It happens too often. I inform someone that I’m colorblind, and they’ll follow up with the same thoughtless reaction -- although, I wished they wouldn’t. My most recent example is a girl in one of my classes.
"Wait, you're colorblind!?" she frantically asked, as if she'd discovered some new creature.
"Yeah," I answered.
"Are you lying or something?” she asked.
"Yes, Ruth, I'm lying,” I sarcastically answered back. "'Cause being colorblind is a social marker for cool people."
"How do you know!?” she continued asking, firing questions with both amazement and confusion.
"I took the colorblind test when I was a child, and I learned I'm colorblind," I explained. "So if a color is within the red or blue spectrum of light, I can't really tell what color it is."
With eyes as big as her curiosity for my slight disability, she quickly pointed to her blouse and asked, "So what color is this?!"
"I don't know, Ruth," I irritatedly answered. "I just told you my eyeballs’ life story."
"I just wanna see if you're lying or not," she answered. "That's so cool!"
I sighed.
Is it really “cool?” I'd say that 99 percent of interactions that have me telling someone that I suffer from colorblindness result similarly; someone thinks I'm making it up, and they want to test me by pointing at some object and asking, “So what color is this?” So the thing is -- no, I don't know what color that is. I'll probably never know.
According to the National Eye Institute, colorblind individuals, “Aren’t aware of differences among colors that are obvious” to those with normal color vision. Colorblindness occurs when defects in the photopigment cells occur, such as deformation of the retinal cones within the eyes, or a complete absence of the cones in rare cases. Colorblindness is most common in males rather than females because the gene responsible for the mutation is in the X chromosome. Colorblindness, in most, if not all cases, is incurable and lasts for a lifetime. In other words, when all of this is set and done, you’re left with someone who lives life uncomfortably because of people’s inconsideration and mild incredulity.
Even the way I discovered that I’m partially colorblind made me feel uneasy. I had just started kindergarten in a Catholic grade school. My teacher continuously complained to my mother that I drew “incorrectly.” Although, to my defense, I’m sure she just didn’t understand the concept of subjectivity. “He colors the sky purple, and the trees red. This is uncalled for,” she would say.
My mom didn’t pay much attention to it, and neither did I -- there was nothing wrong with my artistic liberties. But one day, the teacher walked past me and saw me coloring an apple brown. I guess that was her tipping point. She yanked me by the arm and scolded at me. “I will teach you how to draw properly!” she called out. She then spanked me.
When my mom found out about the incident, she was outraged. However, she felt concerned for her son’s disobedience against uniformed coloring. She took me to the eye doctor to see if I needed glasses, but a few tests later, we found out I’m colorblind. Ever since I can remember, I never paid much attention to it. Others certainly did.
Similar to going up to a person who can’t smell, while being aware of it and asking, “So what’s your favorite scent?” -- it’s rude, tasteless, and frustrating to be asked about a certain color when you yourself don’t know what it is. Whether it’s curiosity or facetious motives, it’s uncalled for. To this day, I wish people could be just more attentive with their reactions to someone’s colorblindness. Let's live life and treat colorblind individuals with some sensitivity. I get it: we can’t see color correctly. But, I promise, we’re still sensible people.
Source: “Facts About Colorblindness;” Eye Health Information. National Eye Institution. Feb 2015; nei.nih.gov.
