[nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups

[Jedi]

arielle,

I wondered about this rudeness thing, too. And I guess that underscores 
for me why it's so important to stand up for ourselves. If the sighted 
are writing us off as rude when we stand up for ourselves, they're 
basically dealing with cognitive dissonence; they're finding out that 
we don't appreciate the kindness they think we ought to appreciate, so 
it's much easier to assume that something is wrong with us than to 
think that maybe they need to change their behavior. Other minorities 
started out with the same problem and still face it to a great  extent. 
But for them, it only got better through persistence. Whites started 
realizing that Blacks weren't being "uppity" when saying that it's not 
okay to discriminate against people based on skin color or inflict 
psychological or physical injury because of skin color. Now, most 
Whites realize that it's our behavior that needed changing, not theirs. 
Women still face the challenge of rudeness when men offer "polite 
gestures" such as opening a door or offering to walk a woman home lest 
she be assaulted by someone in the dark. I think this is something that 
we're just going to have to deal with until enough sighted people 
realize that it's not just one or two of us that are unhappy with the 
status quo. And I think, too, that some sighted people will, either 
right away or after the fact, get it and help us spread our message. 
I've heard of sighted people who have confronted other sighted people 
about their behavior toward the blind. Some have been successful in 
their efforts to educate through dialogue. I think of Darick 
Williamson, for example. He has an amazing way of educating other 
sighted people in a meaningful way. I know some of my other sighted 
friends have had similar success.

but beyond that, I think the big thing is simply not to hold ourselves 
responsible for how the sighted react to us. That's part of why the 
status quo is what it is. We've been taught to be ambassadors for the 
blind; we have been taught to guard our words and actions such that the 
sighted don't think we're being rude. Social conflict being what it is, 
that's just not terribly realistic. If you're going to be honest with 
someone, you run the risk of temporarily causing them some pain. The 
trick is to not cause more pain than is necessary; there is such a 
thing as tact and empathy for where the sighted are coming from; that 
tact and empathy can help the sighted person heal from their temporary 
pain provided that the sighted person has the authentic strength of 
character to want to heal, learn, and grow. There will be some we just 
can't touch, and there's not much we can do to help them for the time 
being. They'll have to figure it out through reapeated similar 
experiences that challenge their notions about the world and the people 
in it. But at least we honored ourselves and were honest.

In short, you just have to do the best you can. And rather than judging 
each other for "failed attempts" (in quotes) with the sighted, we need 
to recognize that we're all in it together and that no one is perfect; 
we also need to recognize that we each might have done or said the same 
thing to the sighted person in question had it been us. I think we 
suffer from two great fears when trying to be honest with the sighted: 
we're afraid of what the sighted person will think and we're afraid of 
what other blind people will think. Carl Rogers once theorized that we 
tend to adopt other people's values and judgments and act on them as 
though they are our own. In the meantime, we've completely gotten away 
from our basic experience and developed a distorted sense of who we 
really are and what matters to us.

In short, there is no real formula for dealing with the sighted except 
to speak from your inner experience while doing as little harm to the 
other as possible. All we need is a little practice in a safe 
environment such as an encounter group with caring and supportive blind people.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
> Hi all,
> These are all great points. Thanks for humoring me with this
> discussion. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it important.
> As some of you may know, there was a time not too long ago when
> African Americans were perceived to be less intelligent than white
> Americans. In fact, there was a brief scientific movement called "race
> science" to try and quantify this intelligence difference and link it
> to racial differences in brain structure. Of course, this belief has
> been heavily challenged and is no longer popular. Additionally,
> psychologists have identified specific factors in the social
> environment that can lead to racial differences in performance on
> standardized tests that were once mistaken for differences in
> intelligence. For example, questions on IQ tests are sometimes worded
> in a biased fashion to favor people from white American backgrounds,
> and sometimes fears about being stereotyped can cause people to
> perform worse on tests than they are actually capable of. Because
> African Americans were stereotyped as less intelligent, this
> stereotype itself can lead to poor test performance.
> As we all know, there are lots of beliefs out there, among the sighted
> public, blindness professionals and blind people ourselves, about the
> inferiority of blindness and the many deficits and lack of ability we
> have. We know that a big part of our inequality comes from the social
> environment-parents and teachers who have low expectations, lack of
> instruction in Braille and other blindness skills, and lack of
> accessibility-and only a small part of it comes directly from the
> condition of blindness. I dream that in time, hopefully in our
> lifetime, this will become the widely accepted view, and the majority
> of the sighted public will understand that we can be equally
> successful as our sighted counterparts under the right social
> conditions, just like most people (at least most educated people) now
> understand that African Americans are just as intellectually capable
> as whites if the social environment supports their success.
> We definitely have a long way to go in this regard and it will be
> difficult to drive this point home. As others have said, some sighted
> people just don't know what our capabilities are. I think that in our
> culture there is a lot of focus on vision as a major sense, and people
> assume that vision loss is invariably a deficit. It explains why
> literature geared toward parents of blind children often highlights
> the fact that 80% of what sighted children learn is learned visually,
> and it explains why blindness professionals are often so unwilling to
> teach Braille and prefer to focus on vision-based literacy. People
> have trouble believing that all the other senses combined plus some
> mental effort can make up for loss of vision. People's beliefs about
> the primacy of vision for functioning are powerful, often unconscious,
> and are rarely challenged-because we are a minority, and because these
> beliefs are difficult to challenge. Truly understanding how blind
> people function requires some creative thinking and mental
> flexibility-something I frankly don't think some people possess or are
> willing to engage. And unfortunately, it is hard to get people on
> board for the environmental modifications we need to be
> equal-accessibility etc.-unless they truly believe that these changes
> will give us equal opportunity.
> Jedi, you make some interesting points about how we should start
> standing up to the sighted. I agree that we are often conditioned to
> accept treatment we shouldn't be accepting, and that the errant
> behavior of the sighted so often goes unchallenged. The problem is
> that I fear that attempts to stand up for ourselves will be
> misinterpreted. The treatment we get differs from treatment to other
> minority groups in that we are rarely treated with violence or
> outright hostility, but so often discriminated against under an
> illusion of kindness. Too often, an honest response to this kindness
> is simply shrugged off as rudeness or ingratitude instead of really
> being given proper attention. For example, when I was a teenager, I
> often refused offers of "help" from people I didn't know well and
> would let people know I didn't like it when they grabbed or manhandled
> me around. I am told that several of my schoolmates thought of me as a
> b**. I don't think they ever actually thought about changing their
> behavior toward me, but just wrote me off as a rude person. So I
> definitely think we should make an effort to communicate frankly and
> directly with the sighted, but I'm unsure of how to do it in a way
> that is accepted in dialogue rather than just dismissed. I would be
> interested in learning more about the dialogue strategies you mention.
> Best,
> Arielle

> On 11/4/11, Jedi <loneblindjedi at samobile.net> wrote:
>> 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


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