- I've gotta be honest. We can be shallow AF. (laughing)
- Yes! So shallow! (laughing) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Jubilee presents: "Spectrum", season five, episode five; "Blind People." We invited six blind people to see the range of their
beliefs and experiences. - Hey, I'm Alisha, and I'm 31. I live in Toronto currently, and I was diagnosed 10 years
ago as Stargardt's disease. - I'm Christine Ha, I'm in
Houston, Texas, United States. I'm best known for winning
"Master Chef", season three. - Hi, I'm James Rath. I'm legally blind since birth, and I'm currently in
Los Angeles, California. - I'm Lucy Edwards. I'm 24, and I'm based
in the United Kingdom, and I'm best known for being
the first ever blind presenter on BBC Radio One, and I'm also a YouTuber. - I'm Mario Bonds, I'm based in Maryland. I am best known from season
two of "The Glee Project, and the PBS documentary, "Blind Love." - Hi, I'm Molly Burke. I'm 26 years old, in
Los Angeles, California. I have retinitis pigmentosa
and I'm a YouTuber, motivational speaker,
and commercial model. - [Narrator] The first prompt is: Being blind has enhanced my other senses. Alisha. - Somewhat agree. - [Narrator] Christine. - Somewhat agree. - [Narrator] James. - Somewhat agree. - [Narrator] Lucy. - Disagree. - [Narrator] Mario. - Strongly agree. - [Narrator] Molly. - Agree. A lot of commentors say,
oh, are you Daredevil? And I think I just want to
smash this misconception. We don't have like
supersonic other senses. - Yes. The misconception that
we're somehow superhuman, that drives me nuts. But I think, if I leave out of my house, and I've ordered an Uber,
I know my driveway, right? So when I walk out of my
house, I'm totally blind. But immediately my ears say, okay, there's the engine of the car. I hear the incidental click
of the doors unlocking, and I instantly know where to reach out and
grab the door handle, and of course to the driver, they don't know a blind
person just got in their car. (laughing)
- Yeah. - I said somewhat agree because it's more so that I pay
attention to things more. So I don't think necessarily
that you get heightened senses. It's more so that you have
to depend on your other four senses when you lose your vision. - I said I agree because I lost the majority of my vision at 14, I've been legally blind from birth. And when I lost my vision, I immediately struggled to
adapt to my other senses. I really struggled with taste. I had to eliminate things like
garlic, onion, spicy foods. I also struggled with smell a lot. I would distinctly remember
being in a restaurant, and they burnt cheese, and I
had to leave the restaurant. This was the same year I went blind. So for me, that was like a truly immediate heightening of my senses, but things like my hearing and my touch, I would say are more based
on paying more attention. - [Narrator] Next prompt is: I prefer to date fellow blind people. - Ooh. (laughing) - [Narrator] Alisha. - Disagree. - [Narrator] Christine. - I disagree. - [Narrator] James. - Disagree. - [Narrator] Lucy. - Disagree. - [Narrator] Mario. - Disagree. - [Narrator] Molly. - Somewhat disagree. - I've been told that I'm
a pretty beautiful man. So I need to have somebody keep telling me that I still have myself together. (laughing) It's important people to know, just because we are
blind, doesn't mean that we're automatically gonna
have a blind partner. We live in the freedom of love
coming in whatever condition or situation it may be in. - I'm currently married
to someone who is sighted. When I think about it, I'm like, life is easier
because he can drive me around, or tell me if like a certain
ingredient is expired in the pantry, ever tell me if
I have food in my teeth. - I said somewhat disagree, because I don't prefer to date somebody who is or who isn't. I'm currently in a relationship
with a blind person. Prior to this, my partner
has only dated sighted women, and I've only dated sighted men. I don't care that neither of us can drive, 'cause we can still get around. I don't care that he can't
see some of the things that I can't either, because we
can find ways around that, like using apps, like "Be My Eyes", With my sighted partners in the past, there was only so much
understanding they could have of my lived experience daily. Whereas every day now, I get
to come home to a partner that completely understands my life experience. Me and Ollie have a
little bit of a different sort of love story. I saw him before I went blind. I went blind two months
into our relationship. So this may sound controversial, but I feel like he lived
my blindness with me. He felt all of the emotions that I felt as a 17 year old girl, feeling alone and having
this loss and grief. My sighted partner understands me as Lucy, and understands me as a blind woman, way deeper than I could ever
find in any blind partner, just because of what we've
lived through together. So we're getting married
next year, so yay! - Woo-hoo!
