Promoting Understanding, Not Fear, Is key to Accessibility Awareness

In the world of disability awareness campaigns, the end don't always justify the means.

The latest disability faux pas arrived in the form of a fundraising campaign by the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB). This organization promotes research into the causes of blindness, with a particular emphasis on retinal degenerative diseases. Its aim is to further efforts towards developing a cure.

In full disclosure, I have never been inclined to support this organization or its goals, but my quarrel here is not with the organization itself but with this particular campaign.

The campaign, which wrapped up this past week, was called #HowEyeSeeIt. The campaign asked potential donors to imagine what it would be like to live without vision. To do this, they primarily recruited sighted celebrities to participate in their chosen careers (acting, dancing, directing, etc.) -- but to do so while wearing a blindfold.

The main message was "I don't know how I'd do what I do without vision."

Celebrities who are blind and have low vision were represented as well, challenging those around them to try wearing a blindfold for awhile.

Everyday citizens were encouraged to try the challenge themselves and upload the filmed results on YouTube. The campaign suggested trying tasks like: making one's bed; preparing breakfast; and generally doing day-to-day tasks of life.

The message remained the same: imagine how difficult things would be if you couldn't see.

However, I find this a damaging and dangerous line of thinking, which does nothing to advance the accessibility cause.

In principle I understand where this is coming from. Life can be challenging without vision -- many of my posts to date have dealt with these challenges in one way or another. And anyone who's blind has shared that sentiment with varying degrees of resentment -- "Let's put them in a blindfold and see how they handle it," or "If I just take their mouse and their monitor away they'll understand digital accessibility."

But the fact is that none of these things work. They create fear of blindness rather than an understanding and empathy required to make the world more accessible.

Research has shown that, for many people, blindness is one of their greatest fears. Throwing people into blindfolds without supporting them (showing them how to complete tasks while blind) only reinforces the idea that blindness is impossibly hard and unmanageable. It's no wonder then exercises like this would lead to an obsession with finding a cure for blindness, rather than making existing systems more accessible for the blind for whom a cure is not possible or desired.

The real challenges of blindness are not in the daily tasks of life (once training is available) but in the lack of accessible transport, accessible websites, meaningful employment, and steady income levels. The FFB and other blindness organizations know this.

These tasks also don't reflect the reality of the blind or those with low vision. Practically, most people's reality is not complete darkness. Further, anyone who is losing or has lost their sight has access to training by professionals in navigating their new environment. The system, in Canada in particular, is imperfect but it does exist.

Most aggravating is the fact that anyone who is blind knows that all these basic tasks are completely doable without sight. The FFB knows this too, and so have been complicit in perpetuating a false stereotype of life without complete vision.

I stated this campaign was dangerous and I must explain my choice of words.

One of the tasks initially proposed, which was removed partway through the campaign in response to protest, was a suggestion that individuals try keeping track of their children while blindfolded. If individuals were unsure of how to make their bed while blindfolded, parenting in this state must have felt impossible. The trouble is that some social services agencies in the United States have taken this view too, which is why many families over the years have had their children taken away from them at birth only because their parents had impaired vision.

Is there ever a circumstance in which blindfolding would raise awareness without sending the wrong message or being patronizing? It's possible -- but only by working with individuals to show them how to complete tasks without vision while they're blindfolded. Showing someone how to use their remaining four senses, or (in the case of digital accessibility), a few hotkeys to make their mouseless experience more manageable, is a better way to demonstrate what blind people's lives are really like, and where improvements to infrastructure or interpersonal communication could be made to make that experience less challenging.

It shouldn't end with blindfolds. Most people with impaired vision are more likely to require larger type and increased contrast rather than Braille and text-to-speech. Goggles that mimic the experience of those with a variety of visual conditions that don't result in full blindness are available, and should be made use of as well.

Awareness campaigns can be successful, but they need to approach the subject from a place of empathy rather than fear. Only then can accessibility be truly realized.