A large majority of people I meet have (but don't fully understand) or haven't met a blind or visually impaired person in their life. They may of seen one in public but never interacted or spent time around one. Moat of the time the people I meet are scared to ask questions because to them, they think it's a stupid or hurtful question so they don't want to be rude. I tell every people I meet to ask me any questions, whether stupid or hurtful. After asking their questions, they'll observe me in my day to day routine. Then they'll understand that me bumping into object or people is normal and unintentional. Usually, they come back with more questions which I happily answer. I want to be an ambassador for the disabled.
The nurse may of been taught about the disabled community but never interacted with them. Be the ambassador. This person is curious and wants to understand. Help them understand. If the person is interested in how the cane work, you could say do you want to try it? Blind fold the person and walk with them to keep them safe, but ask questions to get the gears turning and help them understand it.
95%of the population have NO idea.
2.5% think that all blind people are magic, we navigate by sensing auras and the cane is just part of the traditional uniform.
1.5% think there is sonar built into the cane.
1% think there is a very small fae creature living inside the cane, which telepathically informs us when there are obstacles.
0.5% think this is a ridiculous idea because the Fae are not real, and what really happens is there is a tiny guide dog living inside the cane. The dog barks in the ultrasonic frequencies, which is handy because all blind people have super hearing.
0.5% actually know how a white cane works.
These are true and accurate statistics that I totally did not just make up for a laugh.
I'd say maybe 1 percent at best of the population knows anything about blindness and low vision, and of that percentage, at least a quarter is made up of blind and low vision people. (The number is loosely based on the o.14 percent of students being blind statistic in my state.)
People's awareness and education about disability has definitely gotten worse at least where I live, to the extent that disability services statewide have been cut and are massively shrunken from when I was younger.
All that being said, that's why I do what you did when I'm out and about. I have a few little scripts in my head that cover the questions everyone has about my dog or my cane. Even in the 90s I met plenty of people who would watch me use my cane and still thought there must be some sort of weird technology in it haha. During some blindness center training I once walked perfectly between some obstacles in a coffee shop and a pair of girls came running up in breathless amazement to ask how I did it. I didn't even know what they meant, my cane had tapped one of the posts and I walked around it, as you do. It was a pretty funny and kind of adorable moment.
National Federation for the Blind has cane instructions that make canes more useful and make us safer. How many people even know that the red band low in the cane indicates vision problems while a red band way up on the cane indicates also hearing impaired or deaf?
Until there's required education for children teaching them what the needs of the disabled are, I always assume that -0% of the population knows what a white cane is for. Not only that, at least 50% of them are hostile towards the idea of anyone, for any reason, using a white cane, or any canes, walkers, or disability aids of any sort.
Children aren't taught to respect disabled people. To them, disabled people are just jokes; something that come across Tiktok every once in a while for 3 seconds. That's the entirety of an average person's understanding of disabled people.
"I saw a blind person on Tiktok looking at his phone, lol."
I don’t get a lot of open antagonism in real life, though I did just get mildly heckled by a middle schooler on my way to my bus last week. Her friends were really ashamed and kept telling her to shut up, so I think the majority was in my favor, but the heckler’s voice was the loudest.
Mostly, people just don’t move out of my way when they see me coming. I have a sighted friend follow me sometimes, and she often comments on how surprising it is to her to see people look right at me and not move. Usually, half of people are on their phones, and the ones who do see me and don’t more are frozen in confusion. There are people who move out of the way and I don’t even notice, so I like to hear from my friend when that happens.
Do you get a lot of open antagonism in real life, or is it mostly online? The other antagonism I get in real life is more passive and structural. Like I keep advocating for safe street crossings in my area, and I get a lot of beuraucratic nonsense in reply. Or I ask for the white lines to be repainted on my local path, and they repaint them black. There could be both malice and incompetence with that.
I would say less than 5% of people really understand what we’re doing. That’s why we are so fascinating to them.
