Most definitely.
If they want to guide me while have my guide dog with me, come round the
other side, and, again, let me hold your left elbow, while I carry on
just holding my dog's leash, so that I'm sort of guiding him.
Or alternatively, walk roundabout 5 steps in front of us, and I'll
remind him to follow you, but, noone but me should take hold of/grab his
leash or harness - even during guide dog training, the instructor would
attach an additional leash to the guide dog's collar, to sort of
instruct them to do things which you could then try react to.
Same way, you'll get people walk up to, and try talk to your dog while
you may be standing still, but, while the dog isn't really in off-duty
mode, since you haven't released harness handle, and told dog to sit or
lie down yet.
People just make assumptions based on what they think, may have seen on
TV, or in movies, etc. etc.
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-08 11:09 PM, Hettie wrote:
Jacob----------
I think it is the unexpected grabbing one'ws cane.
I also hate it if people take a guide dogs handle and try to steer you
apparently round something but its stupid.
Hettie
Live a healthy life with fantastic Cape Aloe products
www.naturalaloehealth.co.za
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-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 08 April 2016 03:29 PM
To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindza] Re: People grabbing one's cane
Hettie, that's a nice one.
I also had a slightly less nice one, but, turned out alright.
Was at a camp site, somewhere down just north of Cape Town - I think near
Paarl, or something, with bike club friends, but, there were also other groups
of stuent types there.
Anyway, we were mostly sitting around a bonfire near one end of the campsite
ablution block, and I walked down it to use the bathroom.
When I was on my way back out, someone was coming in, and they tried to grab my
cane, and while am not sure if it was a slightly tipsy student type, or if
they'd maybe just got a fright, and hadn't realised I was coming out, or if
they had, somehow decided it might be nice to try play a prank on the blindie,
at roundabout 10PM on a Friday night, I had reacted the moment I felt the touch
of my cane and had pulled it out of the guy's hand, and immediately - probably
a form of instinct - swung the cane back at the person, but, seemed they had
jumped back out of the way, and disappeared quite quickly.
It had put me into a bit of a state of shock, but, bear in mind that this person had
tried to play around with someone who looks like a biker with long hair, and wearing
a leather jacket, etc. coming out of a bathroom lateish on a Friday night, who has
roundabout 50+ friends not too far off, who are all also bikers...<smile>
In other words, whatever the reason for their action, I honestly think they got
a rather large fright when I pulled the cane out of their hand, and tried to
hit them with it, and, chances are some of my friends went and had a look
around, but, didn't find anyone lurking around...LOL!
So, not a nice story, and, didn't really enjoy it at the time, but, suppose this also
relates to that, in the past, I have had people almost accuse me of playing a sort of
jack-ass TV show type prank, since they see my look/style, and seem to assume that
there's no way a blindie could look like this, and still be an actual blindie -
especially not if my other, normal tattoos, etc. are visible...<smile>
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-08 1:33 PM, Hettie wrote:
Hi Jacob----------
Interesting situations we can land in out on the road. I was walking to the bus
stop one afternoon and had to pass a spot where they were working with their
large, noisy machines that cut any other sound. Suddenly both my arms were
grabbed and we started slowly moving forward, at least I was sort of pulled
forward while the other person walked backwards. I was so surprised that I
didn't know whether I was to scream, or just freeze and refused to walk one
more step. Then I realised that the stranger couldn't talk to mne with all the
deafening noise of the machines and was actually guiding me around the spot
they were working. Later I was told that there was a big, deep uncovered whole
where they were working on the sidewalk next to the shop window, no barriers
either. The space left for pedestrians to use was also rather narrow. I think
he probably saved me from serious injuries as it wouldn't have been hard to
step just a little to the left and fall into that open whole.
Hettie
-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 07 April 2016 11:34 PM
To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindza] People grabbing one's cane
LOL!
Suppose that may be one of the reasons I prefer using a standard point on my
cane, and not the roller tip - in order for people to, hopefully, hear me
coming as well.
But, sorry, if people plan to stop, and stand still in the middle of a walkway,
what do they expect? That the whole world should walk around them?
