[nabs-l] Those Amazing Inspiring Blind People

[melissa Green]

I am thankful for those sighted people who had and still have high 
expectations for me.
Sincerely,
Melissa and Pj
"Forever is composed of nows." -Emily Dickinson
facebook Melissa R Green
Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/melissagreen5674
skype: lissa5674

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arielle Silverman" <arielle71 at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 4:42 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Those Amazing Inspiring Blind People


Hi all,
I think some great points have been made here. When someone tells me I
am amazing or inspiring or courageous or whatever, I don't like it
because it implies a lower standard. There's always part of that
compliment that goes unstated: "You're amazing......For a blind
person". It's really a backhanded insult to other blind people, even
though it may not be intended that way. Also, I don't like being told
that I must have overcome great obstacles or that I must have great
perseverance and passion to get to where I am today, because I don't
think that's true. My blindness hasn't interfered much with my
educational achievements and compared with many others my life has
been over-privileged. When people make these assumptions I feel they
are judging me based on blindness without knowing much else about me,
my upbringing or anything I've done.
I also think that the "amazing" comments are particularly tough on
blind youth who also happen to be high achievers. It's hard to know
how to interpret these comments and when we are truly amazing vs. just
exceeding people's low standards. And sometimes, being an inspiration
is just too much extra pressure when our lives are already filled with
a lot of internal and external demands.
When I was growing up, I got used to these accolades because my
parents had many friends who would marvel at my accomplishments. When
I was young I was often asked to show off my Braille reading for
company and this just completely blew people away. Then as I grew I
was a high achiever in school and won some awards for spelling bees
and things like that. They deserved recognition, but probably not to
the level that I got. One night when I was ten, I wrote down some
musings about how I felt about blindness and dealing with sighted
kids. My mother ran across my writing on the family computer and
through a random string of events, what I wrote got published in our
local paper. Then when I was eleven, a magazine editor read the
newspaper article and was so amazed and inspired that she asked me to
write a column for her magazine. This of course only compounded
people's awe and amazement in what I could do, since not only was I
blind but I was also famous. It took several years, but I eventually
realized that I wasn't an amazing writer. I was a decent writer, but
not particularly outstanding at it, and not good at fiction or poetry
at all. The only reason people were so impressed with my writing was
because I wrote about blindness and that was a topic that intrigued
people. I had to get a lot of painful criticism on my writing before I
eventually realized I wasn't as outstanding as those folks made me out
to be. Around the time I came to that epiphany, I also began to resent
all the accolades. I remember thinking, at the age of fifteen, that
"adults always treat me like I'm five and fifty at the same time. But
I just want to be a normal 15-year-old girl!" I felt like on one hand,
I was being held to an impossibly high standard--expected to be an
amazing writer, an inspiration to all--and on the other hand, held to
an extremely low standard--expected not to be capable of basic
independence. People would praise my writing but then worry about my
ability to walk across a room. I just wanted to blend into the crowd
of teenagers and gossip about boys and clothes (well, mostly just
boys) instead.
Then, at the end of ninth grade, I "accidentally on purpose" failed my
algebra final and earned my first B on my report card. There were some
problems on the final that were hard and I didn't feel like answering
on the last day of school, so I skipped them. I didn't intend to
fail--I think I just got a little overconfident about my ability to
earn straight A's. But I also wonder if on a less conscious level, I
bombed the test so I could prove to myself and others that I was a
human being and I was capable of screwing up--and not always an
inspiration. Just a week before that final exam, I remember my algebra
teacher admitting that he had doubted my ability to pass his class at
the beginning of the year, but that he was totally impressed with my
performance. I remember being angry at him for assuming I wouldn't
succeed in his class just because I was blind. And so perhaps,
ironically, I failed his test to try to show him I wasn't amazing, I
wasn't a superhero, I was just a normal teenager doing the best I
could to succeed in school.
OK, enough rambling about my childhood, but I do think that the
unnecessary recognition we get from the public can be just as damaging
as true discrimination, especially when we are young and trying to
figure out where our true talents are. None of us should be forced
into the position of inspiring others. As first-class citizens, we
have the right to achieve at the level we wish to achieve at, and we
have a right to accurate feedback about how well we're doing at
something. Fortunately, as others have stated, there are sighted folks
with high expectations who are willing to hold us up to rigorous
standards and to give us a true picture of our strengths and
weaknesses.
Best,
Arielle

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