Re: [New service] Free phone system for friendship/dating
Personally, what simultaneously frightens and saddens me is how much blind people feel the need to proceed as if the rest of the world doesn't really exist. Perhaps this is why every time I come back to this site I usually feel like someone looking in from the outside rather than someone who has been a part of it for the better part of 5 years. I won't say I haven't talked to great people, won't say I haven't had many a great conversation or seen many a great bit of writing on here. What I will say is that being blind doesn't limit me to seeking sighted friendships and having them.
Up until the year 2009 I hadn't the slightest idea this community even existed. While I knew I wasn't the only one, I also figured that everyone else would feel as I did, that being blind wasn't more than a thing, a matter of which one must deal with in life because it is as it is, and then going on with life, talking to ev eryone else and not being limited by a label. I was well aware of our necessities; the concept of accessibility existed in my mind even though I had no word for it, not ever having really spoken to blind people. it wasn't out of disrespect or hatred or anything malevolent; it was much more simple than that; being blind didn't make a person worth talking to in my eyes. That's not the same as being blind being equated to worthlessness, but if that was your defining characteristic in life, then I'd have to say there really wasn't much left to know about you. when I came across this forum and its members I set about figuring it all out.
I found myself disappointed more often than not at the complacency that seemed to have settled over blind and visually impaired people, a sort of peace at the prospect of there being no possibility of acceptance in a majorly sighted world. Let me make myself clear before one of you decides to t ake off my head; I have no issue with blind people talking to other blind people. What I find incredibly disturbing is when one exclusively limits one's self to nothing but blind people, making excuses as to why they cannot integrate into a sighted world, all the while claiming they are normal. How could sighted people ever see any of us as anything else other than blind people if that is the only side of us we are showing? What kind of message are we sending as a whole when we aren't willing to take the risks necessary to be part of the world rather than trying to create a little world of our own? Where is the chalenge worth fighting for in a community that refuses to open itself up to greater possibilities by simply looking for every day perspectives from every day people, and how can a community of this nature thrive on anything productive, anything which isn't a ces pool of drama, of insults and cliquish, nonsensical banter for long?
I was shocked when no more than a month ago I saw what could possibly be the most stupid slogan I've ever seen in my life on a website that claimed to be dedicated to blind daiting; "Love is blind, and so are you." I wanted it to be a joke; I even laughed about it... I wanted it to be a joke so bad I had to run it past sighted friends who laughed along with me. Deep down inside though, joke or not, I knew it was a great possibility, nay, probability that yet another one of these ideas had sprung up once again, and the dread that filled me was incredible. I've tried to give it little thought... Until now. Far be it from me to claim that anyone who does things like this has good or bad intentions when doing so. I can't help but wonder though, what kind of thought process would compel this sort of action and why? I know I'll never have AOL as it was back in 2003, back in the days when I could wander into any of the various chat rooms and see more than 30 people connected at a time and it wasn't about braille equipment and screen readers, not about accessible software and the cheapest hardware solutions for the blind, not about who's program was better than who's and the whys and why nots. Was there fights? Yes, but there always is, and they had nothing to do with being blind. Was their disagreements? Yes, but again, they had nothing to do with being blind. Social networking progressed and we went from AOL and MSN to MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. ON the surface though, while the technology is different and the rules have changed, the people are still pretty much the same. It's not always easy to convince people that I am but another person just like them, a person with my own oppinions and ideas, a person capable of as much and in some cases more than they are. I refuse however,to throw up my hands and say that such obstacles are the end.
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