Reid My Mind

— Ambient music begins…

TR:

Greetings Reid My Mind Radio Family!
Welcome back to the podcast bringing you compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability.
You know, we’ve been here since 2014 so make sure you take a look in the archive if you’re new in these parts.

My name is Thomas Reid and I get to serve as host and producer.
I like to consider each of these individual episodes as a part of a larger collective story.
If you know anyone new to blindness or disability in general, please go ahead and let them know what’s happening here.
I’m confident that they would find a lot of value in the lived experiences stored in these audio file (and transcripts).
All just waiting for the right person.

Today’s episode is the latest addition to this growing archive that will not disappoint.
So let’s get down to it!

Audio: Reid My Mind Theme Music

Qudsiya:

My story of blindness is, to take a page out of Michelle Obama’s words, it’s a story of becoming.

My name is Qudsiya Naqui. And I am a lawyer and I’m based in Washington DC. I use she her hers pronouns.

I am a South Asian woman. I’m quite petite. I’m about five one. Right now I have sort of long, dark brown black hair that’s very long because of the pandemic and I haven’t been able to cut it and have kind of medium brown skin and brown eyes.

TR:

Qudsiya is the host of Down to the Struts, a podcast that explores the inner workings of
disability design and it’s various intersections.

Today, she shares some of the transformational experiences along her journey that helped shaped her view of blindness.

At 2 years old, Qudsiya was diagnosed with a congenital degenerative condition.
By the time she began reading, standard print was sufficient.

qudsiya:

But I had trouble in dark and dim places.

We were blessed and fortunate to be able to live in homes that worked for me. That had lots of sunlight, and we had lots of extra lighting. So that was the way that we kind of help make the environment accessible for me.

My mom was proactive and had me in sort of rehabilitation services with the state agency.

— Melancholy Ambient Music begins
TR:

That’s the New Jersey State Commission for the Blind, where she received mobility training and other blindness skills as a child

Qudsiya:

My usable vision was so good when I was young that I wasn’t quite understanding sometimes, like, why I had to use a mobility cane because

oftentimes, the trainer would come during the day, and I could see really well during the day.

When I reflect on it, I’m like, why didn’t they train me with the cane? At night? When I actually couldn’t see and then I would understand the benefit of it.

I had a hard time explaining to people what my situation was also because I present as sighted I don’t fit the sort of stereotypical appearance of what a blind person looks like. And so I sort of passed for lack of a better word because I didn’t have a vocabulary to talk about my disability, I didn’t even use the word disability, disability wasn’t even in my lexicon when I was a child and a teenager and even a young adult. I really struggled.

TR:

As a child, struggling with bullying and making friends.

Qudsiya:

I do think it shaped a lot of my identity. I was quite introverted, I love to read. It definitely did shape who I was when I was younger in slightly more negative ways, I felt like it was something I had to hide and that I had some degree of shame about. That really affected my willingness and desire to engage socially and to make friends and to put myself out there.

TR:

There are two main perspectives in viewing disability.
Whether you’re familiar with them or not, you may recognize your own way of thinking.

The medical model. This approach sees the problem as the illness, disease or injury. The focus is on fixing the person.

Qudsiya:

I started losing vision really quite rapidly kind of at the end of college when I was 22. At that same time, there was a experimental gene therapy. That became available and my parents really were encouraging me. They had very good intentions, and they love me very much. They wanted me to feel good about myself and be successful. And their pathway towards that was, you know, to have this therapy that would help me either gain vision back or halt the degeneration.

I did enroll in the clinical trial. I really believe that people should have choices about how they want to live, I have a little bit more healthy skepticism about that, because so much of it is rooted in ableism, which is a term that I use a lot now, but was really unaware of at that time.

— Ambient music ends

TR:

That’s the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior.
It assumes that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and
defines people by their disability.

Qudsiya says she’s unsure if the therapy has helped reduce the degeneration but notes she didn’t regain any vision.
She did however slowly begin inching toward that alternative way of viewing disability, but first, she had to go through some things.

Qudsiya:

I went through a really dark time in my 20s, just trying to like sort of, quote, fix myself,

When I was young they told me that my vision would be stable, you know that I had nothing to like, quote, worry about, and it would just be the same as it was. And that was pretty doable.

