[nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions
Carly Mihalakis
carlymih at earthlink.net
Sat Nov 19 21:03:30 UTC 2011
Good afternoon, Ashley I think,
What's with trying to cram everyone into boxes
upon which are plastered identifiers like
"blindness" and "cognitive impairments?" People
ought to feel they can just do what feels right,
and comfortable and not be pressured to shead
some mannerisms, while retaining others. Doncha
think? And, besides, there are folks starving, in
this here world so if kid needs to rock, and he
doesn't happen to have so-called cog native
impairment, let the kid rock around the whole,
clock!11/19/2011, Ashley Bramlett wrote:
>Bridgit, Very well said! Sighted people in a
>culture learn body language and facial
>expressions from observing others; our culture
>emphasises personal space, shaking hands to
>greet, and eye contact just as some examples.
>Blind and low vision people won’t see it, but
>if someone works with us, its still a learned
>behavior; we just learn in a different way. I
>think behaviors such as eye contact and shaking
>hands are natural since I learned early on as
>did sighted peers. Once practiced, it became
>more automatic. I also like your comment that we
>should try to extinguish behaviors associated
>with mental and cognitive behaviors. Rocking is
>one of them. Yet, I think it would be unnatural
>to learn something now; I could do it, but it
>would probably be stiffer and not as natural
>like if I learned gestures. What I do though in
>a presentation is look around the room from left
>to right; speakers to do this to get attention
>and establish themselves before talking to a
>group; I do it even though I cannot see a lot,
>especially toward the back of the room. I can
>also say yes or no with my head because I was
>taught early on. But other nonverbals such as
>winking, shrugging shoulders, and becconing with
>the hand were not taught and I think I'd be a
>little stiffer and unnatural doing them. Still
>it would be good to try and learn. Ashley
>-----Original Message----- From: Bridgit
>Pollpeter Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 2:30
>PM To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org Subject: [nabs-l] Body
>language and facial expressions This is such a
>dodgy issue. It is a fine balance, and while I
>understand we shouldn't use and act in ways
>completely unnatural to us, we also should try
>to follow behavior that's not indicative of
>other disabilities associated with mental and
>cognitive issues. Most body language and facial
>expressions are learned behavior. Since most of
>the population is sighted, we learn facial
>expressions and body language from observing
>others. Babies and little children often mimic
>what they see others doing. As we grow older, we
>tend to adopt body and facial expressions
>natural to us as individuals, but often
>associated, whether conscious or unconscious,
>through learned behavior. It stands to reason
>that if a person is trying to adopt behavior
>nonvisually, one would work with another person
>to adopt, and understand, certain facial and
>body expressions. Just because we learn the
>behavior, A. K. A. facial expressions and body
>language, through a nonvisual medium, does not
>necessarily imply that the facial and body
>expressions a blind person replaces with either
>more stoic and rigid expressions or movement, or
>rocking or inappropriate movements, is
>inorganic, or unnatural, to that individual. If
>you learn, though nonvisually, a different way
>to move and express yourself, why does it have
>to be unnatural and arbitrary? Like sighted
>people, we're adopting behavior, just in a
>different way; it's learned behavior though
>learned in a nonvisual manner. And as I've
>stated earlier, I believe asking u to cover,
>hide, something like our eyes is equal to
>bleaching skin or straightening hair or covering
>accents/dialects; I don't, however, think that
>changing certain behaviors, such as rocking, can
>be equated to this. First, all people have
>physical movements often unique to them as an
>individual whether noticeable or not. It's often
>instinctive and unconscious. However, some
>movements are associated with mental, cognitive
>or psychological disabilities/concerns. In
>particular, rocking is often associated with
>developmental disabilities or abuse victims.
>Certain facial expressions are also associated
>with developmental disabilities and other
>psychological issues. Obviously people who are
>blind, while many do have multiple disabilities,
>don't have developmental disabilities, but
>because some of the "blindisms" are also linked
>to such disabilities, I don't think it's a
>problem to expect people who are blind to
>correct such behavior. I don't see this similar
>to changing, or concealing, body parts or
>internal attributes associated with race or
>ethnicity, or in the case of disabilities that
>can't be controlled such as the functioning of
>eyes or missing limbs. In a nutshell, which I
>have problems fitting things into, smile, my
>point is that body language and many facial
>expressions are picked up through learned
>behavior. Whether we learn this behavior
>visually or nonvisually, it doesn't mean we're
>just going through the motions- acting as it
>were. It's the same process just done
>nonvisually. Just as we learn to read and write
>Braille or use adaptive technology with
>computers. We're doing the same things, just in
>a different way. I also don't think we can
>compare certain changes nade , physically or
>internally, indicative of race or ethnicity, to
>correcting social behavior such as body language
>or facial expressions either linked to other
>disabilities or inappropriate to a given
>situation. 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: Fri, 18 Nov 2011
>13:26:31 -0700 From: Marc Workman
><mworkman.lists at gmail.com> To: National
>Association of Blind Students mailing list
><nabs-l at nfbnet.org> Subject: Re: [nabs-l]
>Blindness versus other minority groups
>Message-ID:
><039F2609-C62A-4985-83E1-FBC50C239F70 at gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Carly
>wrote, How can facial expressions and other body
>language convey meaning if they are not
>naturally, ocuring? For this reason I don't see
>a reason to sort of put on nonverbal, expression
>if, behind it there is little, meaning? I want
>to take Carly's point further and suggest that
>pressuring blind people to look and act like
>others is in itself wrong. I'm not suggesting
>there is no value to it, nor am I saying it
>should never be done, but it makes me
>uncomfortable. The subject of this thread is
>comparing blindness to other minorities. I think
>there's a parallel between pressuring blind
>people to look and act like everyone else and
>things that some minorities used to do and still
>do for similar reasons. In the past, among
>African Americans, there existed the practice of
>skin bleaching and hair straightening for the
>purpose of appearing less black and/or more
>white. I can't give evidence to show how common
>this was, but Malcolm X talked about trying to
>remove the kink from his hair himself and
>finding it a physically and emotionally painful
>process. There are also surgeries performed to
>give people of East Asian descent more "white
>looking" eyes and Jews more "white looking"
>noses. These are just a couple of
>examples. Pressuring minorities to adopt the
>dominant group's style of dress, gate, diction,
>body language, etc also often happens. I hope we
>can agree that this is at the very least
>unfortunate. There may be psychological and
>other explanations for why this occurs, but
>feeling pressured to get a nose job or to bleach
>your skin so that you look more like one
>particular group in society is problematic to
>say the least. So what's the difference between
>these cases and pressuring a blind person to
>adopt the behavioural habits, facial
>expressions, body language etc of some sighted
>people? You might say that we live in a sighted
>world and so we have to adapt. There is
>something to this, but I wonder if it would be
>equally acceptable to say we live in a
>white-dominated world so non-whites have to
>adapt. It may be the case that blind people who
>don't "look blind" are more successful and
>integrate better, and it also may be that
>non-whites who look and act white are more
>successful and integrate better, but in neither
>case is it just that the minorities need to
>assume the dominant groups characteristics in
>order to be successful. What ultimately needs to
>happen is not that blind people begin to look
>and act like sighted people, but that we all
>become more accepting of differences that are
>arbitrary and irrelevant. Most, if not all, so
>called blindisms are irrelevant, and I see no
>more reason to stamp them out than I do for
>trying to eliminate various differences in
>behaviour and appearance possessed by other
>minority groups. Cheers,
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