The Language of Disability

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IN TOUCH – The language of disability

TX:  04.05.2021  2040-2100

PRESENTER:          PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:            SIMON HOBAN

White

Good evening.  It sometimes feels to me as if the language we use around disability causes more upset than dealing with the disability itself.  Presenting In Touch each week I often agonise, believe it or not, over which term to use in a particular context – blind, partially sighted, visually impaired, experiencing sight loss, there are others.  I know, from what you tell us, that all of them annoy somebody.  So, this week, we’re going to tackle it head on – why is language such an issue?

The latest organisation to dip its toe into this murky pool is the disability charity Leonard Cheshire.  They’ve just brought out a report highlighting the offence that some words can cause and on the word ‘blind’ Leonard Cheshire’s CEO, Ruth Owen, said this:

Statement – Ruth Owen

In the case of ‘blind’ visually impaired may be better in some circumstances, rather than a catch all ‘blind’, particularly after considering around 80% of people with sight loss do have some vision.  The government, disability organisations and others agree.

But not many of our listeners are among them, judging by our inbox after I raised this issue last week.  This is just one example but it reflects what many of you told us.  Phil Medway says:

Medway [Read]

We totally blind appeared to be the non-conformists in the visually impaired cohort.  I’m sure that this isn’t an intentional slur but the depreciation of the term blindness and the feeling in the general public that calling someone blind is somehow insulting should be addressed.  I recall that one particular email correspondent used to close his messages with the phrase ‘visually impaired as a bat’.

White

Well, tonight, we want to take a serious look at language in regard to vision or the lack of it – there I go, hedging my bets again.  We did invite Leonard Cheshire to take part but although they had said that they wanted this to start a conversation they didn’t feel it was right for them to be part of this one.  We are joined by two people who live with blindness and think deeply about it – historian Dr Fred Reid, who, as well as teaching history for many years at Warwick University, has also campaigned for the best part of 50 years for improved rights and services and Selena Mills, who’s currently writing a book called Losing It:  A History of Blindness, she is in the process of losing her sight herself.

And I should say Selena does work for Leonard Cheshire but in this programme is speaking purely for herself.  We’re also joined by two listeners who contacted us:  Peter Wilkins from Stockport and Tina Snow from the Isle of Wight.  And I want to hear from you two first.  Tina, what’s your attitude to this, I mean you actively dislike the term ‘visually impaired’ I think?

Snow

I hate the term ‘visually impaired’ because it’s a meaningless phrase, it doesn’t tell anyone about your sight condition.  If you need assistance, if you say I’m totally blind they know how to assist you, being visually impaired gives the impression that you’ve got some residual vision, it’s not explaining the true extent of your visual impair – well visual impairment or sight loss – it’s not explaining what it is, it’s very vague.

White

And Peter Wilkins, what about you?

Wilkins

There are only two terms that give my details, one is blind and the other is totally blind.  If anybody uses the phrase ‘visually impaired’ about me, it implies that I’ve got some vision but it’s impaired.  Also, the one other phrase I dislike is ‘sight loss’.  Now I appreciate that those people who’ve had sight and lost it do fit into that category but how can I have sight loss when I never had it to lose in the first place?

White

Right.  Just to go back to ‘visually impaired’, in fairness to Leonard Cheshire the CEO said that they’re not objecting to the term ‘blind’ as applied to individuals but just when it used collectively as in ‘the blind’, as if we’re some kind of strange and alien tribe – that last bit is me, not the CEO of Leonard Cheshire.  Would you agree with that Peter?

Wilkins

Not really.  I think the only two terms that work are ‘blind’ and ‘partially sighted’.

White

Okay.  Let me bring in Selena Mills, who unlike Peter and Tina, you are losing your sight.  First of all, what’s your perspective on this and perhaps, particularly, the term ‘visually impaired’, I mean what have your attitudes been to language while this process is going on?

Mills

I find it really difficult.  I’ve had huge problems trying to explain to people where I fit on the spectrum, so to speak.  And I think my favourite example is at an airport and I go – I’m visually impaired, I’ve got sight loss – I even sometimes point to my eyes and go – I can’t see very well.  And then one day I just said – I’m blind.  And the guy was – Oh yes, let me help you.  And I just thought, you know, I don’t know what is the best word.  I think sometimes ‘visually impaired’ and ‘sight loss’ are too confusing.  If you’re just trying to do a shorthand, if you just quickly want to say to somebody – I can’t see and you need to help me here.  At the same time, I am not blind, so it’s sort of – it’s really difficult, so I think actually that’s why I started writing my book because I just didn’t know how I fit in.

White

But the problem is that for many people, most people, as Leonard Cheshire say, they’re not blind, in the way that people understand it and that does cause confusion, doesn’t it?

Mills

I think it’s very, very…

White

I mean you aren’t blind yet.

Mills

No, but I mean I’m blind in my right eye, completely and I’ve got 15 – 10-15% left in my left eye.  I have – I’m legally blind.  So, according to the law I’m blind.  So, it really is – it’s very difficult to put your finger on exact definitions.  And the only way I get around it, which is to say that I think each person owns it themselves, it’s very difficult to say well you’re blind, I’m not.