TR:

While preparing to enter Law School at Temple University, Qudsiya began seeing a new doctor who explained that her vision loss was degenerative.

Qudsiya:

That really explained what I was experiencing in the two or three years prior, reading was starting to become really difficult.

Law school, is very difficult for a whole host of reasons. And it’s a difficult environment, it’s just a lot of work. It’s very hard. And there’s a lot of reading, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of reading a week.

TR:

Since grade school, Qudsiya prided herself on her ability to study hard and have the grades to reflect that effort.

Her vision and grades both deteriorating she considered dropping out.

Qudsiya:

And somehow, I didn’t, I had a couple of really amazing professors. And then I got a really cool internship at the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the summer after my first year, because I happened to meet the Legal Director at a career fair. And we just totally hit it off. And she was an incredibly supportive person. And between her and a couple of my professors, I just, I stayed and I didn’t quit, and I didn’t give up. I started to explore text to voice software and the different kinds of technologies that were emerging. Blind people have been using it for years.

I kind of taught myself to learn by listening because I’d always been a visual learner. And I had to completely transform the way my brain worked. And I was able, it took me a long time. And it was hard, but I did it.

TR:

The grades improved, her self confidence returned and she was making strides in her blindness journey.

Qudsiya:

Oftentimes, a lot of sighted techniques are foisted on you. Like there’s always the imperative for you to use your eyes. But that was the first time I started to realize you know what, like, it’s not about like forcing me to use my eyes if my eyes aren’t the most efficient way to get something done. And so I started to like embrace like new Non sighted ways of doing things which made me a lot more efficient and made things easier for me.

The day that I said, I need to use jaws 100% of the time, like changed my life.

TR:

But what about accepting that white cane?

Qudsiya:

There was so much stigma for me associated with it. Shame.

I got myself into real difficulty. There was one time I was in Penn Station, and I fell on the train tracks.

TR:

Thankfully, the train wasn’t moving and someone quickly pulled her up.

Although already familiar with proper cane technique, Qudsiya wasn’t a practicing user. Living in New York City at the time, she
reached out to the New York Commission for the Blind and got herself an Orientation and Mobility instructor.

Qudsiya:

I said, I need you to force me to use it in front of you until I get to a point where I’m okay with it in myself.

We worked every day a couple times a week for like an hour and little by little after a while, I started to just feel comfortable with the cane.

I went from someone who would carry the cane folded up in their purse, never even think about it, to a person who now uses a cane pretty much all day all the time and never is without it and has a very healthy relationship with it. That took a long time. And it took a lot of struggle and a lot of moving past my own stereotypes and my own ableism

TR:

Qudsiya offers some additional thoughts on what could be helpful in decreasing the stigma associated with blindness and disability.

Qudsiya:

There’s such a lack of education in a young age to a culture eight children to the concept of disability and like these disability positive messages.

I just remember in high school I never learned about the ADA, I never learned about the Rehab Act, I never learned about disability rights history.

I feel like if I had existed in an environment that was giving me all these positive messages and welcoming messages and accessible messages about who I was, and the fact that my disability was okay. I think my outlook would have been quite different. But I was in an environment where my disability was sort of invisiblized. I see that changing now for young people. But I think we have a long way to go.

TR:

Another transitional moment for Qudsiya along her blindness journey came when she experienced job discrimination.

Qudsiya:

That was the first time in my life, I had been exposed to disability rights and Disability Law and the civil protections that are available to people to prevent against discrimination. And I didn’t really understand that I had been repeatedly discriminated against in various work settings until I had this experience that became so extreme that I had to get an advocate to help me.

TR:

She credits that person with changing her life.
Helping her become clear about the problem and to see things from a different perspective.

Qudsiya:

Okay, it’s not me, that’s the problem here. It’s the system. That’s the problem. And it’s a system that is not designed to give me access, and I need to fight for that access.

— Music begins – a bright melody that moves to a driving beat…

TR:

The social model of disability.

This views disability as a part of life and not the problem.
Rather recognizing that society erects barriers in various ways that can limit opportunities.

