How Do Blind People Describe Different Colors?

Having been blind since birth, Tommy Edison is used to fielding questions about how he perceives the concept color. He finally sets the record straight in his recent YouTube video, “Describing Colors To Blind People,” that’s been making the rounds on the Internet.

“I’ve never seen color. I don’t have any concept of what it is,” Tommy says. “There’s this whole part of vocabulary – of language – that just doesn’t mean anything to me.”

He faults sighted people on trying and not succeeding to explain color to him, finding that they often attempt to explain one sense with another sense. “That doesn’t make any bloody sense at all!”

In his own words, Tommy tells us what the words “red,” “blue,” “orange,” “black,” and “white” mean to him, based solely on what he’s heard about them and how they’re used in everyday speech.