White

Right, we’re going to get on to ownership.  Let me bring in Dr Fred Reid.  Fred, why does this agonising about language matter, does it matter?

Reid

Oh, I think it very much does matter for the reasons that have been given.  I’ve been blind since I was 14 and I know exactly the practical problems that everybody’s putting their finger on.  But I think there’s something deeper lying under this, I think the term ‘blind’ is now beginning to seem pejorative to people, that’s why some charities are finding that partially sighted people are objecting to the word ‘blind’ in their title.  And, for instance, the charity Royal Blind in Scotland has recently changed its name to Sight Scotland.  There’s something going on.  I think it’s a phenomenon that we’re all familiar with, that language carries pejorative meaning that’s coded with meanings of power and inequality.  And you know we see it in race.  And I think ‘blind’ is getting into that category now, it’s associated pejoratively, things like ‘blind alley’, ‘blind date’ and expressions of that kind.  And people, are now beginning to think they feel uncomfortable with it and I think Leonard Cheshire is absolutely right to raise this issue.  I don’t know quite what we do about it, there isn’t an ideal solution, it seems to me, but we’re in this phenomenon that language changes as the balance of power changes in society.

White

Selena, yeah.

Mills

Sorry, sorry, I just think language moves, I don’t – I think it’s very difficult if – I mean if you think the original word ‘blind’ was blynd – b l y n d – and it was a flash of light.  So, you know, it’s already moved over centuries to meaning one thing to another.  And I think it’s up to each generation and each era to know what they believe – to agree the terms, it’s not like it’s sort of rigid and fixed in time.

White

I mean have you got some favourite examples, because you’ve looked back at how people wrote about this, have we always argued about this?

Mills

We have.  And I have to say, up until the 20th century, the word ‘blindness’ was always attached to very negative terms, it was always the misfortunate, the dismal, the dark.  The good news is we’ve moved forward.  But even the word ‘disabled’ is interesting, I mean that really didn’t come into common parlance until the 19th century and it’s said, and it’s not proved, that it came from working – you could work and you couldn’t work – so you were either able to work or disabled.  So, I think blind is a shorthand, really it’s a shorthand and it really depends on the ethos of each era of how it’s used.  So, the fact that it’s becoming quite touchy now is really – I find that really interesting.

White

Right, now you raise the issue, we’ve got to do something about this and we should own the language, but that’s not quite as easy it might sound.  Who has the right to decide?  Here’s another email, this is from another hardy campaigner, Jill Allen King:

King [read]

I was being filmed by my rail company for a training video.  After reading the script I noticed the words ‘visually impaired’ were to be used, I questioned this.  I was told that they had been told by their training body that these were the words they should use.  My vision is not impaired, I’m totally blind with no light perception.  In the past, the National Federation of Blind People, the RNIB and the European Blind Union have agreed to use the words ‘blind’ and ‘partially sighted’.  This was decided at conferences after debate and votes.  I don’t think any organisations should instruct companies on what words to use.

White

Tina, is what terms people use, even a subject for democratic votes?  I mean who’s got the right to say what terms we use?

Snow

I think we need to make the choice and we need to be asked – Do you want to be known as ‘blind’, ‘partially sighted’, ‘severely sight impaired’.  And I think we need to actually take ownership of our own disability and to me that would make sense.  I mean I tell people I’m totally blind and I’m actually not ashamed of it.  Blind isn’t a dirty word, it’s something to be proud of, I was born blind and that’s me and there’s no other way of saying it really.

White

But Peter Wilkins, the problems with saying we’ve got to own our own language, is there times when people have to describe us as a group, when we are quite a big dispirit group, that’s the problem isn’t it, I mean that’s the problem I’ve got as a presenter?

Wilkins

If you’re describing a group ‘visually impaired’ is alright but it’s not when you talking about individual people.  So, I don’t mind people talking about the ‘visually impaired’ generally or the ‘visually handicapped’ but for me, personally, they’re talking about me.  If I ever get a form, for example, and it says ‘Are you visually impaired?’ I put no and that makes them think I’m fully sighted.  So, if there’s room on it, I put in brackets ‘totally blind’.

White

Fred, who decides?

Reid

Nobody has the right to decide.  At different periods in history all sorts of people have thought that they had the right to decide.  We used to think that the Oxford Dictionary was the definitive authority and people would actually quote it and say you can’t use that word to mean that.  We don’t believe that anymore, the power balance is so much more overt now in society that if you tried to say – Oh, well, the BBC is the right body or the national federation is the right body, the Oxford Dictionary is the right body, people would just laugh at you.  We are in this fluid situation now, where, as the grammarians put it, that language is a field of contestation and the fact – I say good, that’s a good thing, we should contest these things and get them out into the open.  And everybody entitles to their opinion.  I mean, for most of my life I’ve felt like Tina – what’s wrong with blind – but I have to recognise that a lot of people, now, don’t feel that.

