[nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott

[Joshua Lester]

Wow!
You'll be moving to Mr Lewis's headquarters.
Speaking of which, I'm about to start a new thread about that!
Blessings, Joshua

On 6/10/12, Beth <thebluesisloose at gmail.com> wrote:
> My new boyfriend is from Georgia, so yeah, I have a good idea of
> whuaft kind of foods he likes, sort of. :)
> Beth
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Joshua Lester <jlester8462 at students.pccua.edu
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Date sent: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 11:49:37 -0500
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
> Beth, the blind cooks list can provide you with the info you
> need, to
> cook Southern food.
> Where is your new boyfriend from?
> Thanks, Joshua
>
> On 6/10/12, Beth <thebluesisloose at gmail.com> wrote:
>  First off, my boyfriend can't go to an independent living center
>  out of state.  It took that to get me to learn daily living
>  skills.  I live in my own, but I hate to live for two people.
>  You've got great points, Brandon.  My boyfriend will have to do
>  daily living trainning, maybe I can find a daily living skills
>  teacher in his state that can help.  I tried learning from a
>  daily living skills teacher, but the teachers I've worked with
>  never really told my parents they had to be patient.  HE's lucky
>  his girlfriend is blind and can cook just as good as anyone.
>  Btw, I made a casserole one day, and it's great that I did.  If
> I
>  have to move out with my boyffriend, I'll have to learn and
> teach
>  myself how to make deviled eggs and southern fried chicken, some
>  of his favorites.  But I'll be that patient with him and help
> him
>  get on his feet.  I'll probably have to learn something, but I
>  think living in the bay area won't be possible.  I have to live
>  where he is so that his heart doesn't get damaged or whuaftever.
>  I think we're better than the people at Goodwill, and .. oh
>  yeah, hopefully, we get good furniture from a furniture resale
>  store unlike Goodwill.
>  Beth
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Brandon Keith Biggs" <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com
>  To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
>  <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>  Date sent: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 08:53:30 -0700
>  Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
>  Hello Beth,
>  let me first say that judging by your emails you definitely have
>  enough
>  reasoning and writing ability to get what ever degree you wish.
>  If you've
>  read literature on human trafficking you have seen the worst.
>  They shelter
>  you in schools because they don't want to get sued. That doctor
>  definitely
>  has no idea what he's talking about. If I were you, I'd go to
>  school and get
>  that counseling degree, then invite that doctor to my
> graduation!
>  If money
>  is an issue, DOR and the state often have programs that can
> fully
>  cover the
>  cost of school, minus housing and food.
>  Don't worry, you sound lots better informed than many people
> that
>  I know
>  about personal finance. I was looking at the Hadley Business
>  section and I
>  was really wondering why they didn't have personal finance and
>  investing. I
>  don't know anyone other than brokers who have the education to
>  really make
>  something of their money. Sadly though, personal finance is one
>  of those
>  things that are expected one learns on their own. Like speaking
>  and
>  socializing, it should just be a given that everyone knows about
>  how to find
>  banks with high interest rates and low fees, everyone knows how
>  to budget
>  effectively, everyone knows how to find the best deals on food
>  and clothing,
>  and no one needs any help on running a family in school.
>  My communication teacher in school said that 99% of all the
>  students that
>  come to her class have never had a communication class in their
>  life, yet
>  100% of her students have had to communicate.
>  We are both a little baffled at this logic, but that's how life
>  is I
>  guess...?
>  Personally I've found that those who have the most power over
>  people in this
>  world are those with money and those with exceptional
>  communication skills.
>  I would recommend everyone move to the Bay area here in CA and
> go
>  to
>  Foothill College. The teachers there are exceptional and the
>  disability
>  center is the best in the west. They also give oober
> scholarships
>  to those
>  students who come off as serious students *Points at his 9 grand
>  in
>  scholarships*.
>  Also, you don't need DOR to pay for any part of school, as one
>  can get
>  renewable scholarships at a community college to pay for every
>  part of
>  school, except for $47 by just being on SSI.
>  Beth, Here in the bay area we have a giant human trafficking
>  problem as we
>  are one of the major connection points for overseas travel. It's
>  on the
>  radio lots how they've caught slavers here and there, but
> besides
>  that, the
>  Bay Area is so much for women's studies, I've not seen any
>  general college
>  that doesn't offer a degree in women's studies.