- Congratulations. - Thank you. - [Narrator] I'd love to ask
a follow-up question too. People were curious, are
blind people less shallow about romantic partners? - Oh!
- Oh. - Love this question, love it. - I've gotta be honest. We can be shallow AF. - Yeah.
(laughing) - Yes, so shallow! - One of the first things
I'm gonna notice is, what does your voice sound like? - Exactly. - Hair is a massive thing for me. I love when Ollie has his
hair cut, I love his beard. - I noticed the feel of nice hands the same way a sighted person
would notice pretty eyes. - Smell, smell, smell is so big. - Oh yeah, smell. - I get the sense of feeling. - Cologne's gotta be right. - You know how like, girls are like, are you into arms or abs? Like, I've always been like, I'm an arms girl, because
it's the first impression I have of a man. When he gives me sighted guide, I'm like, but how's that arm hair situation? How's that arm fitness? Like, what's that like,
you know, bicep like? Like I get my full scope of
his, you know, his make-up. - And there've been times where, you know, the whole side of her was like, oh, she doesn't look like
she belongs with you, but I did not care because
it's what I found to be attractive both by virtue of
personality and what she felt like to me and everything
like that was fine. - I am as shallow as my sighted friends, it's just in different ways. I do still experience physical
and sexual attraction, like any sighted person would, and so yes, I do have preferences of
height, of hair, of body type, - Oh, I would say the opposite, being legally blind actually, because I've been going
through the degeneration of my eye disease for the last 10 years. Like I was diagnosed when I
was 21, and back then I had different preferences for
what I was looking for, and now my preferences are more lifelong. Like is this person gonna stay by me as my vision degenerates? And because of that, I
don't look so much at what they look like,
because I can't see them as well as I used to, but
also because I need to know that they match me inside. - [Narrator] Unsolicited
help makes things harder. - I would say, somewhat agree. - I'm also somewhat agree. - Strongly agree. - Somewhat agree. - Somewhat agree. - Somewhat agree. - This happened the other day at the mall. And especially in a post pandemic world, I don't necessarily want
people getting up in my space. And it's hard to sort of police that as a blind person sometimes. I had a security guard just
literally take hold of me. He didn't even know where I was going. Then I told him and then like, I know where I am and I just
wasn't really comfortable with that scenario. And then I've had past scenarios
where I've actually been literally guided into traffic. It was kind of a scary scenario, and it just all happened so fast. I really didn't know how to react. - I've been in situations
where I've actually been cursed out for refusing help. "I'll get the door for you." "Oh no, please don't, I have it." "No, I'll get the door for you." "Oh no, I'm fine, I'm fine, I have it." "I'll get the door for
you", "oh no, I'm fine." "Damn, I was just trying
to help your blind ass." - Whoa.
