[nabs-l] Ignorance vs. Prejudice

Tue Jun 16 23:25:58 UTC 2009

I see that.  Good points, Sarah and Jedi.
Beth

On 6/16/09, Jedi <loneblindjedi at samobile.net> wrote:
> Listers:
>
> I think there are just some people out there who get that different
> doesn't mean deficit regardless of the difference we're talking about.
> There are, for example, some men who really understand that women
> aren't so fundamentally different from them. There are White people who
> get it that ethnic differences among themselves and between themselves
> and other races doesn't automatically spell deficient. If anything,
> these are differences to be shared and cellebrated while discovering
> our common ground. And yes, that goes for blindness, too.
>
> I have a few sighted friends who just naturally get it, and many more
> who just plain don't. there's no real way to predict who will get it
> and who won't, but I'm always fascinated to discover who gets it and
> who doesn't.
>
> Respectfully,
> Jedi
> Original message:
>> I have probably the best friend you could ask for.  Aaron is probabl
>> the coolest sighted guy ever.  We don't normally talk about blindness,
>> it's something I don't wish to always talk about, but Aaron accepts
>> that I use my computer differently than others.  I guess being able to
>> chat on FB and AIM makes me more of a person than if I don't.  There
>> are those who use MSN and Skype who can probably see my point.  But a
>> lot of people use FB.  But one of the nicest things about Aaron is
>> that he doesn't ever say I can't do something because I'm blind.  I
>> don't know if other sighted people in Florida really view us that way.
>>  That's just my two cents worth.
>> Beth
>
>> On 6/16/09, Rania <raniaismail04 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I think it has to do with both the experience the person has or has not
>>> had
>>> with blind people as well as the personallity of the person. I have found
>>> some people to just except me for who I am and ask me questions like how
>>> I
>>> use the computer. Once I explain how it works they understand at least to
>>> me
>>> it seems that way. I really like it when sighted people whom have never
>>> been
>>> around a blind person are interested in learning what they can by asking
>>> me
>>> questions. That shows me that they are excepting of my blindness and how
>>> I
>>> do things.
>>> Rania,
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Arielle Silverman" <arielle71 at gmail.com>
>>> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 1:01 AM
>>> Subject: [nabs-l] Ignorance vs. Prejudice
>
>
>>> Hi all,
>
>>> Recently we’ve been talking about airline discrimination, which has
>>> historically served as a good representation of the kind of
>>> second-class treatment that we often get in everyday interactions with
>>> members of the public. I think Jedi made some good points in
>>> describing the tendency of some sighted people to judge us as
>>> incompetent based on the role of sight in their own lives and their
>>> assumption that losing their sight would leave them incapacitated. It
>>> is true that we are a tiny minority (even within the disabled
>>> community) and that a lot of sighted people simply don’t know how we
>>> perform everyday tasks. In some cases this ignorance leads to
>>> discriminatory treatment (“The blind person can’t sit in the exit
>>> row”) or stereotypes (“Blind people are slow”).
>
>>> What I’ve always found fascinating, though, is that lack of
>>> knowledge—ignorance—doesn’t always translate into discrimination. In
>>> fact many sighted people are simply curious, and if we tell or show
>>> them how we use the computer, read or travel, they quickly accept our
>>> alternative techniques and treat us just the same as everyone else.
>>> But this doesn’t happen all  the time. And then, on the flip side,
>>> there are those who know all the facts about blindness and still
>>> “don’t get it”. This includes, for  instance, the mobility instructor
>>> who’s taught O&M for thirty years but who still insists that you
>>> should walk three blocks out of your way rather than cross a busy
>>> intersection. Many of us find that our own parents make more of a big
>>> deal out of our blindness than do people we’ve just met, even if our
>>> parents have met competent blind people or been to blindness
>>> workshops, know Braille, etc. So there definitely is a difference
>>> between ignorance and prejudice. The combination of both is bad, but
>>> you can easily have one without the other. And it’s prejudice, not
>>> ignorance, that actually causes us trouble.
>
>>> Unfortunately, while we can easily remedy ignorance with simple
>>> education, alleviating prejudice isn’t that simple. It seems like much
>>> of the persistence of people’s prejudices comes from their emotional
>>> or “gut” reactions to blindness. The experienced teacher of blind
>>> students may know all the facts about Braille, including the fact that
>>> children who learn Braille while young can read just as fast as
>>> sighted children. And yet, on some gut level the teacher feels an
>>> aversion to Braille, seeing it as a stigma or a symbol of weakness. So
>>> no matter how well this teacher is trained, if she gets a kid in her
>>> caseload who has partial sight, it’s going to be  a struggle for the
>>> teacher to actively teach the child Braille. The parent who finds his
>>> child’s blindness frightening, likewise, is going to have a hard time
>>> letting the child play outside or do chores, no matter how  much he
>>> reads about what is best for blind children, unless he figures out how
>>> to let go of  his fear. I think so much of the success of our training
>>> centers comes from their ability to not only teach us practical
>>> skills, but also help us  overcome our own fears and negative feelings
>>> about blindness.
>
>>> And yet, as Monica has demonstrated, there  are those sighted people
>>> who display a lack of prejudice and who automatically include us and
>>> treat us normally without any prior knowledge about blindness or
>>> education on our parts. We all know sighted people like this, even
>>> though we often tend to spend most of our mental energy grumbling
>>> about the sighted people who treat us strangely. My boyfriend never
>>> met a single blind person before me, and yet in some ways seems to
>>> instinctively “get it” more than my mother, for example, who besides
>>> raising me for twenty-four years, also read many of the leading  books
>>> about raising a blind child. (Never mind that many of the messages
>>> espoused in those books are rooted in prejudices of their own).
>
>>> So  what do you guys think makes the difference between those members
>>> of the sighted public who show prejudice and those who don’t? Is it
>>> something about their personalities or experiences? And if simple
>>> educating isn’t enough to address people’s deep-seated emotional
>>> reactions, what can we do about it? Do we have any control over
>>> whether the sighted guy on the street grabs us or treats us with
>>> respect? It’s easy enough for us to tell who will be responsive to
>>> education about blindness and who won’t. But for those who aren’t
>>> responsive, how do we deal with them civilly while still protecting
>>> our rights and our freedom? And how do we deal with educators like O&M
>>> instructors, who have power over what we learn or what accommodations
>>> we get but whose judgments are affected by their misconceptions about
>>> blindness?
>
>>> I look forward to a lively discussion on this topic, as it’s central
>>> to how we act as an organization and how we can really change what it
>>> means to be blind for ourselves and for others.
>
>>> Arielle
>
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