[Colorado-talk] SNL Clip of Gov. Paterson skit

[RyanO]

Chris, I certainly don't know this for a fact, but my guess is that 
Paterson's political advisors thought his self-deprecating humor about his 
blindness could only help him in his circumstances. We blind are well aware 
that the easiest way to make sighted people laugh is to joke about our 
blindness. I'm sure there are many psychological layers to this issue, not 
the least of which is that it helps to ease the awkward tension that sighted 
people feel when interacting with us.

Unfortunately, as you say, Paterson's humor came back to bite him. Without 
publicly demonstrating positive examples of his views about his blindness to 
counter his jokes, he left himself wide open.

I am not defending SNL at all. This skit, along with Blindness the movie 
still make me wonder why it is so acceptable to kick one minority while 
giving so many others a pass. Still, I think Paterson's credibility has to 
come into question a little bit here. What work has he done on behalf of 
disability groups (blind or otherwise) to bolster his outrage at the sniping 
from SNL?


RyanO