Unceasing Echoes

My local pub re-opened on 4 th August, and has put a number of practices in place to help maintain social distancing. They use WhatsApp both to provide the menu and for taking orders which limits movement around the room.   The first time that my partner and I went back for a meal a couple of weeks ago, the menu was sent via WhatsApp as an image file(a photograph) of the printed menu. This meant that my phone’s screen reader, only seeing it as a picture,  could not read it.   Later, I emailed the pub explaining the issue and as a solution, asked if they could provide a text version of the menu to blind customers. They immediately responded, thanking me for explaining the issue and saying they were on the case. We returned for a meal last Saturday night and I was sent the new text version of the menu – which I could read on my phone. They didn’t attempt to make any excuses for not having the menu in an accessible format, neither did they make a big deal ...

My recent post ‘Over-familiarity breeds contempt’ drew attention to the unpleasant technique of using gushing over-familiarity and false affirmation with disabled people as a means to create the illusion of the importance of the relationship and of their value. An interesting comment posted in response, raised an aspect of the issue that I hadn’t thought of when I wrote it.   The understanding that I’ve come to from  Alex’s comment is that when the over-familiarity/affirmation is enacted publically (in front of others), the  presence of the ‘audience’ shifts the encounter into a performance which becomes a vehicle for personal gain. The idea seems to have a lot to offer in helping to understand many of the strange ways that disabled people are talked to (or at).   There’s little unusual in the equality of somebody having a conversation with a disabled friend, it has (or should have) nothing out of the ordinary about it,...

I’ve had a few comments over the months of this blog which I’ve appreciated, and am very pleased that I’m starting to receive more responses to posts. I must confess that it took me until last night to work out how to reply to them. Those which seem to warrant something from me, or that make me think, have not gone ignored - just not replied to.   Please do use the ‘reply’ button if you want to respond, continue the thinking, discussion, offer something of your own, disagree or whatever.    

I can’t say how irritating, embarrassing and patronising it feels to hear the phrase: “are you causing trouble again?” used as a greeting to me in a kind of over-familiar, knowing, slightly too loud, falsely aspirant voice, intended more to be heard by others than for me.   It’s happened so many times over the years - in cafes, when I’ve been queuing at the counter, conferences when I’ve been trying to find somewhere to sit, arriving at a meeting and finding a seat or a cup of tea…   It often happens when I am in a less than familiar or uncomfortable situation , and never said by people who are close to me, but by people who don’t know how to be around me, people who perhaps have a view of me, their way of matching me with some stereotype of blind people that I can be slotted into.   I’m not a natural ‘trouble-causer’ )whatever that may be) or at least I don’t carry any trouble-causing that I might ex...

In a pub, asking  a group of men for directions to the toilets.   They’re just over there to the right mate.   I walk in the general direction, and on the way, walk around a table which was in the way.   They shout “you’re not fuckin’ blind, you twat. You shouldn’t be allowed to have that stick if you’re not really blind”    

I want to look at the issue of facial expressions, how character traits are gathered from the eyes and that vast range of accurate and less accurate information that is conveyed by the face and all its elements.   I can’t see the detail of faces. I don’t recognise people by their faces and can’t see facial expressions. I can just about make out a smile when I’m very close to someone, but not tell whether it is an open, rye, ironic, loving, joyful, sneering or sad one, or even a grin in one of its many guises. I can’t tell if people are sad, pissed off, contemptuous, desiring, lost, distant, upset, aloof, furious, happy, thoughtful, distracted or inspired by their face. I guess that I understand the language of facial expression through its strong place in our society, in descriptions of people, in fiction and in conversation; but I have no personal experience of them.   So, without seeing the face and getting only small amounts of (not always reli...

In an earlier post ‘What do they think?‘, I highlighted the way that too many people (in enough settings of life to be bothered about) speak to their disabled customers, service users or patients using that SLIGHTLY SLOWER, sing-song, over-enunciated voice style that presents no doubt that they can only think of the person as a sad child requiring every sentence to be almost sung nursery-rhyme like to be understood. Read the post if you’re interested.   Here though, I wanted to explore another perhaps less obvious way that disabled people get talked down to which I find at once fascinating and creepy. It is the adoption of a gushing, over-affirming and too positive (to be believable) manner that while generally unconvincing, when applied skilfully,  can catch you unawares if you’re not careful.   I guess some people behave in this way benignly because they have some limited understanding of the negative attitudes that others exhibit towards disable...

I’ve been struck by how strongly ingrained the judgements that are made of people who don’t make eye contact are in western cultures. The number of people who throughout my life have unashamedly told me of their own, or  of a friend’s initial (negative) reaction to me which has (by their own admission) been entirely based on my failure to make eye contact.   These situations have, as far as I can grasp, been based on their not knowing/realising/noticing that I have some kind of visual impairment that might make eye contact impossible. When it is explained, they will generally withdraw the judgement, but often with a qualifying justification like: “I didn’t realise, I thought you were a bit weird not looking at me properly”, “I didn’t realise, I thought you were a bit tight up/shifty not looking at me properly”, “Oh right, I thought you were a bit closed off not looking at me properly”, “Really, I just thou...