SHOCKED BUT NOT SURPRISED.

I told you all last week about the wonders of Jaws – The speech software which has enabled me to gain independence with regard to reading what others write and sharing what I write with you.

Today I’ve been shocked and appalled but not surprised to read about hate crimes against disabled people, some of whom have been hauled around on dog leads, urinated on and covered with shaving foam as they lay dying in the street and beaten to death. One person in a newspaper article said these crimes were committed out of hatred born of fear. I couldn’t agree more. Also his assumption that most people and police and the judiciary find it impossible to accept hate crime against disabled people exists is also bang on the money.

Our willingness to tolerate and wallow in higher levels of violence ranging from awful videos and low grade TV programmes which appeal to the lowest common denominator have their part to play in this in my opinion. We’ve never been considered of the same value and importance as, say ethnic minorities are or homosexuals. You only have to think of the word “invalid” used till very recently to know what I mean. “Invalid” is used to describe a worthless bus ticket or out of date passport and people try to sweeten it up a bit by putting the emphasis on the first rather than second syllable of the word so as not to make it sound as bad but it is. Often we can be treated as invisible and are often disrespected as well as disabled and many are shunned and rejected by their own families. One blind girl I’ve heard of through an old college friend told me that during the school holidays she was made to sleep in the hall at home and wasn’t even given the right to have a bedroom even if it was a shared one.

I spend my life trying to downplay the things that, as a blind person I’ve had to go through, for fear of turning people off me and upsetting them; Causing them to think I’m bitter and refusing to help me but after reading what I have today I’ve decided to speak out and today is the only time you’ll hear me directly mention these things. I’ve been mugged in the street; short changed in a local shop and when I tried to raise the matter when I realised, was treated as invisible and ignored. Eventually I was forced to leave the shop. I once had stones thrown at me by teenagers who called me “blindy”and when a child, was spat at and had excrement chucked in packets into the garden of the house I lived in and that was part of, though not all the reason why my family moved and have been asked for my phone number by someone who once said: “I’ll ring you up in a bored moment”.

All my life I have claimed that what happens to me and those like me i.e. those in the disabled community, is every bit as severe and prevalent as what happens to racial minorities or those with different sexual orientation to the “norm” by which I mean the usual and most common. I’ve also had people tell me it’s cruel to have and use a guide dog. It doesn’t matter whether these incidents are few in number or whether most people are kind and would not do these things. The truth is that most people are frightened of people like me, some like my friends who are not disabled are outstandingly kind or else they would not have chosen to be my friends because they’d have been too scared and others apart from them are vindictive in the extreme as well as being pig ignorant. Until the courts deal with these people harshly and until we are believed and considered to be of equal worth to those in ethnic minorities and homosexuals before the law, these occurrences will only increase and not decrease. It’s hard but essential that decent people who could never do these things understand that others can and indeed do and vital that society doesn’t seem to give the vile mindless thugs who carry out these acts of cowardice the message that it’s more acceptable by default for them to do it to us because we’re not black or homosexual. By the way, don’t start jumping up and down and telling me now that I’m a racist. Instead look at what else I’ve written and, better still, make friends with me and get rid of your fears and then you’ll see that I’m just like you – Normal, human and decent – The only difference being that I am without my sight.