Thunder Dog (18 page)

W
hen you meet me don’t be ill at ease. It will help both of us if you remember these simple points of courtesy:

1. I’m an ordinary person, just blind. You don’t need to raise your voice or address me as if I were a child. Don’t ask my spouse what I want—“Cream in the coffee?”— ask me.

2. I may use a long white cane or a guide dog to walk independently; or I may ask to take your arm. Let me decide, and please don’t grab my arm; let me take yours. I’ll keep a half-step behind to anticipate curbs and steps.

3. I want to know who’s in the room with me. Speak when you enter. Introduce me to the others. Include children, and tell me if there’s a cat or dog.

4. The door to a room or cabinet or to a car left partially open is a hazard to me.

5. At dinner I will not have trouble with ordinary table skills.

6. Don’t avoid words like “see.” I use them, too. I’m always glad to see you.

7. I don’t want pity. But don’t talk about the “wonderful compensations” of blindness. My sense of smell, touch, or hearing did not improve when I became blind. I rely on them more and, therefore, may get more information through those senses than you do—that’s all.

8. If I’m your houseguest, show me the bathroom, closet, dresser, window—the light switch too. I like to know whether the lights are on.

9. I’ll discuss blindness with you if you’re curious, but it’s an old story to me. I have as many other interests as you do.

10. Don’t think of me as just a blind person. I’m just a person who happens to be blind.

In all fifty states, the law requires drivers to yield the right of way when they see my extended white cane. Only the blind may carry white canes. You see more blind persons today walking alone, not because there are more of us, but because we have learned to make our own way.
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From the National Federation of the Blind

Y
ou have asked me to comment on a seeming contradiction in the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind. You tell me on the one hand that we say, “The blind person can compete on terms of equality with the ordinary sighted person if he gets proper training and opportunity.” You call to my attention our statement that, “The average blind person can do the average job in the average place of business, and do it as well as his sighted neighbor.” You remind me that we tell the World with great insistence that, “The blind person can lead as happy and lead as full a life as anyone else.”

You tell me on the other hand that we say blindness need not be the great tragedy it has always been considered, but that it can be reduced to the level of a mere physical nuisance. You say that these two propositions seem contradictory, and that if you are to buy the one you don’t see how you can buy the other. You tell me you are prepared to accept the fact that the blind can compete and therefore you’re not prepared, unless I can provide valid reasons to the contrary, to concede that blindness is a nuisance at all. That is, any more so than any other characteristic of any other person in normal living.

Let me begin by saying that you have put me in a very unusual position. Ordinarily people want to argue the other way. Most of them say that it’s ridiculous to say that blindness can be reduced to the level of a nuisance since it is obviously a major tragedy involving severe problems and extreme limitations not to mention emotional distress and psychological disturbance. You however deny that it is even a nuisance and ask me to come up to the line and prove that it is! Fair enough, I shall try. The very fact that you can raise such a question shows how much progress we have made. I doubt that anybody could have done it as recently as twenty years ago.

To begin with, even if we were to concede, and I don’t concede it as I will shortly indicate, that there is absolutely nothing which can be done with sight which can’t be done just as easily and just as well without it, blindness would still be a nuisance as the World is now constituted. Why? Because the World is planned and structured for the sighted. This does not mean that blindness need be a terrible tragedy, or that the blind are inferior, or that they cannot compete on terms of equality with the sighted. And we of the National Federation of the Blind, for instance, affirm that the ordinary blind person can compete on terms of equality with the ordinary sighted person, if he gets proper training and opportunity. We know that the average blind person can do the average job in the average place of business and do it as well as his sighted neighbor. In other words, the blind person can be as happy and lead as full a life as anybody else.

For an exact analogy, consider the situation of those who are left-handed. The world is planned and structured for the right-handed. Thus, left-handedness is a nuisance and is recognized as such, especially by the left-handed. Even so, the left-handed can compete on terms of equality with the right-handed since their handicap can be reduced to the level of a mere physical nuisance.

If you are not left-handed (I am not. I am a “normal”), you may not have thought of the problems. A left-handed person ordinarily wears his wristwatch on his right arm. Not to do so is awkward and causes problems. But the watch is made for the right-handed. Therefore, when it is worn on the right arm, the stem is toward the elbow, not the fingers. The watch is inconvenient to wind, a veritable nuisance.