Qudsiya not only learned how to advocate for herself, , she found a community of people who also had a positive outlook on their own blindness and disability.

Moving to Washington DC from New York City, she was introduced to another Blind Lawyer.

Qudsiya:

She and I actually connected over something completely unrelated to blindness. We connected over the fact that we were both athletes. She was a cyclist and runner, and I was a runner also.

She was starting up this sports group in DC called the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes. And she kept encouraging me to come and try out tandem cycling.

I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a little kid.

I didn’t know anything about tandem. I was like, this is gonna be a disaster.

Finally she pushed me and I went and I got really into it, I just fell in love with it.

TR:

That led to other sports and activities like adaptive rock climbing,
guided running and most importantly friendships with other Blind people.

Qudsiya:

That was really transformative, mostly because I never had Blind friends in my life. And so I suddenly had this massive, wonderful, supportive, fantastic community of other Blind people that were doing all sorts of things had all sorts of professions came from all different types of backgrounds. And we just had fun together. And we support each other.

TR:

That support is invaluable. From the practical to the emotional, helping you become your best self.

Qudsiya:

I’m like a b minus blind person, and I’m trying to get to an A plus.

TR:

I think she’s being tough on herself.

Even if we’re not being graded, a community of people to learn and share with along any journey is important.

Qudsiya:

I started on that journey kind of later in life, as opposed to some of my peers who were born blind or lost their vision when they’re really young. They really became resources to me, and I just started to see the world really differently.

I’m also part of another new group that just started last summer. It’s called WOC World. W O C. It’s a group for blind women of color – a virtual community of blind women to support blind women of color.

TR in Conversation with Qudsiya: 39:15
I always like to highlight the importance of meeting people. Because I think it plays a big role. I always bring it back to the podcast, because that’s what this podcast is all about. Not everyone is in an area where they can actually have access to all of these people. And so that that transition process that I think really is impacted by meeting people may take even longer because you have no sort of model of what blindness can actually be.

— Music ends with an ambient fade out

TR:

Qudsiya is a fellow podcaster. She’s the founder and host of Down to the Struts.

Qudsiya:

A strut is like an engineering device that you’d use to hold stuff together.

It’s sort of evokes this idea of like, what are the building blocks? What holds the world together? And how do we change structures and systems.

I wanted to make non disabled people see why they need to think about things from a disability lens and why that’s important and why we should care about it.

TR:

While she was being pushed to write and publish law review articles she found her heart just wasn’t in it.

Already a consumer of audio content including books and podcasts,
she recognized the opportunity to explore some of her interests and expertise.

Qudsiya:

The article I was working on was about disability, specifically disability in the US. And its intersection with immigration, which is one of my areas of expertise as a lawyer.

I really care about disability and its intersections with other types of things like race or other types of policy issues like disability, unemployment, disability and health care.

And I am a person who has experience with like policy and research and these sorts of things.

I really care about this area of work. And I love audio content. And it’s a pandemic, and I’m sitting at home and I got nowhere to go and nothing to do. And I was like, You know what, I’m gonna do it. That’s how Down to the Struts was born.

— Music begins a Hip Hop beat opening with hi hats…

TR:

Occasionally, I’m asked about starting a podcast. My advice closely aligns with the steps Qudsiya lays out.

Qudsiya:

I decided I wanted to do an interview style show and bring a mix of sort of people with lived experience, people who are experts in their fields to talk about sort of very broadly speaking, disability design and intersectionality.

I got a team of people together.

I don’t know how to design a website, I don’t know how to audio edit, I got a lot of brains together. And at first it was just for advice. But then a couple of friends of mine, really like wanted to be involved and wanted to work on it. And I was so touched by their desire to be supportive, they just loved the idea of the project.

I had a focus group of a whole bunch of friends that helped me vote on the title.

We launched our first season in October of 2020. And there’s six episodes, and we’ve just launched season two.

TR:

She narrowed her subject, figured out what aspects best fit her skills and interests.
Assembled others for advice and ended up with a team.
She’s also using a seasonal approach which I highly recommend.
It takes away some of the stress in producing regular content.
And of course, she got feedback on her podcast name. Did I mention she has herself a team?