>  If I were anyone, I would totally move here to SF or go to NY,
>  because not
>  only is the blindness support so great, but public
> transportation
>  is the
>  best in the nation for both those places.
>  But enough on me pushing SF...!
>  Beth, your boyfriend sounds like he could do with a liberal dose
>  of Daily
>  living skills. Here where I live, there is a center called the
>  "Vista
>  Center" and DOR contracts out teachers to help you become
>  independent. I
>  love those teachers, because with their help, I was able to move
>  out on my
>  own when I was 18.
>  I believe the Light House also has programs like this, and
> Justin
>  was saying
>  something about attending a program that also teaches living
>  skills. But my
>  teacher says she encounters two types of people. There are those
>  who go
>  above and beyond what they were asked and actually do what they
>  were taught
>  on their own, then there are those who do the minimum possible.
>  They expect
>  everything to be spoon fed to them. The first group are the ones
>  who
>  generally make it in the world as successful individuals. Beth,
>  if I were
>  you, I'd have a down to earth talk with your Boyfriend, letting
>  him know
>  that as it stands people don't believe in his ability to take
>  care of
>  himself. He may think that he could take care of himself, but
> you
>  can let
>  him know that he will have to prove it first. If he agrees, than
>  it's time
>  to look for a daily living skills teacher. If not, he may want
> to
>  be sent to
>  one of the independent living facilities, so he can see first
>  hand why he
>  must learn living skills in order to be free.
>  I don't believe marriage should be really talked about until
>  after your
>  Boyfriend proves his stuff. Because Beth, you've got your life
> to
>  live and
>  you should not be forced to live for two people which you would
>  be doing if
>  you married and moved out with your boyfriend as things are now.
>
>  I know what you mean about not going to prom. I never went to
>  prom with a
>  girl when I was in High school. I actually didn't get a
>  girlfriend till my
>  last year of High School and I broke up with her 5 months later.
>  I didn't
>  have another till a little over a year after that. It was with
>  that second
>  girlfriend that I went to prom. Frankly, school dances are the
>  worst things
>  since the invention of eyes.
>  If you like loud music beating so loud that you can't hear
>  yourself think,
>  let alone hear your date talking, and if you like being squeezed
>  together on
>  all sides by grinding individuals, and if you're being shown how
>  to dance by
>  your partner, the only word I can label this, is hell.
>  The romantic things before and after the dance are great, but
> the
>  dance
>  itself is terrible. So let me assure you that except for the
>  romantic part,
>  you did not miss much at the prom. They didn't even play the
> Blue
>  Danube at
>  the prom I went to! I thought that was required in order to have
>  a dance to
>  call themselves a dance?
>  anyways, in my opinion the education is much more important when
>  you're
>  going through school than the social aspects. In college though,
>  guys become
>  much smarter and women become way more emotionally sound, just
>  because they
>  have lived and learned much more through their life.
>  Most of the girls I've thought about dating have not been mature
>  enough in
>  some aspect of their life. My last girlfriend was too immature
>  when it came
>  to being focused and I learned the hard way that you should
> never
>  expect
>  people to change. So part of my problem about having a small
>  social life is
>  that even now, I find that the women I'm attracted to are still
>  much to
>  immature in some way for any kind of relationship to work.
>  But for high school, I was not socially mature and even now I'm
>  not socially
>  mature enough to really fit in the sighted world. This is the
>  biggest
>  problem I've found, blind people are not able to pass themselves
>  off as good
>  relationship material in the sighted world. If the world was
> only
>  blind this
>  would be different, but because we live in a sight run culture,
>  being able
>  to be socially mature to those who are sighted is crucial if one
>  wants to
>  make it in anything other than strictly working in something
> like
>  the NFB or
>  Goodwill.
>  We have to work extra hard at understanding what sighted people
>  think and
>  how sighted people do things in order to live as the sighted
>  people. Once
>  we're able to pass ourselves off enough so no one believes we're
>  blind, we
>  should then and only then, begin to emphasize the fact that we
>  are blind.