- It was almost like as if I robbed them of a Cub Scout moment, but it's more of a respect thing. - I totally agree with you, Mario. I've got Google maps in my
bone conducting headphones, and I'm with Olga, my guide dog, you know, I know where I'm going. There's a lady who stroked Olga
as I was crossing the road. There's cars coming and
you're just like, wow, like where am I, what am I doing? Then obviously Olga's distracted. Then you're a bit off whack. And I think the motto here
should be just ask, don't grab. Just come up to me and say,
you know, "You look lost." "I'm Sally. I'm a passer-by." "You look like you need help." "Do you need any assistance?" And then that gives the
autonomy back to us and to say, actually, yeah, I would really love it. Or actually, no, I don't
need help right now. - So I chose somewhat agree for a different reason,
being as I don't look blind. When I look at unsolicited help, I think of it as advice,
they tend to give me advice. Like, you know, maybe
you just shouldn't work, because this is too much work for you. It doesn't boost the morale,
it doesn't actually help, and it actually hinders
and makes me feel like, you don't see me as
capable and independent. - I said, somewhat agree. I don't always know that I need help. So sometimes unsolicited advice or help is actually really beneficial
for me, but overwhelmingly, I generally will ask for
help if I do need it. You know, we have our process. I might have to sit through, you know, three cycles of traffic at an intersection if I've never crossed out
that intersection before, but I'm not lost. I'm just doing what I need to do to be safe and to
accommodate my disability, and I think all of us like
to have as much independence, as much freedom as we can have. And so sometimes interrupting us having independence and
freedom, can be frustrating. And it does feel like you're
underestimating our ability. - I will say though, that I appreciate it if my husband tells me my
cane's about to go into dog poo or something. - Fair enough, fair enough. - Well, yeah. That's my foot. Unwanted perfume. - [Narrator] The city I live
in is easily accessible for me. - Somewhat disagree. - Strongly disagree. - Somewhat disagree, - Somewhat agree. - Strongly disagree. - Somewhat disagree. - I spent many years in downtown
Los Angeles, which I love, but whenever people needed me
to like leave downtown to like go towards the beach side,
or go into the valley, or you know, LA is really
big and spread out, then it requires me to figure out, okay, can I combo this between like
the Metro and Uber with like the cost of, and then
considering the traffic. And that's why I'm actually in
the process of transitioning my life into a more
accessible city at the moment. - LA is not known for
having good public transit, and it's also just very expensive. I usually have to purely
rely on Uber and Lyft. I've chosen to live in a
very walkable area of LA, which is also very rare. We have the sidewalk braille, the nice bumps on the sidewalk. All of the crossings near me are either vibrating or tweeting. So for those reasons, yes,
my little area is accessible, but LA as a whole, not quite. - Because of what Molly and James said, I'm gonna flip from somewhat
disagree to somewhat agree, being that I live in Toronto, there's a lot of things that
I consider blessings here, but there are things that
I need that haven't been thought of, because again, a lot of times when they're trying to be accessible, accessible
is still an ideology that doesn't encompass all of us. Like, I love that when the buses come, there's audio announcements, but sometimes the drivers turn them off, and I've gone on the wrong bus, and gone the wrong way for half an hour, and then had to wander aimlessly. And because I can't see street signs, I don't know which way I'm going. - Yeah, I'm somewhat agree as well. Where I'm from in the UK, in London, we don't have tweeting
crossings, so that is so cool. We have a little cylinder at
the bottom, that sort of moves and spins around so we know when to cross. But I think London overall, I'm really lucky because
I have the underground. In the underground, it's all audible. Overall, black cabs are amazing. Me and the cabbies have
a good old chinwag, they're ever so friendly,
so if you're ever in London, definitely get in a black
cab, they're so sweet. - I said, strongly disagree. I live in Houston, which is
very much a commuter city, there are many parts of Houston that have either very terrible
sidewalks that need fixing, they're very crooked or
they're low hanging branches. I feel like where there
are a lot more pedestrians, it seems to be more accessible for those who are visually impaired, whereas like these wider spread
cities that depend a lot on cars getting to get
around like LA or Houston seems to be less accessible. - As a blind individual, I ended up paying a fortune
when I want to be independent. I ended up paying a fortune
in transportation costs. You know, I look at it like this, at any time I want to leave the house, it costs me a coin, so to speak. - And not only is it often, you know, more expensive to be blind because we do have to pay higher rent to live in these more
