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![]() WHY I USE A WHITE CANE TO TELL PEOPLE THAT I'M DEAF
By Megan JonesIt has happened too often. Usually it's the second time I encounter someone, when we are mere acquaintances yet. Apparently at that critical point in our relationship they feel they simply have to ask,
However, for a long time I felt obligated to be honest: ''Well, you see, actually I don't see very well. I am blind in one eye, from an accident when I was three, and have very thin cornea in the other -- you know, the very outer part of the eyeball -- and my cornea has split several times and I just don't have any stamina for reading and I'm very nearsighted, you know; I can't see signs or any kind of detail that is not close to my face and actually I'm quite hard of hearing now but I used to hear better and amplification helps me a lot and, um, do you know much about sound frequencies ..." Obviously I felt some need to explain myself. I had to prove to the inquiring busybody that I was indeed an authentic crip:
But here I am speaking untruths. The reality is that people don't want to see me do things. They want to see me fall on my face.
Let's move away from sarcasm for a moment to address this serious issue. Why, after I have spent my life developing strategies to cope with my vision and hearing loss so that I could plow through 22 years of school at last count (including nursery school), countless social events, and miles of public transportation, should I feel that I need to be disabled in order to go about my business? I am currently working on a doctorate in special education. A couple of years ago I asked my university to increase the funding which they provide me with for my research and in-class assistants. My justification for this "special" request was that the combination of being a doctoral student and being "deaf-blind" necessitated the hiring of intelligent human beings to assist me with classroom discussions and research. And, unfortunately, intelligent human beings do not come cheap. Now, let me assure the world that I understand the financial restraints that many universities are under these days. And this was the issue I was prepared to face. What came as a complete shock to me was the letter that I received which essentially said,
The reality, though, is that I am legally blind and profoundly deaf. I finally received the funds I'd asked for. However, my so-called victory occurred a year later, after I had exhausted my own means of rational persuasion and had procured letters from my audiologist, my optomologist, the regional representative from the Helen Keller National Center and the Chair of the Special Education Department at another university, all attesting to the fact that am indeed authentically handicapped even though I am a wiz at appearing otherwise.
Shona
When I first started taking Shona out, I would get one of two reactions from shopkeepers, bus drivers and others who dealt with me:
"Oh, what a cute little guide dog puppy! Are you training it?"
So guess what I did? I started using a white cane when I went out with Shona. I have never really needed to use a white cane except at night. But I find that when I use a cane people leave me alone. Never mind that my "Guide Dog" is pint sized and doesn't even wear a harness -- people go right into their Blind-Person-With-A-Cane-And-Guide-Dog Red Alert mode. Apparently, I am only legitimately special if I look that way.
I am sure there are people out there who could just kill me because they think I'm griping about not appearing handicapped enough. "For crying out loud!" they're saying. "I'd love it if people would look at me and just see me instead of my chair" or cane or whatever.
What I'm saying is that many people are more comfortable relating to me and accommodating me if they can be absolutely certain that I am who I say I am, a deaf-blind person. And they are not absolutely certain that I am that person until I bump into a wall or shape my hands into what is to them an incomprehensible language. In other words, I must make myself completely alien to these people in order for them to feel that they understand me.
Maybe I'm naive. Maybe there are a million people like that out there. But I don't think so. Even if there are thousands of people cheating the pity-patrol, there are thousands more who are cheating on their income taxes (probably the same people who are raising a fuss about welfare).
And although my insightful reflections are all very well, I have not yet really figured out how to address other people's attitudes about my disability. I'm stuck between wanting to stand up and screech, "I'm deaf and blind! Give me your money!" and wanting to just drift through the world pretending that I am someone other than myself. But I do have a few strategies gleaned from experience.
I've also decided that I'm not above striding into, for example, the Supplemental Security Income office, tripping over my cane and shrugging my shoulders while pointing haplessly at my ears -- if it gets me what I want without hours of explanation.
Yet I bear in mind that these strategies are just play-acting for a clueless audience. Anybody who cares to understand me any better knows that I am a highly competent person who experiences vision and hearing loss, who strides forward not despite my disabilities but despite other people's ignorance.
Megan Jones is a freelance writer.
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