[nabs-l] Are we blind people or people who are blind?

[Jewel]

I'm a blink and proud of it!

On a more serious note, I tend toward calling myself blind as much as
I call myself white or Cajun or short or stubborn. I don't want to be
a person of short stature (ok, I'm not that short, 5'3") or a person
who is white or a person with stubbornness. It sounds pretty
ridiculous to me. I think I'm in line with the people who say that
saying "person who is blind" or "person with autism" is seperating a
part of the person that can't actually be seperated. Blindness is a
part of my life as much as any other trait, and it cannot be seperated
from me. So, call me blind, call me a blind person, but don't call me
a person with blindness (that sounds sooooo awkward).

My two cents,
Jewel

On 12/12/12, Jedi Moerke <loneblindjedi at samobile.net> wrote:
> There was a researcher in the blindness community of The northwest who
> sought  to answer the same question. He found that blind people usually
> refer to themselves as blind people or visually impaired people And
> generally preferred that two person first language. He also found that
> sighted people, particularly professionals in the disability community, are
> more likely to use person first language and are more likely to prefer that.
> So, it would seem that this is a case of the majority telling  the minority
> what to do in terms of how they should be calling themselves. The idea
> behind person first language is to draw attention away from a particular
> characteristic. That suggests that the characteristic is thought to be
> negative. We do not use similar linguistic structure to describe things that
> are neutral or positive. For that reason, I go ahead and say blind people. I
> think using that particular phraseology permits discussion of whether or not
> blindness   is positive, neutral, or negative. As for me personally, I say
> that blindness is neutral most of the time and positive most of the time For
> the same reasons as Arielle.
>
> Respectfully,
> Jedi
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 11, 2012, at 9:07 PM, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> The question of whether we describe ourselves in terms of blindness or
>> in terms of other traits we have is an interesting one as well, but I
>> think that's a different question from what the article I posted is
>> asking about. The article is asking what we should call ourselves (or
>> what others should call us) in discussions where blindness is the
>> focus. Should we refer to ourselves as "people who are blind" or
>> "people with blindness" or is the term "blind people" more
>> appropriate?
>> I find this issue to be personally relevant because I am applying for
>> a job with a blindness research group, and I noticed that everywhere
>> in their online materials, publications etc. they refer to their
>> research participants as "people who are blind", "youth with visual
>> impairments" etc. I don't think this necessarily reflects on their
>> philosophy, but is probably just the language that they are accustomed
>> to using and that is required by journals and other outlets. I also
>> co-authored a paper a few years ago and one journal to which we sent
>> the paper insisted that we use the term "people with blindness"
>> throughout the entire manuscript, which I found extremely cumbersome
>> and awkward. Anyway, in applying for this job it has been strange for
>> me to either use the term "people who are blind" or to say "blind
>> people" and risk causing offense. As a member of the blind community I
>> feel on some level that everyone in this community are members of an
>> extended family, and so it's weird to refer to all you guys as "people
>> who are blind" and distance them from blindness, which I consider a
>> positive identity that I share with all of you. This is also why I
>> like to call someone with partial sight "blind" rather than "visually
>> impaired" because calling them "blind" is welcoming them into my
>> blindness family and community. Those of you who are NFB members, ACB
>> members or part of any blindness organization probably understand the
>> collective pride and joy that can rise up when we are in a convention
>> assembly and call ourselves "the blind". Looking at it that way, I
>> feel like it's almost insulting to refer to members of my blindness
>> family as just "people who are blind" rather than fully including them
>> with the label "blind people". So I understand what the article is
>> talking about. At the same time, I wonder if there are folks out there
>> who truly prefer to be called people who are blind instead, and if
>> they feel this is putting their humanity before their blindness.
>> Arielle
>>
>> On 12/11/12, Kirt <kirt.crazydude at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Brandon,
>>> Thank you for writing my email for me. :-)
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Dec 11, 2012, at 5:11 PM, "Brandon Keith Biggs"
>>> <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>> I used to call myself: "A blind actor" but recently I've stopped and
>>>> what
>>>> I've noticed is that often times people forget you are blind to some
>>>> extent when you don't even say you are blind. I was talking to a guy on
>>>> my
>>>> dance teem and he said he had no idea I was blind until I was talking to
>>>> my teacher after a conference and mentioned something about following a
>>>> leader as a blind person.
