[nabs-l] Security in ourselves, acceptance in others

Tue May 31 22:57:05 UTC 2011

Or on the flip side, "What will the NFB think of this?" "Will 
this be an example of NFB philosophy?" "Am I being independent 
enough to be a
true Federationist?"
 Chris

"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)

--- Sent from my BrailleNote

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jedi <loneblindjedi at samobile.net
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Thu, 26 May 2011 18:36:35 -0400
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Security in ourselves, acceptance in others

Excellent points.

I'm going to add to that some.

I've noticed that we also tend to judge a person's actions when 
they
attempt to handle a vexing situation like overhelpfulness or
discrimination.  I've been doing some research on the effects of 
such
judgment and have concluded that it creates an invisible audience 
for
the blind person in question.  This audience is made of both the 
blind
and the sighted community and creates thoughts like "What will my 
blind
friends and colleagues think of me if I react this or that way? 
What
will the sighted person I'm talking to think? What will sighted
bystanders think?" What this does is create a win/lose situation 
where
the stakes are high.  Aside from causing stress that limits
problem-solving ability, this high stakes situation also creates 
a
greater likelihood of negative response to perceived threats to 
the
blind person's self-concept and sense of efficacy in the 
interaction.
So for example, an overly helpful person might cause a blind 
person to
feel ineffective as it is.  But the invisible audience concept 
boosts
that feeling considerably because of the stress involved with 
feeling
like they have to show themselves as both effective and graceful 
in
handling both the offers of help and the person who's offering 
it.  Is
any of this making sense? So the bottom line is that by trying to 
be
the perfect ambassador for the blind, we may be shooting 
ourselves in
the foot by creating such a high stakes situation in our mind 
that the
stress lowers our ability to present the cool, calm, and 
effective
image we want to offer to the public.

On that note, I've noticed that our community seems to have it in 
our
heads that we're responsible for how the sighted feel about us.  
The
truth is that there are limits to that responsibility.  Sure, we 
want to
set a good impression in all areas, but so does everyone else.  
The sad
truth is that we are judged based on the actions of one person.  
But the
thing is, there's nothing that we can really do about that except 
to
expose a given sighted person to the diversity of our population.  
Even
if we set the perfect impression, it's likely that the sighted 
person
will still stereotype by saying that we're all amazing or that 
the one
individual in question is the exception to a rule.  It seems to 
me that
the only people who really get that we're as diverse as they are 
are
those who know how to deconstruct society's grand narrative or 
are
those who have seen enough diversity in our population to realize 
that
they can't judge all of us based on one person.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
 That makes perfect sense, but we should not fall into the trap 
of
 taking responsibility for others' actions.  When we do that, we 
lose
 sight of our own goals and direction in life.  Unless you're a
 therapist, or a rehab teacher working with people like that, it 
is not
 your job to fix them.  Even as a therapist or teacher, your 
place is to
 be a mentor and an instructor.  As I previously said, if that 
person,
 after being shown compassion and alternative ways of thinking, 
doing
 and living chooses to fall back into old patterns as soon as the
 instructor's back is turned, that shows a lack of respect for 
everyone
 around them, including themselves.  So if a person wants to 
wallow in
 misery and self-pity, let them! That person will either fall 
hard when
 they find out their parents/family members/significant other or 
what
 have you can't take care of them forever, and then they'll 
realize
 what needs to happen in due time, or they will get sick of the 
status
 quo and want to change it.  And if people hold it against a 
decent
 blind person because they've met a person like that in the past, 
it's
 not worth it to try and make them feel any differently.  They 
will
 either come around in time or they won't.  Choice is the key 
word here.
 Everyone is free to think as they choose so long as it's not 
hurting
 anyone.  So, while it might temporarily sting a bit to lose out 
on a
 potential friendship due to someone's ignorance, as soon as you 
meet
 someone who's worth your time, you forget about that other 
person real
 quick

 On 5/26/11, Daniel Romero <djdan567 at gmail.com> wrote:
 I think the reason why this might go down is because of the view 
that
 we get from the public in general.  Most people who are sighted 
are not
 used to a blind person.  You have to understand that one blind 
person
 being seen is a huge thing.  They're now reliable for what a 
person
 thinks about blind people.  They are the ones setting an 
example.  So if
 you have a blind person who smells bad, rocks, pokes their eyes 
or
 just do not have the proper skills, the outside person will make 
an
 assumtion and say that all blind people are like that.  i'm not 
saying
 it's right for blind people to call out other blind people with 
a
 skills set that is lower then theirs, they're just calling them 
out
 because they are representing blind people.  It puts a bad label 
on us
 blind people who do take care of ourselves, have the skills to 
be
 independent and succeed.  like i said, i'm not saying it's right 
but I
 don't think us who do have the skills want to have a negative
 conotation.  Not all blind people poke their eyes, rock, hop,
 twitch,bump into everything, smell bad, do not clean their own
 clothes, or anything like that.  So to be part of a group that's 
going
 to display such a view that is negative to the public, we fall 
right
 behind that.  Am I making sense?

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