accessible neighborhoods, and just accessible technology and all of these extra costs in our lives. But also many blind people live in poverty due to lack of job opportunities. So not only is it more expensive, you know, we're lower income, overall. - Yeah, the huge point, you know, 80% of working age blind
adults are unemployed, and that the statistics
that have risen steadily since the 1970s, so that's
a really good point. - [Narrator] I am offended when blind is used as one of my
descriptive characteristics. - Disagree. - Disagree. - Disagree. - Disagree. - Disagree. - Strongly disagree. I strongly disagree with this because I think if I was to be offended, that means I'm ashamed, and I'm not. My blindness is yes, just a piece of me, but it is a large piece of me, and it's a large piece that has informed many of the other pieces of me. So call me blind, 'cause I am. Call me short, 'cause I am. Call me pale, 'cause I am. These are just facts about
me and they don't offend me. They don't upset me. They are things that I'm proud of, and that I wholeheartedly own. I do call myself the blind cook. People do know me as the blind
chef, so that I do own that, because that is a huge part of who I am. But I wouldn't say I strongly disagree, because I'm thinking of situations where I'm introduced at something, and then people say
like, oh, she's a chef. Oh, but she's also blind,
isn't that even more amazing? I don't want to be put
on this other pedestal in spite of my vision loss. - Yeah. it's interesting because I'm with Christine that
where it's a disagree. I do love it, that in the bio, blindness is the last thing on the list. I'm, you know, Mario Bonds, 32 year old singer
songwriter from Maryland. And then you can add, he lost his sight to Morning Glory syndrome
and blah, blah, blah. It's done in a respectable way. - I didn't say strongly disagree because I think being diagnosed at 21, a lot of who I am was still
being a sighted person, up until 21, and because of that, I have to honor that. - It's really important that
we're all that out there, shouting about the blind
message that we're united, and we're owning it because for ages, I didn't want to be blind. I went blind at 17 and
I didn't like the word. I lost my vision and I
don't know what to do. And I'm grieving and there's
a loss there and you know, what are these connotations
of this word blind? It's scary, you know? And I was that girl at school that didn't want to use her cane, and didn't want to own it
because there is still a lot of people out there that see the
tagline blind and go. ooh. And you know, it got a lot easier when I owned my mobility aid and said, right, I am coming out
as blind to the world. And in turn, I'm coming out
as myself, I'm liberated, I'm free, and this is me. And it just felt like you were breathing a sigh of relief. - [Narrator] Being blind has
affected my mental health. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Somewhat disagree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - So having been born legally blind, I never knew anything different. It wasn't until the kids
become more aware and stuff, and poke out differences
and really nag on those, that that's when I really
had that whole journey of my mental health, and being diagnosed with
mental illnesses and stuff. But that really, I don't
blame my blindness. I blame the individuals that
may have really resulted in my mental health deteriorating. And it wasn't actually until,
so I got like a surgery. It was experimental, I did regain vision for the first time and it was considered just visually impaired on the mark. And that only lasted for about two years. And then overnight, it
all just deteriorated, went back to how it was. And I didn't find happiness
until after I went blind again. I think it was 'cause this is how I'm supposed
to experience life, 'cause I feel like there's
a greater purpose for it in my life, and I got to
do something with that. - James, I appreciate what you said. I thought that was quite
powerful because I hadn't thought of it like that before, being
a person who has been in several situations where
I was taken advantage of, whether it was by a family member, whether it was, you know,
a teacher molesting me as a teenager, or even just more recently, whether it's kids being
kids, and kids trying to, you know, kind of get over
on their blind parent> Of course, I'm on it now. But all of those things,
you know, kind of bleed into one principle
theme that we are blind, and sometimes you're gonna
go to those emotional corners where I resent
being blind because of, you know, what people might do to, you know, weaponized my circumstance. So, you know, James, you really said something
that stuck with me there. - Mario, I appreciate
how you phrased all that, and shared all that. - It's hard, isn't it? It's one of those things where
you look back and you think, wow, why me? I guess that's what I did at the start. I was with my tub of Ben
and Jerry's, in my bed. Yeah.
