[nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups

[Jedi]

Chris,

People of Color have had to deal with misconceptions about their 
capabilities and still do. For along time, there was a psychological 
science devoted to explaining how Black people are mentally inferior to 
White people in order to justify segregation and the prejudice that 
African Americans face in schools. Lots of White people still think 
that Blacks are more prone to violence and stealing than Whites. And 
don't get me started on GLBT: you'd be horrified to learn what they go 
through. The point is that discrimination and prejudice, as well as 
misconceptions about their cabilities and characteristics, are alive 
and well; people have just gotten a lot better at hiding their negative 
judgments. And as to the disabled populus, I think the reason why 
people don't hide their prejudices is because they don't associate that 
kind of prejudice with hatred, a certainly undesireable attitude 
socially speaking.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
> Hi Arielle,

> You raise some good points here, and I hope this starts a good
> discussion; one that I believe is good to have.  In my opinion,
> the difference between the public's stereotyping and
> discrimination of blind people and that of other minority groups
> is this: blind people have to deal with more misconceptions about
> us.  In other words, there are still widely-held misconceptions
> about us and what we can and cannot do, which are held by the
> public as being true.  This, of course, is a generalisation; not
> all of the public believes these misconceptions to be true,
> especially those members of the public who work directly with us
> or are friends or relatives of a blind person; those who know
> from experience what blind people can do.  It seems to me that
> these misconceptions are passed down through the generations;
> from one generation to their children, then passed on to those
> children's children, then to their children, and to their
> children, and so on.  When these beliefs are taught for a long
> time and are handed down through the generations, it becomes
> easier for people to believe them and they mostly do.  These
> misconceptions, which are widely believed by a vast majority of
> the public, are the beliefs from which the stereotyping and
> discrimination stem.  Then, the misconceptions of the public
> directly effect us, as we then become the object of
> discrimination and stereotypes.  To me, other minority groups
> don't have this problem.  Take the African-Americans for example.
> Are there any widely-held misconceptions about what they can do
> and how successful they can be? No! Are there any doubts as to
> their ability to compete on terms of equality with their white
> piers? No! Are their any questions about their ability to be
> employed? No! Even during the segregation era, this group was not
> discriminated against for the reason that there were
> misconceptions held by the white that they couldn't be on terms
> of equality with everybody else in society, but for the simple
> reason that they were different! During this time, I think the
> majority, the white population, forgot the undisputed fact that
> all people are different, and that having a different skin color
> doesn't justify looking down on a person.  The beliefs about
> blind people which make people discriminate against us are of a
> different character than the beliefs which make people
> discriminate against other minorities.  The difference is that
> the beliefs about blindness which cause discrimination against us
> to happen are stemmed from a lack of education about the truth
> about blindness, whereas the beliefs which make people
> discriminate against other minorities (I'm talking about
> minorities based on skin color, religion, political beliefs,
> sexual orientation, etc.) are just based on relatively untrue
> stereotypes and thoughts.  Therefore, people who might stereotype
> or discriminate against us wouldn't tolerate discrimination based
> on race, religion, etc, because the times have changed and the
> misconceptions and discrimination have no justification
> whatsoever, nor are even legal, in the case of outright
> discrimination.  However, they would stereotype about us because
> they don't have the education about blindness to see the fact
> that these stereotypes aren't justified either.  For this reason,
> we have organizations such as the Federation to educate and
> advocate.  We have a special responsibility, in my opinion, that
> many other minority groups don't have; to educate the public.  We
> have to make sure everybody knows what blind people really can do
> and prove that we can compete on terms of equality with our
> sighted piers.  Other minority groups have proven this already,
> and the little discrimination that still exists is generally
> thought to be ridiculous and baseless.  However, the public
> doesn't think of discrimination against the blind that way,
> simply because they don't think it's discrimination! They're OK
> with it, because they aren't educated.  So, it is our job to
> educate them! I should also say that we also need to educate by
> example, meaning that we must not discriminate or stereotype
> against other people.  Those are my thoughts.

> Chris

>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Date sent: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:09:24 -0600
> Subject: [nabs-l] Blindness vs.  Other Minority Groups

> 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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