As some of you know, I am a long-distance learning student at the University of Northern Colorado's Teacher of the Visually Impaired Program. The following is a comment from one of my professors in response to some of my co-students' discussion board responses.

Date: Sun Sep 19, 2004
Author: Ferrell, Kay
Subject: We are what we say

I'm a little concerned about some of the messages I get when I read some of your discussion board responses. What disturbs me is a bit of what I've come to refer to as "visual cultural imperialism" -- an attitude that seems to imply that vision is better than no vision, or that persons with visual impairment are somehow defective, or lacking something. I encourage all of you to think about the words you choose.

I'm not suggesting that you should be more "politically correct;" I AM suggesting that the words you choose may connote something that you did not intend.

For example, one of my pet peeves is when we talk about "feeding" children. We don't feed children; we feed animals. Or, talking about "compensatory" skills, rather than alternative skills. Or, parents "accepting" their child's blindness, which seems to suggest that there's something to "accept." Or, my very favorite of all, when we talk about "servicing" children--we service cars, not people. . . .

I'd like you all to reflect this week on the words you use, and what that might reflect about your own attitude toward visual impairment, and what message your attitude and your words give to the children you work with, however subtle.

I talk about visual cultural imperialism in a paper I wrote for the National Center on Low-Incidence Disabilities:

"This failure to recognize that inclusion and access is more than print adaptation is an example of what I call "visual cultural imperialism," where vision is viewed as the standard and all other experiences are secondary to it, and where people with "normal" vision force their experiences, their perspectives, and their choices on others. Just as history is more than the experiences of white men with power in western civilizations, education is more than the experiences and opinions of sighted people. Visual cultural imperialism is equally oppressive, inherently unequal, and potentially damaging to the education and self-determination of children and adults with visual disabilities."

The full paper is available at Issues in Blindness and Visual Impairments: http://www.unco.edu/nclid/BVIissues.html

For more information, E-mail us at: info@nfbct.org