There’s a Brazilian saying, “haste is the mother of imperfection” and accordingly I must be perfect by now. This is because I’ve spent my life trying to convince sighted people that being blind is a perfectly acceptable way of living. Or more than that. Blindness is life as life itself, a central feature of being alive, just another fact like candy or coconuts.
I am not hasty. I am however tired of bigots who demean people who hail from the margins. I see trans rights as being every bit as important as disability rights. And right now I’m frightened for one of the major political parties in my nation has decided to declare war on historically marginalized people. I don’t think “war” is too extreme for the aim is make people illegal, both on the printed page and in the public square. The aim is to remove us.
The disabled know something about this. We’ve been in the asylums, the special schools, the sheltered workshops.
I am not hasty. Abled, white, cis-gendered men and women are throwing dangerous tantrums. I’ve lived their BS. Been told “you can’t come in here”; “can’t be part of this class”—“isn’t there some special place for you?”
Yes, There’s a special place for my people. It’s called America.
The Iroquois people have a saying: “Remember your children are not your own but are lent to you by the Creator.”
Planet of the Blind 