[nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successful blind people

Sat Mar 29 23:42:46 UTC 2014

Yeah, I agree with joe.  You've got to have everything aligned to say that
blindness is a nuisance, elsewise the questions I see on this list would be
completely  different.

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Joe
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2014 7:40 PM
To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successful
blind people

Arielle,

Inaccessible technology, lack of transit, and discrimination are not merely
lack of opportunities. They are depictions of reality over which we do not
always have control. Perhaps it could be said that blindness, could, be a
non-issue if the stars aligned and these inconveniences did not slow down
our forward momentum, but few are the blind people who can move through life
without experiencing frustration with the delays and detours at random
points along the way. In fact, I would submit that those few for whom
blindness is truly a non-issue are the ones working at the heights of the
blindness movement where it is easy to drum up platitudes of opportunity and
analogies of blindness to a nuisance. Whatever will motivate you to go out
and raise money for the cause, right? For the rest of us living outside of
that leadership bubble, life's tough. Can it be done? Most assuredly, and I
will take a motivational whip to anyone's arse who claims otherwise, but
there's success according to the over-simplistic way Baltimore preaches and
then there's success according to the real-world way the rest of us earn it.

--
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: Saturday, March 29, 2014 2:33 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successfulblind
people

Joe, I think all the examples you cite are instances of lack of opportunity.
Inaccessible technology, lack of transit, discrimination; these are all
denials of opportunity. Everyone admits that blindness makes a lack of
opportunity more of a barrier. But when there is opportunity--when things
are accessible, there are ways to get around besides driving a car,
etc.--blindness becomes a non-issue.
Arielle