Qudsiya:

I went to Barnard College, which is part of the women’s college that’s part of Columbia University. So I went looking for a student who was interested in audio editing. That’s how I came across Anna Wu, who is a junior at Barnard.

She brought along her friend Adrian Kahn, who does our transcripts.

I have two other friends. Ilana Nevins is our audio editor and my friend Adriana pole who is fabulous social media coordinator and manages all my Twitter and Facebook and Instagram so I don’t have to. (Laughs )

I’m scared of social media!

TR:

Yes, I’ll admit it, I am a bit envious of her team.

A lot of thought and planning went into the creation of Down to the Struts. Ultimately, it’s figuring out what you want. I get the sense that this is how Qudsiya operates.

Qudsiya:
I realized very, very quickly, that I did not want to be a practicing attorney, I think I probably even knew that before law school, but I knew I was interested in immigration, and I knew I was interested in kind of policy.

A lot of the policy people were like, Well, you can’t really fix the system if you don’t understand the experience of people who are going through it.

So I did practice immigration law, representing asylum seekers and survivors of domestic violence.

And then I went to a different organization where I was managing the program that was delivering services to unaccompanied children who were in federal custody, on the border and in other parts of the country.

TR:

She continued doing that work for a different organization while expanding into disaster recovery and other areas.

— Music ends…

Qudsiya:

now most recently, I’m at a big research like policy institution working on civil court reform work. Making this civil court system for like people who experience evictions and debt collection lawsuits and have to deal with child support cases and things like that to making the system more accessible especially for people who don’t have lawyers, and I bring a lot of my disability kind of focus in there too, because, especially with all the technology and courts, like a big concern is like making sure everything’s accessible.

I feel like, it all kind of bleeds together.

TR in Conversation with Qudsiya:

What do you want people to sort of take away from your podcast?

Qudsiya:

For disabled people, I want them to leave the podcast feeling like their issues are being addressed, that I’m exposing and uncovering the barriers they face and providing positive solutions and proactive solutions to how we can break down those barriers and fix those problems. And for

For the non disabled people I want their eyes to be opened to how the systems and structures that we live inside, whether that’s the immigration system, whether that’s the education system, whether that’s health care, how, they affect disabled people, and how ableism plays a role in that. So that they can walk away and know, there’s solutions to solve them. And I want that information to get out to the people who are the decision makers and the stakeholders in the system so that they can start to make change.

TR:
Think about the importance of all the transitional moments Qudsiya experienced.
From her battle with the white cane to experiencing discrimination on the job
which led to her meeting people who would come to positively influence her life.
Combine these experiences with her own positive attitude and drive and consider her advice for those new to vision loss.

Qudsiya:

Everyone has their own journey and their own experience and their own way of going through those stages of grief and getting to the other side, or whatever the other side looks like, and that’s okay. And you have to be kind to yourself, but know that there’s a community waiting for you. And there’s a lot of possibility and that you are a whole person. And your blindness is a part of that. And it is a really beautiful part of that. That’s something that you should honor about yourself.

— Music begins, a bright inspiring Hip Hop beat

TR in Conversation with Qudsiya:

Qudsiya, you know that you are now an official, and I want to say it twice, an official member of the Reid, My MindRadio family now that you’ve been on the podcast, you know that right?

Qudsiya:

Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me into the family.

(TR & Qudsiya laugh…)

TR:

To get in contact with Qudsiya and or where to find the podcast;

Qudsiya:

You can email us at down to the struts@gmail.com. You can find our website which is www got down to the struts.com. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at down to the struts. And you can subscribe rate review the podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you love to listen, so definitely check it out.

TR in Conversation with Qudsiya: 1:00:19
Spoken like a true podcaster.

(TR & Qudsiya Laugh)

TR:

I really liked the way Qudsiya identifies and appreciates the different moments throughout her journey for the value they helped bring to her life.

Once again shout out to Qudsiya, I really enjoyed our conversation.

If you too enjoyed it well you can always feel free to let me know that or any other comments you may have by emailing me at ReidMyMindRadio@gmail.com.
Tell others about the podcast so they can listen for themselves. All I want to do here is to reach as many people experiencing vision loss as early as possible.