(laughing) And I always that girl, I was the only girl in my
family, in my friendship group. Everyone sighted, me, wishing
she had her sight back, and you know, my organ
died in front of my eyes. Like, of course I'm gonna feel
low, you know what I mean? - It is a grieving process. It's definitely not just vision loss. It's the loss of losing
a sense of self as well. It's a loss of having hopes
and desires for a future that might not be what it is. It might be better, but
it won't be what you envisioned it to be originally. - Blind people are three times more likely to deal with depression and anxiety. So if you are blind and you
struggle with mental illness, you don't have to feel alone. We statistically are more
susceptible to struggling with it. And to me it makes sense, ultimately, we're living in a world that
isn't designed or created for us and we're making our way
and we're doing it and we're killing it, but it does
make life in certain circumstances, more difficult. - [Narrator] I have
experienced discrimination. - Somewhat agree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Strongly agree. - Ooh, I was the only one
that said somewhat, hey! - I wonder if the difference is, given we all use mobility aids. - Um, no, actually, there's
this intersectionality between living my entire
life as a black woman, and being, as I've only been
diagnosed with this disease and lived with it for the last 10 years, I can see a clear difference
between the discrimination of being black, versus the
discrimination of being blind. When I tell people that I've
gone through something or face discrimination as a black female, sometimes I'm met with doubt or kind of like pushing it to the side, or it's in your head or it's not that bad. Whereas I feel like people meet
me halfway when it comes to my vision loss, people find it admirable, and kind of attached to it,
identity as inspirational. It's a different energy and
it's a different temperature, which is why I said,
somewhat, not strongly. - As a blind black man. I can say that I've
experienced discrimination on both fronts. Unfortunately, you know, the
crux of me is really the arts. I did try out for "American Idol". There's several rounds of auditions you have to go through to
get on these reality shows, and this is like the first level of it. There at my guitar, and
I sing my heart out, and then the producer, he
stopped me and said, dude, normally we really don't
let blind people through, and even if we do, we don't
usually let them go so far, 'cause they can be so
difficult to deal with during production. But man, you're so dope, I got to say yes. - Is that supposed to be a compliment? - That type of stuff really can leave you feeling unaccomplished, because obviously you want
to be seen for your ability. You want to be seen for the
content of your character, but unfortunately that
doesn't always happen, and that can, a bigger plug
to an earlier conversation we had, that can sometimes be a catalyst for a plunge into, you know,
momentary depression as well. - I do feel like the bulk of
the discrimination that I face is due to my guide dog. And it's only getting increasingly worse, as the misuse of service dogs, and the use of fake
service dogs increases. I've been a guide dog
user for 13 years now. And over the last five, year over year, it gets worse and worse and worse, and I face more and more
and more discrimination. - I strongly agree. When I'm entering a taxi,
people see my guide dog, and not the person who needs a ride. I've had someone spit
at me, and swear at me. And you know, even though now I've found great taxi drivers in Central London, it still does scare me. - With the job related stuff,
I've been in those interviews. Everything seems to go well, they're giving me an estimation of like, when I'm going to hear back,
oh, it's gonna be next Tuesday. Yeah, we even want, you to
maybe even head this department. And then when you start
mentioning accommodations, then the conversation sort of shifts, and then next thing I know I
get an automated, you know, decline through email, 30 days later, instead of hearing back on that Tuesday. - Oftentimes people approach and you know, want to ask to take a photo. They'll always ask my husband like, is it okay if I take a
photo with Christine? There's just things like that that I think a lot of
people don't think about. I feel like when someone
asks somebody else if they are allowed to
take a photo with me, that I'm a lesser person, that, you know, I cannot make my own independent decision. - I know it's a sighted world, but I always find it
amazing that because of the preconceived notion of what
they think blind people should look like, or shouldn't look
like, that I'll be honest, I think it's ridiculous
that I even get things like, you know, there's no
way this guy is blind. He's muscular, and it's
like, what are you saying? - Yeah. - Blindness is quite rare, and I think the main place
that people get their opinion on what blindness must be like is through entertainment. Because I choose to put
myself out there online, and I don't, quote, look blind, or look the way people
think I'm supposed to as a disabled woman, I get
a lot of, she's faking it. You know, there's whole Reddit threads, there's whole blogs devoted to trying to debunk my blindness. And that's why representation
is so important. And that's why videos like this one is so important to watch, to share, because we need the education to spread, so that that ignorance is