>  Because if we establish to people that we're blind first, they
>  will look no
>  farther than our disability. In sighted human evolution, being
>  disabled is
>  repulsive and we've got to fight against nature in order to do
>  anything in
>  the sighted world. Once one is able to show that they are a
>  sighted person
>  first, then they can show they are blind and at that point, one
>  is able to
>  make blindness something to be desired and interesting, not
>  repulsive and
>  weird.
>  Thank you,
>
>  Brandon Keith Biggs
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Beth
>  Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 1:01 AM
>  To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>  Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
>  Great points, Brandon.  As someone who is both blind and
> mentally
>  ill, I understand how it feels to be considered weird.  I've
> been
>  called a creep, told by some girl to my boyfriend's face that he
>  could do better due to my disorder, and then threatened with all
>  kinds of emotional attack and abuse.  Due to blindness, I was
>  told by the docs I'd be a vegetable.  Huh?  My dad says I'm a
>  genius.  I don't know, but my last IQ check said I was a 133,
>  superior without all the visual battery of tests.  But then
>  again, IQ isn't everything.  I live in Denver, alone, with no
>  roommate to pander to my every need.  I probably should say that
>  with the right support and good friends around me, I could
>  thrive.  I could become a "normal" woman, work a "normal" job,
>  and get "normal" wages.  I could take care of children, my own
>  children, and raise them to be good people, productive citizens
>  of the United States of America, and I'd look forward to good
>  days and bad days along the way.  My old cane teacher is a
>  fountain of wisdom when it comes to life's miseries, and the
>  rapids of life don't get any higher than what they are.  I could
>  get deeper and say that God doesn't put us in a river with
> rapids
>  that could not be handled by the rider.  One of the biggest
>  "whitewater rapids" so to speak is the employment and wages
>  thing.  Brandon and Arielle, you guys make a good point in that
>  blind people are trained to act like mentally disabled people.
>  My boyfriend doesn't know money.  I wonder if I can possibly
>  teach him the basics of money management and budgeting.  I
>  struggle with it myself because SSI is too little to live off
> of,
>  and I was given a plane ticket, but not the money for baggage
>  fees and cab fare to get to and from the airport.  So I'm stuck
>  paying for that.  My boyfriend also doesn't know how to keep
>  track of his own wages, and if he becomes a big-time producer
> for
>  all sorts of rappers who would run to him, I don't know how he's
>  going to run the household and help me pay my bills too.  What
> if
>  I'm incapacitated for real this time?  I mean, like, Terry
>  Shiavo?  How's Jason, who I may designate as a healthcare
>  surrogate, going to make that decision?  My hope is that he
> won't
>  have to do that, but if that happens, I need someone that I feel
>  can be trusted to make the decisions about my bills and stuff.
> I
>  was asked by my boyfriend's mom of all people to help her with
>  him a bit.  Just to think of Jason in the situation he's in just
>  makes me so sick.  I want him to manage his own wages, cook me a
>  meal if I get sick, and fry me some chicken or grill a burger on
>  Memorial Day.  He has the potential to do those things, and the
>  weird part is that his parents are open to us having a
>  relationship.  Most disabled people's parents, including but not
>  limited to my own, are not as open about relations with poorer
>  people.  Both Jason and I are poor, but I think we can live
>  together successfully with all the right supports, and if we
>  can't find jobs, so what?  We need family support to get by.
> But
>  I really do dream of having my own private house, being able to
>  manage my bills, being able to buy foods that are nutritious to
>  my children and so on, and feeding the baby and having Jason
>  there to have breakfast with in the mornings, and not his old
>  mother.  Not to say she's bad, but it's a dream I want to have.
>  My mother should not have to manage my money.  Yes, I'm not so
>  good at money management, but I've learned a few lessons like
> how
>  to go back and look at your payment history every time if you
> get
>  suspicious about a charge.  Like if the bills are on autopay,
> you
>  have to look back and see if the weird corporate robbers, if I
>  may use such a cold term, are stealing your money.  I felt
>  Comcast was robbing me of my precious money, and especially this
>  month
>  because of a trip, and next month because of a move I have to
> do,
>  I can't afford a $70 internet bill.  That's just too much unless
>  you're really living in low income housing.  I know a lot about
>  disabled or low income housing.  Boy, my boyfriend has a lot to
>  learn, and he'll learn lots while I'm with him.  Lots of times,
>  blind people are sheltered by their parents, and of course, the
>  parents I had were good parents, no doubt, but they had their
>  flaws.  Jason is lucky in some ways, but his parents said the
>  same stuff that all sighted people say, "He has it made.  We
> wait
>  on him hand and foot ..."  And so on.  This creates a problem.