You know we have transcripts and more over at ReidMyMind.com right?

And I know you know, that I know you know, it’s R to the E I D
(“D, and that’s me in the place to be! Slick Rick)
)
Like my last name.

Audio: Reid My Mind Outro

Peace!

Hide the transcript

TR:
What’s good everybody! Welcome to another episode of Reid My Mind Radio!

I thought we could try going a little more in depth with one story.

generally, the stories on Reid My Mind Radio tend to have a positive spin. More than often, these stories and interviews revolve around the broad topic of adjusting to blindness.

Sometimes we need to hear about the problems, the reality.

And then discover the valuable lessons within.

That’s today, but first… you know how we do it

[Audio: Reid My Mind Theme…]

LO
I’m Liz Oleksa. and I live in Macungie with my son Logan who just turned 13 and my guide dog Bryce Krispy.

TR:
Macungie, Pennsylvania.

LO:
Yes Sir!

TR:
How long have you had Bryce Krispy?

LO:
May 21, of this year will be three years that Bryce and I have been together.

TR:
Is that his full name Bryce Krispy or did you put the Krispy?

LO:
Well at the school they called him Bryce Krispy, but on all his paper work it just says Bryce. So I use both. He likes when I call him Bryce Krispy his tail wags a lot faster. He really recognizes that as his name cause he knows he’s super sweet.

[Audio: Sound of rain and city sidewalk]

I was at a doctor’s appointment and I had just finished up . I had scheduled my pickup for 11:30 with my local transportation. It was raining so I waited outside but yet under the overhang. And I’m a people person so you know I hear somebody walking up I’ll say hi. This lady came up and I didn’t know it was a lady at first and I said “Hi how are you today?” She said Fine and there was a little girl; I am assuming it was a little girl with her. Around 5 six at most. She sounded kind of short so I am assuming she was younger. The little girl was really bubbly and they’re both talking and you know the cutie puppy talk; “Oh look at the god, look at the dog.” The little girl said, “We can’t touch the doggie, right? He’s a really pretty doggie, we can’t touch her?” I said, no you can’t touch him honey I’m sorry he’s working. The mom even said no you can’t touch the puppy, but he is really pretty. The girl said again, “We can’t touch the puppy.” And she’s starting to get a little I guess anxious? I said no honey I’m sorry you can’t touch him he’s working. As a handler if you distract him I could get hurt. Well now she starts yelling, “We can’t touch the puppy!” And the lady’s like “No honey we can’t touch the puppy.” And the girl yelled , I could hear her she was starting to jump around… “We can’t touch the puppy!” And I felt Bryce moving a little funny so I reached down and here the woman was petting the dog. Now she herself told her daughter don’t touch the dog, the daughter told her don’t touch the dog, I told her don’t touch the dog. So I said to the lady kind of calm at first but a little stern I said, ” Mam, please don’t touch the dog he’s working. Both your daughter and I and you just told you not to touch the dog. She goes, oh well its ok, I mean I just can’t help it look at his eyes. Now Bryce , I have been told has the most beautiful honey colored eyes. He’s a yellow lab and he has very very unique eyes, but I don’t care how cute his eyes are it’s still not ok. You know but she’s like, Oh itis ok I just can’t help myself. And I stopped and said Mam stop touching my dog. Now the little girl’s screaming she’s crying don’t touch the dog, don’t touch the dog. I’m getting frustrated so I reach down, just like I was taught at school, if somebody is touching your dog and you’ve kindly asked them you have permission to remove their hand from your dog because that do is an extension of you.

I reach down and I took her hand and I wasn’t rough but I took her hand and pushed it away.
She gasped when I took her hand off my dog She backed up and slapped me across the face and said you have some nerve to invade my personal space like that. I just stood there with my mouth kind of hanging open like “Are you serious right now?” And she said let’s go and she and her little girl went off either into the building or they left. I was too shocked at the time as to … oh my goodness you just slapped me across the face., but yet she was the one who invaded my personal space and my boundaries.

TR:
You heard correctly, slapped in the face!

With that in mind I wanted to examine this situation from a professional perspective.

AW:
Hi my name is Dr. Andre Watson. I’m a Clinical Psychologist in the Philadelphia area.

