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

[Lavonya Gardner]

that is the same thing that autistic people want. but it isn't just the sighted world that gve us grief about it. i found that a lot of sighted people do better wth me the some blind people. though we have a lot of the same theories. we have the nothng about us, with out us, with the autistics  self advocacy group as the n f b. so why we can't work together, especialy blind autistics like myself, is beyond me. a lot of the tactile techniques that work with blind people, work with autistc people.  i would love to be understood, and work with other blind people.  have to deal with both, autism and blindness, and i would be of help, as weell as be helped. 
 Lavonnya

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 13, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is interesting. It seems clear that at least for the most part,
> "person-first" expressions like people who are blind are used and
> advocated by those without disabilities, while those with disabilities
> prefer the "identity-first" versions such as blind people. Why the
> difference?
> It seems there might be at least two reasons why "outsiders"
> (sighted/nondisabled) might prefer person-first language. The first is
> out of a noble desire to use language that respects us and affords us
> full humanity, as "people first". The second is out of a more
> prejudiced desire to distance people from disabilities and to hide or
> minimize characteristics that are viewed negatively.
> I was discussing this with a friend who is a special education
> professor (someone who trains future special ed teachers) who does not
> herself have any disability. She argued that person-first language is
> important because it prevents the use of offensive terms that used to
> be used, such as "retards". We also talked about how euphemisms such
> as "special needs" and "differently abled", though perhaps more
> accurate than the word "disability", have started to take on their own
> negative connotations. Personally I never really liked being called
> someone with special needs, although it is funny that I don't really
> object to being called a person with a disability (or a disabled
> person) but when you think about it, blindness is more of a special
> need than it is a disability. We aren't diminished in our abilities to
> do things so much as we have different accessibility needs, etc. than
> do sighted people.
> It is clear that what is offensive vs. not is in the eye of the
> beholder. I hope that we as blind people will start to be heard by
> outsiders if we argue that we want to be called blind people instead
> of people who are blind. I admit that as a "white heterosexual" I have
> in the past felt awkward and uncertain about how to refer to people
> who have dark skin and/or people who are sexually attracted to their
> same gender. In fact I'm still not quite sure whether the term "black"
> or "African-American" is more appropriate or if there is even a
> consensus about that. I am, however, certain that I will only call
> these and other minorities by the names they say they want to be
> called. Unfortunately it seems we as blind people aren't always given
> this courtesy, or perhaps we just haven't really had that conversation
> with the sighted about it. It is also a shame that there is such a
> disconnect between the group comprised of blind people and the group
> comprised of professionals and researchers on blindness. A major part
> of the disconnect is that we have been actively kept out of some of
> the blindness professions and few of us have elected to initiate
> blindness-related research. That is slowly changing with the LA Tech
> programs and I hope our generation can continue this trend of
> integration between our community and those who serve us. If we are
> the ones editing the journals and setting the linguistic norms, not
> only might we start being called by a name that affirms our positive
> identity, but we might actually get some work done that advances our
> standing in the world.
> Nothing about us without us!
> Arielle
> 
> On 12/13/12, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Hi,, List,
>> 
>> Personally, I feel most comfortable being thought
>> of in terms of a blind person, not a "person who
>> is blind" I feel it waters down a cultural,  if
>> not a physilogical element blindness can entale.
>> For that reason, I am completely against
>> so-called people first, verbeage. I believe it
>> may prove to alienate us further in that by
>> expecting people feel they must walk on egg shells when referring to us.
>> Besides, too many indirect words waters down a voice already stifled.
>> 
>> 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;24:1­24). 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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