FROM THE MAIL BASKET: MORE ABOUT HUMOR From the Associate Editor: The healthy role of humor in dealing with blindness continues to be a topic of interest to members of the National Federation of the Blind and readers of the Braille Monitor. Chris Kuczynski's article "The Child's Laughter and the Adult's Response" and Jim Burns's thoughtful reply (see the April, 1990, and the October/November, 1990, issues of the Braille Monitor) continue to evoke discussion. ABC's ill-considered sortie into blind humor last fall in the program "Good and Evil" demonstrates just how far astray it is possible to go when using what purports to be humor to comment on a disability. It is easy to draw the wrong conclusion from all this talk about the danger of encouraging people to laugh at blindness, blind people, and the amazing things that can happen to a blind person. Humor is a powerful tool, and like other such instruments, it can do much damage if misused. But in skillful hands it can be truly healing and provide powerful insights. The solution is not to avoid humor about blindness at all costs but to master it as a tool and make it work for us as we fight to win equality and independence. Recently I received a letter from a Federationist that raised this topic again and caused me to think further about the issue. Here are the letter and my response: Golden Valley, Minnesota January 1, 1992 Dear Barbara: About eighteen months ago I joined the National Federation of the Blind and have found the experience to be most positive. Though personal commitments have kept me from being very active in the local chapter, I have consistently read the Monitor and am continually impressed with its wealth of information and positive outlook. I am proud to be part of a group which has the guts to tackle a television network and see to it that characters like George [the blind character on "Good and Evil"] are taken off the air. While bumbling, inept portrayals of blind people like George are more stupid than funny, I firmly believe that there is a place for humor in relation to our efforts to educate the public. It would be a grave loss if, after the "Good and Evil" battle, persons were led to believe that laughter does not have a place in the efforts of people who are blind to continue their fight to become first-class citizens. I was a bit concerned to read in the December issue of the Monitor that, though it would be "healthy" for the public to be "ready and able to laugh at the funny things which happen to blind people," they will not be ready for this in the "foreseeable future." I am a free-lance speaker and writer and have found that humor used in conjunction with accurate information can be a most useful teaching tool. In the fifteen years I have been speaking to groups about issues related to blindness and physical disability, humor has been effective in the following ways: It breaks the ice. We all know that one of the greatest obstacles facing blind people is the discomfort which the public has concerning us. I've often found that relating a humorous experience (such as the fact that putting horseradish and peanut butter in a sandwich by mistake--I have no sense of smell--is a great way to get rid of colds) has elicited stories from sighted people about funny things they have done while cooking. This gives us common ground and makes them realize they are more like me than different. It knocks down the belief that blindness is depressing. Since most people think we sit in a dark world, where we are engulfed by sadness, humor quickly destroys this belief. Being able to show people that I can laugh at myself and the occasional goofy things I do demonstrates that I feel self-confident in my abilities and like myself well enough to laugh at my mistakes. It shows people abilities, not disabilities. People don't think that a blind individual who uses a leg brace and is often in a wheelchair can be independent. When I am showing them how a white cane works and giving demonstrations, they are surprised when I casually mention that the reason the cane I use for the demonstration is slightly bent is that it inadvertently slid from my bicycle basket and got caught in my bike spokes while I was riding. Members of the general public don't think blind people can bike by themselves. It promotes independence. The general public does not expect that a person in my situation would be out and about. In explaining to them that, because of my physical disabilities, I can use a cane but find it safer to use my guide dog, I gradually teach them that many of the humorous things which happen to me because of the dog occur because I travel without assistance and am not sitting at home twiddling my thumbs as they would expect. Humor, when used appropriately by blind people who know firsthand the reality of their situation, can be most effective in getting the word across. Sincerely, Maureen Pranghofer ____________________ That was the letter I received, and here is my response: Oberlin, Ohio February 11, 1992 Dear Ms. Pranghofer: Your thoughtful letter of January 1, 1992, has finally caught up with me, and I thank you for it. I am very glad that you enjoy reading the Braille Monitor, and I hope that you continue to find its pages encouraging and thought-provoking. I think that you and I are not as far apart on the question of humor about blindness as you may think. I, too, do a good bit of public speaking and find humor about my adventures as a blind person to be a valuable tool for teaching members of the general public about the inherent normality of blind people and the silliness of many of the preconceptions that they themselves have always held. The final sentence of your letter expresses my view exactly: "Humor, when used appropriately by blind people who know firsthand the reality of their situation, can be most effective in getting the word across." The reason that society is not ready for a situation comedy about blindness is that it is unlikely that well-adjusted blind people who understand blindness and are prepared to use humor appropriately will for the foreseeable future be television sitcom writers and actors. Even assuming that George's shenanigans on the unlamented program, "Good and Evil," were in and of themselves funny, the fact that they were dreamed up by sighted writers and executed by a sighted actor casts them into the realm of mockery. If blind people had, by some stroke of bad taste and worse judgement, written and acted that nonsense, they would have been engaging in self- mockery. Humor, then, for our purposes here is a constructive force when it is used and recognized as a way of bringing people to an understanding of their similarities. I am very careful in choosing the blindness anecdotes I use in speeches because many amusing stories will backfire when one's listeners presume that blind people are incompetent and innately inferior. I have heard a very funny story about a man whom I admire very much who walked into a women's rest room in a building with which he was not yet familiar. He was forced to take refuge in a stall, waiting for the women who entered after him to leave. Equivalently embarrassing things have happened to sighted people, maybe even having to do with walking into the wrong rest room through inattention. But an unsophisticated audience will always assume that the helpless blind man should not have been allowed to wander around loose, even if they do laugh at the story. Your example of putting horseradish on a peanut butter sandwich seems to me to be chancy. Its actual success probably depends on how you recount the adventure. If you mention that your sense of smell is not reliable and that this error would not ordinarily happen to a blind person any more than it would happen to a sighted one, it makes your point without doing any damage. After all, most people don't think that the blind can make a sandwich at all, with or without horseradish. I usually employ humor to help my audience laugh at the silly misconceptions of sighted people when confronted by a perfectly ordinary woman who happens to be blind and who is out and about in the community, doing all the things that they themselves do. Even if individually they would be inclined to act in the same way as the sighted people in my stories, by my inviting them to laugh at the silliness of the misconceptions, they find it easy and natural to abandon them and begin to see the world in the way I do. This, by the way, is one more reason for us to insist that it be blind people who take the lead in using humor in this way. When you or I stand in front of a group and tell funny stories about blind passengers' helping taxi drivers change tires or hotel personnel cutting up the meat for an entire room full of blind people because they assumed that no one could use a knife safely, our words have the ring of truth that may elude a sighted person. People are inclined to give the storyteller the benefit of the doubt. If we say a thing about blindness is funny, they are likely to accept that statement at face value. The trouble is that many blind people are wandering around, rubbing shoulders with the sighted public and trying to curry favor by making fun of themselves and the tools of blindness. I am thinking of the wisecracks we have all heard that suggest that an individual's guide dog is the smarter partner in the pair or that the reason that the speaker is not chicly dressed is that he or she chose the outfit and got dressed independently. These comments pass for humor and confuse people who do not know enough about blindness to write them off as ridiculous or needlessly self- deprecating. The appropriate use of humor about blindness is a subject that we in the Federation have been tossing around for years, and no end to the discussion is in view. Humor is a powerful and valuable tool, and we must learn to wield it expertly. Keep up the good work in public education. It is clear that you have the capacity to teach people about blindness while making them smile. Cordially, Barbara Pierce