Then there are butter knives. Many of them are so constructed that the left-handed must either spread the butter with the back of the knife, awkwardly use the right hand, or turn the wrist in a most uncomfortable way—nuisances all. But not of the sort to ruin one’s psyche or cause nightmares, just annoying.

The garden variety can opener (the one you grip in your left hand and turn with your right, that is, if you are “normal”) is made for “normals.” If you hold it in your right hand and turn it with your left (as any respectable left-hander is tempted to do), you must either clumsily reach across it to get at the handle or turn it upside down so that the handle is conveniently located, in which case it won’t work at all.

Likewise, steak knives are usually serrated to favor the right-handed. Scissors, eggbeaters, ice cream dippers, and other utensils are also made for the same group.

So are ordinary school-desk classroom chairs. How many have you seen with the arms on the left side? Of course, a few enlightened schools and colleges (with proper, present-day concern for the well-being of minorities) have two or three left-handed chairs in each of their classrooms, but this is the exception rather than the rule. It succeeds only in earning the ill will of chauvinistic right-handers, who must use the desks when the room is full and the left-handed are absent. Of course, these occasional left-handed desks are the most blatant form of tokenism, the groveling gratitude of occasional left-handed Uncle Toms to the contrary notwithstanding.

In at least one case, it would seem, the problem of the left-handed is not just a side effect of the fact that the world is constructed for the right-handed but a real, inherent weakness. When the left-handed person writes with ink (the ballpoint pen was a blessing, indeed), his hand tends to smear the ink as it drags over what he has written. Of course, he can hold his hand up as he writes, but this is an inferior technique, not to mention being tiresome. Upon closer examination even this apparently inherent weakness is not really inherent at all but simply another problem created by society in its catering to the right-handed. There is no real reason why it is better to begin reading or writing at the left side of the page and move to the right, except that it is more efficient and comfortable for the majority, the right-handed. In fact, it would be just as easy to read or write from the right to the left (more so for the left-handed), and thus the shoe would be on the other foot, or, more precisely, the pen would be in the other hand.

The left-handed have always been considered inferior by the right-handed. Formerly (in primitive times—twenty or thirty years ago) parents tried to make their left-handed children behave normally that is, use their right hands. Thereby, they often created trauma and psychiatric problems causing complexes, psychoses, and emotional disturbances. Today (in the age of enlightenment) while parents do not exactly say, “left is beautiful,” they recognize the rights of minorities and leave their left-handed progeny to do their own thing.

(Parenthetically, I might say here that those who work with the blind are not always so progressive. Parents and especially educators still try to make the blind child with a little sight read large type, even when Braille would serve him better and be more efficient. They put great stress on reading in the “normal” manner and not being “conspicuous.” They make him ashamed of his blindness and often cause permanent damage.)

But back to the left-handed. Regardless of the enlightenment of parents and teachers, the ancient myth of the inferiority of the left-handed still lingers to bedevil the lives of that unfortunate minority. To say that someone has given you a “left-handed compliment” is not a compliment to the left-handed. It is usually the left hand that doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, rarely the other way around; and it is the right hand that is raised, or placed on the Bible, to take an oath. Salutes and the Pledge of Allegiance are given with the right hand. Divine Scripture tells us that the good and the evil shall be divided and that, at the day of final judgment, the sheep shall be on the right hand and the goats on the left, from whence they shall be cast into hell and outer darkness forever and ever. The guest of honor sits on the right hand of the host, and in an argument one always wants to be right. No one ever wants to be left behind.

Whether these uses of the words “left” and “right” are subtleties of language reinforcing the stereotype and bespeaking deeply ingrained, subconscious prejudice, or whether they are accidental, as the “normals” allege, who can say? It may simply be that the left-handed are supersensitive, wearing chips on their shoulders and looking for insult where none is intended.

It is hard to make this case, however, when one considers the word gauche. The 1971 edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, says: “gauche . . . left, on the left, French . . . lacking in social graces or ease, tact, and familiarity with polite usage; likely or inclined to commit social blunders especially from lack of experience or training . . . lacking finish or exhibiting crudity (as of style, form, or technique) . . . being or designed for use with the left hand: LEFT-HANDED. Synonym, see AWKWARD. gauchely, adverb: in a gauche manner: AWKWARDLY, CLUMSILY, CRUDELY.”