>>>>
>>>> I personally think it matters in a context. If people are talking about
>>>> my
>>>> acting ability, I don't want to be known as a "blind actor" in reference
>>>> to my acting ability, that would just be negative. There are aspects
>>>> where
>>>> saying blind actor or actor who is blind would be appropriate at the end
>>>> of an article or possibly at the end of a bio, but that is only because
>>>> people like the challenge of trying to figure out who the blind guy is
>>>> :).
>>>> I ask them after a show and they tell me what they saw that tipped them
>>>> off. This helps me in becoming more natural and makes a little game of
>>>> something that is of no major import for that point of time, but could
>>>> mean me getting or losing a job later on.
>>>>
>>>> If I was in an article about genetic research, I would like it to be
>>>> known
>>>> that I'm blind first, because that is what is being tested for. They
>>>> don't
>>>> really care about me as a person, they just want to know I'm blind.
>>>>
>>>> If I'm talking to a director or agent about my singing, they don't need
>>>> to
>>>> know I'm blind, they want to know my voice type and my best rolls.
>>>>
>>>> I'm a blind person who happens to be blind and I'm OK with both :). I
>>>> don't even notice the difference.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>>>> -----Original Message----- From: Arielle Silverman
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 3:40 PM
>>>> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>> Subject: [nabs-l] Are we blind people or people who are blind?
>>>>
>>>> I saw the below article on another list and thought it was very
>>>> interesting. What do you guys think?
>>>>
>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>> From: LILITH Finkler <lilithfinkler at hotmail.com>
>>>> Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:41:42 -0300
>>>> Subject: New Article: "Person-first language: Noble intent but to what
>>>> effect?"
>>>> To: DISABILITY-RESEARCH at jiscmail.ac.uk
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear Colleagues. Please see article below from the current issue of
>>>> the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The journal is publishing a
>>>> series on "person first language".
>>>> Lilith===========================================================================================
>>>> CMAJ December 11, 2012 vol. 184 no. 18 First published November 5,
>>>> 2012, doi: 10.1503/cmaj.109-4319© 2012 Canadian Medical Association or
>>>> its licensorsAll editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of
>>>> the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical
>>>> Association.NewsPerson-first language: Noble intent but to what
>>>> effect?Roger Collier-Author AffiliationsCMAJKenneth St. Louis grew up
>>>> with a moderate stutter that he eventually got under control in
>>>> college. His struggle with stuttering led to an interest in
>>>> speech-language pathology, which he now teaches at West Virginia
>>>> University in Morgan-town. St. Louis is an expert in fluency
>>>> disorders, including cluttering, a condition characterized by rapid
>>>> speech with an erratic rhythm. Once, after a journal sent him the
>>>> edited version of a paper he had submitted on cluttering, St. Louis
>>>> noticed something curious.“They changed ‘clutterer’ to ‘person who
>>>> clutters’ all the way through,” says St. Louis.The changes to St.
>>>> Louis’ prose stem from the person-first (or people-first) language
>>>> movement, which began some 20 years ago to promote the concept that a
>>>> person shouldn’t be defined by a diagnosis. By literally putting
>>>> “person” first in language, what was once a label becomes a mere
>>>> characteristic. No longer are there “disabled people.” Instead, there
>>>> are “people with disabilities.”
>>>> No reasonable person would challenge the intent behind person-first
>>>> language. Who, after all, would prefer to be known as a condition
>>>> rather than as a person? But is this massive effort to change the
>>>> language of disability and disease having any effect? Is it actually
>>>> changing attitudes, reducing stigma or improving lives? Skeptics point
>>>> to the nonexistent body of evidence. Advocates claim it starts with
>>>> language and that results will follow.Words are indeed powerful, and
>>>> they can perpetuate hurtful stereotypes and reinforce negative
>>>> attitudes, suggests Kathie Snow, a disability rights advocate who runs
>>>> the “Disability is Natural” website (www.disabilityisnatural.com).
