(Or, Did I Really Want to Cross that Street?)

By Jennifer Dunnam and Steve Jacobson

It was a beautiful spring day, and even the air in downtown Minneapolis smelled fresh. She felt very good, having gotten great feedback on the training session she'd just conducted on web accessibility. And now, a quick errand downtown, and wasn’t there an Italian sandwich shop on the way? It would be just off the escalator on the fourth level of Gaviidae Common, as she recalled. Perfect — she’d stop there and pick up a quick dinner before heading home.

She entered the building and listened for the sound of the escalator. There was a cascade of sound — maybe a fountain, ventilation fans, and music — but where was that escalator? Hearing someone come through the door she had just entered, she turned and asked, "Excuse me, can you tell me where the up escalator is?"

"The what?" the stranger replied, "It's hard to hear in here, isn't it.”

"The escalator going up!" she said just a little louder.

"Okay, follow me." They walked what seemed like a long way and she suddenly heard a bell ring and the sound of a door opening that could mean only one thing.

"But this is the elevator!" she exclaimed in surprise and frustration.

"This is what I thought most people like you use, and I figured that was what you really wanted."

Rather than discussing it further, she jumped on quickly before the door closed. She had escaped from the not so helpful stranger, but had also left behind all of the good feelings of the day. She wondered what makes a stranger believe they know what you want more than you do. Finding the sandwich shop now would take a little more doing, but she would do it and take the escalator back down.

Some time earlier in downtown Minneapolis, he stood on the corner listening to the traffic and contemplating the nice weather when a woman dressed in business attire approached swiftly from behind him. He thought how it was too bad that everyone is always in such a hurry as he heard the pounding of hard-heeled dress shoes on the sidewalk. Suddenly, she hooked her left arm under his right arm and said without breaking stride, "come on, the light is green, let's go."

"But, but I ...” he started to say with surprise as he was propelled across the narrow street. Because she had hooked the arm he used to carry his cane, he could not use it properly and slightly tripped on the curb as they completed the crossing.

"It's a good thing I had a tight hold on you," she said, "and have a nice day." She raced off to who knows where and was therefore not able to see the expressions of surprise and frustration on the man's face. Before crossing, the man had been considering which street to cross at the corner depending upon which errand to tackle first. She would therefore have been confused had she heard him say to himself, "I guess I don't have to make that decision any more."

These are two examples of incidents that happen from time to time to many blind people, and in fact, both of the incidents above happened to the writers of this article, modified only slightly. Such encounters result in misunderstanding and even frustration at times, not just to those of us who are blind, but also for those who think they are being helpful. The complexity of the nature of offering and accepting help was brought home to us through something that happened when offering one another help. We'll present both sides of the story.

Steve's version: "I was hurrying to the chapter meeting after retrieving a cord I needed for the sound system from storage in the basement of our building, when I encountered Jennifer carrying some papers. A few sheets fell off the stack and glided across the room. Since I heard them land, I quickly walked over, picked them up, and handed them back to her. She thanked me politely, but I knew she was not particularly happy with me, and at the time was not certain why."

Jennifer: "I had just finished printing out several small documents in my office and was about to carry them upstairs. As I walked out the door, a page slid out of my hand and floated across the room. Steve came by, clearly in a hurry to get the audio equipment hooked up for the chapter meeting, which was supposed to start in mere seconds. When he heard the papers fall, however, he stopped. Without saying a word, he tracked down the pages, effectively preventing me from doing so, and handed them to me. I thanked him, of course — a kinder, more well-meaning person than Steve you’ll rarely meet — but I felt frustrated, just about as frustrated as I do sometimes when strangers are over-helpful. I could have found the papers just as easily as he did, and I was not in a hurry as he was. Of course, I understand the normal desire to help when a mishap occurs, and this would have been no big deal at all had it been an isolated instance, but this wasn’t the first time I felt over-helped, and I wanted us to reach an understanding since we work together very often."

As a result, we later discussed the nature of help, why it is offered, when it should be accepted and how it can be gracefully declined. It was enlightening to explore this subject on a situation in which sight and blindness were not a part of the equation as they usually are. One outcome of our discussion is a much better working relationship, but we understood much more about the nature of help as well. We realized even more clearly that help is complicated. It is really only "help" when the person receiving it feels as though it is. If two friends experience the complexities of help, is it surprising that things do not always go smoothly between strangers? Also, problems associated with giving and receiving help are not associated with blindness alone. Nobody wants to be offered help based upon the assumption that we are not capable of performing a given task. The above experience that we shared was the motivation to try to explore this issue through this article.

In our first two examples, there were more issues involved than just providing help. The woman, whom we will call Jennifer for the purposes of this article, already had a general idea of where the escalator was and could eventually have located it herself. She had asked for help that would, if given as requested, have made the process a little faster for her and brought little if any inconvenience to the passerby. He was willing to help, but his assumption that he knew best how to help made him unable to listen to what was really needed, causing inconvenience to both of them by taking them each a long distance out of their way.

What about the surprised man about to cross the street? We'll call him Steve to add a personal touch. What considerations made up his surprise and frustration? First, because of how the help was given, the hooking of his cane arm, he tripped on the curb making the helper feel justified in helping without realizing she had actually caused him to trip, reinforcing her feeling that help was required. Also, he was never asked if he needed help, not unlike what he did when he picked up Jennifer's papers without asking. Because of his handling of the street crossing, the woman would be even more certain next time that her assumption that help was needed was indeed correct.

