being in the store with you. I
felt uncomfortable walking so slowly next to a grown man who seems in
good health, and I felt even more uncomfortable with my "wait and tap"
method. My discomfort stems from not having had to deal with these
situations (interacting with other blind people) before, and not really
knowing how, or what to do, or knowing what is appropriate and/or
expected. 

My instinct is to treat you (or any other blind person)
as I would treat any of my sighted friends. That means, in the grocery
store for example, that I go from Point A to Point B,  get my stuff,
and get out as quickly as possible;  and I expect that my companion
will keep up without me slowing down. However, if I would have used
that approach with you yesterday, I probably would have been in the
store, found and bought our sodas, and been out the store, and you may
have still been standing somewhere near where I left you. If that had
been the case, I would have felt like a real jerk for having ditched my
blind companion because he could not keep up.  On the other hand, the
other approach, the custodial approach, is equally uncomfortable to me,
and that is the approach I felt like I was using with you (walking real
slow and needlessly tapping my cane). 

I
know there has to be a happy medium between my "sink or swim" (keep up
or get left behind) approach, and my custodial (walk real slow and tap)
approach. For as much as blind people don't want to be custodialized, I
don't want to be a custodian. But at the same time, if blind people
want to be considered and treated as equals, then I shouldn't feel like
I have to wait for them, or accommodate them. 

Are
all accommodations custodialism and a threat to blind independence?
Where and how is that line drawn? To what extent is it the
responsibility of the blind person to tell hs/her companion what they
need and want? What is the sighted person to do if the blind person
provides no such guidance? Is it the responsibility of the sighted to, and
how should a sighted persons determine and respond to  the needs and wants of a blind companion? 

In
a situation such as ours in the grocery store, the options (as I see
them) were for me to slow down, you to speed up, or for you to take my
elbow. Why should I slow down? Why should you speed up or take an
elbow? How are our differing needs and/or wants reconsiled without you
feeling custodialized, and without me feeling like a custodian?

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts,
Jim"


"From compromise and things half done, 
Keep me with stern and stubborn pride,
And when at last the fight is won, 
... Keep me still unsatisfied." --Louis Untermeyer