Blind People Faking

Recently in the UK a government minister in charge of the department overseeing benefits including those for disabled people has been in the news suggesting many people are committing fraud by faking disabilities to get benefits. The same minister is also suggesting disabled people aren’t finding work because they’re lazy. This has resulted in lots of Twitter witch hunts where people feel they can tell people that they’re not blind if they can use social media, that unemployed people shouldn’t have phones, internet, telephones, cars, etc.

Well today (13 August) I saw a new campaign from RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) which has the photos in the collage in it.

People that shout about people faking it when a blind or partially sighted person is doing something they don’t expect need to look in the accessibility settings of their phones and video games. They also need to give their heads a wobble if they’ve ever spoken to Alexa, Siri, or Google to ask a question, or open an app.

As a long white cane user most times I go out I’m using my cane unless I’m putting rubbish in the bin. Also remember that most have remaining sight . The medical definitions of partially sighted and blind are such that with corrective lenses the remaining eyesight measured by acuity (how clearly the eye chart is read) and field of vision (how much of an angle can be seen).

My sight is extremely blurry beyond 4 inches from my nose and text is smudged 4 inches from my nose. And I have a thin sliver of blurry peripheral sight in my left eye. Someone else may have no peripheral sight but see almost perfectly as if they are looking through a drinking straw. We may have similar accessibility needs or differing needs.

I can never understand why people cannot recognise or accept that others have different personalities, perspectives, and needs.

When I was sighted people accepted my differences a lot more, just as they accepted not all sighted people wanted to wear pink, or watch horror films, just because one person loved to.

So until next time consider how you view other people. Be an ally and stand up for anyone being hassled as a fake because though the minister thinks otherwise getting benefits is so difficult more often people are turned down and then get them on appeal than are found to have made a fraudulent claim.