My one other irritation that might be sort of relevant, would be that, say am
walking along with a sighted friend, possibly holding their elbow, or else just
walking along next to them, and instead of telling me there's someone in front
of us that we need to walk around, they might try take hold of my cane, and use
it to redirect me, and, the image that comes to mind there is that, I might
want to ask them if they would take a sighted guy by the nose to redirect them
around something if they were slightly distracted - here, pinocchio, here
pinocchio, come this way, and, tell a few more lies while you're busy...
And, yes, at times, my mind works in mysterious ways, or maybe it just
comes up with oddities...<smile>
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-07 11:13 PM, Hettie wrote:
Jacob----------
That sounds like a bunch of blind hooligans let loose in a busy mall. During my
lunch time it happened that I somehow got my long can between an old ladies
knees. Unfortunately she almost had a bad fall and me noticing nothing. Another
pedestrian scolded me for being so careless. Of course I felt bad but
afterwards my sence of humor took over and I could just see a grand old lady
with a white cane sticking out from her back side in front of her knees. Yes, I
know that's rude and disrespectful but I couldn't see her in front of me and
she couldn't see me walking up to her back. Surely I'm not the only long cane
user with such experiences.
Hettie
Hettie
Live a healthy life with fantastic Cape Aloe products
www.naturalaloehealth.co.za
For the Best webpage design this side of the Sahara, contact Equadoor
Web Design & Marketing Services CC www.equadoor.com
-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 07 April 2016 10:27 PM
To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindza] Re: article: Overcompensating: Magical Erasure of
Blindness in science-fiction and fantasy
Think there have also been some stories about both a group of blind
pick-pockets - suppose using their blindness as an excuse for bumping into
people, and then just doing the rest of it by touch - and, something like a
blind assassin, but, the story with the name, the blind assassin was actually
sort of a reverse, in that it had something like being a form of 1984, George
Orwell theme to it.
As in, the powers that be, in that story were using a form of official assassin
to remove any people from the population that they thought were not of benefit
to their form of controlled breeding programme, and think the story is about
the guy who's job it specifically is to remove the blind guys, or something -
haven't read it yet, but anyway.
Sort of off-topic, and sort of, talking about your story, me and
another friend were joking about people in shopping centres that
never seem to notice that there's a blind guy coming with a long
white cane, etc., and we were saying we should fit both a little
bell, and a razor-blade to the front end of the cane - ding! ding!
ouch! - idea being that other people might pay a bit more
attention...<smile>
But, yes, that was just a joke
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-07 1:40 PM, Hettie wrote:
Hi Jacob----------
Can't remember that story but there were a number of thrillers, humoristic quis
programs andmuch more to glue us to the radio.
I read the book about the valley of the blind and enjoyed it.
During my Telephany course Oom Dawie and I started a thriller about a blindy
killing people with his stainsby and then cutting them to pieces and string it
on a white cain like a sosati. Unfortunately he died about a month after I
passed my telephony exam and left.
O, goodness, no I don't think our thriller had anything to do with his passing.
I actually cried myself to sleep when I heard he died.
Oom Dawie and the "Ou Man", the piano tuner's instructor, were the first people
who helped me build up some self-confidence, now-a-days called self esteam.
After a specific crisis in my life mr Dreyer, Die Ouman, told me "Jy is so
lieftallig..." that I bursted into tears as that was the last thing I thought could
be said of me.
Wow, is this my nostalgic April? Hiiiiii.
Hettie
Live a healthy life with fantastic Cape Aloe products
www.naturalaloehealth.co.za
For the Best webpage design this side of the Sahara, contact
Equadoor Web Design & Marketing Services CC www.equadoor.com
-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 07 April 2016 09:19 AM
To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindza] Re: article: Overcompensating: Magical Erasure of
Blindness in science-fiction and fantasy
Don't know the series - only vaguely remember listening to a couple of
springbok radio stories, when was quite young, and think my mother used to put
them on, to keep the young children busy for a while, at times.
