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 the local pub, I order a pint and ask what crisps they have. The barman proudly says: “We have: Walkers Smokey Bacon, Cheese and Onion, BBQ, Worcester sauce, Salt’n Vinegar, and Ready Salted, Bacon Fries, Jalapeno Pretzel Snacks, Scampi Fries, Cheesy Wotsits, Tyrel’s Sweet chilli and red pepper, Aberdeen Angus, Burt’s Sweet Chilli, the full Pipers range including the new lobster ones, oh, and three types of Pork Scratching” “fantastic” I say.
A few weeks ago, I wrote some of my thoughts about eye contact, what it means and the impact on blind people of not being able to do it. I’ve since posted once or twice highlighting some of the negative attitudes and judgements that are levelled at people who can’t or don’t use it. Here, I wanted to describe a particular set of behaviours and barriers that I often encounter as a result of not seeing enough to be able to make eye contact or clearly direct my gaze. I realise that the directing of vision (looking in someone’s direction) may be technically different from making eye contact with them, however, not having the experience of doing either, and often experiencing the consequences of it, I’m not sure that it matters too much for my purposes here. In a closely clustered group of people standing, or sitting around a table, or with a large group sitting around a table perhaps at a meal or meeting, sighted people rely on their ab...
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