>>>> “People with developmental disabilities have, throughout history, been
>>>> marginalized and devalued because of labels,” she says. “Labels have
>>>> always caused people to be devalued. It has caused people to be put to
>>>> death, to be sterilized against their will.”If a person-first language
>>>> advocate had commissioned this sign, it would read: “CHILD WITH AUTISM
>>>> AREA.”Image courtesy of © 2012 ThinkstockSuggesting that a diagnosis
>>>> is a person’s most important characteristic reinforces the
>>>> all-too-common opinion that people with disabilities have limited
>>>> potential and society should expect little from them, Snow has written
>>>> (www.disabilityisnatural.com/images/PDF/pfl09.pdf). She suggests that
>>>> the disability rights movement is changing language to be more
>>>> respectful rather than merely politically correct, in a similar vein
>>>> to past efforts by civil rights and women’s movements.“If people with
>>>> disabilities are to be included in all aspects of society, and if
>>>> they’re to be respected and valued as our fellow citizens, we must
>>>> stop using language that marginalizes and sets them apart,” wrote
>>>> Snow. “History tells us that the first way to devalue a person is
>>>> through language.”
>>>> The global movement to promote person-first language has been
>>>> extremely successful. It is now standard in government documents
>>>> around the world, as well as in scientific journals and many other
>>>> publications. Widespread adoption of this grammatical structure is the
>>>> reason that, present sentence excepted, this article will not refer to
>>>> a stutterer, a cancer patient, a diabetic, a blind man, a deaf woman
>>>> or an autistic person. It might, however, refer to a person who
>>>> stutters, a person with cancer, a person with diabetes, a man who is
>>>> visually impaired, a woman who is hearing impaired or a person with
>>>> autism.
>>>> But some people, including members of several disability groups,
>>>> aren’t big fans of person-first language. They claim it is merely
>>>> political correctness run amok, verbosity intended to spare hurt
>>>> feelings yet accomplishing little more than turning one word into two
>>>> or more words. Even worse, some suggest, tucking the names of diseases
>>>> and disabilities in the shadows may have the opposite effect of what
>>>> is intended. It could stigmatize words that were never considered
>>>> derogatory or pejorative in the first place.
>>>> St. Louis’ introduction to person-first language made him wonder if it
>>>> actually had an effect on opinions about words used to label people
>>>> with various conditions, including speech, language and hearing
>>>> disorders (J Fluency Discord 1999;24:1–24). He found that the
>>>> person-first version of a label was regarded as “significantly more
>>>> positive” in only 2% of comparisons. “For example,” wrote St. Louis,
>>>> “with the exception of widely known terms that have stigmatized
>>>> individuals (e.g., ‘Moron’), terms identifying serious mental illness
>>>> (‘psychosis’) or dreaded diseases (‘leprosy’), person-first
>>>> nomenclature made little difference in minimizing negative
>>>> reactions.”There is no evidence that person-first terminology enhances
>>>> sensitivity or reduces insensitivity, notes St. Louis, and yet health
>>>> professionals and scholarly publishers are now among its strongest
>>>> advocates. Good luck getting your work published in a scientific
>>>> journal if you don’t conform. In the field of speech-language
>>>> pathology, terms such as “person who stutters” or “child who stutters”
>>>> have even become acronyms (PWS and CWS). To St. Louis, the notion that
>>>> calling someone a PWS is more sensitive than calling them a stutterer
>>>> is nothing short of ludicrous.
