She's been amazing so far. You just feel for her groping at some of those crazy team challenges, but then she stuns everyone with her cooking.

To be fair, she did cut herself while cooking at "full speed" during that challenge.

But that girl seems awesome. Never a whine or a complaint -- she just works her butt off. Definitely an inspiration. What really amazes me is that she doesn't seem to burn herself. Even with my eyesight, I manage to graze my hand against hot edges all the darn time.

Please don't take what our household calls the "very very brave and special" tack in describing people with disabilities. When our culture uses PWD as "inspirations" for able-bodied people, we are further marginalizing PWD and making them into objects for our consumption at the same time that we centralize able-bodiedness. We make PWD one-dimensional and force individuals to represent an entire, incredibly diverse population of people with all kinds of disabilities. PWD are just people and there are millions of them in the US and across the world who cook for themselves and live their lives on a daily basis, but we don't see that because we are an ableist culture that makes them invisible and tends only to represent them as "brave," "special," and "inspirational."

I have been watching Master Chef and every single time someone singles out Christine Ha for being "amazing" it makes me cringe. Most of the other contestants are shown in a more three-dimensional way (or at least as 3-d as reality TV allows, which isn't much), but Ha is only "the blind one." As much as she does seem to be a great cook, I look forward to her being eliminated so that she no longer bears the burden of representing all PWD and a person with a disability is no longer made into a spectacle b/c she has a disability.

Thank you for posts on this topic. Blindness is in my future and I would love to learn kitchen workarounds from others rather than stumbling through on my own.

@MERM, as a cancer patient, I totally get what you mean. People practically line up to tell me how brave and strong I am. Sometimes it's a pity thing -- and yes, that's annoying -- but usually it's that people see my good attitude and they find it uplifting -- and that I don't mind, because that just means my good attitude rubbed off on someone else.

So it's not her blindness that made me say she's awesome, it's the fact that she's got a killer good attitude in spite of a disadvantage. Everyone has their certain something that puts them at a disadvantage -- could be their economic background, their emotional health, a chronic illness, or even just their general level of intelligence -- but people deal with their baggage, their Thing (with a capital T), with varying degrees of grace.

Reality TV contestants have a penchant to complain about every little thing that doesn't go their way -- "my teammate screwed me over!", "The way we chose X was unfair to me!" -- but she always seems pretty cool and collected. So I'm not saying she's brave because she's blind, or that she's inspirational because she's blind and competing against people who aren't -- I just think she's cool because she has her Thing to deal with and she does so with aplomb. And I really didn't know anything about how the blind cook before she came on the show, so I'm happy to have gotten some education on the subject.

@merm: Um, she is amazing...at cooking. So, while yes, the show needs to work on its one dimensional presentation of Ha, I think you're are going too far in the other direction. Unless people are always following "your cooking is amazing" with "considering you're blind" then YOU don't really know that that is what they are secretly thinking or that they wouldn't care about the quality of the dish without the chef having a disability.
Also, I think your final wish to see her voted off really doesn't jive with your solidarity towards PWD. She's a lone PWD among able bodied chefs and so...what? You want her out of the room? Removed from regular tv-cheffing society to some disabled chef ghetto? And why? So she "doesn't have to bear the burden"? What, PWD can't bear any burdens? Is she too fragile? She's obviously willing and able to fight for her own recognition and right to be accepted on her own terms. That's why she agreed to be on the show. Your attitude undermines all that and you need to rethink your reaction to her place on the show.

@merm,

You had real valid points and then this:

" I look forward to her being eliminated so that she no longer bears the burden of representing all PWD". I don't see how being a positive role model is such a burden. And Christine Ha has demonstrated that she can bear alot of burdens and still live her life to its fullest potential. Read her blog, she's learned how to snowboard and gone skydiving. Then tell me if she's too fragile to handle being a representative for all PWD.

Or did you really mean: I look forward to her being eliminated because then I don't have to feel so uncomfortable about her disability and envious of her successes.

Thank you Stephanie for this very informative article. Some people seem to be offended by it but it's an eye opener for me. I've always felt that the blind (from birth) have a wonderful way of functioning in this world, as they know only what they have been exposed to and are stronger in other senses. Those that have experienced blindness later in life may have had more of a struggle with it but can learn to adjust with therapy.
Again, nice article. Lots of good info here. Thanks,

a dear friend of mine's husband is a chef and has also lost his sight due to an autoimmune condition. I sent this article along to her and I think they'll both very much enjoy reading it.

@Merm: you do have valid points, but it was entirely her decision to join the competition and she seems not to mind to represent pwd- after all, her blog is called the blind cook, and she could have left the competition at any point if she didn't want to burden this responsibility any longer, so you hoping she gets voted off seems terribly mean. I however, hope that she gets treated fairly.
The only way prejudices can be eliminated and pwd seen as more than this label, is exposure, so I hope she's not the last person in a cooking competition with a disability!
And I do find it inspiring and interesting to see how she works with her limitations, just as I find it inspiring to see how someone works with a small kitchen, no oven or almost no money. Often people who have obstacles to overcome think of genious solutions from which we all can profit.

I really enjoyed reading all of the comments regarding Christine, and the issue is very complicated, yet simple at the same time. She should not be given special privileges, which I don’t feel the show does, but they do “sensationalize” the situation for ratings benefits somewhat, which isn’t good. I would be willing to bet though that Christine is far above the rest of blind cooks when it comes to skill though, AND she holds her own with the rest of the very talented amateurs, which is what is commendable on both sides. My whole family started watching after a Dish co-worker came over and suggested we watch when he saw the show on our PrimeTime Anytime recordings. We only watch “PrimeTime” shows now because we can watch commercial free with Auto Hop, which lets us watch more TV shows in one evening. We save 20 minutes an hour when we watch commercial free so that means more of what we pay for, TV, not commercials.

She is so amazing to watch, and is very smart I have no idea why she is always picked last on the challenges she is an asset to any team.. GO CHRISTINE