Seventy percent? Many folks gasp or give some other audible show of surprise when we let them know that’s the unemployment rate among people who are blind or visually impaired. Even with the Americans with Disabilities Act turning 32 years old and the advancements in audio technology, statistics remain the same as they has for decades.

It’s so easy to point a finger at mainstream society and yell: “Don’t you get it?” Instead of this pugnacity, we who advocate for our employment rights have better approaches to take. I’ll admit I draw from a lot of perspectives while adding my own experiences here.

A Matter of Presuppositions

Any of us who’ve ventured into public and needed assistance from a passer-by, a bus driver, or office secretary have heard the whole range of well-intended compliments: “You’re so brave….” “I couldn’t do what you do if I were in your shoes….” “You’re so smart. I hope you’ll be able to find work soon.” You can probably think of off-the-cuff platitudes or, if sighted, you may have said them yourself. No offense taken here. Simply put, many people who’ve never or rarely known someone who’s blind don’t know what words to say. When it comes to the workplace, that’s even more true.

I remember an interview I attended where the HR specialist looked at my prior work and, fumbling for words, simply said, “Good job.” Before launching into a couple of the compliments I listed a moment ago.

Because of the endemic perceptions-either caught or taught-about people who have disabilities, many employers feel either scared to push any buttons when showing their unwilful naivete or become afraid to upset our feelings. That latter response has always baffled me since they are there to ask us tough questions. Okay, in a job interview I anticipate squirming a bit under the HR representatives scrutiny. We’ll cover more on that in a moment.

A further presupposition that many sighted employers have is that hiring a blind or partially sighted worker will upset the team dynamics. Will production go down? Will their new employee have to ask for others’ help too much, taking folks away from their work stations? And what happens if the blind person’s adaptive technology crashes? You can’t put him or her at a random computer and expect them to log in….Or can you?

Let’s handle that last question first since it’s surprisingly easiest to solve thanks to the ability to work remote with JAWS by importing the settings from the computer where it is originally installed or by downloading freeware such as NVDA. Since these adaptive programs are installed over the office network’s other components, they will not damage them or automatically import some destructive virus. Instead, screen reading software interfaces with the platform on which the network is built. Of course, some platforms such as thin clients don’t support screen reading applications. Most of the time, the sighted manager or HR specialist will need to give the potential blind employee the opportunity to test the system in a limited capacity prior to being hired. With the help of advocates from a local center for independent living or Vocational Rehabilitation, this can turn the hiring process into a total team effort instead of a quagmire of bruised emotions or  misunderstandings.

AS for training a blind employee to do a job, having an adaptive technology specialist on hand by phone  or in person can provide someone to whom both a manager and an employee may turn when difficulties arise. Maybe, the person who’s blind or visually impaired knows the ins and outs of the job responsibilities but has trouble grasping the company’s web interface. A qualified job coach’s responsibilities include expanding that employee’s skills to master the work environment including, if necessary, some work-arounds. The job coach won’t be around forever, just long enough for someone to get familiar with the workplace’s systems and to give further resources that may be helpful when problems arise.

Notice, I said when problems arise. After all, everyone in an office setting, blind or sighted, runs into difficulties. Most of the time, the blind worker will know if the issue is on him or if it’s systemic-namely, one that would hamper anyone who’s using the same adaptive or company-specific software.

Once when I had a computer malfunction that affected how I took incoming calls, another of the blind employees who was known as an expert computer user came to my desk and tested my terminal based on criteria which he knew better than I did. When he finished, he recommended we replace my computer with a new one. It took a few days to get the terminal where I usually worked back up to snuff. In the meantime, I relocated to a station that the company had set up in the event one of us who were blind could go and perform our normal workload.

Now back to the interview, the laws on paper remind a hiring manager that she can’t discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, creed, or disability. That’s all fine and good, but laws don’t change endemic perceptions. If skeptical of a potential employee’s ability to handle the job responsibilities, a nervous hiring manager may come across as betraying a hint of suspicion in her tone of voice or the forcefulness which she asks important questions. At the same time, the blind interviewee may perceive casual conversation style for something more intrusive on his personal space or identity.

With that said, managers need not shy away from asking questions of their future employees about how they handle situations being blind. Rather than being gotcha questions, they open up further time to clarify matters about adjusting assistive technology or mobility around the office.

I’ll be honest. Acquiring a lack of shame regarding my blindness took years for me to achieve. For a while, the fact that my blindness is the first thing most people notice scared me away from many interviews. Yet, as I’ve grown, I’ve appreciated the years of being comfortable in my own skin. That means I’ll go into an interview prepared and confident, ready to talk about the screen readers or braille displays I use. After all, adaptations are just part of my daily experience. I have nothing of which to be ashamed when demonstrating the software or telling about paratransit services by which I will travel to and from work.

