Say Anything Blog

Previously I’ve posted on a federal judge’s ruling stating that American currency is discriminatory to blind people and calling on the treasury to change our currency so that it is more easily utilized by the blind.

Today Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, has an op/ed calling on America for refrain from making any changes to our currency.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson was wrong when he ruled that U.S. paper currency discriminates against blind people.

Discrimination occurs when someone is barred from enjoying benefits, goods or services. African-Americans experienced discrimination when they were barred from eating at lunch counters or forced to sit at the back of public buses.

Blind people are not barred from spending money. When we hand merchants our money, they take it and provide us with what we have paid for. People with whom we transact business provide us with correct change, and we then fold or organize the money so that we can identify it in the future.

We transact business in this way successfully every day. The cost to society in changing machines that accept currency, such as vending machines and ATMs, will be much greater than the small convenience afforded to the blind by being able to identify money by touch.

Changes that make paper money more easily identifiable might be desirable to everyone who handles money. But the money should not be changed solely on account of the blind. We do not need such a dramatic change to accommodate us.

I think Mr. Maurer’s primary point here is that the blind, at least some of them anyway, don’t want to be victimized.  They don’t want the government and private industry to spend billions to change our currency just for the sake of a small bit of convenience.

I think that’s a admirable outlook to have, and I wish more Americans were capable of embracing it.