[nabs-l] Philosophical Terminology

[Dezman Jackson]

I'll be volunerable here and say that when dealing with people in general, I 
feel that the word blind often carries a harder punch than say the phrase 
"visually impaired". I'll take for example instances where I'm scheduling a 
job interview or trying to volunteer in the community. Although I am totally 
blind and have no problem thinking of myself as just simply blind, I 
sometimes struggle with saying such things as visually impaired in such 
situations to lighten the blow so to speak. I don't particularly have a 
problem with different phrases, but it's your motivation behind the phrasing 
and for me it was to feed into the public's perception of what James Omvig 
calls the hierarchy of sight. This is basically the belief that your success 
in life is a function of how much vision you have, the more vision you have, 
the better off you are than someone who has less vision and vice versa. Of 
course, this concept is contrary to our philosophy. Alright I'll stop 
babbling now.

Cheers,
Dezman
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harry Hogue" <harryhogue at yahoo.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Philosophical Terminology


Thank you! This has always bugged me that people who are merely legally 
blind or who read large print, or who are otherwise not completely blind 
would call themselves blind. To me, if you have some vision you are visually 
impaired. There is nothing negative about that at all. If you have no vision 
you are totally blind. Nothing wrong with that either. And if you have some 
light perception? If you can't read large print, you are still blind. But at 
the end of the day, it really shouldn't matter what you choose to call it, 
so long as you understand and accept within yourself that you have trouble 
seeing, and this is what you need to do alternatively (use a long cane, read 
braille, etc). What other people choose to call it shouldn't matter either. 
Just as you pointed out, when someone says they are deaf, I think of them as 
totally without the ability to hear; when they say they are hearing 
impaired, I say, "well they can hear some but
 they are not totally deaf." And the same with blindness. You can take 
anything too far, and I am afraid the NFB and perhaps taken this a bit too 
far--the distinction needs to be made when it comes to what people need--if 
someone needs a cane fo steps, but can still read large print, what's wrong 
with calling them visually impaired? Just because someone has a cane does 
not automatically make them blind, although this is what most people think. 
And here again, you cna't please everyone. I gave up on that a long time 
ago.




--- On Sat, 11/15/08, Chris Westbrook <westbchris at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Chris Westbrook <westbchris at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Philosophical Terminology
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008, 8:10 PM

Also, I don't think that just because you call yourself visually impaired
you are necessarily denying your blindness.  I will use an example with 
another
disability from my own life.  I am hearing impaired.  Notice I said hearing
impaired, not deaf.  I choose not to call myself deaf, because deafness
generally implies profound hearing loss, sign language, the inability to 
speak,
etc.  If any of you have been around me for a while, however, you no that I 
do
not deny my hearing loss.  I wear two hearing aids.  I also accept that 
certain
things are much harder if not impossible for me, such as street crossings 
and
socializing in crowded situations.  Why is it deemed OK for me to call 
myself
hearing impaired when it is not OK for a visually impaired individual to 
call
themselves visually impaired?  after all, even if you are totally blind you 
are
visually impaired.  The more I think about these things, the more I find 
myself
struggling with some of the stricter points of NFB philosophy.
----- Original Message ----- From: "T. Joseph Carter"
<carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:24 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Philosophical Terminology