TR:
I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Watson last year. We talked about some of his experiences growing up blind and the challenges he faced in attaining his doctorate in Psychology. If you haven’t heard that episode, I suggest you go back and give it a listen.

I asked Dr. Watson to unpack some of what took place in the incident you just heard from Liz as well as what he referred to as…
AW:
… what we have to deal with as blind people trying to make it in America.

[TR in conversation with AW]

Make it in the world cause hopefully people outside of America listen to this too. (Laughs!)

AW:

Absolutely!

Personally and professionally I hear about these kind of stories happening all the time with blind people whether it be with a guide dog or with a cane or with freedom. With he right to make a decision for you own self. And I think this was a clear case of disrespect and disregard for Liz as a person. A person with a brain, a person with choice. And so it really upset me to hear this story not because it’s not common, but because it is so common and so many people that are blind who are trying to live an independently life not only have to deal with some natural barriers to independence but also some of the social barriers to independence. SO Liz established like any dog owner, like any parent, you have established a boundary which you need to do, and so somebody else disregarded that . On one hand I would take it personally and on the other hand I wouldn’t. Because a lot of time people that do these kinds of things disregard a lot of people’s boundaries. This could have been a women who has been disrespected herself in her own life and now is doing that to other people. Bullying is a real issue and people that bully look for people that they see as being weaker and vulnerable. Ironically, people that do bully have been bullied. This is all about perception. Blind people being seen as vulnerable, being seen as less capable, less aware.

TR:
Being seen as vulnerable based on someone’s perception,
well no one can really be immune to these types of experiences. even those who can thoroughly recognize them for what they are.

I actually had a similar experience with my guide dog. I sat down on the bus. The dog is under the seat and the woman sitting to my right
tells me oh, the dog’s fine. And I’m thinking she’s saying the dog’s fine because the dog’s not intruding on her space. As I was checking my dog feeling her, make sure she was out of the way, but really what she was saying was she’s fine so that I can pet her. I reach up and I feel this woman’s hand on my dog and I say, oh excuse me please don’t pet my dog.

As much as I would like to think that people are fair and that they want not to take advantage of blindness or each other’s disability, that’s not the case.

People abuse children every day. People take advantage of people that they think they can get over on, all the time. And it might not be a willful planned activity, but it still happens

TR:
In case you’re unfamiliar with the issue when it specifically involves guide dogs and petting them…
That dog has been trained to work and concentrate on the task at hand while in that harness. The only instructions it should follow are from the handler. What may seem like harmless petting can lead to the dog becoming distracted and potentially not relaying important information or responding properly to the handler.

But it goes beyond guide dogs, beyond these specific incidents; as Dr. Watson explained, it’s about how we and others with disabilities are perceived.
Once again!

AW:
…what we have to deal with as blind people trying to make it in America.
How should we deal with these kinds of issues when they happen?
First what you don’t do is that you don’t stop going out. You don’t stop asserting yourself. That’s the hard part right there is to be resilient in the face of some of these obstacles. Secondly is to bring some awareness to these kinds of things to everyone that this is unacceptable. First of all petting the dog from the beginning was unacceptable.

TR:
In no way is this podcast about judging how Liz responded. She has the right to choose what is appropriate for her.

It just so happens, the steps Liz took, were right in line with what would be recommended for anyone in such a situation.

Let’s return to Liz still waiting for her local transportation company immediately after the incident.
And if you have ever waited for a para transit, you know how long that can take.

[And yes, shots fired! Para transit, step your game up!]

LO:
The bus is forty minutes late and I just stood there.

I wasn’t angry with the woman I was more disturbed by her lack of respect for my personal space and for the example she was selling her child. I can’t imagine if this is what I just went through asking her not to do something what the little girl must have to go through. My heart just went out to both of them for mainly the mother’s ignorance.

[TR in conversation with Liz]
Were you in shock?

LO:
I’m not going to lie, I actually had like a smirk on my face. Like Are you… serious, what really just happened here?

I was being friendly and said hello. My dog is doing his job. He’s sitting next to me not bothering anyone. Don’t they teach us in elementary school you hear the word stop or know you stop?

[TR in conversation with Liz]
has that changed you in any way?

