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

[Jason Polansky]

I agree with Phil and Joseph. Something at the top of my head is sometimes
when we go to restaurants, the waiter or waitress will ask fy friends or
family members and say "What does he want to eat?", like we can't talk for
ourselves because we're blind.

On Sat, Apr 16, 2016 at 5:42 AM Joseph C. Lininger via nabs-l <
nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> 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
>
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