[nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups

[Andi]

I have a friend who is in a wheelchair and when we took trips together or 
even just went out to lunch together, it was both anoying and offensive and 
yet some how funny, because people did not know which one of us to treet 
like we were stupid or incapable.  It always offended us the way we were 
treeted but we use to make a bet with each other, which one of us would be 
the "one that needed help" and which one of us would be the "helper."  We 
were allways rong when we thought it would be both of us thought of as 
stupid, because people think if you have a "disability" then you need an aid 
or helper, so when their were two people they feel are helpless their brain 
cant handle the confewsion.  It never occurred to them to think we were both 
capable intelligent people.  Once I went to the club with a sighted friend 
and I was weighting to use the bathroom when my friend walked in wondering 
where I went.  Some stranger yeld at my friend for letting me wonder off by 
myself as thoe I were a child.  My friend told her that I was a big girl and 
did not need a keeper, but the chick just didn't get it.  One time I went to 
lunch with a group of sighted friends and my friends all were given glass 
glasses while I was given a styraphome cup with a lid.  I asked the waiter 
why I was given the cup with a lid while my friends were given glass glasses 
and he pretended not to speek english.  He went and found the restoront 
owner and they had a long conversation in korean which I was told was a 
translation of what I was asking but was most defanatly a discussion about 
what to do with me.  He told me he thought I wanted take out.  I laughed and 
asked him why he would think so when I sat at the same table with my friends 
and took my coat off?  He finally told me he just thought it would be better 
so I wouldn’t spill.  I am not that clumbsy but I almost took the top off 
and dumped it out on the floor just to proove a point but I did not.  We 
finished eating and when I went to pay for myself and my friend who's 
birthday it was, I was swept aside and my friend was asked for money on my 
behalf.  Needless to say I was livid, and my friends told me I was over 
reacting about the whole thing and just needed to calm down because the man 
just did not understand blind people.  Thees are just a few examples as you 
all well know we have to deal with it every day.  I try to enlighten people 
and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  Some people are just to 
dence too ever understand anything beyond their skewed perseption of 
themselves and the world, but some times people will understand once they 
are given a chance.  One time I went to a sushi restoront and the waittriss 
probably had never seen a blind person in her life and thought I was 
helpless at first but once she heard me talking like a normal person and did 
not need the fork she gave me because I could eat with the chopsticks she 
started talking to me like I was a normal person.  She even was joking with 
me as I was leaveing.  The change from practically shuvving me in a chair 
because she was afraid I would brake if I took another step to asking my 
opinian about her relationship was enough to tell me that some people if 
educated can come around.  The ones who will never get it no matter how well 
you prove yourself I feel bad for it must really suck to be so stupid.  I 
say stupid because I truly believe there is a difference between stupid and 
ignorent.  If you are ignorent it is not your fault because you just don't 
know, but if you are ignorent because you refuse to learn then that person 
is stupid.  I am sorry for the ranting and the run on sentences but I get 
mad when talking about the stupid people of the world.  As far as other 
minorities go, I have friends in pretty much every community there is and 
the descrimenation is just as bad for them it is just a different form.  My 
friend Canesha who is black just had an insident where she was being wached 
for shoplifting and she is the last person on earth who would shoplift.  She 
was being wached for no other reason then because she is black.  She was so 
angry about it but told me it happened at every store she went to.  It made 
me so mad.  My friend Youmi is from Korea and when we were in highschool she 
did not have many friends because everyone thought because she had an 
accsent and her english was not perfict that she was stupid.  She had 
skipped 2 grades that is how smart she is.  People still talked baby talk to 
her that made me mad.  She never acted like she was mad but I know it 
bothered her.  I have a friend who's knew name is Maria, but had a former 
name of Peter and she lost a lot of family and friends when they met Maria. 
she is the same person she was except now her phisical gender maches her 
mental gender.  People act like she has a contagious disease, that makes me 
mad.  My own father through a toster through a glass door when he found out 
I was dating a man from Guatemala.  He did eventually come around though and 
is now suportive of our engagement. However he is still more happy with my 
sisters white boyfriend who treets her taribly then my brown feeonce who 
treets me like a queen.  If the world was more openminded and less stuck on 
themselves then none of us would have problems but unfortunatly it is not 
that symple and all the education in the world will not fix the problem. 
Thankfully not all people are so stupid and we just have to focus on 
educating the people who are inteligent enough to not want to be ignorent.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Joshua Lester
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 2:49 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups

Cortnie:
Welcome to the list!
I hope you enjoy your time here!
I agree with your statements.
I'll E-mail you offlist.
Blessings, Joshua

