[nabs-l] What do you think: does getting involved with a blindness organization or society involve working in the real world?

[David Andrews]

Two things, your numbers are wrong, 30 percent of the population is 
not blind, if you cound blind and visually impaired, it is probably 
more like 2 or 3 percent.

Secondly, you make it sound like associating with blind people, 
and/or working for a blindness agency, is a black and white decision 
from being in the sighted world.  However we can do both.  I have 
blind friends and sighted friends.  I get different things from 
them.  I belong to the NFB and spend some of my time working on our 
causes.  I also work, and some of my colleagues are blind, some 
sighted.  I currently  work for a blind rehab agency, but have also 
worked for regular businesses and/or nonproffits in the past, some 
with no other disabled employees.  So it isn't either or...

Dave

At 08:51 PM 10/1/2014, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I'm just curious to know your opinions on whether you consider 
>getting involved with a blindness organization or society such as 
>the Federation or NABS to be going out and working in the real world?
>
>I'm just curious because not everybody in the world is blind, so 
>working with a company that only involves blind people is, in my 
>opinion, not really a job where you interact with everyone out there.
>I think it should be obvious to everyone on this list that about 70 
>percent of the people in this world are sighted and about 30 percent 
>includes us, the blindness community.  Sorrmy if my math is off, but 
>that's my estimate of how much of the world contains the sighted 
>people and how much contains us.  Somebody else on this list might 
>have a more accurate calculation of the actual percentages.
>
>So, in your opinion, is getting involved with a blindness group 
>going out and working in the real world or only in your "blindness" world?
>
>I'm looking forward to hearing your views.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Sami.

         David Andrews and long white cane Harry.
E-Mail:  dandrews at visi.com or david.andrews at nfbnet.org