Thunder Dog - Michael Hingson [65]
After that, I began to look at life a little differently. My family became more precious. I took my faith more seriously and pondered my purpose in life.
A little over a year later, I was thrown off of an airplane. In the early ’80s, some airlines had begun harassing blind passengers, segregating them in bulkhead seats, taking away their white canes and stowing them in overhead bins, and forcing them to demonstrate their capacity to buckle and unbuckle seat belts. Blind people felt uncomfortable and in some cases were ejected from planes for refusing bulkhead seats.
In September 1980, I was refused boarding on a plane to San Francisco because the bulkhead seats were already taken. I waited for the next flight out and tried to board. Again, I was ordered to sit in a bulkhead seat. I refused. After discussions with the flight attendants, the captain, and the supervisor of ground personnel, I was forcibly ejected from the plane. My left arm was bent behind my back, my thumb was injured, and my watch was broken off my wrist. It was humiliating.
Most of the time, I prefer to defuse uncomfortable situations with humor, engaging people and trying to help keep every interaction positive. For example, airport security personnel often don’t know what to do with a guide dog and cause unnecessary delays by putting us through extra security checks. I have a choice to make. I can seethe with anger at the injustice, but if I went that route, I’d be angry most of the time. The truth is, I face discrimination every day. But persistent anger isn’t productive, and it isn’t fair to people who just don’t know any better. So I choose engagement. When security puts us through the wringer, I make light of it: “Go ahead and frisk Roselle. She loves it. Frisk her more!”
But that day on the airplane, my approach didn’t work. They were treating me like I was weak and helpless, and it was time to take a stand, just like my parents did when I got kicked off the school bus. Most people have no clue how blind people survive and function every day in the light-dependent world. When you are blind, most everything is risky. The world isn’t set up with us in mind. But we can and do cope. We use work-arounds, technology, creativity, persistence, and intelligence to overcome the barriers put in our way.
Later, I discovered the airline that ejected me had no blind seating regulation and that a blind person with a guide dog was allowed to sit in any seat on the aircraft. I was asked to testify about my experience at a public symposium with representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration and Delta Airlines.
Twenty years later, I was at work in the World Trade Center when four planes were hijacked and used to attack our country on September 11, 2001. The country has never been the same. Neither have I. There is grief and loss. There is also an opportunity for change and a chance to move forward. But to do that, we need to work together. That’s how the terrorists succeeded, with nineteen people functioning as a cohesive unit and demonstrating teamwork by planning, coordinating, and working together in secret to carry out the deadly attack.
To fight back, we must work together or suffer from our lack of unity and compassion for others, especially those who might look or act different from us. A wise man once said that all of us have disabilities; it’s just that most of them are invisible.
I am often asked if I believe that blind and other disabled persons are better off today than in the past. In some ways, I believe that we are. For example, Braille is easier and cheaper to produce now. Technology