There have been a couple of examples in other forms of stories, like a hero
ending up dumped in a form of underground tunnel maze, with no lights, and he
hooks up with locals, and while he's sort of assuming he's specifically been
blinded somehow, it may turn out that there is no light down there, and the
locals have just evolved to not using vision at all - possibly if one of them
ends up on the surface of the planet, they might then be blinded by way too
much light for eyes that aren't used to it at all, etc. - also a version of
fantasy story, or maybe, in this case the genre labels cyber-punk, or
steam-punk would be more applicable?
Same way, that old novel about the country of the blind, where a
sighted guy ends up in a valley in the andes, where everyone else is
blind, and, if remember correctly, they at first think he's lying
about being sighted, and then plan to blind him since he wants to do
something like marry the one guy's daughter, so he ends up just
escaping/running away...<smile>
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-06 4:25 PM, Hettie wrote:
Jacob----------
Oh, ok, all is fare in science-fiction and fantasy as the hero's in
science-fiction and fantasy are no ordinary people anyway. Mark Saxon suddenly
plunges into my memory. Don't know whether many of you remembrer Mark Saxon and
his buddy, can't think of his name now, but I'm thinking of the episodes where
they struggled with the man-eater plants. Don't know who of you remember that
series on Springbok Radio. Lekker nostalgic....
Hettie
Live a healthy life with fantastic Cape Aloe products
www.naturalaloehealth.co.za
For the Best webpage design this side of the Sahara, contact
Equadoor Web Design & Marketing Services CC www.equadoor.com
-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 06 April 2016 02:40 PM
To: blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindza] Re: article: Overcompensating: Magical Erasure
of Blindness in science-fiction and fantasy
Hettie.
The context of this article was specifically relevant to
super-hero's, fantasy and science-fiction characters that use
elements relevant to the genre in terms of blindness, but, yes,
they might seem to say that without super-powers, magical powers,
or sci-fi technology we can't live..? <smile>
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Roger Wilco wants to welcome you...to the space janitor's closet..."
On 2016-04-06 12:07 PM, Hettie wrote:
Hi Jacob----------
Thanks for posting this. I think the world needs more such articles. I don't understand
why a blind person is expected to do things sighted people can't do only to show the
world that we are even more "different" than the rest of mankind. Overcoming
the challenges of being blind in a overwhelming sighted world takes some doing but not to
show the world how excellent, and many other such words, we are - we do what we do
because it affects our daily lives.
Hettie
Live a healthy life with fantastic Cape Aloe products
www.naturalaloehealth.co.za
For the Best webpage design this side of the Sahara, contact
Equadoor Web Design & Marketing Services CC www.equadoor.com
-----Original Message-----
From: blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindza-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jacob Kruger
Sent: 06 April 2016 08:26 AM
To: NAPSA Blind; BlindZA
Subject: [blindza] article: Overcompensating: Magical Erasure of
Blindness in science-fiction and fantasy
Overcompensating: Magical Erasure of Blindness in SFF
By Elsa Sjunneson-Henry on March 19, 2016 Articles
The trope of a superpower for a blind person to “transcend” their disability
with an alternative form of sight is one I have seen (apologies for the pun)
one too many times. Whether it’s Scott Westerfeld’s Zeroes where a blind
character sees through other people’s eyes, or Daredevil, the well-known comic
book hero whose superpower essentially reads as superpowered extrasensory
awareness, these forms of blindness effectively erase the experiences of
real-life blind people, like me.
While these characters have the outer appearance of blindness, very few of them
behave as though as they are blind. It’s one thing to have great orientation
and mobility training, to have the ability to navigate the world with your
disabilities intact; it’s quite something else to have an adaptive device
that’s just there for show, which is the case with Daredevil most certainly.
Instead of a needed tool, his white cane is a prop that becomes a useless item
in his hand before a fight. On more than one occasion, he simply flings his
cane aside.
Conveniently ideal assistive devices also often exist as “cures.” For instance,
Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter series, who was injured in the line of duty
as an Auror, has a replacement eye that not only lets him see, but that gives
him X-Ray vision, making him a better Auror in many ways.
Cover for BECAUSE YOU'LL NEVER MEET MEAnother example of how the trope can
manifest is in Because You’ll Never Meet Me in which a character with blindness
has such powerful echolocation that he can do such things as count eyelashes.
