In pursuit of blindness

I have often thought that the most heart-wrenching sense to lose would be my sight. Granted, any sense would be painful to lose (loss of hearing was right up there), but for me, I imagine it would be sight. I've always had a secret dread of it happening, although I also believe that the human mind is resilient and I would endure it. I shudder at the idea of not being able to see words on the page, the faces of those I love, the immensity of the ocean, and the beauty of the forests. 

So why this talk of blindness? Lately I have been feeling that the loss of our sight might be what this world needs.  

Does this sound like irrational babble? Probably so. Here’s my reasoning. A man called Tommy Edison has been blind since birth, and he gave an interview on “The perks of being blind”. One thing that really struck me was his last statement. 

“You know what’s cool about being blind? There’s no race. I don’t know from beauty. I know people from what comes out of their mouth and what’s in their heart. That’s how I know people.” 

I don’t consider myself a particularly weepy individual, but this made tears slide down my face. And for a moment, I longed for blindness. Not just for myself, but for everyone.  

There are good people in the world. There are bad people in the world. There are people at every level in between those two extremes. And I do not believe, and never will, that the pigment in our skin has any bearing on the beauty or ugliness of our soul.  

If only our sight could be taken away for a space in time. Not as little as a day or as long as a year. But for however long it takes to realize that we are focusing on that which is immaterial. Then I become discouraged as I wonder if we would then try and come up with something just as irrational to base our prejudices on. Perhaps we would discriminate against accents. Or whether someone’s voice was low or high. It makes me sad to think that, even without our sight, humanity would find some reason to hate or mistrust that which is “other”. 

One reason I enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy is because the authors are able to write about worlds and places that are like our own, with subtle differences. I have read books where discrimination occurred because one race of people had blue skin and the other gold. The darker the blue, the more socially acceptable. The lighter the gold, the lower the caste. I read another story about how the society was matriarchal and baby boys were unwanted and discarded for their “violent tendencies”. And yet another society where your social status was determined by whether your eyes were light or dark. Ridiculous, right? 

I am not trying to make a focused statement about recent events in the news. I'm not well enough informed to do that. I suppose what I can say is this: we are not living in a post-racial society, because we still talk about people according to their color.

I hope someday to live to a very grand age, maybe 105. And I hope to sit next to a young person of my acquaintance and tell them stories of when I was young and the foolish things people did “back in the day”. I hope to casually mention that I was talking to “a Black/Asian/Hispanic/White person” and for that child to squirm and say “Ms. Haning, that’s so old school (or the appropriate colloquialism of the day).  Nobody talks like that anymore”. I hope one day to see confusion on the face of that child when I say that, back in the day, people noticed what color your skin was. And I hope to see that look of confusion on their face as they are genuinely perplexed and ask me, “Well, what does their skin color have to do with anything? People are just people.” And I will say with no small amount of satisfaction, “Exactly.” 

Perhaps that wish can only come true in heaven. But it shouldn't. It really shouldn't. I want that wish to come true in my lifetime. I want to be "blind" to the surface things, to the shade of another person's skin, to outward differences from me. I want to look at another person and see just that; a person.

I sometimes feel that I can't talk about these types of things . . . hot button issues. I don't want to offend or talk about something that I can never truly understand/experience. But I suppose, in this instance, I would rather say the wrong thing than be silent.

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than it’s opposite." – Nelson Mandela