LO:
I don’t want people to think that, don’t talk to me. Absolutely you know what, I want people to talk to me. Don’t talk to my dog though. You know talk to me, I’m the person. You have a question about my dog he’s not going to answer you so you don’t need to ask him.

“Oh are you taking good care of your mommy?”

I can answer your questions for you.

[TR in conversation with Liz:]
is that an actual thing that you hear?

LO:
oh my goodness yes!

When I leave places people are like “now you take good care of your mommy.”

“You show mommy how to get home!”

No, no I tell him how to get home. He just follows my commands.

There’s a time and a place for me to fight that battle too. If
I have the extra time I may start up a conversation with a person and be like Hey just so you know talk to me. It’s not about necessarily proving a point. Some people just don’t know!

The whole bus ride home I just was trying to wrap my mind around this. It took about an hour.

I made a post on Facebook about
it to kind of spread awareness. And I laughed at times. And after I posted it I cried. I wasn’t sad for myself I was really just sad for this woman and then I was like if I could see I probably would have slapped her back. But, then again that’s an afterthought and I don’t want to resort to. Ducking to her level?

I got quite a bit of negative feedback.

I had people telling me that my response to the situation was wrong and I should have contacted the police and file a police report

[TR in conversation with Liz]
Were these other guide dog users?

LO:
. Some of them were. Some of them were cane users. Some of them were sighted. I mean just people from all different aspects of my life

AW:
that’s called blaming the victim

TR:
Once again, Dr. Watson.

AW:
We do that a lot because something really terrible happens we can’t accept that it happened. It’s always easy to do Monday morning
quarterbacking and look back and say oh I would have been there so I would have done that. Who would expect to be slapped in the face by anybody? Nobody plans on that. You don’t know when that’s going to happen
[TR in conversation with Dr. Watson]
one of the reasons I wanted to call you Andre was because when we last spoke you mentioned something and I think you referred to it as the identity check. And it was these types of well I guess micro aggressions right that sometimes you have
AW:
yes

[TR in conversation with Dr. Watson]
You get them and then you have to kind of go back and talk to yourself in the mirror Bill yourself back up. What would you say that people who experience these types of things in terms of kind of checking their identity. What advice would you give?

AW:
Definitely you need to be. Talking to somebody who knows you. Who can validate who you are.

You can talk about how this one event doesn’t define you. Whether it’s interpreting it as being vulnerable or weak or being second class; because these little things like this can happen. Like you know that slow drip of micro aggressions can happen and slowly eat away at someone’s
confidence. It’s helpful to be able to be around people that understand you. It’s great to be in a community of other blind people that you can talk to and they can share maybe share some similar experiences. It’s also good to be and situations where you feel like you’re on equal footing with people.

This is not some kind of militant radical idea but it’s good to be with family. By that I mean it’s good to be around people who have shared experiences as you. you don’t have to worry about being slapped. You know have to worry about people petting your dog when they shouldn’t do that. In many ways you have to put on an armor
when you go out so that you can remember who you are but that’s very emotionally taxing. It wears on your mind, from your thoughts to how you think about yourself. How you think about other people. You become angry, bitter, hostile. You could doubt yourself emotionally. You could be down on yourself. In some cases people actually feel it in their bodies. So you’ve got headaches and backaches and if you’re like me you like to have an extra piece of cake.

[TR in conversation with Dr. Watson:]
Laughs!

AW:
It’s good to be aware of these things and how they can affect you. And you make sure that you’re not consumed by it.

I know I’ve heard lots of stories from sighted people. They always say
oh oh I met a blind guy he was just so mean to me or blind woman she was so mean to me. Well these are the things that happen; things that happen to Liz, they happen to me and to you. And then you do get callous. And so when somebody says hi can I pet your dog; No get away from me!

That’s because it’s worn on you.

I think it’s good to find places where you don’t have to worry about that. Where you can be replenished. Where you can get affirmed. You realize that blindness is a part of you. Just like it’s part of somebody being a man or a woman or black or white or Asian. It’s a part of who we are. We don’t have to see it as something negative

Really we’re living in a sighted world so it’s not our issue it’s the sighted world’s issue. And they are the ones that need help with getting it together.

