Can’t You See I’m the Cutest Girl in the Room?

In his blog post “Sight Privilege and You,” Anthony Butler, a blind New School student, writes: “A blind student’s life is based on routine.” I met Anthony outside the University Center at noon on a Thursday to witness his routine first hand. We were both hungry. He asked me where I wanted to go. I told him I wanted to go where he always does. He asked to hold my arm for guidance, and the two of us were off to Chipotle, arm in arm on the sunniest day all year.

As soon as we walked into Chipotle, he remembered the lunch special at Benny’s Burritos and then proceeded to guide me across the width of Manhattan to a corner restaurant in Greenwich Village where they have two-dollar margaritas. If you’re living a life based on routine, make sure you put together a nice regimen. “On Thursday nights I’m always at this karaoke bar. Everyone expects me to come at them with 2 Chainz or something, but I always do ‘Drops of Jupiter’ by Train. I love that.”

The waiter at Benny’s Burritos sassed us. He didn’t realize Anthony was blind, and instead thought he was just a picky customer, taking his time choosing a good spot to sit, taking too long to find his ID. Anthony didn’t correct him until it was absolutely necessary. I didn’t blame the waiter. Aside from his cane, there’s nothing seemingly handicapped about Anthony.
“A lot of the time people can’t tell I’m blind. They just think I’m a guy who wears shades inside. Girls are always walking up to me and taking my sunglasses off, it’s crazy,” Anthony said. “Like this one time I was in the club and this girl just walks up to me and starts grabbing my sunglasses. She’s all ‘let me see your eyes.’ I was like, ‘why are you doing that?’ And she was like, ‘aren’t you going to buy me a drink? Can’t you see I’m the cutest girl in the room?’ I was like ‘no, actually, I’m blind.’ And then she bought me a drink… so sometimes it works out!”

Anthony’s blindness can easily go unnoticed because he is aware of what the world looks like. He has not always been blind.

“It was so weird,” he said. “It was so weird.”

Anthony, now 26, lost his sight when he was 20. He was on the subway one night with two girls when a teenager started flirting with one of his friends. “So I egged him on, you know? Like, why don’t you ask for her number?”

A week later, in a completely unrelated event, Anthony was approached by a group of teenagers on the street. They asked if he’d jumped one of their friends at a house party.

“It wasn’t me, I was too old for house parties, you know? But then one kid pulled out a gun.” The sixteen-year-old who shot Anthony was the kid who had been flirting with his friend on the subway a week earlier. “I don’t think he remembered me. And he shot me. Like, bullet lodged in the head. It was so weird.”

Anthony woke up in the hospital, blind and handcuffed to a bed. There was no TV, no radio, no phone, no visitors allowed. “There were some warrants out for my arrest for dumb stuff  — drugs, hopping the subway turnstile… So I woke up in solitary confinement for four days. And I was like, this is it. This is what they talk about. This is real, you know. And I just decided I’m not going to go crazy. And I didn’t.”

Anthony’s taco salad comes, but he sends it back. There’s guacamole and the taste is too intense. “I have to use baby toothpaste now, the taste of the regular stuff is so intense ever since I went blind. It makes me gag. I’ve become a very sensual person.” Anthony is a musician. He raps and makes beats under the name Live with the group Xtrordinary Music. The group’s description says the following about Anthony’s incident on their website:

“After the shooting many thought that music would be over for the wounded warrior but the situation only left him with a bigger chip on his shoulder.”

We leave the restaurant and Anthony unfolds his guide cane. He always carries an extra with him. “People step right on them. I’ve gone through eight.”

The two of us walk to school together and Anthony talks about how he’s trying to become a social worker and go to Columbia for grad school. We get back and he’s the first in class. Discussion breaks out and Anthony can’t see whose hand is up. He can’t see when it’s his turn to talk. But still, he just knows, and speaks up at all the right moments.

You can read Anthony’s article “Sight Privilege and You” here.

Listen to his music here.