I was “unfriended” by someone on Facebook last night because I dared to assert that using blindness as a metaphor for stupidity is insulting. This person was pissed off because a school district in Ohio is trying to eliminate books by Toni Morrison from school libraries–a fascist enterprise to be sure and one that’s contemptible as all fascist enterprises are. I completely understand the woman’s rage. But when I read blind and ignorant in the same trope, I needed to say it: guess what? You can’t say that anymore. People with disabilities are real, we have dignity, we are part of the village, we sit at the table, and we’re not deficient. The woman who unfriended me is African-American. She is no doubt a kind and decent soul who’s as frustrated as we all are at the rising Mr. Rushmore sized faces of cruelty and intolerance we witness in this country every day. Yet even in our rage we must have emotional intelligence. Otherwise we do the work of late-stage Capitalism, which wants us to separate and undermine all opposition. Our job, here in diversity-ville is to presume competence. Who was lame? Theodor Adorno. Who was crippled? Frida Kahlo. Who was in the closet? James Baldwin. Who was deaf? Beethoven. Who had bi-polar depression? Abraham Lincoln. Who was crippled? Franklin Roosevelt. Who was deformed? Alexander Pope. I could go on and on. Some days I feel as though I have to.
Planet of the Blind 