Consider the reasons a sighted stranger may try to help a blind person. Sometimes help may be offered because of a look of confusion, frustration, or hesitation on our part. However, it is mostly offered when a blind person is about to undertake something that most sighted people cannot imagine handling without being able to see. What that means is that we are likely going to use an alternative technique that is mostly unknown to the person offering assistance, which means he or she has little idea how we're going to manage without help.

Besides this, we are individuals with differing strengths. Someone else may have gratefully accepted the help not needed by one individual a short time before, which can add confusion as well.

So why don't we just avoid the confusion and accept all help that comes our way? Why is it important enough to give this much thought to it? After all, people who are not blind help one another all the time, don't they? Well, as mentioned earlier, there are times when, even among persons having regular vision, care needs to be taken when offering help, but we'll leave that for another article. The reason we need to examine this topic is that we who are blind have a heritage in which “help”, generally considered a good thing, has too often stemmed from a lack of confidence in our capabilities and has been the agent of thwarting our independence and taking away our opportunities. We know that too much help comes at a great price, and we have worked very hard to achieve the independence we have, so that we can be fully participating members of our society. This very same desire to be integrated into society, however, requires of us that we find ways of dealing with unneeded help that educate people rather than just putting them off. We often find ourselves on the one hand not wanting to appear rude, and on the other hand not wanting to sell ourselves out or send the wrong message to others by accepting unnecessary help. It is not easy at all, but realizing that there is a basis for our feelings is a starting point for sorting out how to deal with the problem effectively.

Especially when alternative techniques are new to us, it can sometimes be easier to accept help than to do without that help. However, it is a little like having someone else do your homework, the job gets done but nothing is learned. We are also teachers, whether we choose to accept that role or not. When we demonstrate that we can do something, that we can handle a given situation, we teach those around us what can be done. If we are thoughtful, we can teach the public that we are individuals with different strengths. It is therefore only natural that each of us may react differently to an offer of help.

As Steve approached a long and curling line of people at the Twin Cities airport, a worker said to him, "Where do you need to go?"

"I need to check in for my flight to Baltimore, and I don't have a boarding pass yet. Is this the correct line?"

"Come right over here and I can help you," the worker replied.

"Is that really the line, though? It seems entirely too short."

"No, this is first-class check-in, and nobody is flying first class these days."

"I'm afraid I'm not flying first class, either, and I would like to take my place in line. Where is the end?"

"It is no problem at all, I can help you right here."

Steve replied firmly, "I know you are trying to help, but I really do not want to be given special help that I don't need. I have plenty of time before my flight leaves. Please just let me know where the end of the check-in line is."

The worker was silent for a moment or two, and then he said, "I guess you probably get tired of being treated special, especially when you don't need it." He then gave Steve clear instructions and he took his place in line.

Not every attempt to redirect help turns out this well, but this time the worker truly thought about it and understood. What is more, though, a message was also sent to everyone else who was standing in line — that a blind person is perfectly capable of standing in line with everyone else.

Several months ago, Jennifer was asked to pre-board an airplane when leaving Washington D.C. When she said she had flown often and would have no problem boarding with the other passengers, the gate agent actually became angry and walked away in a huff, apparently not understanding that it would be hard to get lost on a jetway. Of course, when Jennifer did board, she waited in line on the plane while those ahead of her situated themselves. Clearly, she had not delayed anyone. Who knows if the gate agent observed her and learned anything or not, but the passengers, not being aware of any confrontation, certainly saw a capable blind person board right along with them. Jennifer’s purpose in not pre-boarding, however, had very little to do with proving anything to anyone. Even though the gate agent had no concept of how it would work, to board the plane during general boarding was very normal for Jennifer — a non-event — and she didn’t see a reason to do it differently this time.

Confrontation is not always much fun, but accepting help we don't need results in loss of control over our own lives, sending the wrong message to those around us, and just plain making us feel small inside. Repeatedly accepting help that is not needed can even cause us to begin believing we do need it at some level.

We all know where the road paved with good intention leads, but we should not forget that most help is offered with good intentions. Certainly, it is true that some people offer help for other reasons, too, but disregarding good intentions won't help us in the end, either. Therefore, how we indicate that help is not needed is a delicate challenge, and each of us has to figure out ways to handle it by developing our own help strategies. These will be different for each of us depending upon our personalities, but it is something that we should think about ahead of time so that we’re ready when the next situation arises. Every situation is different, and there is a range of options, but preferably, we will find strategies that involve neither reacting with anger nor routinely accepting help that is not really needed. If we understand the nature of help, and why we feel as we do, we can develop a strategy for handling it in a way that preserves our control over our lives, enlightens others about the truth of blindness, and maximizes the chances that we will build bridges rather than walls.

In the National Federation of the Blind, we work to let people know that being blind does not automatically mean needing help, and that blind people expect to give help and not just receive it. Throughout our activities, we try to model what we would like to see in the larger society by creating an environment of normal expectations for everyone and working from the assumption that people are capable of doing for themselves and will ask if they need help. If we offer help, we leave the option to decline it, and we listen if different help is needed. We teach and learn from one another, directly or by example, the skills to do something independently that we once may have thought required help. Finally, we assist each other to find the best ways of dealing with the complexities of help and at the same time being independent. This aspect of the NFB is essential and benefits each of us as we live our daily lives as part of our larger communities, and it goes a great distance toward improving opportunities for blind people everywhere. Developing a strategy for accepting and declining help won't just happen, though. We need to consider the complexities and discuss approaches with one another. Perhaps what we have written here can provide a good place to start.