On 11/1/11, Cortnie Ryan <cortnie.ryan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, my name is Cortnie.
> This is an extremely interesting topic of discussion. One in which
> I've pondered multiple times. I'm relatively new on this mailing list,
> and haven't quite had the nerve to put my thoughts and opinions down
> for all to see. Shy? I don't know. Anyway, on with the show, I guess.
> First off, I should say that the way this was brought to the table was
> very well-said, and I could tell it's something that was thought about
> at great length. Yes, forgive me for stating the obvious, but a cause
> for controversy is definitely a possibility, but these issues need to
> be discussed in order to reach a potential and satisfactory
> resolution. Mind you, this is only my opinion, but it's an opinion I
> feel very strongly about. No, I don't feel that it's different at all.
> What you may feel as a compliment to another person, may, essentially,
> be a slap in their face. Saying that you do something well for a blind
> person is no different than if you were to, as previously stated, do
> well for being a woman. Quite frankly, that sounds sexist and
> degrading, no matter how well-meaning the comment was. It's all about
> the perception. What someone else may see as complimentary, you may
> see as an insult. There have been many times those types of statements
> have been made to me. For instance, "Wow, I'm impressed. You do really
> well with crossing the street... for a blind person." Yet, comments
> like that aren't made to any other minority. A more tactful approach
> is taken. I'm unsure why it's that way, but I'm inclined to believe
> that it's a lack of education as well as the fact that most people see
> blindness as a physical disability or, I really hate to use this word,
> but a handicap. We as blind people may be a small fraction of the
> population, but blindness has been around as long as gays have, or
> even unconventional religious practices and beliefs. Take it from
> someone who has struggled through a couple different situations. I
> found my experiences to be quite similar. Lots of stereotyping, but
> different approaches were made when dealing with it. We all just want
> to be accepted and cared about for who we are on the inside. That's
> all that should matter. Unfortunately, though, that's not what people
> see when they meet us. Our supposed disability overshadows our
> disposition and personality. It's the same with our success. We can't
> possibly make it in the fast-track world of the all-mighty sighted.
> Note the sarcasm.
> Well, there's so much more I could write about this subject, but then
> it would just become even more of a rant. I'm trying to avoid that.
> Once again, very well written.
>
> On 10/31/11, Joshua Lester <jlester8462 at students.pccua.edu> wrote:
>> Wow!
>> Arielle, I've been waiting to say something about this issue!
>> I was listening to the National Quartet Convention, (Southern Gospel
>> music's largest event,) when legendary singer/songwriter Bill Gaither
>> made this comment, while introducing the next group.
>> Gordon Mote, is his pianist, and he happens to be blind, so bear this in
>> mind.
>> Bill Gaither said this, while introducing the Southern Gospel trio,
>> "Greater Vision."
>> "Now, we go from lesser vision, (refering to Gordon,) to Greater
>> Vision," (referring to the group.)
>> It's okay to make fun of blindness, but if I told a joke against
>> someone else, I'd be criticized.
>> There's a double standard in the politically correct world.
>> What's good for the goose is good for the gander!
>> Blessings, Joshua
>>
>> On 10/31/11, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Warning-this topic has the potential to start a heated debate, but I
>>> also think it is an interesting and important topic for us as blind
>>> people to think about.
>>> Lately I have been thinking a lot about how the problems faced by the
>>> blind are similar to or different from those faced by other minority
>>> groups in this country historically and in the present. More than
>>> that, I have been thinking about how the general public sees us as a
>>> group in comparison to how they view other minority groups. It has
>>> struck me that oftentimes members of the general public treat us in
>>> discriminatory ways or stereotype us without even considering that
>>> this kind of treatment resembles stereotyping and discrimination
>>> against other minority groups.
>>> Let me give a concrete example. In his book Freedom for the Blind, Jim
>>> Omvig writes of a time when he was directing a training center and a
>>> female staff member at the center commented, "You do your job so well,
>>> sometimes I forget you're blind!" Seeing the teachable moment, Mr.
>>> Omvig brought up this incident to his students during a philosophy
>>> class, and to illustrate his point he said to the woman, "You are such
>>> a good teacher, sometimes I forget you're a woman!" From what I
>>> recall, the staff member got a bit upset and insisted that "no, what I
>>> said about you being blind was very different from what you said about
>>> my being a woman. I was just trying to give you a compliment!"
>>> Now, as blind people most of us understand the problem with her
>>> comment-the implication that being blind must not be very good, so
>>> someone who does a good job isn't like other blind people. To me this
>>> sounds like the same problem as making the analogous comment to a
>>> woman-but she didn't see it that way. Why not? Is there a difference
>>> here?
>>> I have often been quite frustrated when people I know and
>>> trust-friends or family members, who have very liberal views about
>>> race, would never utter a racial slur or support discrimination
>>> against racial minorities, women, gays etc. who nonetheless have no
>>> qualms about saying negative things about blindness. Like saying blind
>>> people are all worse than the sighted at something, or that blind
>>> people are more dependent or less successful than the sighted, etc.
>>> They will sometimes say these things to my face and don't understand
>>> why I don't like to hear these things. Sometimes family members will
>>> make comments comparing me favorably to other blind people. They think
>>> they are giving me compliments, and fail to understand that I don't
>>> want to hear negative things spoken about the blind as a collective.
>>> Yet these same people would never tell an African American that they
>>> are "smart for a black person" etc. I remember during the protests
>>> against the Blindness film in 2008, I was perplexed by how many people
>>> just didn't get it, and didn't see what harm the film could do-and yet
>>> an analogous film where everyone developed black skin or female
>>> anatomy with such dire consequences would never be accepted in our
>>> modern society. And finally, in my research, I have observed that the
>>> college students in my experiments have no problem saying on a survey
>>> that the blind are much less competent than the sighted, yet would
>>> never say such things directly about another minority group-in fact,
>>> lots of fancy indirect measures have been developed to tap those
>>> attitudes because people nowadays are so unwilling to admit their
>>> prejudices, unless it's toward the blind.
>>> So, what's up? Are stereotypes about the blind somehow more accurate
>>> than stereotypes about ethnic minorities? Is discrimination against
>>> the blind somehow more justified? Or is it just that we are such a
>>> small group that we haven't developed the same history, had the same
>>> scale of civil rights activism, etc. to raise people's awareness? Do
>>> you guys think we deserve the same considerations as other minorities
>>> in this country? If not, am I missing something? If so, how do we get
>>> members of the public to see this?
>>> Also, as an aside, I'm curious to hear from those of you who are "dual
>>> minorities" being both blind and a member of a minority group in this
>>> country (ethnicity-wise, or a different group like GLBT, uncommon
>>> religious beliefs etc.) How do you think your two identities are
>>> similar? Different? Do you feel they interact with one another?
>>> I look forward to the discussion.
>>> Best,
>>> Arielle
>>>
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