[nabs-l] Microaggression and unconscious biases towards blind people and people with disabilities

[Joseph C. Lininger]

Off the top of my head, there are two things that could be classified in 
your words as microaggression that really get to me. The first is 
unsolicited touching. Many people seem to think it's ok to touch a blind 
person without asking permission or otherwise violate our personal space 
in a way they would never dream of doing if the person were sighted. The 
second one is when a person sees you as blind first, and maybe something 
else second. I say maybe because blind may be all you are to them. What 
I mean by this is that every time they talk to you they always bring up 
the blindness in every conceivable situation. If you try to address them 
normally for something like a work related issue, they will change the 
subject to blindness. If they see you in the hallway, they will make a 
comment about the blindness. You get the idea. I understand curiosity, 
and I'm not offended by that. What I am offended by though is when it is 
impossible to speak to a person without them bringing that up. (I know 
one person who I have known for almost 3 years, so at this point it's 
starting to get a bit ridiculous)

As for unconscious biases, it's interesting you bring that up because I 
was just talking to a friend about that this last week. I was telling 
him that it is often times hard for a blind person to find employment, 
even when qualified because of biases held by the hiring manager for 
instance. I told him the worst part of that, at least in my opinion, is 
that it doesn't even have to be something that a person does 
consciously. A person can be absolutely convinced they have no negative 
thoughts about blindness, yet their behavior indicates otherwise. You 
can't even address it in that case because they are absolutely convinced 
it doesn't exist.

I had an experience related to this just a couple of months ago. I was 
talking to someone about the possibility of a future work opportunity. 
This guy had said in the same conversation that he doesn't even notice 
the blindness and that he treats me like everyone else. Then, a few 
minutes later he said, "well, I'm assuming you wouldn't want to work at 
this location because the layout of the area is weird." If you bring it 
to his attention though, even with that comment, he'll deny  he has any 
such views. It's not a dishonesty thing either; he is actually convinced 
he doesn't harbour opinions like that.
Joe