[nabs-l] My Blindness Philosophy is Better than Yours

[Joshua Hendrickson]

I agree.  I'd say if you were able to board a bus before others would
be a good thing whether you were blind or not.  I certainly would have
gotten on the bus first.  When I used to take the Van Gelder bus from
Rockford to Chicago, the driver would help me find a seat on the bus.
I never thought anything about it.  It was just nice to get my seat,
turn on my NLS player and listen to a book while the bus was on its
way to Chicago.

On 6/13/16, Joe Orozco via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Should a blind person use their disability to take advantage of social
> perks?
> I briefly touched on the following story elsewhere in these pages. It
> has bearing on the current point though, so hang in there for a
> moment.
> Back in college I was once traveling with a fellow blind friend on
> Greyhound. We happened to arrive at the gate before anyone else, but
> because my traveling companion was, probably still is, an ultra
> independent blind person, they refused to board the bus first. The bus
> driver was confused. Why would this person want to let other
> passengers skip ahead when we'd beaten everyone else to the gate? The
> bus driver couldn't understand my companion was refusing to get on the
> bus ahead of everyone else on principle. Allowing persons with
> disabilities to skip ahead in line is just something society expects,
> and my companion, following their own philosophy of independence, was
> not going to feed into that presumptive notion.
> I have always wondered about the rationale to this way of thinking.
> What is it about using certain social perks directly linked to
> disabilities that inspire such delicate feelings of inferiority?
> Perhaps we are afraid to look inept by jumping to the front of a line.
> That speaks to perception, and just as laws do not change minds
> overnight, your position in line is not likely to automatically make
> someone think you are any more or less capable by standing ahead or
> behind. Do we really believe standing in the middle of the crowd will
> somehow make us more a part of the people? Will that translate to
> making us more approachable? More datable? More employable? Your
> subsequent words and actions after getting in line are more likely to
> have an influence over someone's opinion of you as a blind individual.
> Making a scene to be treated as an equal does not create equality. It
> creates a spectacle.
>
> Read the rest of the article at:
>
> http://joeorozco.com/blog_my_blindness_philosophy_is_better_than_yours
>
> Joe
>
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