>  Blind people need to not be waited on hand and foot.  We can't
>  necessarily be pandered to our every need like little Veruca
> Salt
>  in charlie and the Chocolate Factory if I may reference a
> spoiled
>  literary figure.  We can't be pandered or revered as Helen
> Keller
>  was by her family in her early years.  Unlike Jason, Helen was
>  deaf and in me and Jason's time, jobs are ample, and skills are
>  ample thanks to technology.  With Helen Keller's time, there
> were
>  no jobs open, and marriage and motherhood were closed to Helen.
>  I as a blind woman am thankful that marriage is open to
> me--hence
>  the boyfriend I currently have--and relationships period.  Jobs
>  and technology have risen while I was growing up.  It only seems
>  like yesterday that I would not be sending this superbly long
>  email.  Thanks to emails and Facebook and Twitter, I feel much
>  more connected to my friends and family, and especially to my
>  dear cousin Sarah, but yet she never calls me.  Ha ha.  But
>  thanks to cell phones, I can go anywhere and give everyone a
> text
>  message.  Imagine poor blind Beth texting!  It only seems like
>  yesterday that my parents didn't think I needed an accessible
>  phone, but when I fought to get an accessible phone, and my
>  ex-boyfriend taught me how to write letters on the phone, which
>  is a skill I still fail at sometimes (lol), I have texted my
>  friends and I can receive texts from people.  I would hate to
>  change my address, but I do that.  I will be in Denver for a
> good
>  while so I can do my college and keep the ducks in a row as I
>  would hear my mother say.  When I get my ducks in a row, I plan
>  to move on to bigger and better things, and I want to get a job
>  helping human trafficking victims.  Denver has a strong victim
>  advocate program, but that's only the Muslim Family Services
> that
>  may have that.  I'd heard that Atlanta has a big problem with
>  human trafficking.  Well, so do some areas of Florida, but if
>  there's slavery and trafficking, I'll be there to stop it.  I'd
>  like to give former slaves and prostitutes a chance at life, but
>  where will I go without a college degree in women's studies and
> a
>  good background in such matters?  I was never trafficked, but I
>  have read countless literature, and have seen it firsthand or
>  through others, what sorts of cruelty exist in the world.
>  To keep the message on topic, I want to say that such a job
>  helping human trafficking victims shouldn't require a social
> work
>  degree, which the doc says I'm too messed up to do.  I want to
>  advise all of us to please take suspicious statements like,
>  "She's pretending to be a certain ethnic group" or "She's not
> fit
>  to do something because of mental deficiencies."  What sort of
>  nonsensical statements these are!  DVR in Colorado doesn't seem
>  to get it.  They tell me I'm too messed up for college but they
>  don't seem to understand that the importance of college is more
>  to me than anybody.  My brothers are taking college classes, and
>  they will graduate, marry, and have families as expected.  But
>  what will I do?  My parents will dictate who I will marry due to
>  gender and blindness, they will tell me what talents I have
>  because I'm so "malleable", as some people think blind people
>  are, and then my teachers, doctors, psychologists, social
>  workers, and case managers will either take my babies or let me
>  keep them with sighted supervision, and so on.  But going
> through
>  school is not easy.  Brandon, you said school is great, but you
>  don't realize that as a blind person in a million living in a
>  small town, nobody cared to dance with me at homecoming or prom.
