I'm skeptical about the whole topic, but given that so many people have expressed that they gained from them as students or teachers my inclination is to think "good for them." I wonder though if the results haven't been as good for other people, who may
have thought they learned something but didn't.
I do think that there are better and worse and much worse simulations, and in general the better ones are the simplest and no one would claim that as a result they "know what it is like." The former director of the CIL here used to ask his audiences to
shut their eyes and then ask if they stopped thinking about their next meal, their appointments with friends, or what they'd be doing an hour from then. Of course they didn't and his point was that an awful lot remains the same whether you are blind (as he
was) or not. The example he liked to give of what he couldn't do was skeet shooting, which he'd never done or had a desire to do before he wasn't blind.
I've never done this but am seriously tempted. I'm told that for many people stuffing their mouths with marshmallows will produce speech like mine. Then because everyone will know how I think I can go home.
The other simulation which has some practical effect is the closed fist which can't open round door hardware, but can open lever type. On the other hand for many people the open hand will open either type. But how that teaches anything other than
different ways of opening a door is beyond me.
I do think it's possible but very difficult to add things that can be simulated if there's an attempt to draw correspondence between the simulation and reality. I don't think that most simulations do this, however.
Black Like Me influenced me a lot in junior high. The sad part is that African-Americans had been writing about these things for years. Why did white people like me find it unfair only when they happened to someone who was really white? I think that
Griffin was in the role for about a year; is that at all comparable to a simulation that lasts an hour? And for the time that he was researching for the book everyone presumed he was Black. Do people have a similar presumption during disability
simulations? Or do they think "that person isn't used to using a wheelchair"?
Elliot's presentation works very well at illustrating some issues with some people. She spoke at my university and repeatedly asked "would everyone who X please stand?" She speaks a lot to seniors and that evening there were only two of us who never
stood. I was surprised that she didn't make a small point but I'd have felt uncomfortable if she had made a major one. I'm sure she wouldn't say that small minorities don't matter. I've got a problem with people who assume that attitudes rather than
social conditions determine everything. In reality it's both but I think someone can have great attitudes on issues of race and disability, but still getting a job, housing, and transportation will mean that she or he reinforces inequality.
Art
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