As part of the degree in #cybersecurity I'm working on, we have a course on social awareness, social justice, implicit bias etc.
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As part of the degree in #cybersecurity I'm working on, we have a course on social awareness, social justice, implicit bias etc. and it is rather insightful to have to think about this explicitly. LIke... yes, I am fully #blind, but I'm also white, male, somewhat affluent and in a safe-ish place, which means there's a lot of factors outside of my control that essentially give me a smoother ride through life than others would, in spite of my #disability.
An important nuance I haven't seen so far though is that even within a marginalized group, opinions can vary wildly about to what degree something is considered "a problem". The fact #twitch tried to get rid of "blind playthrough" in 2020 because it was considered ablist language is a great example of this: nobody in my circle thought this was problematic, we all had a good laugh and basically said they probably had bigger problems to worry about.
Now however, only a few years later, I see more and more sentiments shifting where that is concerned, asking writers not to use blind as synonymous for ignorant, stupid or incompetent. Same with terms like crippling debt. And as opposed to the Twitch example, this time it's actually #PWD who are making these points.
The question now becomes: Did times change, and did people get more offended by this / more hurt by this? Or is this simply yet another example of people finally coming forward about something that's irked them for decades?
I myself know where I stand on this, but I'd be a hypocrite if I decided to, in this case, decide everybody thinks as I do, where I normally always preach caution about homogenizing #accessibility.
This post doesn't really go anywhere, I just thought it was an interesting bit of contemplating :)) -
@zersiax I am one of those who feels offended, no, angry when the word "blind" is used to describe ignorance/stupidity as it relies on the concept of sight as the only reliable sense to allow a person understand and reason. I am a self-ironic person but irony and ableism have a difference! I can't laugh if a politician says "you are all blind, the world is falling apart" when us, really blind, are trying to do our best. #accessibility #blind #ableism
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@talksina that is a fair point, yes It is rather fascinating to dig into where else you see this happen... in Dutch you can say people are in a blind panic, there's of course the well-known blindspot, but I think this linkage between ignorant/stupid and blind goes back literally centuries, and even then it is a bit of an odd choice; even in the middle ages, you'd think that not being able to see doesn't necessarily mean not able to reason, but I guess it's as simple as " if you can't see, you miss sstuff. If you miss stuff, you're ignorant" as I don't think language is ultimately sculpted by the brightest of minds, but rather by children for the most part
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@zersiax Even in the bible there's a metaphor "if a blind person guides another blind person they end up falling in a ditch". In another book it would have been treated as it is, a metaphor like the fox, the crow and cheese (since when foxes eat cheese? It rather tries to catch the crow itself!) But being it the book from a religion, few discuss the implications of religious quotes, in people's everyday life; 2000 years ago it was like this but now canes exist, dogs, technology.
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@talksina Honestly a blind person leading a blind person into a ditch is a somewhat amusing image that I can stee happen even today, but you're not wrong in stating that because this is so prevalent in religion, it probably stuck around far longer than it had any right to. REligion itself is a very interesting can of worms where anything " away from the centrally agreed upon norm" is concerned but let's not even go there today
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@zersiax Blind people can still get in danger especially when dealing with an unknown environment. But mostly it's due to lack of multi-sensory information in a sight-centered world. We must remember that disability-related awareness began to spread after 70s, no longer than 50 years ago, after centuries of complete exclusion or worse. So, common thinking has adapted to older philosophies rather than getting conscious about new.
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@talksina Your post just now prompted a thought I've had before in that with time marhcing on, a lot of this older mode of thinking is literally going to die out within the next, say, 30 years. While that looks promising on a surface level Ican't help but wonder to what degree it actually is, in technology alone we're seeing a distinct lack of care about inclusion all throughout the industry which ave resulted in really quiet EVs, touch screens on ovens and VR that's predominantly visual. While there's absolutely an uptick in how much people care I wonder to what degree it's going to be enough. Like... Ican see it going both ways: either things improve, or somebody decides to abolish ADA because it's too expensive or something. Interesting times indeed.
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@zersiax Once I heard something even more rude. We were talking about romance scams, where someone hooks you up over the Internet pretending to fall for you then aiming to your money only; guy was stolen 100K€ and the person talking with me about him, said "she's so blind, he always ends up having it stuck up his butt." Ableism and homophobia all at once. They seem not even able to compose a phrase on their own without involving minorities to degrade them.
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@zersiax I am so scared of Trump if America elects it again, all the world will be screwed. (I said "it" on purpose, Trump does not deserve "him" pronoun) and for accessibility laws around the world, if someone abolishes them it's the first step towards something worse.