Within moments, several right-wing accounts posted the same video from 2022: a video of Vice President Harris sitting at a table and addressing a group of people, where she introduces herself by listing her pronouns and describing her clothing. She says, “Good afternoon, I want to welcome these leaders for coming in and having this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time. I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.
”The event was attended by a room full of disability rights leaders. According to White House Correspondent Andrew Feinberg, who stated that he was the print pooler at the event, “she was talking to a room of disability activists, including people who are/were blind.” Using descriptive terms to indicate who you are, your appearance, and what you are doing is a common technique to improve accessibility for audience members who may be blind. The Disability Visibility Project says of the practice, “A self-description provides information about a person that non-blind people passively glean. This includes identity characteristics such as skin color, gender identity, hair length and texture, wardrobe, and more.”
I would feel really weird doing that because my physical appearance is irrelevant to anything I might have to say. Same reason my Lemmy profile says nothing about what I look like.
Are you a public speaker? How often do you present yourself to an audience of people with vision impairments?
No one is forcing you to do this in daily life. Kamala did it as a show of empathy and to better connect with people who are visually impaired. It doesn’t harm anyone and provides additional context to those who need it.
I’m not saying she’s wrong for doing it. Allow me to quote my reply to someone else:
I’m just skeptical of a lot of ways people change their language and speaking habits to supposedly be more inclusive, because a lot of it seems like either empty virtue signaling (the real kind, not the right-wing bastardization of the term), or just an eagerness to be accommodating that precludes thinking critically about whether a proposed accommodation is actually helpful. On one hand, I know I’m biased against unfamiliar norms, so the fact that I find a lot of them distasteful doesn’t mean they’re bad. On the other hand, I know some progressive language choices are not well accepted by the very people they’re supposed to benefit. For example, I’ve read a majority of Latinx people don’t like the word Latinx, a lot of homeless people find “unhoused” to be patronizing, and a lot of Black Americans prefer Black over African American. If political correctness is just a fancy way of saying treating people with respect, I think what I’m talking about could be called political hypercorrectness (by analogy with hypercorrection, i.e. trying so hard to be respectful that you end up being less respectful.
I’m currently on the fence about the trend of people describing their appearance as part of an introduction. I haven’t heard anything one way or the other about it from blind people, but I have a really hard time seeing how a person describing themselves visually would be useful to someone whose experience of the world doesn’t include vision.
I’m not sure I buy it either, but consider mandate to return to work, or even mandates to have cameras on for a conference call. Some of us may be fine with an unconnected voice or text but clearly a lot of people believe it’s helpful to be more face to face or interactive.
To me, this makes the same sense. If it’s helpful to interact with my colleagues more directly or more present, how is it any different here?
Then again I mostly interact with disembodied voices and texts, and am not aware of any sight impaired
I’m just skeptical of a lot of ways people change their language and speaking habits to supposedly be more inclusive, because a lot of it seems like either empty virtue signaling (the real kind, not the right-wing bastardization of the term), or just an eagerness to be accommodating that precludes thinking critically about whether a proposed accommodation is actually helpful. On one hand, I know I’m biased against unfamiliar norms, so the fact that I find a lot of them distasteful doesn’t mean they’re bad. On the other hand, I know some progressive language choices are not well accepted by the very people they’re supposed to benefit. For example, I’ve read a majority of Latinx people don’t like the word Latinx, a lot of homeless people find “unhoused” to be patronizing, and a lot of Black Americans prefer Black over African American. If political correctness is just a fancy way of saying treating people with respect, I think what I’m talking about could be called political hypercorrectness (by analogy with hypercorrection, i.e. trying so hard to be respectful that you end up being less respectful.
I’m currently on the fence about the trend of people describing their appearance as part of an introduction. I haven’t heard anything I’ve way or the other about it from blind people, but I have a really hard time seeing how a person describing themselves visually would be useful to someone whose experience of the world doesn’t include vision.
Curious, why did she describe her clothing, exactly
For vision impaired people.
ERRRRHMAHGAWD, now I understand why the right is so upset…the horror of being decent to others!
/me staggers to fainting couch, clutching pearls and clawing at some smelling salts…
How dare our leaders have empathy towards others?
Only the most ruthless, puppie-murdering sociopaths are fit to rule. And the more narcissist they are, the more I trust them.
Oh oh oh That’s cool
I’m still unclear on how that’s supposed to help them. Is it only for people with, like, bad vision but who aren’t blind per se?
I would feel really weird doing that because my physical appearance is irrelevant to anything I might have to say. Same reason my Lemmy profile says nothing about what I look like.
Are you a public speaker? How often do you present yourself to an audience of people with vision impairments?
No one is forcing you to do this in daily life. Kamala did it as a show of empathy and to better connect with people who are visually impaired. It doesn’t harm anyone and provides additional context to those who need it.
I’m not saying she’s wrong for doing it. Allow me to quote my reply to someone else:
I’m not sure I buy it either, but consider mandate to return to work, or even mandates to have cameras on for a conference call. Some of us may be fine with an unconnected voice or text but clearly a lot of people believe it’s helpful to be more face to face or interactive.
To me, this makes the same sense. If it’s helpful to interact with my colleagues more directly or more present, how is it any different here?
Then again I mostly interact with disembodied voices and texts, and am not aware of any sight impaired
not everyone is so enlightened
Do I detect sarcasm?
I’m just skeptical of a lot of ways people change their language and speaking habits to supposedly be more inclusive, because a lot of it seems like either empty virtue signaling (the real kind, not the right-wing bastardization of the term), or just an eagerness to be accommodating that precludes thinking critically about whether a proposed accommodation is actually helpful. On one hand, I know I’m biased against unfamiliar norms, so the fact that I find a lot of them distasteful doesn’t mean they’re bad. On the other hand, I know some progressive language choices are not well accepted by the very people they’re supposed to benefit. For example, I’ve read a majority of Latinx people don’t like the word Latinx, a lot of homeless people find “unhoused” to be patronizing, and a lot of Black Americans prefer Black over African American. If political correctness is just a fancy way of saying treating people with respect, I think what I’m talking about could be called political hypercorrectness (by analogy with hypercorrection, i.e. trying so hard to be respectful that you end up being less respectful.
I’m currently on the fence about the trend of people describing their appearance as part of an introduction. I haven’t heard anything I’ve way or the other about it from blind people, but I have a really hard time seeing how a person describing themselves visually would be useful to someone whose experience of the world doesn’t include vision.
no sarcasm
it would be awesome if people could interact purely with ideas more often, but it’s rare
That video would make me want to vote for her even more. Good on those trolls to further her election campaign.
I couldn’t stomach it, but I fantasize about running as a GOP candidate and once elected doing the opposite of what that party wants.
I’ve thought this exact thing as well. Why do Manchin and Sinema get to have all the fun?!