[nabs-l] Racism in Blind History

[Haben Girma]

I've been doing research on the dynamics of guide dog partnerships for 
an anthropology class, and came across a really interesting passage. In 
Peter Putnam's book, Love in the Lead: The Miracle of The Seeing Eye 
Dog, I came across this fascinating statement: "As late as the 1950's, 
an association for the blind in a Southern city was posting sighted 
monitors at the doors to its Christmas party in order to segregate the 
blind guests who could not see each other's color" (Putnam 106).

Race is in some ways a very visual thing. There's a myth out there that 
blind people will not judge other's by their appearance. Through Putnam 
I've learned that some gatherings of blind people in the South have had 
sighted monitors to ensure the segregation of the colorblind 
participants. In such racist environments, it occurs to me that some of 
those blind people probably requrested the assistance of sighted people 
to uphold segregation... Gosh, here's a whole dimension of racism my 
high school teachers never dwelt on! What did racism mean to a blind 
person in, say, 1940s Burmingham? In that setting and time, were the 
dialects of the blacks and whites so similar that a blind person needed 
a sighted person to monitor segregation?

After reading that one statement in Putnam's book, I realized I know 
very little about racism in the history of blind organizations. If any 
of you have more information on this topic, please let me know.

Best,
Haben