>  That's the price I paid for being blind.  Nobody cared to offer
>  me flowers on a date.  I didn't have the normal teenager things
>  that every teenage girl dreams about.  If I have a daughter, I
>  want to dress her up for prom and her wedding day with such
> pride
>  a mother would share with her spouse and daughter alike.  My
>  mother never got that opportunity with me.  She would help me
>  into my chorus dresses, but those were mere obligations to the
>  school.  My mom believed that prom was for dates only, and
> summer
>  jobs?  Out of the question.  I can't get a good experience if I
>  am not allowed to work.  Titusville is a small town in Florida,
>  and I and another man were the only blind people in it.  I being
>  the only and youngest blind woman in the town couldn't be
> offered
>  a job.  The only jobs offered were at the hospital, where
> medical
>  experience was required, and the Space Center, where engineering
>  degrees were preferred.  My dad can attest to the people he's
>  interviewed for jobs, and unfortunately, there's not enough
> blind
>  computer engineers, except those in the underground geek
> industry
>  as I like to call it, to go around.  We also need to learn to
>  communicate with others who are sighted, speak their language so
>  to speak.
>  Ok, my rant is over.
>  Beth
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Brandon Keith Biggs" <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com
>  To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
>  <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>  Date sent: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 23:57:32 -0700
>  Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
>  Hello,
>  I'm sure many people who have talked to me before know what I'm
>  going to
>  say...
>  It's the educational system that many of these problems come
> down
>  to. We
>  have teachers coming out of school who are not inspired to
> create
>  a new
>  style of teaching. We have teachers who are never taught about
>  disabled
>  students. We have blind students who are never taught how to ask
>  for
>  accommodations. We have parents who think being blind is bad!
>  Honestly, if I could have redone my education as a sighted
>  person, I would
>  not have done it. Being blind is such an advantage in the United
>  States when
>  going through school. You get extra time on everything, you get
>  leniency on
>  all your assignments if you can't finish them on time, you get
>  free
>  schooling, you get paid to go through school by SSI, you have so
>  many
>  scholarships you can apply for, you can use the law to fight for
>  accessibility with little retribution, you become great friends
>  with your
>  teachers just because you get to talk to them all the time, you
>  are by
>  nature a very active participant in your class, you are able to
>  read your
>  books 1000 times faster than all of the other students combined,
>  you're able
>  to get tutoring for free, you don't have to feel ashamed for
>  taking
>  advantage of any of the above benefits because you're disabled
>  and that's
>  what you're expected to do!
>  Also, the expectation of your teachers is rather low and when
> you
>  get 100%
>  on all their hardest tests they get all embarrassed, people
> think
>  it's
>  amazing that you're getting strait As when it's nothing,
>  (Stereotypically)
>  blind people are very unsocial so they have lots of extra time
> to
>  do school
>  work, you're able to actually edit your teacher's handouts and
>  instructions
>  because Jaws doesn't miss skipped letters, if you have a problem
>  with your
>  online test you can blame it on your screen reader crashing the
>  web browser,
>  state colleges gobble you up if you have ever taken an honors
>  class at a
>  community college and you have good grades and you've written
> one
>  of those
>  inspiring essays, when you write inspiring essays you can get
> the
>  super
>  arrogant feeling for a moment and say "That's me in the essay!",
>  you're able
>  to participate in all kinds of extra activities through agencies
>  like Global
>  explorers or the Light House, you can participate in summer job
>  programs
>  like YES1 and YES2 in Washington State, when you go to community
>  college or
>  state college you're given a guide through the school because
> you
>  need a
>  mobility lesson and you have the disability resource person.
>  I should probably stop, but you get the idea...
>  It's probably because I was homeschooled for the first few years
>  of my life
>  and did all kinds of super awesome things with my overly amazing
>  parents and
>  didn't enter public school till 5th grade that I have this view
>  of school,
>  but I understood that I could learn in public school and it was
>  just that
>  either the teacher wasn't teaching me or that I wasn't equipped
>  with the
>  skills or technology that was keeping me from learning.
>  There are many other factors in learning, like Gardiner's
>  multiple  theory
>  of intelligences that play a factor in if one learns in school,
>  but thank
>  goodness I was able to learn that anyone can learn from anyone,
>  they just
>  need to know how they learn and learn that way!
>  I can give examples, but this email is already super long, so
>  I'll get off
>  education.
>  My point is that most blind people aren?셳 taught about all
> the
>  above things.
>  I was super lucky because my parents let me run my IEP meetings
>  and my mom
>  became a TVI half way through my schooling, but every blind
>  person needs to
>  know that school can be amazing! It is worth spending 8-12 years
>  of your
>  life there getting your music degree or dentist degree.
