[nabs-l] Blindness and other minorities

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Chris and Arielle,

I completely understand where you're coming from- I've had the exact
same experiences, and in fact, though I don't consider myself a
Christian, my father is a minister, and my mother is a devout Catholic-
don't ask, it's a long story, smile. Anyway, I've encountered many who
view me with pity no matter the circumstances of my life and want to
pray for me, but I've also had to deal with people who believe I'm blind
because I, "don't have enough faith."

However, I think it important we not be condescending, rude or angry
when people ask to pray for us. Though the reasoning and logic are
wrong, the sentiment is not. We should not acquiesce to them, or leave
the encounter without educating them in some way, but, regardless of
religious beliefs, prayer in and of itself isn't a bad thing. And being
told you're beautiful is never a bad thing! Smile.

The Bible has several references about blindness that aren't exactly
positive or progressive, and Christians are taught to help the weak and
poor. Unfortunately people with disabilities are often viewed as "weak
and poor" despite any evidence to the contrary. Like most people though,
once they get to know us and learn about us and our disability, many
will grow and change their idea of disability.

While living in Des Moines, my husband and I were invited to a church by
a cab driver of all people. His wife was the youth pastor, and unlike
many, he simply had a conversation with us like he would with anyone
else. At least on the surface, he didn't seem to consider our blindness
to be a reason to go to church. Because of this, we thought we'd visit
since he was really nice and open-minded. Neither of us are Christians,
but we ended up joining the church, though they were aware we didn't
share beliefs, but became friends with a lot of the people nonetheless.
It was a very small church, and the members were so welcome and
open-minded. They asked us how to make programs and services more
accessible, and after the first couple of times, no one treated us as
though we were helpless or incapable. To this day, we're friends with
some of those people, and we were invited to participate in an
initiative the church was doing to include the disabled community and
educate about disability.

I'm not trying to defend the reasoning behind why some religious people
ask to pray for us just because we're blind- though stemming from
kindness, it's wrong thinking and must be changed. It is better, though,
than those who think our problem is because we don't have enough faith
or are sinners. I like to tell people that, according to most Christian
doctrines, God allows things to happen in our life. Obviously, if
following this logic,  God has allowed me to be blind, and to view this
as sad and want to pray to change it is to question God's plan. For
some, they at least stop and think.

I guess my point is that like anyone else we deal with who hold similar
ideas, we should handle the situation with diplomacy and respect. I'm
not implying Arielle or anyone else did not do this, I'm simply
cautioning us to not condescend because people, out of ignorance, think
a certain way about blindness. Hopefully we will change the minds of
those in religious communities just as we hope to change minds with the
rest of the world.

Side note: Arielle, I had a similar encounter with a woman who
approached me with tears in her eyes and told me, I wish you could see
how beautiful you are." I'm not exactly sure why this was such a sad
thing, or why it so important I be able to "see" myself regardless of
how I look. It really freaks people out when they find out I wasn't
always blind! I'm a bit of an instigator at times, smirky grin, and I
like to freak people out in these situations. Like purposefully walking
to the edge of a pool because my grandma was worried I'd fall in. No
matter I not only can swim, but was on the swim team in school and was a
lifeguard in high school. Okay, this just voids out everything I said
before. Smile.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 7
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:51:28 -0700
From: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
	<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Blindness vs. Other Minority Groups
Message-ID:
	
<CALAYQJC=ZWJJK_x7tG5ysAnEfsE4NYOBNQB0NVaWcDwm7jO3cg at mail.gmail.com>
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Nice going, Chris! I have had a few people ask about praying for me, and
I'm always too dumbfounded to come up with a good or intelligent
response. I think what you said about praying for less discrimination is
right on, and hopefully gets the point across to those guys. One thing I
said once when I was asked about being prayed for was "you can pray for
me if you want to, but I think there are probably a lot of other people
who need the prayers more than I do". Funny story-once a few years ago
at Washington Seminar, I was in one of the House buildings with two
other blind people from our affiliate, and someone came up and for some
reason wanted to pray for just me. She said something about thanking God
for making me so beautiful. Um...What? Best, Arielle

On 11/10/11, Chris Nusbaum <dotkid.nusbaum at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Beth,
>
> Now, I have to first say to everyone that this is a good discussion, 
> but I hope we don't get too off topic, and I really hope this 
> discussion doesn't turn into another one like the one we had in 
> September.  Not saying that anyone is doing anything like that, but 
> just a fair warning.  Beth, as for all religions, there are radicals 
> in all religions.  There are a few Muslims who I know (including you 
> now, BTW, give me a call on Skype sometime, haven't been able to get a

> hold of you on Skype in a while,) and my beliefs on the Muslim 
> religion as a whole have changed since I met one.  I first thought 
> that they were some radical religious movement which believed in 
> terrorism and holy war.  But I learned that this isn't the case for 
> many Muslims; in fact, many of you denounce (or at least don't agree 
> with) what the extremists do. Similarly, while I respect your ability 
> to make decisions about your religious beliefs and your conversion to 
> Islam, I just want to let you know that many Christians (like myself 
> and other blind
> Christians) don't believe what your family members believe.  I have 
> never run into problems at my church with Christianity and blindness, 
> and I don't think a lot of Christians believe that blindness is 
> unbearable.  Well, let's just point out that many members of the 
> sighted public, regardless of their religion, believe that blindness 
> is unbearable.  The only time I ran into any problems with 
> misconceptions about blindness and religion together was when I was on

> an O and M lesson in my hometown this summer and a really elderly 
> gengleman came up to us (my instructor and I) just as I was preparing 
> to cross the street, (he scared me a little) and started asking my 
> teacher (like she was supposed to be speaking for me) if I wanted to 
> be put on his church's prayer list.  Thankfully, she told him that he 
> could ask me and that I was old enough to make those kinds of 
> decisions on my own.  When he (reluctantly enough) finally asked me, I
> answered, "Thank you for the consideration, but why exactly do
> you want to pray for me? I'm not sick, nor am I in some kind of
> emotional trouble." He answered that he wanted to pray for me
> because I was "um...  unsighted" and he wanted Jesus to "heal"
> me.  Then, once again turning to my teacher, he asked, "How long
> has he been that way?" That's right, "that way!" He couldn't even
> bring himself to say the word blind, lest the mere mention of the
> word offend me, even when he knew I was travelling and
> functioning pretty independently and confidently, and seemed to
> have no problem whatsoever with the fact that I was blind! She
> then prompted him once again to talk to me, and he asked me the
> question.  Politely enough, I answered "I was born blind,"
> putting a little emphasis on the word blind.  Starting to stare
> at me in what was probably wonder at my independence, he said,
> "You're born that way! Well, that's something! Well we'll pray
> for you!" I thanked him for the prayer, and said that "if you put
> me on your prayer list, I hope you will also pray that sighted
> people will see that blind people can be on terms of equality
> with them, and that we're just as capable as them, although we
> might do things differently.  If sighted people see this, then I
> pray that there will be no more discrimination against the blind
> just because we're blind." I didn't say those exact words, but it
> was pretty much the same.  So there you have it.  Misconceptions
> rear their ugly head yet again, and I hope I got the point
> across.  To close, I will say this; you've probably heard the old
> saying "Agitate, agitate, agitate." Well, for us, it's "Educate,
> educate, educate!"
>
> Chris