Something happened to me today that has me inclined to write about it in the hope that doing so will prevent one more sighted person from pulling this same retard move.
Now, today’s Tuesday. It’s my long day at school, and if I wrote about every retarded thing someone did on a Tuesday, well, you guys would get sick of me real quick. Not that some of you already aren’t sick of me but that’s another story for another time.
So, I’m standing at the shuttle stop, texting, shooting the shit, waiting for the shuttle, as is my habit. I miss one, curse, continue texting.
All is normal here. Dee de dee de dee…Ooh! shuttle! *stuff phone in pocket, proceed to vehicle door*. Or… Rather., try to.
*insert sudden frightened scream and stream of obscenities here*.
I see a thought bubble over your head asking, “What, are you cursing at, now, Krista? Seriously?”
Behind me you see a guy, who we’ll call Grabby McHelperson. this fine example of an FSU student body member has decided, in his head, on the spur of the moment, “Oh my god! it’s a blind girl! She doesn’t know how to get onto the shuttle! she can’t find the door!”
So from there he’s decided, “I’ll simply grab her by the shoulders, not saying anything, and push her toward it!”
Because in Grabby McHelpersons world over there, apparently that’s just what you do when a blind person is slowly approaching a bus door so she doesn’t errantly cane anyone to death.
Now, I would’ve been alright if he’d asked me, “Excuse me, do you need help?”
Or even, “Yo! Need some help?” would’ve been nice! Seriously! I would’ve just told him I was fine and buggered off about my business, thinking nothing of it.
But, (and I say this for the benefit of sighted readers), blind people aren’t cattle! Don’t ever, EVER*, grab *anyone*, sighted, blind, or purple, for Christ’s sakes, and try and *herd* them somewhere. It’s degrading, undignified, and a stupid move if you wanna get out of a place unstared at.
Before someone jumps on my tits, because I know some asshole’s gonna go for it, I get wanting to help. But this guy didn’t even bother to say “Hi, how are you, need some help,” et cetera. He just walked silently up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders and began pushing me forward. He was summarily disposed of by a flurry of screaming and cursing for the simple reason of, yes, I panicked. I mean come on, if you know me at all, or if you’re alive, breathing and in possession of a reasonable IQ, you know I’m not gonna stand there and let some silent stranger put his paws on me. Yes, it was a guy, I could tell once I could turn around enough to get a sideview on the dumb ass as he was backing away in embarrassment and fear of my cane which I had raised at a marginally threatening angle by that point.
So the question of the day is, who does that? How stupid do you have to be, or to think someone is, that you physically grab them and don’t say a damned word to them before doing so? Just… why? Why would you do that? Like I said. I get wanting to help. But if you wanna help someone, you open your piehole and *ask*, don’t just grab the person.
I’m with you on this subject. I hate when sighted people try to lead/push me the wrong way. Take that cane leading thingy, where they grab the far end of your cane and lead you around with it, for example. My own step mother has done that before.
The truth is, the sighted comunity doesn’t think very highly of us blindies. We need to show them that, we’re not stupid too. Or at least most of us aren’t. Every community’s going to have some smart people and some stupid people.