>>>> “It’s not really about sensitivity,” says St. Louis. “It’s about: This
>>>> is just the way it’s done.”Furthermore, suggests St. Louis, the
>>>> sentiment expressed in communication is far more important than the
>>>> linguistic circumlocutions present in the language. “If you are going
>>>> to be a jerk,” he says, “you can be just as much of a jerk using
>>>> person-first language as using the direct label.”Members of some
>>>> disability groups have become so fed up with pressure to adopt
>>>> person-first language that they have begun pushing back. The National
>>>> Federation for the Blind in the United States has long opposed what it
>>>> perceives as “an unholy crusade” to force everyone to use person-first
>>>> language
>>>> (www.nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm09/bm0903/bm090309.htm).The
>>>> federation’s main publication, the Braille Monitor, has unequivocally
>>>> defended its right “to cling to its conviction that vigorous prose is
>>>> a virtue and that blind people can stand to read one of the adjectives
>>>> that describe them before they arrive at the noun”
>>>> (www.nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm09/bm0903/bm090308.htm).
>>>> “Blind people we are, and we are content to be described as such.”
>>>> Many people with diabetes are also surprised to learn that the word
>>>> “diabetic” is now considered taboo. Who turned it into a moniker non
>>>> grata? Not people with diabetes, apparently. Type “diabetic” and
>>>> “tattoo” into Google Images and you’ll find thousands of people with
>>>> the condition who have the word permanently inked on their skin. One
>>>> of those people is Tanyss Christie, a mother of two from Chilliwack,
>>>> British Columbia, who has “diabetic” tattooed on her inner left wrist
>>>> in a style similar to a MedicAlert bracelet. Would she be upset if
>>>> someone called her a diabetic?“No, I wouldn’t be offended,” Christie
>>>> writes in an email. “Diabetes is me and who I am and I don’t need to
>>>> hide that; I am a diabetic and have been for 29 years. I say it strong
>>>> because I survived such a hard disease and hope to [for] many more
>>>> years.”
>>>> The topic of person-first language seems to stir particularly heated
>>>> debate among people affected by autism. In general, parents of
>>>> children with autism appear to prefer person-first language. Some even
>>>> suggest that saying “autistic child” is not much better than referring
>>>> to someone with cancer as a “cancerous person.” Many adults with
>>>> autism, however, believe that autism is central to their identity and
>>>> prefer to use terms such as “autistic person.” This has been called
>>>> identify-first language.Person-first language implies that autism can
>>>> be separated from the person, which simply isn’t true, according to
>>>> Jim Sinclair, an adult with autism who cofounded the Autism Network
>>>> International. In a widely circulated essay, Sinclair wrote that
>>>> autism is such an essential feature of his being that to describe
>>>> himself as a person with autism would be akin to calling a parent a
>>>> “person with offspring” or calling a man a person “with maleness”
>>>> (www.cafemom.com/journals/read/436505). Attempting to separate autism
>>>> from personhood also “suggests that autism is something bad — so bad
>>>> that it isn’t even consistent with being a person.”
>>>> Then there are those who take a more moderate position, varying their
>>>> language according to their audience so that focus remains on their
>>>> message rather than how it’s delivered. This is the approach taken by
>>>> Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, a writer who chronicles her “journeys with
>>>> autism” on her blog (www.journeyswithautism.com).“I will use
>>>> person-first (i.e. person with autism) and identity-first (i.e
>>>> autistic person) language interchangeably, partly for the sake of
>>>> variety, and partly to resist the ideologues on both sides. I will
>>>> also vary my language to suit my audience. For example, if I’m talking
>>>> with people who prefer identity-first language, I will use it. If I am
>>>> talking to people who prefer person-first language, I will use it. If
>>>> I am talking to a mixed group, I will likely mix my terminology,”
>>>> Cohen-Rottenberg writes in an email. “I find that people’s feelings
>>>> can run so high regarding language that, even if I find person-first
>>>> language very problematic, I’ll use it with people who favor it so
>>>> that we don’t end up getting derailed into language discussions and
>>>> away from the issue at hand.”Editor’s note: First of a multipart
>>>> series.Part II: Person-first language: What it means to be a
>>>> “person”(www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4322).Part III:
>>>> Person-first language: Laudable cause, horrible
>>>> prose(www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4338).Facebook Google+
>>>> LinkedIn Reddit StumbleUpon TwitterWhat's this?Responses to this
>>>> articleMaria Z GittaDo we really need to ask 'to what effect'?CMAJ
>>>> published online November 7, 2012Full Text
>>>> ________________End of message________________
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