> I think you are all getting too hung up on empty words.  The NFB
philosophy is about actions and attitudes.
>
> If you call me blind and mean by it that I am helpless, I will take
offense.  If you call me impaired and mean that I just can't see much but am
otherwise like anyone else, I'll accept your words as respectful.
>
> I can almost always tell the difference, and I bet you can too.
>
> Joseph
>
> On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 11:06:10PM +0000, Corbb O'Connor wrote:
>> I didn't write the subject line, but I am assuming that was a
blanket marketing e-mail. That is, it was meant to be forwarded around. Just 
as
we want to attract new members (as has been said by me and others), we
wouldn't want to push people toward the delete button after only reading the
subject line. Marketing, my friends, it's marketing. I agree with all of you
-- we in the Federation are blind, even those of us with some residual 
vision.
Let's not push people away from our great organization before they even know
who we are and why we use the words we do. I don't think we're
undermining ourselves or our philosophy -- we're trying to find others out
there who don't see as well as their peers (seniors, students,
and...well...everybody else) to show them our positive philosophy on 
blindness.
>>
>> -----
>> Corbb O'Connor
>> studying at the National University of Ireland, Galway
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Nov 5, 2008, at 10:33 PM, Janice wrote:
>>
>> Hello Karen, Terri and Listers,
>>
>> Wow, Karen!! I must say, thanks for calling us, as the nabs board and
as
>> nabs members,  out on this very interesting point. I have recently
noticed
>> something like this also. I think that Terri's point can be a good
one. It
>> might be important for the Federation to use terminology such as
visually
>> impaired or low vision, to try to attract a larger facet of people.
These
>> people might be uncomfortable with their blindness, they might not
want to
>> identify as blind... so, we say- Hey you visually impaired person...
this
>> group is for you too!
>> Once we have their foot in the door so to speak, then
>> we can teach them about our philosophy and educate them in the fact
that we
>> are all blind individuals> We can then wow them into believing that
 the visual hierarchy does not matter. Even if you
>> are legally blind,    the key word is blind. One is not going to be
>> recognized as a legally visually impaired person, are they?
>>
>> However, I do wonder in certain instances where the lines get blurred
and if
>> we are sacrificing what we are as an organization to try to get these
new
>> individuals into our door. For example, not  to pick on one specific
>> facebook group, but I will use the 411 group, since it seems to be the
most
>> recent one and has sparked some debate. The salutation line-
"Attention
>> blind and visually impaired high school students!" This makes
some sense
>> according to Terri's argument. We want those who self identify as
visually
>> impaired to come to our group. Yet, why would we need to use the
terminology
>> visually impaired among ourselves and within our Federation family?
>>
>> Why would we use the words low vision, visually impaired, to refer to
other
>> Federationist? One such example I an talking about is the email
subject line
>> :"for the sake of ne, in which the group was actually announced
to the NABS
>> list. the official heading was something like- Blind and Visually
Impaired
>> Teen Group on Facebook. why not just use something like, "new
blindness
>> group of facebook!
>> ? I am definitely not trying to point fingers at any specific group or
person... I am really curious, because I have seen terms such as visually
impaired, low vision, and high partial , in our literature recently, also. I
>> am merely using the facebook post as the most recent and relevant
example.
>> Is this a new trend in Federation philosophy? or do we believe that
perhaps
>> trying to be all inclusive has caused us to become a little lax and
blur
>> the lines of philosophy? Are the philosophical boundaries of all blind
>> members being equal, thus united we stand and divided we fall, not as
solid
>> , and binding, now, as when I first joined the Federation...?>
>>
>> I really am confused and would love to hear the philosophers among us
debate
>> this observation. What are the effects of these happenings, to our
>> philosophy? Do we need to tighten our concepts about blindness and
what it
>> stands for within the Federation, or is inclusion the matter of
importance?
>>
>> Thoughtfully yours,
>>
>> Janice
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terri Rupp"
<terri.rupp at gmail.com>
>> To: "NABS list serve" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 2:25 PM
>> Subject: [nabs-l] Philosophical Terminology
>>
>>
>>> Karen and all,
>>> The NFB is using different outlets to try to reach out to
nonmembers.
>>> Facebook is just one of them.  Although as you said, the
philosophy of the
>>> federation is based on the word "Blind", that word
"Blind" is  sometimes a
>>> negative things to those people struggling to deal or accept their
>>> blindness.  It was only until a few years ago that I was one of
them.  I
>>> didn't want to associate with anything that labeled me as
blind.  I felt
>>> ashamed to be blind and called myself "visually
impaired".  The acceptance
>>> of one's blindness is a grieving process that each person goes
through
>>> differently.  What we have to do is serve as positive blind role
models,
>>> and show that being blind is no different than being short.  It is
simply
>>> a
>>> characteristic.  Once we attract them to these groups, we can
promote NFB
>>> activities, scholarships, etc and reel them in with our
philosophy.
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>> Terri Rupp, President
>>> National Association of Blind Students
>>>
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