Checking Our Own Presuppositions At The Door

Per my above comments about the job interview, I go in expecting tough questions. Yet, that doesn’t mean that doesn’t justify my thinking the boss is out to get me. If anything vetting questions mean the hiring manager has an interest in me based on my resume and cover letter.

How, then, do we dispel the ripple effect of fear that makes us who are blind squeamish when approaching the job interview and working itself? Let me propose a few simple but not-so-easily achieved solutions.

1. Rather than approaching each other with jaded notions of searching for work, we do better to encourage one another. Sure, that means calling bad social skills for what they are but doing it with respect and cordiality. Unfortunately, we who have faced discrimination have heard the belittling remarks or condescending voice tones from others. Those of us who have better mobility skills or more college experience can quickly fall into the trap of using a similar posture with each other. That’s practicing as much ableism within our own community as we despise coming from others.
2. Note that one size rarely fits all situations. If you’re going into a job with a factory, you’re not going to prepare the same way as you would entering a downtown lawyer’s office. You’ll need to present your know-how of skills in manual labor. Of course, some expectations across the board will apply-a record of timeliness in showing up for work, attentiveness to detail, and handling manager/employer relationships.
3. Because there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, many of us will do blindness in public differently. Some of us handle guide dogs, others use cane, and still others of us get around by echolocation. Each way of mobility is equal with the others. There’s no better or worse among each way of getting around. It’s not our responsibility, if in the same workplace as each other to convince our supervisors or HR personnel to favor one manner of orientation and mobility over another. If we’re going to curry favors for advancement or special assignment, let your work do the talking. Let your expertise in doing blindness encourage others to follow in your train instead of running them over.
4. When asked for recommendation about where to apply for work or which companies have a good track record in hiring people with disabilities, be positive. We’re so accustomed to being jaded, telling the horror stories of past experiences or how tough work is that we neglect to rejoice in the benefit that real challenges present. Instead, we have the tools at our disposal to prepare each other with best practices in presenting our abilities without being conceited. To prevent a further ripple effect of negativity, we who are blind have every cause to exude a can-do posture toward each other as we desire to show toward those who have rarely seen us in public.

For further help in hiring people who are blind, HR personnel and managers can reference websites and books that approach the legal rights and liberties afforded to people with disabilities. It behooves us who are blind to familiarize ourselves with them as well. Here are a couple links to that effect:

A recent episode of Eyes On Success podcast features an interview with Welby Broaddus who himself is blind and a successful entrepreneur. http://podcast.eyesonsuccess.net/eos_2210-benefits-of-hiring-the-blind-and-visually-impaired-mar-9-2022_podcast.mp3

You can also check out Welby Broaddus’s book, Leading The Blind Without Vision here:

https://www.amazon.com › Welby-Broaddus

And his website here:

https://www.linkedin.com › broaddusbizsol

Isolation is one of the biggest problems that faces us who are blind on a daily basis. For several decades now, the data has shown that about one out of every hundred people is totally blind and the partially sighted population is twice or three times that. In a busy country like the United States made up of three hundred, twenty-nine million folks, that’s not very many of us. It’s easy, then, to let our lives close in, our sense of world events seem so distant unless they affect us personally.

When I was a little boy going blind, my parents made sure that my brother (who is sighted) and I saw a huge portion of our country. Along with trips to visit our grandparents and other relatives, they took us all over the Eastern United States. So out the car’s backseat window, I saw the long mountains of the Alleghenies. I watched the sandy beaches of Florida come into view as we flew into Miami. On the way home from that trip, we flew through the clouds which loomed large outside the glass through which I looked while sitting aboard the plane.

Of course, if you’ve never seen or haven’t had that kind of experience, your frame of reference may not be so refined. When you hear of events happening in Ukraine or about the approaching storms on a weather forecast, do you get an idea of where these things are taking place? Of course, many of us who depend upon GPS to navigate the streets of our hometown or Kindle for our reading pleasure may have limited our orientation of world events, too. Geography isn’t emphasized as it was when my parents were in school. For us, information comes in bites and segments.

Still wars and storms happen. We do travel and take in the local scenery when we’re away from home. So, having an awareness of our surroundings becomes vitally important.

What about us who are blind? Do we want left out or participating in our friends and family’s discussions? Do we want to keep up with what’s being talked about? Well, having a reference of where things are makes a lot of sense.

