It is hardly a surprise to those of us with disabilities when we hear of staged events inviting participatory empathy—moist occasions when the sighted pretend they’re blind and the bi-pedaled imagine themselves living with wheelchairs. There are other variants: men wearing high heels walking college campuses in support of abstract women has been a recent fad. One may shiver at these meretricious and tawdry events but they represent something big and Disney-esque about neo-liberalism, mainly that all identity is essentially exchangeable with the right accoutrements—the citizen as consumer.
In disability land the worst offenders are the non-disabled who earnestly wish to share the idea that “disability is neat”. That disability is essentially value neuter like coconuts doesn’t matter to the Disney-non-disabled because assigning value is what the citizen as consumer does. Its a “dress up” world.
Dining in the dark is popular because the sighted get to imagine they’re in the half-sinister land of the blind—AND—they are consumers. It is an erotic economic pursuit with a hint of medieval alum.
A friend on Facebook has written to say her university is planning a dining in the dark event, sponsored by the disability student services office. That real blind people would find this understandably offensive is immaterial because, as I’ve said already, “its a dress up world” and moreover, no actual blind people were harmed in the making of this film.
Ableism exists without easily identifiable flags—a guide dog school hosts a dining in the dark event for its sighted donors because its all in fun; a university does the same.
But I don’t believe citizens are consumers first.
If I am here, entire, it does not matter how I cut my meat.
The half-sinister, erotic land of the blind can’t be put on a credit card—because it doesn’t exist.
Planet of the Blind 