Ask McFartnuggets: “Do Blind Children Have Enough Role Models?”

Dear McFartnuggets: 

My young nephew is blind and I was wondering what kinds of role models can have a blind kid have? Automatically I would think of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles and Daredevil from Marvel Comics, but how can a blind kid know they’re blind without seeing that they’re blind? Don’t they just have to take our word for it? If that’s the case why not just tell them any musician they love is blind? And about Daredevil, he’s such a great role model for blind kids, except blind kids can’t read comic books! What kind of cruel trick is that? Do they even make comic books in braille for these kids? -- Paul from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Dear Paulie:

Blind role models are all around us even if we can’t see them. Anyone who’s out there living without vision to me can be considered a role model to anyone especially a young blind child. To all the blind people reading this right now you are awesome. I know they can’t literally read this, but you’d be surprised what technology is doing. I’m sure there are programs that can read text out loud or turn text into braille for people. Also, you can’t just tell a blind kid anyone is blind. It might work for a little while, but eventually enough people are going to correct them when they talk about how their role model is blind and they’ll figure out you were lying which leads to mistrust. Lastly, I don’t think they make that many comic books in braille unfortunately, but they do have audiobook adaptations which serve the same purpose for the visually impaired. Thanks for the question, Paul!

Homer was a great poet. There are a lot of blind role models out there you just have to look for them.

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