Dismissing fears that his blindness could mask a far-from-racially-blind worldview, sightless area man Richard Faye insisted on Sunday that he doesn’t even hear the ethnicity of those he interacts with.
“Sure, my disability gives me superhuman hearing,” Faye insisted, “but for me, all people are just indiscriminate blobs passing through my auditory plane. I don’t differentiate between black, white, Hispanic, or Asian sound waves. All people are children of the lord, and, in my ears, their voices ring free of racial demarcations.”
Faye explained that he lost his sight after a hit-and-run car accident in the 80’s, but that he has neither any idea nor any desire to learn what the race of his assailant was. “Seriously, I didn’t even look,” Faye assured reporters, “and then I learned that I couldn’t. But you know what? When that guy drove away screaming, I didn’t pick up any race at all. None.”
Asked about his volunteer work at his town’s Latino Community Center, Faye shrugged blankly, offering that he thought it was a board game enthusiasts’ club that happened to serve fajitas. “No wonder I always had so much trouble understanding the guy at the front desk,” he mused, “I could never place his accent- I was never sure if he was speaking with a Boston Irish lilt or if he was literally speaking Spanish to me. I just couldn’t tell.”
