[nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups

[Jedi]

David,

With all due respect, I think that's exactly the logic that rewards us 
for keeping our mouths shut thus maintaining the status quo. When we 
say to ourselves "Sighted people don't mean to be malicious," we 
somehow send ourselves, and each other, the second half of the message 
which ultimately says "So lay off," "No need to worry about it," or 
""It's no big deal." If that works for you, great. But what about those 
of us whom such logic doesn't work for?

I tried to soothe myself with the notion that the sighted just don't 
know better. And for me, that made the problem all the worse because I 
started to think that there was something wrong with me for feeling 
upset by what the sighted person had said or done to begin with. I 
started questioning the validity of my own experience as the person to 
whom ignorant comments are made and ignorant actions are pressed upon. 
Like I said in a previous post, I had to rearrange my thinking or else 
go nuts. *grin*

Yes, the sighted don't intend to be malicious, but the fact is that 
what they say and do is still harmful. Humans never meant to be 
malicious toward Earth, but our actions over the last hundred years or 
so have badly depleted our natural resources and will continue to do so 
until we realize that, despite our lack of bad intensions, we're 
harming something that's as much a part of ourselves as anything. I 
hope the analogy is not too remote.

My bottom line is this. I think it's time to stop excusing the sighted 
when they treat us in ways that they themselves would never wish to be 
treated. I think it's time we start alerting ourselves and the rest of 
the world to the fact that our interpersonal relationships with the 
sighted public haven't changed as much as we would like them to, and 
that these interpersonal (and intercultural) relationships are, to a 
large extent, a huge part of why we have such a high unemployment rate, 
why we experience discrimination in our recreational and personal 
lives, and why the public still largely considers us a non-entity in a 
lot of ways (I think internet accessibility is a great example of this).

Yes, what i'm suggesting is, i suppose, quite radical. But I think we 
can have our cake and eat it, too. I think it's possible to develop 
excellent interpersonal and intercultural relations with the sighted 
thereby getting our basic societal needs met. But the first step is 
realizing that nothing is going to change unless we intend that change 
to happen and take the steps to start it.

Here's what I think we could do to get the ball rolling. I think we 
need to start publishing another round of Kernel books. I realize we 
still have a bunch left over from the last set we did, but they are out 
of date in that they don't address some of the newer issues that have 
cropped up in the last ten years or so. And frankly, we need fresher 
faces in these stories. we need more stories from the current 
generation because that's who will be reading these stories on the 
sighted end of things. I'm willing to write for the kernel books. 
anyone with me?

The second thing we need to do is to formally teach ourselves how to 
communicate more effectively with the sighted. Last time, i talked 
about educating through dialogue rather than dialoguing through 
education. How is that done, anyway? Well, there are a few ways of 
going about it and there are some amazing groups and institutions who 
specialize in teaching people how to communicate based on their 
experience. I immediately think of the Swil Kanim Foundation, the 
Institute of Cultural Affairs, and the Center for studies of the 
Person. All of these entities have trained facilitators who can help 
groups of us learn how to communicate our experiences more effectively; 
we could potentially hold encounter groups during our next NFB 
convention in Dallas. The groups would be small to start out with; 
maybe twenty to fifty in each. But it's a start. Alternatively, the 
Federation could start a project wherein some of us volunteer to train 
as facilitators through one of these entities and then go around from 
affiliate to affiliate, chapter to chapter, and have these encounter 
groups locally. What would come out of either approach is a group of 
people who are more willing to be truthful with the sighted and can do 
so in a way that's honoring to everyone concerned.

Anyway, these are some thoughts I've been playing with for some time, 
and I'm willing to participate in a project like this, but i'm going to 
need some help.I've said it before, but I'm interested in hearing from 
anyone who's also interested in this kind of thing and who think we 
could come up with some crazy way to get it going.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
> Arielle:

> I think that it is in part that we are a small minority, but the
> biggest factor is people's ignorance about the capabilities of the
> blind.  When someone shuts their eyes, they don't see how they could
> do anything, (pun partially intended.)  Without training -- which
> they don't have, they can't imagine how we get around etc.

> I don't think their statements are malicious, just ignorant!

> Dave

> At 10:09 PM 10/31/2011, you 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


> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/loneblindjedi%40samobile.net

-- 
Email services provided by the System Access Mobile Network.  Visit 
www.serotek.com to learn more about accessibility anywhere.