[TR in conversation with Dr. Watson]

Can you talk a little bit more about that because a lot of people might feel like it’s the opposite because it’s like well no it’s your problem you’re the one who is blind. Why do I need to change, you’re gonna just have to deal with that.

AW:

Well that is a reality of it. I mean unfortunately we have to choose our battles so we do have to
be ready to adjust. But it’s not our fault. And we’re in a world that’s very narcissistic. People only see things and I specifically am saying the word see, people
only see things from their perspective. Sighted people only see things from their perspective and so this is not just an exercise in. Blindness versus sighted, but it’s just an exercise of us versus them or me and the other person. People really need to learn how to see things from other people’s perspective whether they be blind or deaf or wheel chair user or from another culture or from another country. I think we all have to share that responsibility but I think it’s
even more important for the dominant culture. To take some responsibility. It’s a pretty liberal perspective but I think the people in power, the people
within the dominant culture need to be able to consider how they’re going to integrate those who are in a subordinate role. Into our society. There are many many people who are very good at doing that. This is not an us against them, but there are some people that need to be informed.

so things are changing for our benefit but still there is so much more that needs to be done.

[TR in conversation with Dr. Watson]
Indeed! Cool! Very good Sir! And hopefully you just did a little more of that.

AW:
I’m glad you brought up this example because I really think it underscores a real issue within our society when it comes to independence and the kinds of obstacles that we
face as blind people. To the point where now it becomes and it could become an actual physical altercation and that’s not just talk about a slap in the face
I see some similar experiences as being out there all the time like when someone grabs me by the arm and decides that oh you’re going to come with me or they take my dogs harness and try to pull the dog where they think I should go. Or when I’m in a coffee shop and I finish putting some Splenda in my tea and somebody comes along and takes the packets without telling me and they put them in the trash.

I think it just begs for us to continue to make our voices heard. To let
people know that we want to be the captains of our own ship.

TR:
As for Liz, who by the way only lost her sight about 4 and a half years ago;
well she’s guiding her ship towards a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Psychology with a minor in Neuro Psychology.

She’s also currently serving as the President of her local Lehigh Valley chapter of the advocacy organization, the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind

She continues to spread awareness through her speaking engagements at local schools and nonprofits like the Boy & girl Scouts.

Big thanks to Liz for sharing her story.
And Dr. Watson for providing some expertise.

telling these types of stories can be really impactful especially to those who aren’t aware. But at the same time I know they can be of help to others adjusting. And Not just to blindness or disability.

Those unfamiliar with disability , tend to have a hard time seeing past their own stereotypes and immediately believe the material isn’t for them.

There could be some real gems, or useful information, included in a story that is applicable to anyone going through an adjustment, but that story is framed around the subject of blindness and well it’s no longer considered applicable.

Oh that’s not for me, that’s for those blind people. And feel free to change blind people to something else, black people, Muslims, women…

But like Dr. Watson said, we all need to do a better job at seeing the perspective of others. We have to stop thinking oh that’s a blind thing, that’s a black thing.

On that note, I’d like to invite you the listener… yes, I’m talking to you specifically…
I would love for you to check out another podcast I have the chance to work on. It’s for a site called TheReImage. The idea is that our stories as people with vision loss have the power to recreate the image and the perception that others have of what it means to live with vision loss.

The approach is to tell our stories from that perspective that unites us all… humanity. Despite what many may think, we have shared experiences.. People with vision loss have families, raise children, hold down jobs, have hobbies… you get the point.

The stories are told without focusing on the blindness but rather on the person. We call that person first storytelling.

There are two episodes up now and one actually features Dr. Watson. I think many of you would like the current episode as well….

Give it a listen and give us some feedback…
Go to TheReImage.net and look for the podcast link.

If you have any feedback on this podcast, please hit me at ReidMyMindradio@gmail.com.

I’m working on some future episodes so you should really go ahead and subscribe to the show. Then you don’t have to worry about remembering. I know that really keeps you up at night!

Anyway, time for me to get back to steering my ship!

Just call me El Capitan of Reid My Mind Radio!
All aboard!
[Audio: Ship Horn]
Peace!
———-

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