What’s interesting about that particular “power” is that there are blind people
out there who can echolocate, such as Daniel Kish. While it’s a real-world
ability, in this case it’s so overpowered that blindness becomes a nonissue—and
the character can do things neither a sighted nor blind person could pull off
in real life, echolocation or not.
A character whose superpower stands out as actually thoughtfully approached is
Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Perhaps it is a little convenient that
Toph is born with the ability to bend the earth—making it possible for her to
sense her surroundings via the earth’s vibrations—but at least it doesn’t
completely erase that she is disabled. Toph still can’t read, sense anything
that isn’t connected to the ground, or identify two-dimensional images, and she
has a hard time “seeing” in water or sand. In addition, she still experiences
disability and the experience of being blind through social cues with her peers.
One of the examples which I think is particularly poignant is what Toph says
about beauty standards: “One of the good things about being blind is that I
don’t have to waste my time worrying about appearances. I don’t care what I
look like. I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. … I know who I am.”
Toph from Avatar: The Last AirbenderWhat makes Toph a great example of a good
use of this trope is that other characters in her world have the same
Earthbending power she does. That makes this not a “special blind power,” but
one which anyone regardless of disability can have. Toph simply uses it as an
adaptive device or skill in some places. If you cannot see the path ahead of
you, being able to sense the earth underneath you to get where you’re going
seems awfully like an adaptive skill.
(Toph is also blind from birth, which is an important factor,
because in most stories about blind characters, the blindness
comes from a tragic accident. Daredevil loses his to a chemical
spill when he is a young child, and much of the mythology about
his upbringing is about readjusting to his sight, whereas Toph has
no need for that kind of
training.)
The problem with this trope boils down to a single issue: Blindness never gets
to simply exist in SFF. It’s always painted as something to overcome and/or to
reinvent in order to move forward. When writers give blind characters
superpowers to divest them of disability, they aren’t just doing a disservice
to their writing but also to the blind people reading or watching their work.
This trope is not a “cool” or “inventive” way to look at disability.
What would be truly inventive would be to address blindness as it is:
without the bells and whistles of magic or science bringing the character
closer to the non-disabled norm.
This doesn’t mean we can’t write about disability in sci-fi or fantasy
settings. A witch can be a witch even without sight. Supernatural characters
can be blind without having superpowers that negate their disability. Magic or
superpowers don’t have to fix everything—and not everyone wishes to be fixed.
In science fiction and fantasy, there’s no reason to make the world devoid of
differences or “perfect.” Each place and setting we create as writers should be
able to include all kinds of characters. As a writer with a disability, I often
try to look at how disability both influences the characters’ experiences and
fits into their world.
For instance, in our world, blind people typically aren’t able to drive, making
personal transportation tricky. What could that look like in a fantasy world?
Would a character still need sight to be able to ride and direct a dragon? Or
is the character perhaps lucky enough to live in a world where dragons can
navigate independently and function as guide dragons?
Cover for ZEROESAs I read Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, I could only think how
amazing it would be if Flicker had a superpower which didn’t render her not
disabled. I love that she carries a white cane despite her superpower, but it
would be lovely if the white cane weren’t an empty gesture for her—or
Daredevil—but an actual tool.
These magical or futuristic fixes seem rooted in a discomfort with
disability: many writers cannot (or don’t want to) imagine a life without sight
and therefore create excuses to give their character equivalent sighted
experiences. The author’s discomfort with disability bleeds through the page to
foster discomfort with disability in readers.
By portraying disability as a minimal quirk, rather than a powerful part of a
character’s lived experience, writers aren’t giving readers a chance to
familiarize themselves with disability. Readers might not know how to address
being around people who are actually disabled full-time, their physical
manifestations of disability being so different from their fictional
counterparts. If the only experience with a disabled person that a reader has
is with a character like Daredevil who never needs their cane, or who can
echolocate the number of eyelashes a person has, we can’t expect them to
understand how complex blindness really is.
If, instead of erasing characters’ blindness, characters are seen negotiating
with disability honestly no matter the setting, we’ll be getting somewhere.
source URL:
http://disabilityinkidlit.com/2016/03/19/overcompensating-magical-
e
r
a
s
ure-of-blindness-in-sff/
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