Of course, we can ask questions about the bus route we’ve planned  to get across town for work or to visit someone. We can listen to the traffic reports on the radio and gain some understanding of the town in which we live. But, even so, do we really embrace it, feel it, live it?

From the standpoint of teaching blind students, the Perkins E-Learning blog gives suggestions for making the headlines come alive at our fingertips. https://www.perkinselearning.org/technology/blog/touching-news-tactile-graphics

Now, some of us have read those old atlases from the American Publishing House for the Blind. They’re great and I used to spend hours traipsing around the world with my fingertips. But, many of them now are out of date. While the borders of most nations remain the same, populations of towns and cities have changed a lot. Where shifts in borders have happened, a general atlas in braille only shows the highlights due to the size of dotted labels for coordinates. But, as the link explains, someone who is sighted, a teacher or parent or friend of someone who’s blind can assist in broadening our concern and knowledge of what’s going on by creatively showing us where it’s happening.

After all, when we want to be boldly blind, we want as many ways to cut through the isolation as we can get.

The case of Payan vs. LACCD appears to have come to a good resolution or at least a detente for now.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-03/community-college-wont-take-disability-rights-case-to-supreme-court-following-protests

While mediation is a much better solution than for the LACCD to put many disabilities rights in educational and professional venues in jeopardy, there remains much work to be done. After all, as the article discusses, Portia Mason has remained a student in the LACCD and has had to drop a further course because of the material’s inaccessibility. As such, we who advocate on behalf of the blindness community will press forward to get the web accessibility act to be discussed at this year’s American Council of the Blind’s DC seminar (March 11-15) sponsors in Congress to make it a bill and then into law. AFter all, the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act do mandate colleges to make their material to be consumed by all students, regardless of their disability or nondisability status. Enforcement of the provisions in these acts by the Department of Justice will not create any favoritism or extraneous entitlement. Rather, they will build on what’s already been proven time and again-namely, that people who are blind, deaf, autistic, paraplegic, et al belong in our nation’s schools and workforce.

This really is a bipartisan social issue from a political standpoint since our elected representatives do well to take a pro-growth approach to increasing employment opportunities for everyone. Cases like Payan vs. LACCD ought not be used for one side to best another in the realm of policy debate or discussion but are examples from which we can learn how all venues of life connect. You can’t just adopt disability rights for education which are separate from the workplace or home. Since technologies overlap between these venues, especially seen since the era of COVID drove many of our schools and jobs online, how someone learns in one place reflects in how he/she performs when serving his/her neighbors in another. Besides this, equal opportunity for entrepreneurial and confidence-building success will only bolster our nation’s economic health with the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Furthermore, the heretofore outcome of Payan vs. LACCD demonstrates that ableism-the belief that those who see themselves more capable than another-should call the educational or professional shots For people with disabilities-causes friction rather than cooperation when resolving web accessibility matters. People with disabilities need to be involved in the decision-making process regarding the mode, platform, and delivery of online media rather than seen as just recipients waiting for others to act.

Will the mediation which LACCD has undertaken with Payan and Mason further emphasize this truth? We will certainly be able to see such progress through more endeavors to make web accessibility open to everyone at home, at school, and at work.

The readings for the first Sunday in Lent are Deut. 26:1-11, Rom. 10:8-13, and Luke 4:1-13.

Neither temptation to show His power, nor to prove Himself to be the Messiah nor to satisfy His own needs first deterred Jesus from His journey to die on the cross for us. Though Satan tried swaying Him by twisting Holy Scripture, Jesus used His Word rightly to rout our old evil foe. Though we ourselves often cave when tempted to rely on our own reason or strength for eternal life, Jesus returns us to His Word, for He has promised that all who call on Him alone as Lord shall be saved. Thankful for this deliverance from sin and death and the power of the devil, we offer our lives in praise to Him who holds us in all His ways.

How many of you have enjoyed doing crossword puzzles and other word games before you went partially or totally blind? The neat thing I’m finding is that there are many apps and other downloadables that bring accessible word games to us.

Check out My Blind Story’s post about one of the more recently developed games. It’s not like the popular Wordle-though that’s being adapted, too. It’s got another concept going. The app has voice modes and large print settings as well. I’m looking forward to learning more about its accessibility being the Scrabble nut that I am. You can find the article about this game and a link to it here:

Keeping Blind and Visually Impaired People in the Game with Accessible Crossword Puzzles

Take a look at medical statements from your insurance provider and you’ll see how much services like medication or surgical procedures cost beyond the coverage you receive. Knowing the cost helps you work with your doctor to get the best treatment for chronic illnesses like diabetes, depression, or heart disease.

