How Do The Blind See Race?

After seeing the movie Ray, Professor Osagie K. Obasogie found himself “struck by the way in which Mr. Charles’s lack of vision did not seem to diminish his racial sensibilities” that Obasogie researched racial awareness in the blind community. In an interview, he discusses the resulting book, Blinded By Sight:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Your research has revealed some of the ways in which blind white people and blind black people first learn how to “see” race conceptually. What were some of the major differences you found in how these two groups experienced race?

Osagie K. Obasogie: The differences track rather closely to the different way that race is experienced by sighted whites and blacks. For example, both sighted and blind White respondents tend to see race as something that other people have, i.e. race is something that minorities experience while being White is thought to be “raceless” and remains the default norm. On the other hand, sighted and blind minorities tend to have a much deeper personal connection to issues of race.

One thing of interest that came out of the interviews is that several blind White people that I spoke with used their physical disability to analogize to the social disabilities associated with being a racial minority. These respondents would describe experiences in which other people discriminated against them because of their blindness and then assert that these experiences gave them insight into what it is like to be Black or any other minority. It’s interesting how some blind White respondents were able to see connections between their discriminatory experiences and other marginalized groups to create a sense of solidarity in how society can develop stereotypes and treat people unfairly. But it’s also interesting to note that none of the blind respondents of color analogized between race and disability in this manner; they viewed their discriminatory experiences connected to race and disability as being largely distinct. So, this perception that being blind provides insight to what it’s like to be Black may very well be a unique way in which Whiteness plays out in the White blind community.

In an excerpt from his book, Obasogie elaborates:

After conducting over a hundred interviews with blind individuals—people who have never seen anything, let alone the physical traits that typically serve as visual markers for racial difference—one consistent theme resonates throughout the data. Blind people understand and experience race like everyone else: visually. That is, when asked what race is, blind respondents largely define race by visually salient physical cues such as skin color, facial features, and other visual characteristics. But what stands out in particular is not only blind people’s visual understanding of race, but that this visual understanding shapes how they live their lives; daily choices, experiences, and interactions such as where to live and whom to date are meditated by visual understandings of race in the blind community as much as they are among those who are sighted. Despite their physical inability to engage with race on the very visual terms that are thought to define its salience and social significance, blind people’s understanding and experience with race is not unlike that of sighted individuals.