[nabs-l] Independence and courtesy

Joe jsoro620 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 7 03:35:01 UTC 2014


Hi Arielle,

My reference to courtesies really goes beyond blindness. I work in
Washington DC where too many people rush about with little regard to basic
niceties. Maybe it's the Texas boy in me coming out, but you get to a point
where kind gestures are more the exception than the norm. I spent too many
years building up my confidence for my independence to be challenged by
someone asking if I would like a seat or help across the street or any
number of gestures people think I could benefit from, and I too find myself
behaving extra nice to people in wheelchairs, people with intellectual
disabilities, and yes, women. No, I don't think women are at any kind of
disadvantage, but the only thing that ever hurt a woman when a guy opened
her car door, or the front door or pulled out a chair for her at a
restaurant was her pride. The notion that I should feel inferior because
someone was nice toward me makes no sense to me. It's not the gestures we
should fear. It's when the gestures stop that we should truly worry.

--
Twitter: @ScribblingJoe

Visit my blog:
http://joeorozco.com/blog


-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Arielle
Silverman
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 9:56 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: [nabs-l] Independence and courtesy

Hi Joe,

I liked your blog post for the most part, but there was something in there
that puzzled me, as it sounded like a bit of a contradiction.
You say that you'd like it if people offered you front seats on the bus
because you are blind, yet admit that you would turn the offer down. You
also make a statement to the effect that if you were sighted you would offer
such special treatment to a blind person.
I question, What is the logic behind advocating special courtesies for blind
people that aren't extended to the sighted? Why should a blind person be
offered preferential seating or a discount as a courtesy that is not offered
to everyone else? Am I missing something? Is receiving a seat near the door
something that addresses blindness-related needs? Perhaps it is something
about being a guide dog traveler?
While I sometimes take the seat near the door on a bus, it's usually because
I don't want to hold up the bus while I search for a back seat. If someone
wants to be courteous, I'd rather them verbally point out empty seats to me
rather than giving up their seats for me.
Nor do I expect a man to give me a seat because I am female. In fact, I'd
find such treatment insulting.

I appreciate when people offer me courtesies that they would offer anyone,
such as holding the door open. I also like it when people offer courtesies
that address my access needs, like describing visual things to me. I don't
like it when people presume needs I don't have, such as presuming I can't
stand on a crowded bus. If people have questions about how far my blindness
affects my abilities, I'd rather they ask than assume. I don't consider such
assumptions about my preferences based on my blindness, or my gender for
that matter, to be courtesies.

