[nabs-l] Blindness and Identity

[Joe Orozco]

Hello,

Were I Marc, I think I would have drawn out the baby example a little
differently, touching on a woman's maternal instinct that stems from her
ability to give birth, as opposed to concentrating on the capacity to give
birth itself.  It's interesting though that the same people who claim child
bearing is most definitely not a part of their identity make speculations
about what is or is not a part of the identity for a member of an ethnic
minority.  Assumptions abound, and I think it only goes to show that our
identity is not the product of societal expectations.

Regardless, if the argument is made that blind people function about as
equally as sighted people, is there really a cultural identity?  We use
different technology, different tools to get around, but these could be
nothing more than industrial features just as specialized as certain
professional environments like engineering, architecture, medicine, etc.  I
am well aware of people who use words like "blink" to characterize this
so-called culture, but it has always been my opinion that such terms are a
deliberate attempt to preserve their own sense of belonging to a group when
inclusion in mainstream society does not come by so easily.  The fact that
people come together for a common social justice cause does not
automatically translate to a cultural identity, and if it does, it is no
more substantial than the informal cultures that spring up from smokers, bar
hoppers, computer gamers and other loose social cultures.

Jernigan argued blindness could be reduced to a nuisance.  Society would beg
to differ; therefore, is our sense of identity truly constructed by the
established expectations of society?  If so, the world would be a rather
grim cycle of recurring expectations.  Blind people, or people with
disabilities in general, would never have been allowed to make the progress
we've witnessed over the past half century.  It is at the very root of NFB
philosophy that blind people integrate with the mainstream public, that
blindness be reduced to nothing more than a characteristic.  If this is
true, we cannot claim our identity is shaped by the way we cope with
societal norms, because blindness has nothing more to do with our daily
interactions than does our height or the color of our eyes.

In my opinion, what makes the point about blindness identity so convoluted
is that people allow the NFB to dictate when the blindness card is and is
not played.  The organization's philosophy says that with proper training
you can do it all.  Nevertheless, we need special laws to give people
preferred treatment for running vending facilities on federal property.  We
work for other laws that would increase social security caps so that
employment does not wipe out these benefits.  I don't know if the philosophy
exists in a vacuum completely independent of policy positions, but for
people whose life is the NFB, the oscillating values and standards must
surely be confusing.

Best regards,

Joe Orozco

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 
 

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