>
>  Another factor is that disabled people are fit into even a
>  tighter mold of
>  what they are to be when disabled people are the most unique of
>  anyone.
>  Blind people do not belong in special ed classes because they
>  don't need
>  special ed. Special ed teachers are people who teach extreme
>  cases of
>  autistic or other mentally disabled people. If a blind person is
>  put into
>  that environment and they don't need it, they will go insane!
>  It's like if
>  Stephen Hawking would have been born totally disabled and people
>  stuck him
>  into special ed just because he can't talk!
>  Where would cosmology be?
>  Sadly it's those who break out of the mold and assimilate their
>  own way into
>  sighted culture in order to evade the label of mentally disabled
>  that are
>  fighting for these rights.
>
>  I keep on telling people that if someone is considered weird
> it's
>  not them
>  that's weird, it's you who's weird for thinking that they're
>  weird. It's
>  like you thinking the person in front of you is going through
>  time the same
>  way you are!
>
>  Sadly the world is not reasonable, so we have to shuck reason
> and
>  go for
>  emotion. That's why we write all the super inspiring essays and
>  that's why
>  we have to assimilate into the sighted world.
>  Those who end up working in low under minimum wage jobs have
>  probably not
>  learned how to assimilate enough to pass off as "normal" in the
>  sighted
>  community, so that's probably why they can't get the entry level
>  jobs.
>
>  Before someone gives the line about not needing to be anything
>  other than
>  blind because we are blind, let me just say that most of this
>  world likes to
>  think they are sighted and normal. Most people like to walk with
>  the crowd.
>  Those who never learn to walk with the crowd are considered
>  weird, those who
>  learn how to walk with the crowd then figure out how to rise
>  above it are
>  considered great.
>  Thanks,
>
>  Brandon Keith Biggs
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Arielle Silverman
>  Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 9:27 PM
>  To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>  Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
>  Hi Brandon,
>  These are all good points. I like your statement about blind
>  people
>  who are "nurtured to act like they are mentally disabled" as I
>  have
>  met a few people who unfortunately seem to fit that description.
>  The problem is that there is no objective test to determine what
>  a
>  person is or is not capable of doing. Even so-called objective
>  tests
>  like IQ tests are incredibly biased and don't account for
>  environmental factors that artificially limit people's abilities
>  or
>  knowledge, like what is expected of them by parents and
> teachers,
>  or
>  what skills they are or are not taught. There is research
> showing
>  that
>  when people are expected to behave or perform in a certain way,
>  they
>  tend to fulfill that expectation (this is called a
>  "self-fulfilling
>  prophesy; if you're interested in the research, look up
>  "Pygmalian
>  effect"). So when teachers are randomly told that some kids are
>  smarter than others, they tend to treat those "smart" kids
>  differently
>  without even realizing it and eventually the "smart" kids end up
>  performing better than the other kids. The reverse pattern too
>  often
>  happens with disabilities. People have so many assumptions about
>  how
>  disabilities limit potential, and people in authority can act in
>  ways
>  that make those assumptions come true.
>  I also agree that people with disabilities would be much more
>  productive in sheltered jobs if they did work that was
>  intrinsically
>  interesting to them and if the work was in a field they were
>  actually
>  good at. It is common knowledge that people of all ages and
>  mental
>  abilities will do a better job at any task if they find the task
>  enjoyable and motivating. Too often, sheltered jobs are simply
>  too
>  boring to really engage people. Also, people with disabilities
>  have
>  their own talents that are rarely utilized in sheltered jobs. I
>  have
>  figured out that if I were forced to do a sheltered workshop
> job,
>  I
>  would probably be the one losing them money if they paid me at
>  minimum
>  wage, because I have never been good at making stuff with my
>  hands or
>  using machines. Not only would I be bored to tears, but I just
>  wouldn't be good at it. I am much better at writing and thinking
>  and
>  doing math, so I hope that society will let me use those skills
>  instead of forcing me to do work I'm not skilled at.