Whatever else may be said, there is nothing subtle about all of that; nor is there anything subtle about the term “bar sinister,” which comes from the Latin
sinistral
, meaning left-handed. The 1971 edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, says: “bar sinister . . . the fact or condition of being of illegitimate birth . . . an enduring stigma, stain, or reproach (as of improper conduct or irregular status).” Supersensitive? Quibbling? Not on your life. Left-handers arise. You have nothing to lose but your chains. They probably don’t fit you anyway, being made for the right-handed. Look for the new slogans any day: “Left is lovely,” and “Get righty!”

As with other oppressed minorities, the subtleties of language and prejudice carry over into the job market. I know of a girl, for instance, who lives in Kansas and who sought employment in a factory in that state. She was interviewed and passed every test with flying colors. The prospective employer terminated the interview by telling her, “You are in every way qualified for the job, and I would hire you immediately, except for your handicap.” In outrage and indignation she demanded to know what he meant. “Why,” he said, “it’s obvious! You are left-handed. The machines on our assembly line are made for the right-handed. You would slow down the entire operation.” This is not fantasy but fact. The company makes greeting cards. The girl did not get the job.

If, in truth and in fact, the left-handed girl would have slowed the assembly line, it is hard to see how the action of the employer can be called discriminatory. He could not be expected to buy new machinery simply to give her a job, nor could he be expected to redesign the entire factory. The “normal” person is right-handed, and it is reasonable for the factory to be designed accordingly.

Or does all of this miss the whole point? Is this not exactly the way employers and the general public think and talk about the blind? How did the employer know that the girl would slow down the assembly line? How did he know she was less efficient? Perhaps she had alternative techniques. Perhaps, in fact, she could have done the job better than most of the other people he had on the line. He decided (based on what he doubtless called “obvious” and “common sense” reasons) that she couldn’t do the work. Accordingly, she was never even given the opportunity to try. Beware the “obvious,” and look very carefully at so-called “common sense.”

Do you still say there is no discrimination against the left-handed? Probably you do unless you begin to think about it, unless you get the facts—and even then, some people will say you are quibbling, that you are exaggerating. How very like the case of the blind. How easy to make quick judgments and have all of the answers, especially when you are not confronted with the problem or compelled to look at reality.

From all of this, you can see that the life of the left-hander is not easy. Nevertheless, his infirmity can be reduced to the level of a mere nuisance. It need not mean helplessness or inferiority. It does not necessarily cripple him psychologically. With reasonable opportunity he can compete on terms of equality with his right-handed neighbor. The average left-hander can do the average job in the average place of business and do it as well as the average right-hander.

So far as I can tell, there is no inherent weakness in left-handedness at all. The problems arise from the fact that society is structured for the right-handed. But these problems (annoying though they be) do not keep the left-handed from leading normal lives or competing with others. They are at the nuisance level.

Therefore, even if blindness (like left-handedness) had no inherent problems, it would still be a nuisance since society is structured and planned for the sighted sometimes when it could be arranged more efficiently otherwise. For instance, most windows in modern buildings are not there for ventilation. They are scaled. They are there only so that the sighted may look out of them. The building loses heat in winter and coolness in summer, but the sighted (the majority) will have their windows.

I think, however, that blindness is not exactly like left-handedness. I think there are some things that are inherently easier to do with sight than without it. For instance, you can glance down the street and see who is coming. You can look across a crowded room and tell who is there.

But here, it seems to me, most people go astray. They assume that, because you cannot look across the room and see who is there or enjoy a sunset or look down the street and recognize a friend, you are confronted with a major tragedy—that you are psychologically crippled, sociologically inferior, and economically unable to compete. Regardless of the words they use, they feel (deep down at the gut level) that the blind are necessarily less fortunate than the sighted. They think that blindness means lack of ability. Such views are held not only by most of the sighted but by many of the blind as well. They are also held by many, if not most, of the professionals in the field of work with the blind. In the
Journal of Rehabilitation
for January-February 1966, an article appeared entitled: “Social Isolation of the Blind: An Understated Aspect of Disability and Dependency.” This article was written by none other than Dr. D. C. MacFarland, Chief of the Office for the Blind, Social and Rehabilitative Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Dr. MacFarland says: