[nabs-l] Blindness and Identity
Joe Orozco
jsorozco at gmail.com
Sun Mar 28 00:34:22 UTC 2010
Jedi,
Thanks for the thought-provoking response. I don't know that I agree with
all your points, but I also agree that another post would only make the
issue circular. One of these days we'll have to round up Marc and the
others to have one of these debates in person. Maybe Antonio will share his
pitcher of Sprite.
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
-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jedi
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 7:07 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Blindness and Identity
Joe,
To clarify something. I certainly did not mean to speculate on how
people of different ethnicities feel about their identities and
whatever those identities are composed of. Instead, I meant to point
out that skin color alone probably wouldn't matter so much in our
society if we didn't attribute so many non-related traits to it. I
think blindness, and gender are more or less the same thing.
I'd also like to address the interesting question you posed about blind
culture. Is there a blind culture? yes. In fact, I have so far noticed
three distinct blindness cultures. I do not think that blindness alone
is the root of these cultures. Instead, I think that fundamental
assumptions, values, and artifacts make up these cultures. in our
specific case, the topic is blindness. Even so, I believe that those of
us in the NFB culture are influenced by those assumptions and values in
other aspects of our lives. I think the three cultures are the NFB
culture, the ACB culture, and the non-affiliated culture. I also add
that these cultures are limited to the United States. The world over
has even more blind cultures, and many of those cultures have something
common with each other.
Organizational scholars and anthropologists have been talking about
organizational cultures for a while now, but I think that these blind
cultures go a little deeper than that because they touch on something
more fundamental that one's profession for example. Because the world
does by and large have such negative views about blindness, our lives
as blind people are fundamentally affected. Perhaps our cultures would
become much looser if blindness weren't such a big deal in our society.
I can't speak much on any of the blindness cultures in the U.S. except
the NFB because (1) I haven't had an opportunity to really observe them
and (2) I am a member of the NFB and have been for eight years now. We
do have some fundamental beliefs or taken-for-granted assumptions about
ourselves as blind people and as people in general, and I think they
can be summed up in the statements that it's respectable to be blind
and that the problem of blindness is more an attitudinal one than a
physical one. Then we have our values. We value personal autonomy in
the right to choose our own paths, the importance of a greater
collective for mutual gain and benefit, and close-knit familial
structure for passing information and getting work done. Our artifacts
(the most noticeable portion of a culture) are the long white canes
that we favor, the symbol of the Whozit (and the old circle and
triangle logo from the 40s). There's a lot more that could be said to
describe our culture, but that's a tidbit for you. I don't know about
the rest of you, but my life outside of blindness is affected by these
assumptions, values, and artifacts. For me, the assumption of blindness
respectability translates that it's respectable to be human in all of
humanity's forms. The value of collectivity influences the way I relate
to people. As for artifacts, it goes without saying that the white cane
gets me where I need to go both in and out of blindness contexts. Does
this make sense? What I'm getting at is that the NFB isn't a loose
organization or social club, and it's much more than just a civil
rights movement. It's not necessarily restricted to our blindness
alone; if it were, we probably wouldn't have a counterpart organization
like the ACB whose values and culture are slightly different than ours
even though they are also blind.
Joe, you're right that the issue of identity in general is convoluted.
There are never easy answers. the best anyone can hope for is to be as
consistent as possible with their assumptions and values even if the
artifacts change. Human beings in general are an intersection of
identities that take primacy in all kinds of combinations for each of
us as individuals.
By the way, I think the idea of a maternal instinct is really a matter
of gendered rhetoric. The maternal instinct is really a matter of a
species wanting to procreate and protect/nurture their young. Men have
this instinct, too, and individuals of either sex have it to a greater
or lesser degree than others. I don't know that I could confidently say
that carrying a child for nine months makes much of a difference in
this pattern because some women are able to have children, do so, and
then decide to give them to someone else for example.
Respectfully,
Jedi
Original message:
> 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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