White

It is interesting that – I’m just going to stay with you on this Fred – it’s interesting that the RNIB is one of the organisations that espoused ‘visually impaired’ and also ‘sight loss’ but the B in their title means is blind, they haven’t taken it out have they?

Reid

And they have held out against changing that.  I remember one pres – one chair of the RNIB saying – Look, there are 93 million reasons why we shouldn’t remove Blind, they’re called pound notes.

White

Meaning that that’s an easy – well a. they’d have had to change their logo wouldn’t they?

Reid

…years calling itself the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

White

What and this is a clearer thing that people can understand, is that the point?

Reid

Well but the point I made earlier is it’s shifting – the Scottish Royal Blind charity has polled its members and this is where we came in of course, 80%, I think it was, of those polled said that they could see a bit and they didn’t like being called blind.  And so, the charity has changed its name to Sight Scotland.

White

I want to bring in one more email.  This a short one, this is from Christopher Jessop from Pembrokeshire and he says: ‘Blind’, surely, the sooner children can understand and appreciate other people’s circumstances the better but how are young ones supposed to get their heads and their tongues around ‘visually impaired’?

Selena, isn’t there actually a danger that this agonising about language achieves the reverse of what most of us want?  You know, if people feel they have to be so careful about the language they use, when talking to us or about us, won’t they just try to ignore the issue or indeed ignore us or feel so nervous that they don’t bother?

Mills

I wouldn’t use the word ‘agonise’.  I think it’s really important to discuss, have an open forum, where you can say actually, I don’t think that’s quite right for me and may be that is what changed in our – in certainly in my lifetime is that we do get to discuss it.  It is helpful to have some words which are mutually understood.  So, I’d like to be able to go to a train station and say – I need some help, I’m blind – or – I’m visually impaired – and someone to go – okay, fine.  I mean I think I’m more on the functional and practical side because, I mean, you’re right, we can sit and discuss for hours and my husband’s a philosopher and he goes on and on and on and he doesn’t really say anything in the end, so I would say that I do think it’s really good actually that we’re having this discussion, I really do.  And I think the idea that language is offensive is true, it can be.  The question is what do you do with that offence?  So, I’m not sure if I would say ‘agonising’ is the right word but I would say I think it’s really helpful to keep looking at words and checking that they reflect what we feel.

White

Yeah, because that was the point, Leonard Cheshire would say – and I’m not asking you to speak for them – but they would say words do cause offence and that was, in a way, what they found from their survey on disability generally.  The question I would ask you, and perhaps Fred, is but does changing the language stop people being nasty and using pejorative terms?

Mills

I think it’s really interesting because I don’t think actually – like I have to be careful here because obviously I don’t – you know, I’m not speaking for Leonard Cheshire – but I don’t think the debate was about whether we should stop using certain language other than to say, some words can be really offensive to people.  And it’s not even – I don’t think anyone was telling anybody how to behave but rather to think about what they’re saying and that’s what I think about a lot is let’s say it was another disability, I’m not going to assume anything until I ask the person I’m talking to.  And I think that’s – that’s the issue is that I think it’s – maybe what you’re really talking about is that it was very easy to have these big generic terms that we all understood – ‘blind’, ‘visually impaired’, ‘sight loss’ – and what’s really happening in society is that because – possibly because of the internet because we’ve all got far more voice and opinion, that we’re saying no, it’s an individual choice.  And then the real question, I think, you’re now saying is that now it’s really difficult to know what to say because it’s so – there’s so many choices.  Is that what you’re saying?

White

That is what I’m saying.  And that it might stop people wanting to talk with us about – asking us questions, which surely is healthy, we want to – we want people to actually do that.  I just want to ask Fred, we’re nearly out of time, but Fred, is there any evidence that change in language makes any people more understanding or nicer or less likely to be offensive to groups that they…?

Reid

Well, I think it helps in certain contexts and it helps temporarily for a time.  But because language is always changing, whatever you substitute as the words thought at the time to be harmless and agreed and so forth, it then requires its pejorative connotations and so the debate creeps up again.  And I don’t think we’ll ever settle this, we’re in a field here.  I mean let’s face it disability is shocking to many people, it’s a natural thing to be shocked when you’re confronted by somebody who has lost a hugely important faculty, whether it’s a leg or an eye or hearing, and that is a disturbing thing and we have to handle it socially.  And language is one of the ways that we try to handle it, we don’t always get it right, sometimes we do.

White

Well, that’s pretty good summing up from you.  We could go on and I hope you will but we’ve run out of time.  Your comments very welcome on email and if you think we’ve sort of favoured one side or the other, we’ve reflected what emails we’ve had so far, so it’s up to you.  Email address: intouch@bbc.co.uk.  You can go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.  Meantime, I’ll keep searching for the right word.  Many thanks to our guests:  Tina Snow and Peter Wilkins, Dr Fred Reid and Selena Mills. 

From me, Peter White, producer Simon Hoban and studio managers Richard Hanniford and Philip Halliwell, goodbye.