2009 is the two-hundredth anniversary of the start of Louis Braille, the blind Frenchman who invented the lifted-dot studying program bearing his name. Blindness has altered since Braille’s working day. Thanks to his operate, the American aspiration and modern day technological innovation, blindness will not have to be a disabling problem.
ziekte usher But America doesn’t believe that. And, that deficiency of perception is more problematic to each blind and sighted men and women than the deficiency of vision. Indeed, you will find Stevy Question, New York’s Governor David Paterson, and Scott MacIntyre (this season’s blind American Idol contestant), but which is about it. Here are 3 things that People in america ought to know about blindness that will make us a more powerful culture.
1. Blindness is relatively unheard of: only one.three million Americans are lawfully blind. If you add in people who report serious visual impairments, it’s about 21 million. This scarcity indicates that most of us do not know blind men and women individually. When we don’t know anyone from a certain group, we are likely to stereotype all members of that team. Blind individuals are as distinct from each other as sighted men and women are. Every of us, blind or sighted, is an person with exclusive abilities and skills, shortcomings and flaws. We every would like to be accepted as who we really are, not who someone else thinks we most likely are.
2. Blind people are not from a separate earth: We occur from the standard society, from all races, religions and socioeconomic teams. In reality, most of us grew up sighted. Most of us come from households who in no way experienced a blind member prior to. That signifies that making a modern society which has a optimistic perspective and a can-do approach to blindness is the ideal way to prepare the not-however-blind to have effective, impartial and happy lives.
three. Blindness and visible impairments are rising: America’s struggles with overeating and inactivity are triggering a diabetes epidemic. The CDC suggests that diabetic-connected blindness among operating-age Us citizens will triple by 2015. If we will not modify our attitudes about the capability of freshly blind individuals to return to productive and unbiased life, we will be adding to the taxpayer’s burden through increased disability insurance policies payments to help in any other case able-bodied men and women.
American modern society carries on to be structured in techniques that do not worth blind men and women. The typical particular person can not even identify one particular blind girl other than Helen Keller, who died over fifty years ago. The press does not protect issues impacting blind people like the Braille literacy disaster, substantial unemployment and the battle for available details. The tradition does not advertise the co mingling of blind and sighted individuals. Without having pervasive modify, when the not-however-blind — probably an individual you love — in the end confront blindness, they will collapse beneath the excess weight of their personal prejudice.
Fear of blindness now that technology and the promise of the American aspiration are catapulting blind people into professions like law, engineering, and chemistry, is unfounded and hurts the entire modern society. Be courageous consider thinking of us as equals.