[nabs-l] Ignorance, prejudice, and sighted domination

[Len Burns]

Jim,

To expect to earn everything you get and be judged upon your actions is
about as fair as it gets.  That is how sighted people treat one another,
and how they ought to treat us.

All humans have differences and similarities, and people adjust
differently to them.  People do or do not like others because of gender,
race, sexual orientation, disability, and a few hundred other aspects of
being human.

When I am in a room full of people, I know that within that group there
are those who will be forever anxious because I walk out my door each
day, those who may not be familiar with me but are far more interested
in my role in the group than if I can see, and a majority who fall
somewhere between those extremes.  Those in the middle ground are people
I can likely influence if I have enough time and contact.

When I was hired for my last job, I learned that several people had
confronted the hiring manager regarding his decition to hire me.  They
told him that I would be unable to work with the population we served.
At that time, I had been a licensed family therapist for over 15 years,
and had worked in everything from private practice to the toughest
agency settings.   aI knew who they were, and took it upon myself to win
them through professional respect.  In this case I was successful.

Over the years, I can count the number of clients who have responded
negatively to my blindness on about two fingers.  Because I am skilled 
at my trade, the focus is upon the reasons they are in my office, 
whether or not I can see is a practical matter.

-Len

Jim Reed wrote:
> Jedi, Arielle, and others,
> 
> I know some of the post that I have writ en about ignorance,
> prejudice, and sighted domination may have made me seem like an ass
> hole, and I don't know, maybe I am. But I am being forced (not
> literally) into a culture that as of six months ago, I did not give a
> damn about, and forced (literally) into a lifestyle that I so
> desperately hoped to avoid (blindness). All of a sudden, I am now
> being forced to make decisions and judgments about things, people,
> abilities, and disabilities that I have never had to make before, and
> I don't have adequate knowledge or experience to make those
> decisions. I suppose that with time and immersion, I will "get it",
> but for now, I guess I really don't. Or maybe I get it in theory, but
> not in practice. Until I "get it", I can only judge other blind
> people by the same standards as I expect to be judged; I expect to
> earn everything I get, and I expect to be judged based on my actions.
> 
> 
> Thanks, Jim
> 
> "From compromise and things half done, Keep me with stern and
> stubborn pride, And when at last the fight is won, ... Keep me still
> unsatisfied." --Louis Untermeyer
> 
> 
> 
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