[nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Jedi,

I never said blind people who don't exhibit blindisms aren't
discriminated against and still considered odd. My point is that certain
blindisms don't help the situation. Blindness itself is an issue that
the world still doesn't understand, and in my opinion, the
misunderstanding is in part due to blind people ourselves.

I can't change the minds of every single person who sees and observes
me. This would be an impossible feat for anyone, disabled or not. I have
to live my life, and be as independent as I have the potential for, and
hopefully my actions will speak volumes. Many people will observe this
in us, but there will always be those who can't see past the blindness
no matter what we say or do.

Having said all that, in my experience, people who get to know me
usually end up realizing blindness isn't that big of a deal. And I'm not
just speaking about close friends and family. I've had instructors,
classmates and colleagues say that they now realize blindness, while not
something you wish for, isn't the end of the world; and that learning to
be independent and efficient without sight doesn't take superhuman
abilities.

We have a lot of work and much to do, but if we all would take certain
ideas to heart, perhaps we would see more change in the world in terms
of attitudes towards blindness. It may be insensitive, and it may be
wrong, but since the beginning of time humans have judged based on
appearance; some are more shallow than others. I get what you're saying,
but try putting that theory into practice. It's not about acting sighted
or conforming to a dominant standard, which in this case is sight; as
previously argued, most behaviors like rocking, poking eyes and making
inappropriate facial expressions isn't specific to blindness. It should
be curbed no matter if a person has a disability or not. If the behavior
is not one that can be controlled such as symptoms of Parkinson's or CP,
that's one thing, but if it's behavior, either learned or developed
another way, I think we should consider correcting it.

Sorry, but I've been sighted, and to be honest, if I came across a
person exhibiting some of the behavior I've seen in blind people, I'd
wonder what the hell was wrong with them. Without the knowledge about
blindness, what frame of reference do I have? I would wonder the same
about a sighted person exhibiting the same behavior.

I'm exaggerating my point here to display how many people think. I have
family members and friends with various disabilities including deafness
and developmental disabilities. Long before losing my sight, I
understood a lot about disability, and I think this is what, in part,
helped me accept blindness so quickly, and embrace the concept of
complete independence for the blind. Most people, though, aren't armed
with this knowledge, and all they see is a person exhibiting odd, at
times anti-social, behavior.

This is an extreme, but you argue that we should be accepted despite any
behavior exhibited that's out of the norm. Any so called blindisms
should just be considered normal for that person. While researching a
few years ago for a paper, I came across a study. A blind student in
Florida was masturbating during class. No one had ever explained to him
that just because he couldn't see what others were doing didn't mean
they couldn't see him. His teacher was blind too, and after testing him,
the student didn't have other disabilities. This was natural for him
(yeah, yeah, input joke) and with some lines of logic, he should be left
alone; why does he have to conform? You will say that this is socially
unacceptable, and it makes others uneasy. So does severe rocking and eye
poking. On a philosophical level, what's the difference? I'm not trying
to equate masturbating to rocking, but based on certain arguments here,
this student should be allowed to express himself in the manner he sees
as best. He's not hurting anyone; but he's causing discomfort to others.
So is the person exhibiting other socially unacceptable behavior.

I'm not condoning this type of behavior, by any means, but to make a
point, I use this study to see how is it really different, in context to
this discussion, than other socially unacceptable behaviors that we are
suppose to just be content with.

And you say it's not worth all the stress to fit into a sighted world.
What does this mean? Does not integration imply we become a part of the
social norms? We can't really argue for integration if we simultaneously
argue to have socially unacceptable behaviors be considered normal and
acceptable. You can't really have your cake and eat it to on this
matter. And statements like this also place a divide between us and
sighted people; we become a different type of human, which I thought is
exactly what the Federation is fighting against. We're suppose to be
just like our sighted peers except we may use different tools and
methods in order to accomplish things. But if we resist any type of
integration, we go against the grain of this goal.

And what about people like me? I use to be sighted, so what world do I
fit into? Or those of you with useable vision, where do you fit in?
Equal means no dividing line, no "us vs. them" mentalities.

