9 common questions I get asked about color blindness
Over the course of my short life, I have been asked many, many questions about colour blindness. Some very insightful questions and some just downright stupid ones. In this blog I want to go over some common questions I’ve received over the years and answer them, so hopefully you out there can learn something new.
Q1
Does that mean you can’t see anything?
No. That's just normal blindness. I more or less see everything the exact same way you do, just some of the colours look different. For example I can see that a tree is a tree, however you might say it's green and I will say it's brown. Interestingly enough, I do have a hard time finding things. If we played hide-and-seek and you hid in a field of red roses, with a brown hoodie, I would have a hard time finding you, as all the colours just look like brown to me.
Q2
Does that mean you see everything in black and white?
Again, no. I don’t see everything in black and white. However, there is a rare condition called monochromacy, which affects 0.003% of the population, that makes everything look like an old movie. These people I truly feel sorry for, as with most colour blind people they can more or less learn their way around life and can make connections like 'grass is green' and 'the sky is blue', just from what other people say, but these people don’t even have a point of reference! That's all they have seen! How do you even begin to explain what that's like?
Q3
When you were young and your parents said eat your greens, did you get confused?
Ah, a more lighthearted question. No, I never did. Like what I touched on in the last question, most colour blind people know what colour most common things are without being able to see that colour. In primary school you learn things like 'roses are red' and 'the sky is blue', so you just know things are that colour. You don’t have to see it for it to be true. I guess I just always knew that 'greens' means vegetables. Didn’t mean I ate them though!
Q4
What if everyone else is colour blind, and you’re the only one who sees the world like it actually is?!
If I had a penny for every time I heard this one. This is just so wrong on so many levels. First off, it’s just a lot more convenient to see colours. Everything is colour coded in today's world, so people with normal colour vision can get around super easy, but I can’t. People seem to take their vision for granted. Almost everything I do in life requires a bit more effort, because I can’t see colour: signs are difficult, video games are difficult, even driving is a struggle (when I am old enough). The day anyone is diagnosed with colour blindness, instantly career choices are out the window. I essentially have the vision of a dog, and if you think dogs see the world as it really is, then you are sorely mistaken.
Q5
If you’re colour blind does that mean you are not allowed to drive?
Yes I am still allowed to drive (I hope), but people in other parts of the world aren’t so lucky. In Romania, if you are colour blind, you are not allowed to have a driver's license. I do understand the reasoning behind it. However, I have found work-arounds involving most things that have got to do with driving, like traffic lights, or indicators. That being said, being colour blind means I can’t be a pilot, captain of a ship, or an astronaut, as all of the signals and flashing lights involve some sort of colour. So, if you ever see a pilot with mismatched brown and red socks, think twice before getting on the plane!
Q6
Does that mean you see green things as red and red things as green?
It doesn’t work like that. I physically can’t see the colour green or red. That means most things red or green just look brown to me. However, this does depend on the shade. One thing that freaks people out is when I tell them I see the grass as orange, but that does not mean I see trees or broccoli as the colour orange. Again it depends on the shade of the colour, since blood looks blackish brown to me. I was shocked to discover, with the help of my Pilestone glasses, that peanut butter is not green, but just brown. Apparently it’s something a lot of colour blind people say. It just looks like something that would be green.
Q7
What if you have never seen the colour red before, so you don't know what it looks like, so you just think you're colour blind?
I know what you must be thinking, but this is a genuine question I have received. How do they think I have spent an entire lifetime avoiding the colour red? It's absurd! I wish I stopped and asked this person more questions, because thinking about this hurts my head. On a technical level they are right, I have never seen the colour red, but just googling an image of “red” and showing it to me doesn’t magically cure me. I suppose it's questions like this that make me want to do this project, so people can understand what colour blindness is actually about.
Q8
Is colour blindness even real, or are you just pretending?
Again with the crazy questions. Yes, it is real, and yes, I do have it, and no, I am not pretending. People who ask this question are the kinds of people who think the moon landing was faked. There is no rhyme or reason for me and a couple of million people around the world to pretend we don’t know what an unripe banana looks like. What do you think I have to gain by limiting my career choices? If you are sceptical about colour blindness as a condition there are decades of testing and research you can find.
Q9
So what colour is that there?
Never mind question 4, if I had a penny for this question, I would be able to retire at age 16. I get this question so often I sometimes don’t tell people I’m colour blind just to avoid it. It's also such an insensitive question. you wouldn’t ask a man in a wheelchair to get up and sprint, would you (would you?). Also, if I just told you that I’m colour blind to red and green and you point at something and ask 'What colour is that?', there is a pretty strong chance that that thing you just pointed to is either red or green, so there is no point in you even asking. And if you wanted a genuine answer, it's almost always just going to be brown. I understand people are curious, but just don’t do it. Instead just ask them what colours they have trouble seeing instead of giving them a pop quiz to see if they actually are colour blind.
So, there you go: 9 common questions I get asked about color blindness. I really hope you learned something and I really do hope you don’t ask colour blind people these questions. If you can share this blog anyway you can, even by word of mouth, it will be much appreciated. Thanks.
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