I Found This a Bit Insulting

A few days ago, I came home from running some errand and found a flyer on my door.  It looked like there was one on every door in my apartment building.  I took the flyer and went inside and read it over.

It was a handy list of "Tornado Safety Tips," which apparently my landlord thought would be of use to all the tenants in the building.

The flyer listed signs that a tornado might be coming, including a low-hanging cloud that looks to be rotating (well, yeah, I guess that would be a sign of a tornado, huh?), debris dropping from the sky, and a "greenish-black tint to the sky."  I was immediately turned off because as a freelance writer, I have to do research and put accurate facts, based on reputable sources, in my articles.  I recently read something that said that a greenish-colored sky did not indicate an approaching tornado.

To be certain of my facts, I looked it up.  According to the Journal of Applied Meteorology, a green sky is a sign of severe weather.  Well, yeah, you usually don't see a green sky on a calm, sunny day.  But it doesn't necessarily mean a tornado.

If my landlord wants to help me  prepare for a possible tornado, I would appreciate accurate information.  But whatever.  That's not the part that I found most insulting.

The flyer went on to advise me to inform "the blind or deaf" about the weather conditions.  Because, what, they aren't bright enough to know what the weather is like?

I guess blind people wouldn't be able to see that green sky, but since that doesn't mean a tornado is imminent anyway, I'm not sure that really matters.  I haven't known many people with visual impairments, but there was a woman that used to live near me that was blind.  We took the same bus downtown to work, back when I was a social worker.  She was a social worker, too.  I'm guessing she was aware of the weather conditions.  When it was raining, she got as wet as I did, standing on the corner waiting for that bus.  She used her umbrella when it rained, zipped up her coat and put on her gloves when it was cold, etc.  She seemed to be as aware as I was about the weather, even though she could not see the sky.  I wonder if she would have appreciated me saying, "Hey, Mary Ann, it's raining" when it was raining.  I'm thinking not.

I've known quite a few people that were deaf and they all seemed to be aware of the weather, too.  Sometimes they would even tell me about the weather.  For instance, when I did volunteer work at a summer camp for kids with disabilities, some of them would sign to me, "It's hot!" on a particularly hot day.  I bet they would be aware of things like low-hanging rotating clouds and debris falling from the sky, too.

Besides the apparent assumption that people that are visually impaired or deaf must be too dumb to notice if the weather is bad, this flyer referred to them as "the blind and deaf."  Not people with visual impairments, not people that are blind, not people that are hard of hearing, not deaf people.  The blind.  The deaf.  Because of course they are all the same and the most important thing about them is their disability.  I'll have to write about person first language another time, but if you didn't know, it is appropriate to say "a person with a disability," putting the person first.  It is not appropriate to say "the disabled."