combated with education. - [Narrator] If I could
regain my sight with a cure, I would want to. - Strongly agree. - Somewhat agree. - Strongly disagree. - Disagree. - Strongly agree. - Disagree. - If I was to get my sight back, I would love to see the
faces of the children that I've adopted, that would be amazing. - I said, disagree. My answer, probably a good four years ago, would have been the complete opposite. I'm gonna have my wedding next year, and there's so much of me
that wants to see Ollie's face when I'm walking down the
aisle, or my mom's face, or my sister's face,
or my dad's face again, because they have now
faded from my memory. That does hurt me inside quite deeply. And just thinking of the
milestones really in life. Having kids with Ollie in the future. But I think the reason
that my answer is disagree is because I have finally
come to accept who I am, and the fact that I really
do deeply believe now that life without sight
is truly beautiful. When I embraced that, that's when I don't want my sight back, I don't need it to feel
fulfilled, and to feel Lucy. - I said disagree like Lucy,
for many of the same reasons. At the beginning of my vision loss, I dealt with a lot of anger, resentment, I threw myself pity parties, asked why me? All I wanted was my sight back. In fact, I was literally
the youth ambassador for a charity whose sole
purpose was to fundraise to find a cure for my disease. And along my self acceptance
and self love journey, I realized how toxic
that mindset was for me. And that's where the social model versus medical model comes in. The medical model is the idea
that the answer to disability is curing it, which puts really the onus on the disabled person. We are the burden on society
and we need to change, be fixed, be healed, in order to be whole, or good enough, or fit into society. Whereas the social model
of disability says, actually the disabled
person is perfectly fine, and they aren't the problem at all. The real problem is
societies inaccessibility, with our infrastructure
in terms of, you know, the design of our buildings, and our physical space around us. But also our technology
and just everything we use and interact with on a daily basis. So for all of those reasons,
I don't want a cure. - So have gone through a bit of a process of trying to cure my sight, back when I was about 11 years old, feeling pressured to do
so in order to fit in. And it reverting back within two years, I was never happy during those two years, 'cause I wasn't doing it for me. It really didn't feel like I
was myself until I was able to really embrace my blindness. One in seven people in the
world have some form of disability and that may only
increase as time goes on. I know for me and the purpose that I'm here on this earth to do, it's to leave this world a more
accessible and accepting place than I found it. - I answered, somewhat agree. Ideally, I think I would
want my vision back for like, maybe a couple days, just so I can watch some foreign films. See what, you know, maybe
my friends and family look like now, but then I
feel like I don't necessarily want my full vision back forever, because I think I'm kind of at
the halfway point of my life, where I've lived half
of my life with vision, and half of it without. So it would be so different and difficult. And I think losing my vision put me in a position where I was forced to think outside of the box, and create opportunities for myself,
and be more courageous. But it would be kind of cool just to see what cars look like nowadays. - I've come more into myself, and kind of like what Christine said, there's a lot about all of our characters that couldn't have been,
wouldn't have been, had it not been the challenges
of losing our vision. And I feel like I could
take the last 10 years, and the character development
and take that forward, whether I'm visually impaired or sighted. - Yeah. I don't think I would
be the person I am today if I hadn't lost my vision. But past that, you
know, I really work hard to be the coolest blind Dad ever. My kids don't miss the beat. I'm able to chase and play
with my seven and 10 year old. I box with my teenagers. They think I'm Superman 'cause they see me work out all the time, and we play, and we do this, and we do that. I'm content just being super blind Mario. - I don't know about any of you, but sometimes when I
think about who I would be if I was sighted, like it's scares me. I'm like, I don't know
who that person would be. And I'm so happy with this
person, that I'm like, I don't want to see who she would be. This person's good.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Yeah. I don't need to think about that girl. - I wholeheartedly
respect everyone's journey and everyone's perspective. - Yeah. Definitely, blindness is a
spectrum and we're all so unique. - No, this was great. You guys, this is an amazing bunch. I'm so honored to meet everybody and just to hear perspectives. - Yeah. - Such a beautiful experience,
I loved hearing you guys. - James waves his hand. - Great talking to all of you! - So nice meeting all of you. - I hope we can all stay in touch. - Yeah, sounds good, it was
nice talking to everybody. - Bye! - I'm gonna go to bed now guys. - Night, take care, everyone. Stay safe.
“There’s whole Reddit threads, dedicated to debunking my blindness” AIGHT WHO DO I NEED TO YELL AT