Shafeka Hashash
Washington, DC
National Federation of the Blind
After an amazing week of convention all fun must end with the final trip to the airport. Mark and I traveled together, but regardless of how much independence and confidence we both have, we requested assistance navigating the airport. We had a great conversation about how despite everything, this airport was basically impossible without help. It hit me, how could I call myself fully independent when there, in my face, was something I could not do alone, and could not think of any way to do besides asking for assistance. We discussed this notion, and these are the thoughts that transpired.
The idea of independence in terms of blindness is a misnomer in today’s current society. Instead of meaning to be free it means to live up to the standards of the sighted world. Rather than trying to make the world more accessible, we retrofit blindness to a society based on sight. The only true way to integrate the blind into society is to have a society with blindness in mind.
For example, rather than having laptops with third party accessibility software that costs over a thousand dollars, the laptops should already come with built-in accessibility. Even more ideally, the idea of accessibility should not even have to exist, but only exist as a preference to the user. In the same way, society should have already incorporated the blind into it to begin with, but has primarily focused on the needs of a sighted population.
Because of this, rather than the blind having a say in the way the world is developed, we are forced to adapt our lives to the changing world only after change has begun. This forever keeps us one step behind. Our technology only becomes accessible after the inaccessible is launched. It is merely chance that sight exists and unfortunate that it exists in such a high proportion to non-sight for humans. Many animals are blind and function quite perfectly as such. To them, their world is engineered fully accommodating their blindness. It is because of this unfortunate proportion, and nothing else, that the world moves on as though the blind do not even exist.
Thus, independence, as it is referred to in blindness, is not a function of freedom, but a function of how well we access the sighted world. It is dependent on how well we can retrofit our lives to the standards of a society that does not include us. Is this really independence? Why should we have to live up to somebody else’s standards? Can there be a world where anybody can be transported from place to place, a world where all people can access the same information with the same ease, a world where people are truly equal?
I guess since it is not feasible to destroy society and start fresh, or perhaps I just can’t think of how at the moment, there must be an alternative solution. Perhaps in the same way that technology progresses, society can analogously progress as well. While much more technology is becoming increasingly less accessible with time, a lot of technology is also becoming more accessible, but there seems to be a general trend in that the more technology there is, the greater access there is. As we advance our technology, the blind are more incorporated. Similarly, as society advances, the blind should be able to integrate and become more included. Right?
Let me examine this further. The internet is made followed by screen readers, print books come before Braille, and so on and so forth. There are national and international conferences with the topic of is it worth it to make books in alternative format. There would never be a conference on should we or should we not keep giving sighted kids books. Airports are designed only with signs to navigate where one is, but if you cannot read these signs then the airport is a vast hectic entity of endless directions. If I say this, where do we draw the line? Isn’t this argument what people used to say about blind people not being able to navigate streets? However, that is certainly not true. I am sure if I navigated an airport enough I would know how to get from security to various gates, but that is not the case with traveling. You don’t get a shot to train for your flight. I suppose it is just frustrating to think the only alternative technique sometimes is to ask for help. I don’t consider this a great alternative means of independence.
This also raises the question though, why in these cases does majority constitute the world’s construction. The majority of people have sight, therefore they decide. However, as we know income and skin color play a huge part in what also happens in this world. However, white wealthy do not constitute a majority. I guess I am saying why is it when it comes to our physical senses, why do those, the majority, or “norm” make the rules, but in other aspects the minority, the wealthy, make the rules? I don’t think this is the best the world could do in terms of accessibility. If I can go through New York City without assistance (not to say NYC has phenomenal accessibility all the time) I should be able to do the same in an airport.
Furthermore, the concept of accessibility itself is interesting. When is something accessible enough? Why do special precautions need to be taken to ensure something is accessible? For instance, windows 8 was not accessible with any screen readers so a new version of the most popular reader, JAWS, was developed. However, macs, iPhones, and all Apple products for that matter are universally accessible. The second anyone turns on their Apple product, voice over, is already existing. Ideally accessibility won’t even be a concept anymore?