[nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Marc,

While I agree with you on a philosophical and theoretical level, I think
we need to step outside and consider the world as a living, breathing
thing. Social "norms" have been established for centuries, and society
doesn't seem ready to change anytime. This is not to say we give up, lay
down and die, but we're not speaking about the capabilities of the
blind, or our intellectual capacity; we're talking about physical
movements.

And you keep saying that to correct certain blindisms is forcing them to
assimilate into the sighted world, but it shouldn't be a blind or
sighted issue. It's common for blind kids to exhibit what we refer to as
blindisms, but sighted kids do exhibit these behaviors, and they are
corrected as well. It can't exactly be a forced assimilation, stifling
true natures, of the blind when sighted people do certain things too.
Sighted kids are corrected for this physical behavior, and blind kids
should be as well.

When sighted kids are corrected for rocking or gesticulating
inappropriately or making strange faces, is this forcing them into
something, are we stifling their true nature? You make this black and
white, like it's specific to the blind, and correcting blindisms sends
the message that we're not worthy of equalness, but what does this mean
for sighted kids? What are they being forced into? How does this hold
the blind back when sighted people do it too? Why make it a sighted vs.
blind issue?

Based on your utopian ideals, how do we currently fit into society when
we exhibit physical movements that are not socially acceptable? Do they
benefit us? Do they move us forward? We're not talking about personality
changes but being aware on our body and how we move it. Insisting to put
everything into a category, placing blind against sighted, just
perpetuates the idea that we're different; we're not the same, which
usually leads to inequality.

We can look to the future and attempt change, but we need to be
realistic and live in the real world. Changing our physicality has no
bearing on us as a person; we retain our personality, but we can learn
how to move our body in a socially acceptable way. And we can't pit
blind people against sighted people, claiming that changing how we move
our body forces us into a sighted world when some sighted people exhibit
a lot of similar behavior.

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: 1
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:05:44 -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] Body language and facial expressions
Message-ID: <71DFF2E6-9A35-443D-A9D2-5F98C387E972 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hello Greg,

I appreciate your response as well.  This is a subject i find
interesting.  My style is to quote and then respond.  I find it helpful
for ensuring that I'm responding to what a person actually said, and it
helps the reader know to which specific point I'm responding, but I
think it bothers some people, perhaps it comes across as
confrontational.  That's not my intention, so I hope it's not
interpreted that way.

Greg wrote,
If a blind person does not use non verbal communication, even this is
still interpreted as communicating something, perhaps disinterest or
apathy.

This interpretation would be a mistake, and it's the sort of mistake
that should be corrected through education.

Greg wrote,
In general though, I have very little control over how people interpret
my forms of communication.  I can't control how they think or respond to
me.

On the face of it, this seems right, particularly when the word
"control" is used, but has not the NFB been working to change attitudes
about blindness for some seventy years? Have not the ways people think
about and respond to blind people changed over this time? It's certainly
daunting, but I think we have more power than is implied by the quote
above.

Greg wrote,
I think investing time in learning non verbal forms of communication can
be very beneficial for blind people in acquiring employment and
developing social relationships with others who are not blind..

I think I would take less issue if the choice were: 1, have a perfectly
successful and rich life without having to be taught to look and act
like sighted people do, or 2, make an effort to learn these skills and a
few more opportunities will be open to you, in the same way learning a
second or third language opens up some opportunities.  Of course, that
is not the choice.  What I see being said is: if you want to get a job
or have friends, you better learn to look and act the way sighted people
do.  We're not talking about learning skills to increase opportunities;
we're talking about severely diminished opportunities for those who fail
to conform.

Greg wrote,
As you observed, we did not choose to "work in China," but I'm not sure
why that invalidates the analogy.  No matter how we found ourselves in
this situation, that doesn't change the tools necessary for
communicating to a given group of people.

I think the analogy is invalidated because choosing to acquire new
skills is not morally equivalent to being forced to abandon certain
irrelevant habits/behaviours in favour of adopting other
habits/behaviours.  A choice between two jobs, one involving work in
China and the other not involving work in China, is a reasonable choice.
A choice between abandoning certain irrelevant habits/behaviours in
order to find a job or maintaining these habits/behaviours and living on
social assistance is not a reasonable choice, so we're talking about two
different situations.  I also do not agree that these "tools" are
"necessary" for communication.  Necessity suggests that it could not be
otherwise, but it's exactly my point that we could and should educate
the public that relying on non-verbal communication to the point that
those who fail to learn it are significantly disadvantaged is not a
matter of necessity.

Greg wrote,
Its good to look at creating a more accepting society, but even then I
think the burden of effective communication is shared between
communicator and audience.  It doesn't make sense to lay all the blame
on the audience, society at large, for misinterpreting my alternative
forms of communication that they have no background for understanding.

If it is understood as an alternative way of communicating, and if
society is failing to respect it as such, then I think it is appropriate
to point to this failure to respect an alternative way of communicating
as the problem.  And I think the solution is to educate and hopefully
eventually get to a place where getting a job and making friends does
not depend on one's ability to look and act like sighted people.

Greg wrote,
My point is that adding non verbal communication skills to our
repertoire can greatly enhance our communication ability and so are
worth learning.

This goes back to my earlier point, if it really were like learning a
second or third language, which enhances opportunities, I probably
wouldn't have a problem, but it doesn't just enhance opportunities; it's
essentially a prerequisite for having any reasonable opportunities at
all.

Cheers,

Marc