Stevie Wonder gets the last laugh

I didn’t see the broadcast of the Grammy Awards on TV Monday.

I heard it.

And that means I got to hear Stevie Wonder sing the lead to Earth, Wind and Fire’s “That’s the Way of the World” in memory of the band’s co-founder Maurice White. And as if that wasn’t enough, I also got to hear him give what has got to be the one and only speech about accessibility ever, ever given at a national awards show.

Stevie Wonder was tasked with announcing the winner of the 2016 song of the year on Monday. After struggling to open the envelope, he read the winner’s name to himself. “Uh-huh,” he said quite seriously, then held the winning name (written in Braille) up for all to see. “So, y’all can’t read this, huh?” he continued, amping up to mock the audience like a schoolkid at recess. “You can’t read it, you can’t read braille, nananananana!” The audience loved it, and so did I.

Truth be told, I’m not proficient in Braille myself. I can read Braille, but I’m very slow at it.

I read Grade One (uncontracted) Braille. That’s the sort where every Braille cell corresponds with a certain letter of the print alphabet. I can make out numbers on elevator panels, and I can poke out simple labels for file folders and CDs at home. Stevie Wonder – and most people who were born blind –  use Grade Two (contracted) Braille, and I’d bet you the price of one of those Grammy statues that the card he held in the air as he teased the audience Monday was written in Grade Two.

Contracted Braille has a bunch of shorthand symbols (contractions) for commonly used words and parts of words: There’s a cell for the word “and,” another for the word “the,” and so on. Prefixes like “con-“ and “com-” have their own Braille cell, and some suffixes do, too.

Most of the letters of the alphabet are also used as shorthand for common words in contracted Braille. If the letter “b” stands alone in contracted Braille, it means “but,” “c” is for “can,” “d” is for “do,” “e” is for “every” and so on. Kind of sort of like texting, but there’s no auto-correct. That means you can’t make as many mistakes!

The Braille version of my children’s book Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound is produced in Grade Two as well, and that’s a form I’ve never been able to master. That means that when I read Safe & Sound out loud at schools, I rarely get past the first page.

But let’s get back to Steview Wonder, shall we? Five years ago I took an extremely unscientific Stevie Wonder poll at Hackney’s and published my results in a post here:

Question: What do you think of when I say the name “Stevie Wonder?”

Answers:

• My Cherie Amour
• Music
• Gangsta’s Paradise
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered

That’s a remarkable array of music. And Stevie Wonder has had a remarkable career. What was truly remarkable, though, was that not one single person I polled mentioned that Stevie Wonder is blind.

Only 2% of Americans are totally blind. No Wonder, ahem, people sometimes stare at us. Our blindness makes us unique. So unique, that sometimes blindness is the first – or the only – characteristic people remember about us.

Unless you’re Stevie Wonder, that is. The fact that he can’t see is an afterthought. Stevie Wonder is in an enviable position. He could dismiss his disability if he wanted to. But Stevie Wonder is cooler than that. By playing that little joke at the Grammy Awards Monday night, he was acknowledging to the star-studded audience there and the millions watching at home that yes, of course he is blind. And human. And funny, too.

Once the applause and laughter for his taunt died down, Stevie Wonder spoke up again. “I just have to say, before saying the winner,” he said, bringing the audience back down to earth, “that we need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.”

I adore Stevie Wonder. Isn’t he lovely?