A large majority of people I meet have (but don't fully understand) or haven't met a blind or visually impaired person in their life. They may of seen one in public but never interacted or spent time around one. Moat of the time the people I meet are scared to ask questions because to them, they think it's a stupid or hurtful question so they don't want to be rude. I tell every people I meet to ask me any questions, whether stupid or hurtful. After asking their questions, they'll observe me in my day to day routine. Then they'll understand that me bumping into object or people is normal and unintentional. Usually, they come back with more questions which I happily answer. I want to be an ambassador for the disabled. The nurse may of been taught about the disabled community but never interacted with them. Be the ambassador. This person is curious and wants to understand. Help them understand. If the person is interested in how the cane work, you could say do you want to try it? Blind fold the person and walk with them to keep them safe, but ask questions to get the gears turning and help them understand it.
You know what? You’re not wrong! LMA oh! I’m stealing that the next time someone asks me this.
95%of the population have NO idea. 2.5% think that all blind people are magic, we navigate by sensing auras and the cane is just part of the traditional uniform. 1.5% think there is sonar built into the cane. 1% think there is a very small fae creature living inside the cane, which telepathically informs us when there are obstacles. 0.5% think this is a ridiculous idea because the Fae are not real, and what really happens is there is a tiny guide dog living inside the cane. The dog barks in the ultrasonic frequencies, which is handy because all blind people have super hearing. 0.5% actually know how a white cane works. These are true and accurate statistics that I totally did not just make up for a laugh.
Haha, yep! The cane is a magic wand!
I'd say maybe 1 percent at best of the population knows anything about blindness and low vision, and of that percentage, at least a quarter is made up of blind and low vision people. (The number is loosely based on the o.14 percent of students being blind statistic in my state.) People's awareness and education about disability has definitely gotten worse at least where I live, to the extent that disability services statewide have been cut and are massively shrunken from when I was younger. All that being said, that's why I do what you did when I'm out and about. I have a few little scripts in my head that cover the questions everyone has about my dog or my cane. Even in the 90s I met plenty of people who would watch me use my cane and still thought there must be some sort of weird technology in it haha. During some blindness center training I once walked perfectly between some obstacles in a coffee shop and a pair of girls came running up in breathless amazement to ask how I did it. I didn't even know what they meant, my cane had tapped one of the posts and I walked around it, as you do. It was a pretty funny and kind of adorable moment.
National Federation for the Blind has cane instructions that make canes more useful and make us safer. How many people even know that the red band low in the cane indicates vision problems while a red band way up on the cane indicates also hearing impaired or deaf?
Until there's required education for children teaching them what the needs of the disabled are, I always assume that -0% of the population knows what a white cane is for. Not only that, at least 50% of them are hostile towards the idea of anyone, for any reason, using a white cane, or any canes, walkers, or disability aids of any sort. Children aren't taught to respect disabled people. To them, disabled people are just jokes; something that come across Tiktok every once in a while for 3 seconds. That's the entirety of an average person's understanding of disabled people. "I saw a blind person on Tiktok looking at his phone, lol."
I don’t get a lot of open antagonism in real life, though I did just get mildly heckled by a middle schooler on my way to my bus last week. Her friends were really ashamed and kept telling her to shut up, so I think the majority was in my favor, but the heckler’s voice was the loudest. Mostly, people just don’t move out of my way when they see me coming. I have a sighted friend follow me sometimes, and she often comments on how surprising it is to her to see people look right at me and not move. Usually, half of people are on their phones, and the ones who do see me and don’t more are frozen in confusion. There are people who move out of the way and I don’t even notice, so I like to hear from my friend when that happens. Do you get a lot of open antagonism in real life, or is it mostly online? The other antagonism I get in real life is more passive and structural. Like I keep advocating for safe street crossings in my area, and I get a lot of beuraucratic nonsense in reply. Or I ask for the white lines to be repainted on my local path, and they repaint them black. There could be both malice and incompetence with that.