Best,
Arielle

On 3/5/14, Anjelina <anjelinac26 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Arielle,
> I hope you are archiving your wisdom for a book in the near future! I 
> can't add much to your well-written message except I went through 
> similar experiences. In my IEP had goals like I had to talk to so many 
> people a day since I was a more interverted person.
> Social skills are wonderful and helpful, but real authentic 
> friendships which are meaningful friendships are most important.
>
>
> -Anjelina
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Mar 5, 2014, at 12:22 AM, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> OK. Since it was brought up here, I feel compelled to share some of 
>> my experiences and controversial views on how blind people should 
>> learn social skills. Some of you have heard this rant before in part, 
>> but I think it is important enough to bear repeating every few years. 
>> I guess I'm also curious if any of you have had similar experiences 
>> growing up or if the things I am about to advocate make any sense to 
>> others besides me.
>>
>> I have been blind my whole life and I was always an introverted 
>> person. As a child I had few close  friends, read a lot by myself.
>> When I did hang out with kids my age I tended to be bossy and want to 
>> control what we were doing. When adults came into my house and tried 
>> to interact with me in ways I thought were childish or silly, I would 
>> go to my room and read. I never was one for a lot of physical 
>> affection, hugging, touching etc.
>> When I was growing up it was assumed that all my undesirable traits 
>> linked back to my blindness. So it was assumed that because of my 
>> blindness I had poor social skills. There were goals on my IEP 
>> throughout elementary and middle school that dealt with my social 
>> skills and my TVI was tasked with evaluating my progress. For 
>> example, in elementary school I would get graded on goals like "Shows 
>> interest in other children" or "asks others about their day". In 
>> middle school, one goal on my IEP was "compliments others when she likes
something".
>> I am not even slightly joking. My TVI would ask me every day to tell 
>> her how many people I had complimented that day and she wrote it down 
>> on her clipboard. The number of compliments I gave was expected to 
>> increase over time. Since I  was usually a good student and I liked 
>> and respected this teacher a lot, I tried my hardest to give her a 
>> good compliment report every day, by contriving situations where I 
>> could compliment my family and classmates. I still don't understand 
>> what this had to do with my blindness. If I complimented people less 
>> than my parents or teachers expected it was because that just wasn't 
>> a big part of how I liked to interact with people. Had I been 
>> sighted, I wouldn't have been graded on such a silly thing. She also 
>> read me passages from a social skills book as a way to teach me social
skills.
>> Eventually my TVI and I discussed this and she told me that my 
>> parents had really expected her to do these things and she did even 
>> though she knew they were ridiculous.
>> When people in the blindness world talk about social skills, it seems 
>> they're usually referring to two things: skills at winning friends 
>> and influencing people (charisma, likability, popularity) or 
>> following social conventions like being places on time, attempting 
>> eye contact, etc. (what Jedi refers to as "blending in"). By the 
>> first set of criteria, winning friends and influencing people, Adolf 
>> Hitler had wonderful social skills. I think there are other social 
>> skills that are much more important for having lasting relationships: 
>> things like sharing, helping others in need, being sensitive to other 
>> people's feelings, respecting other people's opinions, not holding
grudges.
>> There are many sighted politicians who have absolutely terrible 
>> social skills by these criteria! These are all things that blind 
>> people can learn just as well as sighted people by listening to other 
>> people's conversations, talking about issues going on in the world, 
>> and actually being a part of close relationships. I think the most 
>> social skills I ever learned was by becoming friends with blind 
>> people who were willing to be blunt and tell me if I was doing 
>> something obnoxious. There is a lot we can learn about social 
>> interaction just by listening, talking and sharing with others. 
>> Reading about this stuff in a book, or being required to engage in 
>> artificial interactions with others, doesn't help build these social 
>> skills in the long term. Role-playing social interactions doesn't 
>> help when you're out in the real world and the thing you practiced 
>> feels really awkward and fake.
>> On blending in, I do think there are certain nonverbal things that 
>> congenitally blind people should be explicitly told about so we can 
>> make informed decisions about whether or not we want to blend in. For 
>> example, of course blind folks should be told about which colors 
>> people usually wear together or what kind of clothing is appropriate 
>> for a job interview vs. the movies. But then, we still have the right 
>> to choose to blend in or not. So  often it seems that blind folks are 
>> labeled as having poor social skills when the fact is that they've 
>> learned what is "appropriate" but chosen not to follow these norms 
>> for whatever reason.
>> I realize now that my parents and teachers were unfortunately using 
>> blindness and the IEP system to try to change who I fundamentally 
>> was--to turn me into an extroverted, gregarious, charismatic person.
>> It took a long time for me to realize that I was OK being myself, and 
>> that I was just reared in an environment where I didn't quite belong.
>> Although I don't have tons of friends, I have great relationships 
>> with the friends I do have, a loving husband and co-workers who 
>> respect me, and I try to be the best person I can. Most of  the 
>> things I learned to get me to this place came from my firsthand 
>> experiences making friends, my real discussions with others and a lot of
trial and error.
>> I don't think I missed out on the process because I am blind, but I 
>> also don't think the attempts to teach me social skills from a 
>> textbook were either effective or necessary.
>> In closing, I hope that any good blindness center would support 
>> students in developing social skills--by giving them opportunities to 
>> make friends and have real social encounters--instead of 
>> indoctrinating them with lessons based on a narrow definition of 
>> social competence.
>>
>> Best,
>> Arielle
>>
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