Add a hearing aid or C-Pap to the mix. These type of medical devices might sometimes fall under Medicaid coverage, dependent on how much money States have budgeted. When I received my first hearing aid back in 2008 while living in Kansas City, MO, I had to pay for it out of pocket. The same was true in Indiana when I bought its replacement. Needless to say, many people who are disabled cannot afford such expenses. The unemployment rate for many working age adults who have low-vision is quite steep and most seniors with low-vision also depend on a fixed monthly income.

Though sitting on opposite sides of the Congressional aisle, Reps. Maloney and Bilirakis have recognized this crucial need and have proposed a bill to explore how Medicare can cover such expenses. As reported by the American Council of the Blind, the bill has gained twenty-five more signatures over the past few days. Besides these government officials, several spokesmen for various agencies for the blind have endorsed it and explained how much its passage would impact the lives of people who have varying degrees of sight loss. You can read the news release here:

https://www.acb.org/news-release-reps-maloney-and-bilirakis-reintroduce-bill-help-visually-impaired-americans-0

The bipartisan nature of this legislation should encourage us in making the case that disability rights and awareness can unify our Federal and State governments in ways that other pressing issues don’t. When advocating with those who are low-vision, we have great cause to approach our leaders in a way that draws attention to the very heart of people’s livelihood. With Medicare coverage for low-vision devices, those who desire to work will be able to work. Those who wish to enjoy retirement using their remaining sight, they will have greater confidence in pursuing their interests while preserving the sight they have.

I still remember a time back in 1995 just after I began graduate school in St. Louis. One of my friends stopped me halfway across campus talking about a sign telling people to slow down their driving on the road that snaked its way around the dorms and the academic quad. “Watch out for visually impaired pedestrian,” the sign read or something to that effect. My friend told me the reaction one of our professors gave,

“Dave’s not visually impaired; he’s blind. Not special, helpless, just blind.”

Yes, the carefully worded warning had good intentions behind it, but rather than pointing out my blindness as an ordinary thing, it drew attention to it first and made it an topic of discussion.

Isn’t that the quandary many of us face when in a new school or work environment? We want to engage people around us while they want their curiosity quelled about perhaps our most identifiable

Characteristic. I’m sure what often follows makes my eyes roll or jaw drop in bewilderment. The same people wanting to ask questions have a hard time referring to me as “blind” or “the guy who’s blind” or “the man with blindness” because they tie themselves up in sensitive knots.

In short, this illustrates the back-and-forth people in the disabilities community face. Some want to refer to themselves first as people while making their blindness or deafness akin to an add-on they hope others will pass over when talking about work or school concerns. Other people will not shy away but use their disability to describe themselves or others like them: “I’m blind…” “the deaf parent…” “the autistic child….” And so forth. To them, blindness, deafness, being paraplegic is part of their whole identity.

 The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) sought to foreground the fact that people who did not have a disability and those who do are all Americans. Hence, to protect the general welfare of all Americans as is done in the Declaration of Independence’s preamble, the ADA made stipulations how our nation could accommodate the needs of people with disabilities to provide for their “pursuit of happiness.”

As Phillip Ferrigon writes, “People-First language (or Person-First language; PFL) is the preferred disability terminology by activists. The attempt in using PFL is placing the person first, allowing others to disassociate the disability as the primary defining characteristic of an individual, and viewing disability as one of several features of the whole person.”

That’s so like the 1990s when society began to shift toward a perspective saying everyone needed to have a piece of the American dream’s pie. Following on the economic reforms set in place by the Reagan administration including lowered taxes, higher wages, lower unemployment and American prevalence on the world’s political and athletic stage, the upwardly mobile worker believed that anyone could achieve his or her American dream if he only got the opportunity. If, for instance, a student who was blind or paraplegic excelled in his school’s least restrictive environment, how would he not compete with his peers for the best colleges and jobs? Dove-tailing on the Rehabilitation Act (1973), the ADA held out a bright promise if only people with disabilities captured one of those thousand points of light that Pres. Bush spoke of early on in his term.

Many in the disability rights community adopted this people first language to garner respect. But as Cara Liebowitz explains: “Though person-first language is designed to promote respect, the concept is based on the idea that disability is something negative, something that you shouldn’t want to see.”

