[nabs-l] Blindness and Identity

[Sean Whalen]

The point is that without ever having had the experience of being a man, you
cannot say for sure that your being a woman does or does not have an impact
on how you see yourself or experience the world. I suspect it does, but
without any basis for comparison, you can't say. Just as my being blind from
birth prohibits me from determining whether or not or to what degree my
blindness affects how I view myself and experience the world. My gut feeling
is that my blindness has a fairly profound affect on at least a significant
subset of the things I experience and the way in which I experience them.

Blindness is absolutely part of my identity, as is my height, skin color and
love of the Chicago Cubs. Your identity is just an exhaustive list of all of
the characteristics and attributes which make a particular person the
particular person that they are.

To what degree I identify myself as blind or identify with the greater
community of blind people is a completely separate question from that of
whether or not blindness is part of my identity.

I don't think blindness, strictly defined, is a social construct, while I
think the concept of disability is. I'm sure that to articulate my reasons
for feeling this way would require more time than I am willing to put into
it now, but that is my gut feeling.

Thought I'd throw my two cents into this interesting discussion.

All the best,

Sean