From Sight to Insight: A Blind Person’s Perspective on Race (Part 2)
I'm not indifferent to racism, but I am indifferent to being judged by arbitrary standards of what it means to be black.
- Worthie Springer
What significance does colour hold for someone who cannot perceive it? In my case, the answer is quite simple: none whatsoever. This is why I don't care much for paintings, sculptures, or whether or not my clothes match. But this is also one of the reasons that I don't attach much value to race.
I didn't always think this way, though. There was a time when I believed that race was a very real and crucial aspect of human identity.
For the first 14 years of my life, I had sight. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was certainly better than what I have now, which is nothing. Back then, I could see colours, people, words, and the world around me. I didn't allow race to be a significant factor in my life for most of those years, however, I was acutely aware of its reality. Not because of typical experiences like racial profiling or exclusion, but my struggle emerged in moments when I felt compelled to prove my 'authentic blackness.'
I didn't have to contend with this issue in elementary school. For me and my classmates, race was quite trivial, and it certainly didn't have any performative or 'woke' aspects. There was some discussion about Obama's election in 2008 and its significance, but that was the extent of how race coloured my interactions with people.
I entered the blind school at the age of 11 and quickly realised that most students there weren't actually blind. Eventually, the school's name was changed to "Blind and Visually Impaired," a necessary adjustment since only a small minority of the students were truly blind. In some classes, there wasn't a single blind person, and in my graduating class of ten, only three students were blind.
In any case, during my time there, I learned some things about race that have been crucial in shaping my personal politics.
The first thing was a person I met there named Jasmine. Jasmine was an African-American albino who defied my sixth-grade understanding of race. How could someone who looks so obviously not black still be considered black? She completely changed my entire framework of how I thought race worked. Not just because of the sui generis racial category that she occupied but because she was the first person to question my own “blackness.” To her, my mannerisms and preferences marked me as 'not black enough.' She believed that culturally, I was as 'white' as her skin was. This would wound me deeply, but when the last traces of my sight vanished, my preoccupation with racial authenticity vanished with it.
The shade of my skin, like the sky, the sun, and my image in the mirror, became no more than memories—memories that I would later forget completely. Becoming blind took much from me, but it granted me great insight. Why should I be concerned about a part of myself that is no longer visible to me? Why shouldn't I centre my identity on something more tangible to me, such as my beliefs and hobbies? This revelation allowed me to easily combat the accusation of "inauthentic blackness" with humour and nonchalance. This doesn't mean I'm indifferent to racism, but it does mean I'm indifferent to being judged by arbitrary standards of what it means to be black.
The second thing I learned from my time at the blind school was that, despite my blindness, I enjoyed a more privileged upbringing than most of my friends. My parents belonged to the upper-middle class and had a loving, stable marriage. In contrast, the majority of students at my school had parents who were either present but abusive, which often contributed to their disabilities, or they had parents who were absent because they couldn’t handle the disability of their child.
To illustrate, one of my best friends from school is named Jack. Jack is white, has poor vision, and, due to a combination of abusive parents, reprehensible doctors, and bad luck, also has cerebral palsy. Here's a man who will encounter far more challenges than I ever will, and not once did I consider him more privileged than myself. While he may still have his sight, I can walk, and my parents are still alive, whereas tragically, his took their own lives.
There's a song titled 'You've Got to Be Carefully Taught.' The song, from the play 'South Pacific,' asserts that things like racism and hate are things that must be taught to children in order for these forces to grow in society. While I do not think this is entirely true, I do believe that in my life regarding race, I had to undergo a long educational and self-reflective process to arrive at my current beliefs. I don't believe that blindness acts as a panacea against racism. According to the old teachers at my school, during the 1960s and 1970s, the blind school was just as racist as all the other institutions of their time. People are products of their environment, and I'm no exception. I'm alive during the least racist age our planet has ever seen, and many of my beliefs reflect this. I am very cognizant of what created the conditions for this age to be as good as it is—not perfect, but really damn good.
The idea that race shouldn't be a factor in our social interactions and in governmental policy has fostered more genuine antiracism than anything else. It's why I, as a black blind man, have the opportunities that I do, and it's the only way that the goal of true racial equality will be achieved.
