[nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions

[Jedi]

Bridgit,

The difference in teaching the sighted to be appropriate versus the 
blind is that sighted kids are simply reminded not to do certain things 
or to do others. With the blind, it's not that simple. There are 
journal articles written about why we do what we do; these articles 
often proclaim that we have no or underdeveloped social skills and that 
the sighted must intervene lest we have no friends later on. You've 
even seen some of that here perpetuated by our own self-criticisms. 
When sighted kids are taught to be appropriate, they are told to be 
appropriate. When blind kids are taught to be appropriate, they are 
often told not to look like a blind person. it's no accident that our 
mannerisms are referred to as blindisms. Have you ever heard sighted 
mannerisms called sightedisms? And what about this notion of looking 
like a person with a cognitive disability? I've heard comments here 
like "we shouldn't look retarded because we're not." I am angry with 
this line of thought because it puts down people with disabilities in 
general as someone else here has pointed out some time ago. I've never 
heard comments like this when teaching sighted children to behave a 
certain way.

Marc's right. This isn't just about teaching and learning appropriate 
behavior. This is about the age-old question every minority faces: 
assimilation or accommodation? Should we act like the majority or 
should we find a balance between our cultures and learn to adapt to 
each other? I prefer the latter myself. i believe in being congruent: I 
want to be who and what I am; this sometimes includes changing my 
behavior in some context because I want acceptance from others. In this 
process, I'm developing an inner meter that tells me when I need to do 
which, and that meter isn't calibrated to other people's meters because 
I find such a practice useless and utterly stressful. I'm learning to  
trust myself to come up with the best behavior for the situation 
because I am starting to believe I have the knowledge I need or have 
the resources to receive the knowledge I need in the current moment.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
> 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


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