Neurodivergent on Yik Yak | Anyone that doesn’t believe Helen Keller flew a plane just strikes me as ableist or some form. She wasn’t alone, they’ve already invented braille before she was around and she had flying experience. People just don’t wanna believe capability

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Neurodivergent 9w

Anyone that doesn’t believe Helen Keller flew a plane just strikes me as ableist or some form. She wasn’t alone, they’ve already invented braille before she was around and she had flying experience. People just don’t wanna believe capability

223

Anonymous 9w

I agree with you and I’m glad someone sees it. Notice how of ALL the historical figures to make a meme of how they didn’t exist/didn’t do something, the one that becomes popular is a disabled woman.

Anonymous 9w

Guys. Lets be so real here. Aviation was close to its advent when she was alive, there is very little chance she flew a plane. Im all for disabled rights and stuff but the likelyhood of someone with flight experience at the time successfully flying a plane was low, if you or I got into a plane they had at the time we would not be able to even operate it, much less fly it. There are extremely low chances someone with no sensory input whatsoever outside of touch was able to even fathom this

Anonymous 9w

Do people think she just flew 737 full of passengers around the world by herself?

Anonymous 9w

I mixed up hellen keller and amelia airheart for a moment and thought “people think she didn’t fly a plane????”

Anonymous 9w

I didn’t even know she did that! that’s fuckin sick what

Anonymous 9w

She had a copilot and literally only had to hold the steering yoke steady, it’s really not that far fetched. Pilots fly blind all the time due to bad weather conditions anyway

Anonymous 9w

I feel like it’s because they interpret her flying a plane as take off to land when in reality the plane was already in the air and she flew for a short duration with companions

Anonymous 9w

Here’s my theory of how she did that: I think the plane had already taken off, so she didn’t need to worry about the runway. And then, as a blind person whose proprioception is honed beyond what seeing folk could comprehend, she could feel herself in the air, noticing any changes in altitude and pressure the plane experienced! In terms of navigation, she had her companion who could tell her “ a little bit left” and BOOM! Helen and Amelia Earhart have something AMAZING in common!!!

Anonymous 9w

It also comes from people who haven’t flown a plane in their lives

Anonymous 9w

Even though HK was honestly a POS, the ableism isn’t cool. She just took control for a few minutes and was walked through it all.

Anonymous 9w

Holy shit. I didn’t even know this. This is neat!

Anonymous 9w

Shes nothing special or worth bring praised for is the point

-15

Anonymous

#1 9w

who else are people saying didn’t exist

Anonymous

#5 9w

Anne Frank

Anonymous

#3 9w

She didn’t fly it in the sense that pilots today fly planes, but she did have the controls for approximately 20 minutes

Anonymous

#4 9w

don't a lot of people confuse the two for whatever reason? that might contribute to it, in addition to general holocaust denial unfortunately

Anonymous

#5 9w

I actually haven’t seen people make vapid/trendy “haha fake” jokes like the Helen Keller thing about any other historical figure. I am aware of Holocaust denial, but I see that as usually a different (and much worse) genre with a different motivation.

Anonymous

dory_speaking_whale 9w

yeah! I looked up if this was true, and she had an interpreter with her that helped her steer the plane for about 20 minutes. that’s cool as fuck

Anonymous

#2 9w

IK!!! I wish I knew this before!!!

Anonymous

#6 9w

This is it - the basic claim that she got a chance to be behind the controls of a plane for a bit, presumably when it was steadily flying along, isn’t really preposterous.

Anonymous

#10 9w

This is actually what I thought the joke was when it first came onto the scene.

🔮

Anonymous

#5 9w

William Shakespeare

Anonymous

#12 9w

that’s easy for you to say. She over came challenges that most people today quit over.

Anonymous

toenailclippings26 9w

5 year olds get to “fly” airplanes all the time and everyone gets the help they need to read and write regardless of obstacles

-11

Anonymous

#12 9w

what airplane have you seen being flown by a 5 year old?????

Anonymous 9w

bro acting like he was there when helen flew the plane

Anonymous

#13 9w

Flew for 20 minutes in the co-pilots seat after they had lifted off, googles free

-8

Anonymous

dory_speaking_whale 9w

W-A-T-E-R cool huh?

Anonymous

#12 9w

Yes? Google is free… So I don’t know why people are all like “Helen Keller didn’t fly that plane hur hur” to debunk a little fun fact that almost nobody knew about anyway

Anonymous

#1 9w

Not my point in the slightest, shes glorified and used as a poster of disability when shes in honesty was not that impressive compared to many others

-6

Anonymous

#12 9w

Many others like who?

Anonymous

#19 9w

Wait what has she done that was bad? /genq I’ve really only ever heard positive things about her

Anonymous

#6 9w

She was very audist. She hated being deaf, she opposed sign language, she was good friends with AGB who was a huge reason oralism (speech-reading only) was as strong as it was, etc. She also supported eugenics in eradicating “defective” people. You can look into her support of the starvation of the Bollinger baby for more info on that.

Anonymous

#6 9w

Don’t get me wrong, she did do some good— especially for Blind folks, but… she’s definitely not the saint she’s often portrayed as.

Anonymous

#12 9w

there are very few disabled historical figures, so I doubt you have many examples. even if she didn’t do much, the fact that she‘s remembered means a lot. it means we have a history, even if that history just shows how a blind, dead woman held a plane steady for 20 minutes.

Anonymous

#20 9w

deaf* it keeps autocorrecting ;-;

Anonymous

#12 9w

You’re not really wrong for that. She’s definitely overhyped and her ableism is oft ignored completely when she’s brought up. Laura Bridgman was incredibly accomplished, well over 40 years before HK, but is rarely, if ever, talked about.

Anonymous

#19 9w

This guy gets it

Anonymous

#19 9w

That and there are many DeafBlind folks these days who do quite a lot, too, but are often treated as something obscure or rare and compared to HK. It’s just bleh.

Anonymous

#19 9w

I don’t disagree with all this, but the immediate issue isn’t that Helen Keller somehow received the lion’s share of credit in disability history… the issue is that random people who care nothing about disability history in the first place just dunk on her as a joke because “haha deaf blind woman”. I think those are two separate issues.

Anonymous

#1 4w

Obviously they are different…Odd to judge that someone doesn’t care for others with disabilities because they have a sense of humor. The thing with her was it was miraculous that someone took the time to teach her to communicate dispute the fact she had both disabilities. Kudos to the patience of the teacher.