On 3/29/14, Kirt <kirt.crazydude at gmail.com> wrote:
> Funny you mentioned that... because it's actually one of my favorite 
> speeches and, in my opinion, one of the best explanations of The way I 
> interpret and apply Federation philosophy. If you recall, his main 
> point in that speech was that real independence means getting things 
> done in the most efficient way possible, Without placing ridiculously 
> high burdens on other people. He went out of his way to repeatedly 
> emphasize that real independence, As he saw it, does indeed mean you 
> accept assistance if you want it, if it will really be helpful, and as 
> long as it is on your terms and not somebody else's. That speech is 
> easily one of my favorites-I think it's fair to say there are some 
> people
in the federation who don't quite live by it.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Mar 29, 2014, at 10:10 AM, "justin williams"
>> <justin.williams2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Revisit the Dr. Jernican speech on interdependence.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kirt
>> Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2014 12:03 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of 
>> successfulblind people
>>
>> Absolutely nothing and, if you think that's what the federation 
>> teaches, you've been listening to the wrong people.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Mar 29, 2014, at 6:46 AM, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Good morning, everyone,
>>>
>>> So, going back to how Robin holds up interdependence as a means of 
>>> getting
>> assistance for such things as not quite accessable forms, what's 
>> wrong with that?
>>> for today, Car
>>>
>>> At 02:23 PM 3/28/2014, Ashley Bramlett wrote:
>>>> Hi Joe,
>>>> very well said. I, too, cannot believe blindness is a nuisance anymore.
>> Not with the barriers I face because the world is not conducive to 
>> nonvisual access, especially appliances and technology. Do I think 
>> about blindness a lot? No, its part of me; actually I have low 
>> vision.
>>>> I go about my business like making breakfast, listening to the news 
>>>> and
>> weather via radio and watching tv shows that are rather auditory a 
>> lot and feel happy. I don't think about that I'm doing things 
>> differently because of my vision or feel down over it. But, it does 
>> play a role in my ability to accomplish visual tasks. For instance 
>> filling out job applications; its like half are inaccessible; I came 
>> across at least three which say errors, fix the boxes by red stars, 
>> and I do not know what the errors are. or others I fill out are not 
>> accepted telling me that I missed fields, and I have no idea which 
>> fields I missed. I need some eyes to assist me.
>>>> Then there is the transit issue; with mobility being a challenge, I
>> struggle with that, and hate the inconvenience of paratransit.
>>>> Then you have electronics which we cannot see.  So, no its not a 
>>>> nuisance, and we have not made enough progress to render blindness
>> insignificant in doing what we want to do.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, I agree with you on success. Its about living your 
>>>> passions. Its
>> also, I believe, about making goals, and doing them to change the world.
>> Go
>> out and achieve big things for you.
>>>>
>>>> Also, yeah, success is you. Having a federal job as you do in that 
>>>> field,
>> is a rather successful thing you accomplished.
>>>> You  are smart.
>>>>
>>>> Ashley
>>>> -----Original Message----- From: Joe
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:12 PM
>>>> To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'
>>>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of 
>>>> successfulblind people
>>>>
>>>> Phil,
>>>>
>>>> A successful blind person looks, acts, and communicates like me.
>>>> Isn't that obvious?
>>>>
>>>> But, kidding aside, I want to give you a different perspective from 
>>>> the people whining about how it is unfair to make blindness a 
>>>> factor in
>> success.
>>>> Apparently some of us believe that success is success and blindness 
>>>> is irrelevant, but to deny that blindness is a factor is to deny 
>>>> the reality that more than 70% of our blind peers are unemployed.
>>>> To a degree, overcoming blindness is success onto itself, and if 
>>>> you can't succeed there, a person's likelihood of succeeding 
>>>> anywhere else is slim. Is the person willing to advocate for 
>>>> themselves? Are they willing to work twice as hard to achieve tasks 
>>>> their sighted peers can complete sometimes in half the time? Are 
>>>> they honest enough with themselves to tell if they possess 
>>>> sufficient daily living, technology, and communication skills to 
>>>> succeed at life, let alone the workplace? It may be true that our 
>>>> sighted peers may need to ponder some of these points, but not with 
>>>> the same necessity or to the same depth as the blind person who has 
>>>> to be extra competitive to
>> beat sighted applicants.
>>>>
>>>> At some point over the past several years I stopped subscribing to 
>>>> the NFB notion that blindness can be reduced to the level of a 
>>>> nuisance. Were that true, I believe we would have seen better 
>>>> progress where blind people are concerned. Blindness presents 
>>>> certain unique challenges a person must regularly overcome to 
>>>> excel. Yes, building up confidence makes the process easier, but I 
>>>> don't know that we have reached a point in our evolution of 
>>>> independence that blindness is irrelevant, and certainly not so 
>>>> minimal as to be labeled a
>> minor inconvenience.
>>>>
>>>> Now, as to success across the board, blind or sighted, I think 
>>>> pursuing your own passions is a key ingredient. I wrote a blog post 
>>>> on the subject, which you can read at the link below:
>>>>
>>>> http://joeorozco.com/blog_are_you_living_someone_elses_dream
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Twitter: @ScribblingJoe
>>>>
>>>> Visit my blog:
>>>> http://joeorozco.com/blog
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Phil
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 6:29 AM
>>>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>>>> Subject: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successful 
>>>> blind people
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I'm working on a research paper, and would like to hear what you think.
>>>> Obviously there are external factors such as accessibility 
>>>> barriers, social and attitudinal barriers and so on that affect a 
>>>> blind person's likelihood of success in life.  But if we focus on 
>>>> personal characteristics for a moment, what do you think are some 
>>>> personal characteristics that can help a blind person succeed, or 
>>>> ask in a different way, what characteristics and behavior traits do 
>>>> successful blind people around you exhibit? And what makes you cite
these traits?
>>>> For example, some have rightly pointed out that a sense of 
>>>> curiosity and exploration is key, both curiosity to explore one's 
>>>> physical surrounding, intellectual curiosity to explore different 
>>>> subjects and career possibilities, and so on. Others have also 
>>>> pointed out having the courage to be different is important as a 
>>>> blind
person.
>>>> What else do you think are important characteristics or behavior
traits?
>>>> Hope to hear lots of diverse views on this.
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Phil
>>>>
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