Contemporaneous with a switch from teaching braille to mostly audible technology, the time surrounding the ADA’s implementation widened the gap between laws in favor of the disabled community’s participation in the public square and people’s perception of their capabilities. According to long-standing users of braille and many educators, an increasing dependence on audio only technology created students who remained functionally illiterate

Hence, many in the blindness community fell through the cracks. The unemployment rate did not decrease even as computer technology advanced. What was missing? Those who do not speak in person/people first language will say that their blindness, deafness, and other physical disabilities are woven into the fabric of who they are. (Identity first language, IFL). A growing awareness of what a blind person can and can’t do didn’t make their transition between home to college or school to work any easier. In fact, by backgrounding the disability, many students feared that “being treated like any one else” would result in receiving the least amount of help, testing accommodations, or social support as possible.

In the past few decades, technology has advanced. Advocacy to raise awareness has continued. PFL vs. IFL proponents have kept to the same points addressed above while adding others. Perhaps, chief among the reasons people on both side of the debate give is that of dignity.

Those in favor of using PFL to describe themselves say that if we emphasize our abilities and strive in our actions to appear as “normal” as possible, the onus remains on members of society to drop their prejudices and see a person’s disability as just that nuisance or barrier to full inclusion into the mainstream world in which we all want to live. Blindness, deafness, or dyslexia is just a part of who  the person is that has said disabilities. Furthermore, adaptations such as talking kitchen appliances, screen readers, and handheld money or color identifiers compensate for the difficulties that being blind presents.

The proponent of IFL doesn’t find dignity in separating his disability from himself or in backgrounding it like an add-on component. To live in the everyday world for them is to live as a blind, deaf, autistic, or paraplegic person. Advocates of IFL wish for the rest of society to also adopt this perspective second hand. This entails as much person to person relationship as it does legal action. Only by befriending, working with, or being related to a disabled individual can someone let their guard down enough to embrace his capabilities.

A Third Option:

While I appreciate both the PFL and IFL perspectives, either can only go so far. While academics and many advocates speak person first on a more scholarly level, writing in this way become dry, clumsy, and hard to read for the average person. On the other hand, if we always assume our disabilities into our identity, then we’re going to vie for our rights in competition against other special interest groups when it comes to garnering the courts’ attention or a legislator’s attention. Even in the case of finding intersectionality, identity only carries us to the point of idealizing potential outcomes.

That’s why I pose the possibility of a setting or context based synthetic approach. In social settings like at a dinner with friends, riding the bus, hanging out at a ballgame, or so forth we just want to blend in. Adaptations and techniques for mobility help us be part of the crowd. On the other hand, when we do want to foreground our concerns such as when advocating for audio description or web accessibility rights on a college campus, speaking person first draws attention to the concerns at hand. In these cases, we are building upon those legal acts already designed to welcome us into everyday society.

Being boldly blind means calling a thing what it is. Yes, we will continue meeting new, mostly unintended disparate impact, challenges to our aims of societal inclusion. As such, we meet those challenges thankful for the livelihood we have while helping others’ awareness of how mainstream society can better embrace the livelihood we can all share.

Works quoted in this article:

Person-First Language vs. Identity-First Language: An examination of the gains and drawbacks of Disability Language in society

By Phillip Ferrigon
DSSV 607 – Higher Education Disability Service Administration

I am Disabled: On Identity-First Versus People-First Language

March 20, 2015 by Cara Liebowitz 

https://www.thinkinclusive.us/why-person-first-language-doesnt-always-put-the-person-first/

There are two sides to many stories. That’s especially when it comes to giving voice to doing blindness. In this first installment of “Telling It Like It Is,” I’ll let Family Connect’s Shannon Currollo discuss things that we who are blind want folks who aren’t to know about referring to us as everyday people. The article’s from 2017, but like many things written on Family Connect’s website, it’s by no means dated. After all, we all make unintended mistakes when referring to each other’s abilities, independence, or terms when speaking about having a disability like blindness.

Shannon is a regular blogger for Family Connect and a Teacher of The Visually Impaired (TVI).

What Do You Want the World to Know About Blindness?

The readings for Transfiguration Sunday are Deut. 34:1-12, Heb. 3:1-6, and Luke 9:28-36.

As prominent a leader as he was, Moses did not enter the land of Canaan with the Israelites but died before they crossed the Jordan. God showed him the land from atop Mount Nebo not as a guilt trip or “See I told you so,” moment; he showed it to him in mercy. For Moses trusted in God as His servant. He would receive the greater gift, eternal life across death’s dark portal along with all who trust in God’s promised salvation For Moses trusted in the same Lord whose transfiguration brings certain hope and life everlasting to all who trust in Him. For Jesus both died and rose, victorious over death that we may behold Him face to face forever.