My name is Brandon Young, and I am a 30-year-old, six foot tall, visually impaired, bald, black male living in the San Francisco area of California. I mention all those things about myself for a reason: those are the things people notice when they first meet me. And it follows that these are the things that I am judged on; the expectations that our society places on an individual like myself are so low as to be virtually nonexistent.

As a legally blind person, the world has one set of expectations. They think either you are a musical genius or you are a useless sector of society that has no ambition except to move from the couch to the kitchen and back. As a black male from a single parent working class home, the world has a different set. Either I am supposed to be on my way to jail, in jail, or dead. Add all that together, and you basically get negative probability of success. This thought process can be summed up in a quote that my father said to me more than a few times when I was a teenager, “You’re black and you’re blind. That means you’ve already got two strikes against you.” That is a tough thing for a fifteen year old to hear. Truth be told, I believed him, and still do to this day. I feel like if I ever make one mistake, the world will say, “see, we knew all along that he was worthless, and he just proved it, who’s next?”

My life to this point has been all about defying stereotypes, or for the purposes of this article, defying expectations.

An excerpt from “Changing Expectations,” January 30, 2009

Proyecto Visión spoke with Brandon Young about his experiences as an intern at the World Institute on Disability’s Access to Assets program. As part of his internship, Brandon is keeping a blog, “Changing Expectations,” which follows his thoughts as a young, blind man trying to increase his assets so that he can purchase a condominium in the future.  His blog is also syndicated in WID’s EQUITY Newsletter and on Proyecto Visión’s page on Facebook.

The first thing we asked Brandon about was why he wanted to do an internship. He proceeded to explain that he wanted to get experience in a new field. He feels that his current job, as “Night Manager” at a residential program that teaches vision-impaired young people about how to live independently, is really not much more than a position as a “glorified Resident Advisor” who helps people adapt to their new living situations and solve unforeseen problems. While the job allows him to do something he believes in, helping people with disabilities to think more of themselves and to learn necessary skills for independent living, he does not view it as a long-term career. Thus, he began to think about how he could continue to help people “change expectations,” but “at a different level… in a new context.” He decided that he wanted experience not just as a direct services provider, but as a writer in an organization working on education and policy.

However, as many of our readers know, it is not easy to get your foot in the door in a new type of work. One day, a friend of his (actually, a teammate on his goalball1 team) gave a presentation to the people living at the residence where Brandon works, talking about the importance of volunteer work and internships and how they can lead to part-time or full-time work. When this friend, WID’s Thomas Foley, said, “Go out and volunteer and find yourself an internship,” Brandon got to thinking and realized that Tom’s words were relevant to Brandon himself, not just for the residents he worked with.

So, he “mulled that over and decided there was nothing to lose by asking” Tom if he could be an intern at WID. Tom said he would look into it, and eventually he told Brandon it would be great. As with many opportunities, knowing somebody and “networking” was a key. Also, realizing that there was no harm in asking helped give him the confidence to ask in the first place.

Since he became an intern, Brandon has expanded his skills in two ways: the first is that he is learning about Individual Development Account (IDA) programs by participating in one himself. In this case, he is in a first-time home buyers program and is trying to save money to purchase a condominium. The great thing about it is that for every dollar he saves, the IDA program he is participating in contributes three dollars. In other words, this program pays him to learn how to save up some money and build up his assets! Furthermore, by doing an IDA program, he is able to save money without having the assets he is collecting count against any disability benefits. While a normal savings account could limit his eligibility for Social Security benefits or medical coverage, the Social Security Administration has approved these IDA programs, so he can save without worrying about losing his benefits.

The second aspect of the internship that helps Brandon to expand his skills is writing about his experiences, feelings, and struggles in this program as a young person with a disability. The above excerpt is from his blog, “Changing Expectations,” and he is also reporting for the EQUITY Newsletter. As you can see in his writing, Brandon is making the most of this opportunity. His writing demonstrates a sensitivity, honesty, and directness that allow him to accurately portray the reality of the situations and challenges he has faced in the pursuit of his goals of owning a home and getting a better job.  By following up on his decision to get an internship and by participating in an IDA program, Brandon is taking steps to make his goals a reality.

Brandon acknowledges that having an internship has been a bit of a challenge -- he has had to juggle his full-time job, school, and the internship, making life even more hectic than before. He says that “it’s sometimes hard to keep up with assignments and being organized is hard, but it’s a good kind of hard – stretching and growing and hopefully people will have patience…”

To read Brandon Young’s weekly blog, check it out at Blogspot, or read it in the EQUITY newsletter or on Proyecto Visión’s page on Facebook. You can also subscribe to the EQUITY newsletter by filling out this form:

1. Goalball is a team sport played primarily by people who have vision impairments, though anybody can play it with a blindfold. For a more complete explanation of the sport, see http://www.britishblindsport.org.uk/goalball.htm

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