So how is it fitting into a "sighted world" when, one, we're suppose to
be equals, and two, it's behavior found in sighted and blind alike. You
can't really argue it's fitting into sighty's idea of normal when we've
already established it's not behavior necessarily specific to blindness.

People should be accepted for themselves, and negative attitudes towards
disability must change, but certain behavior, whether displayed in
someone with a disability or not, should probably be corrected if not a
part of a social norm. We're not speaking about clothing or fashion or
trends, we're not even talking about diseases like Parkinson's or CP,
we're addressing behavior picked up one way or another, that can be
corrected and controlled,  that just isn't accepted by society. It's not
about fitting into a "sighted world," but it's about fitting into the
world, period. I'm sick of all this sighted vs. blindness. If we're
humans who, as  it happens can't use their eyes, why do we constantly
argue the sight vs. blind point? Yes, we still have a long way to go
with changing attitudes and mindsets, but insisting there's  a huge
canyon between us doesn't help the situation. Perhaps the canyon is
there, and is still vast, because we keep placing distinctions between
blind and sighted people. Don't whine about equality if you don't think
we're the same. Using different tools and methods doesn't make us
different; it's no different than speaking a different language; we're
still humans. Stop labeling us as different in our language.

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: 9
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:48:12 -0500
From: Jedi <loneblindjedi at samobile.net>
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions
Message-ID: 56d7f4fb-c166-4a1c-9216-1596de0858ce at samobile.net
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed"

Bridgit,

I would submit that it really doesn't matter whether or not a person 
has mannerisms. The fact is that we're still discriminated against, 
still treated as non-beings by sighted people, have our lives pried 
into by sighted people, have people compliment us for being "normal," 
and experience several other demeaning things that we've all talked 
about here. Sure, a kid who doesn't rock may have more friends, but 
those friends often think we're superhuman or somehow amazing because 
we're so-called "normal." Therefore, I conclude that the only thing we 
really get out of worrying so much about body language and the like is 
added stress from our own self-judgment and the judgment of others in 
the blindness field.

It seems to me that we need a different attitude toward these so-called 
blindisms. I personally think they could be used as a source of 
information. They might signal a need for movement. Maybe they signal 
boredom or excitement. whatever it is, they might serve us by alerting 
us to mind states we are not really aware of. I think this is also the 
case for unconscious self-adapters used by the sighted like twittling 
the thumbs or shaking the leg. I've heard some people suggest that 
people press their eyes because it provides pain relief or because it 
produces inner images that are pretty to look at like stars and such. I 
see nothing wrong with that. But if the person in question doesn't wish 
to do this in public for whatever reason, they can always have their 
cake and eat it too by simply doing the behavior in private.

And about this body language thing we've been hashing out. I'm 
personally horrified and saddened by the idea that we should strive to 
immulate the sighted. There is something to be said for adopting 
culturally appropriate behaviors for the context you are in, but the 
added stress of trying to please others with these behaviors may not be 
worth it. I'd much rather learn about a new behavior and keep it on the 
back burner for when I think I might need it, but focus on 
communicating in the best way i know how. Our multicultural world has 
the benefit of greater acceptance than it used to. For instance, I've 
never heard a Japanese person say nasty things about an American who 
didn't bow upon leaving a shop. While some may think "That American's 
rude," others might realize that Americans don't usually bow as a 
matter of course. In application to a blind person, one might notice 
that we may prefer to turn an ear to them rather than our eyes from 
time to time, but they may also have the sense to realize that turning 
an ear may be one of the many effective methods we have adapted for our 
use in communication. Yes, we should know how to turn our eyes to them, 
but we shouldn't stress out over it and proclaim social gloom and doom 
for those who don't regularly adopt the behavior.

Am I making any sense here? The bottom line for me is this. I think 
that all people could learn to communicate better with each other and 
that blind people certainly have no monopoly on lack of social skills. 
I don't think it's worth the stress to try to fit in the with the 
sighted. I'd rather just communicate in the best way that seems right 
for the moment; this strategy usually works out for me. And i suspect 
it works out for most of us given that the more important forms of body 
language seem to come naturally to us regardless of however we picked
them up.

Respectfully,
Jedi