>  Regarding your comment about unemployment among the blind, it is
>  true
>  that many fields are accessible to the blind these days, yet the
>  unemployment rate is still staggering. There are many reasons
> for
>  unemployment among the blind. I think one reason is that
>  employers
>  want to hire applicants with relevant experience, and in many
>  fields,
>  the entry-level position that people get at first to gain
>  experience
>  isn't accessible to the blind. This might not be true with
>  programming, but in some fields it is really hard to get your
>  foot in
>  the door even if it's easier to work at higher levels. For
>  example,
>  before becoming a teacher, you need to do student teaching,
> which
>  means you are working under someone else who might not use
>  accessible
>  materials or who will doubt your ability to do the job. Without
>  experience, it's harder to allay people's initial discriminatory
>  doubts and fears about hiring a blind person. Also, even within
>  an
>  accessible field, individual employers might use materials that
>  aren't
>  accessible to the blind. So even though programming is very
>  accessible, if some employers require you to use languages or
>  scripts
>  that aren't accessible, this will limit job options.
>  Arielle
>
>  On 6/9/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com
>  wrote:
>  Hello,
>  It's a tricky situation. We can't really say what it's like
>  being mentally
>  disabled and it's hard to say what mentally disabled can or can
>  not do. We
>  also can't tell if the blind who are nurtured to act like
>  mentally
>  disabled
>  people really are mentally  disabled.
>  *That's a mouthful!*
>  I am of the opinion that mentally disabled people are way under
>  employed
>  and
>  jobs like Goodwill are completely the wrong job for many of
>  them. But I'm
>  not a professional and I can only say from personal experience
>  that many
>  mentally disabled people can do what they want quite well and
>  often it's
>  because they are babied and misunderstood  that they are
>  pressured into
>  doing jobs they aren?셳 good at.
>
>  I do wonder the need of blind adults to be working at good will
>  in the
>  first
>  place though when it's not that hard learning programming and
>  it's pretty
>  easy to get reeducated for free in the United States as a blind
>  person. If
>  your career isn't working out, I don't see why one wouldn't just
>  take a
>  class at their community college and change their job. I believe
>  SSI is
>  for
>  college students and those fresh out of college, or for a back
>  up when
>  work
>  isn't coming. I am still a student, but I know I have for sure
>  jobs if I
>  go
>  into programming or being a TVI. So other than the moral
>  issues, I'm not
>  sure why capable blind people are working at goodwill.
>  Thanks,
>
>  Brandon Keith Biggs
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Arielle Silverman
>  Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 8:32 PM
>  To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>  Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Goodwill Boycott
>
>  Hi all,
>  I don't shop at Goodwill either, but I was regularly donating
>  items
>  like used clothes to Goodwill, and my parents do as well. A
>  customer
>  boycott might not matter much but a donor boycott would probably
>  hurt
>  them considerably. I have to say I found Justin's arguments very
>  persuasive. I just hope that if we boycott all branches
>  nationally, we
>  make it very clear that what we want is a change to national
>  policy.
>  Interestingly, I used to rent an apartment from a woman (I'll
>  call her
>  S) whose full-time job was to be a live-in caretaker for a woman
>  with
>  Down's syndrome and significant mental retardation (I'll call
>  her C).
>  Since I rented the apartment right below theirs, I got to know
>  both S
>  and C quite well and learned a bit about C's situation.
>  Apparently C
>  is employed by a program for people with intellectual
>  disabilities
>  similar to Goodwill's but it wasn't Goodwill itself. I think S.
>  told
>  me that C. was paid around $1 per hour for doing an extremely
>  menial
>  job although I don't remember what that job was exactly.
>  However, I
>  don't think C. had any living expenses at all because she lived
>  rent-free with S. She may have been helping pay for groceries.
>  The
>  program she was in was very custodial and I'm not sure she even
>  had
>  independent access to the money she earned at her job.
>  I don't think I can really judge whether people with
>  disabilities like
>  C.'s are capable of living without custodial care or spending
>  their
>  own money, any more than a deaf person should be able to judge
>  how
>  independent blind people can be. I do suspect that people like
>  C.
>  would achieve more if they were held to higher expectations, and
>  higher expectations should come with higher wages and more
>  freedom.
>  I definitely believe that anyone who lives independently should
>  be
>  paid at least the minimum wage, and I think it is clear that
>  blindness
>  by itself doesn't prevent anyone from living independently
>