I choose to laugh.  The alternatives are not productive.  Anyone living with an obvious disability has experienced it.  People go into verbal contortions to avoid using certain words deemed to be insensitive.  Sometimes I just tell people I’m blind now.  It’s easier to say. It’s true for legal purposes and functionally true in many situations.  I’ve used the term visually impaired most often I suppose because it’s more accurate and my dad used it, but that doesn’t sound much better.  “Almost blind” is my new favorite.  It’s the closest I can get to the truth of the situation, though I don’t think of myself that way.  This is all I’ve ever had, so to me it’s perfect vision.

I think the most uncomfortable appellation I’ve been saddled with is “sightless.”  I had never heard that one before at the time and thought no one else would have used it, but now I know others who do, some of them in fact sightless. So, there’s one less reason to take needless offense. I’m a big fan of calling a thing what it is.  All of us facing some kind of mental or physical insufficiency are lumped into one big category that has also acquired various politically correct labels over the years.  We’ve been disabled, a term I still use for the sake of peaceful coexistence.  We’ve been physically or mentally challenged.  We’ve been people with disabilities.  Then there are the real aberrations such as “differently able.”  What on earth is that supposed to mean?

My preference is probably the most politically incorrect of the bunch.  I think “handicapped” is actually the best word.  A common objection to this word is that it has its origin in the idea that people with disabilities had no option but to beg.  They had a cap in hand.

First, this is not true. Second, we get way too wrapped up in what was instead of what is.  Even if the supposed history of the word was correct, no one understands it to have that meaning today.  Generally, we know it to refer to one of two things.  It is either an adjective describing a person with a disability, or a noun used in competition to name an encumbrance placed on a contestant to equalize the field.  In fact, the latter is the true history of the word.  The handicap is put on the best horse to give the others a chance, so why would I resent that?  Bring it on.  I’m still going to win.