[NABS-L] Preparing Blind People for the Rest of Reality

Wed Apr 14 15:17:48 UTC 2021

Hello,

I had to read your article a few times through before composing an adequate response. While I understand your focus on providing a “realist’s” view, it seems like you are coming from a place of denunciation and stigmatization. As a young blind woman doing the best I can with the cards I’ve been dealt, I took the criticism in your article personally. It is incorrect to assume that all blind people are in the same position and that we all are at fault for challenges that we encounter. I agree with you that we are competing in a sighted world and that braille and JAWS are incredibly important tools, but those skills take time to learn. Everybody has a different story and although blindness is not what holds us back, in reality, sometimes it slows us down.

In response to your thoughts on blind people in the workplace, we can’t focus on what should or shouldn’t be, we can only work from the current situation. The NFB isn’t an accurate sample of the blind population in the US, and so the percentage of us that focus on improving life for those in our community (vocational rehab, TVIs, or leaders in blindness organizations) is going to be skewed. The vast majority of my blind peers study something unrelated to blindness. I am in IT, one of my best friends is studying environmental science, a classmate is studying neurology, and I know people in and outside of the NFB in everything from law to sports administration to engineering. It is easy to go about life without meeting another blind person outside of a blindness organization, but we’re there. I promise.

Lastly, I want to address your comment about college being much easier now than it ever has been. I had to laugh this one off before it made my blood boil. College isn’t a walk in the park. College is more like running a marathon through a park that’s on fire while being chased by wolves. And doing that blind will never be easy.

I appreciate your time and your willingness to share your thoughts. I’d love to continue the conversation.

Thank you,

Emily Kiehl
University of Cincinnati | 2023
Information Technology - Networking
National Association of Blind Students - Ohio
813-394-2720

________________________________
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Littlefield, Tyler via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 11:26 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Littlefield, Tyler <tyler at tysdomain.com>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Preparing Blind People for the Rest of Reality

I wasn't sure if I wanted to respond to this or just skip past it, but I
think there are a few points worth talking about.

Firstly, I would love to live in a life where I could take a sabbatical
from advocating in the blind-sphere, because that would mean I'm not
interfacing with the accessibility issues I experience daily. I realize
that I may not be grounded in your reality, but I would say that this is
simply not possible, and you cover part of why. Every day we need to
advocate for accessibility, or for something to be slightly different to
enable us to perform tasks and to accomplish our jobs. We work extra
hours daily to overcome accessibility challenges and to compete with our
peers. to suggest that we can simply ignore this fact and wander off
into the sunset to not advocate for blindness-related issues shows me
that you've missed a point here. While I would agree that centering your
life around these issues might not be the best for some, it works for
many, and we all owe a lot of gratitude and appreciation to those who do
dedicate their lives to making it easier. I would also say that it is
this daily advocacy that brings us into contact with organizations like
the NFB and ACB.

You also make a point about how the sighted world isn't going to meet us
where we are, and how we should just learn to use our tech and get by.
While I understand that learning your technology is important, there are
two key issues here. First, your ability to write this, your ability to
bestow your paternal wisdom upon us folk is only because you stand on
the shoulders of giants. If everyone accepted the world for what it was
and simply adapted without reaching for more and trying to make it a
better place, we would not be having this argument. You would likely
still be reading raised print if that, and your article opener wouldn't
be talking about opportunities for work that we currently have.

I find articles like this discouraging and outright disappointing. It
disgusts me how many times blind people hold other blind people to lofty
standards that they themselves sometimes don't even rise to, or that we
don't hold others outside of this community to. There's something to be
said for understanding that everyone has their own lived experiences,
and that those experiences are what might shape us. Opportunity isn't
there for the taking for everyone, many times it relies on so many
characteristics outside of someone's control. It's easy to dismiss a
group's issues as not learning technology, or not being grounded in
reality, when there are many other factors that might dictate how one is
able to use the tools that they are given. These include but most
certainly are not limited to education and ability. You want to compare
us to the sighted world, yet the standards your article sets for blind
people is far above what most people need to aspire to in order to say
that they are your version of "successful." Not every sighted person has
to devote hours and days of training and experimentation to learn their
technology, at the very least. Not every blind person can do this,
either. So rather than tell blind people they've got it all wrong, I
would urge you to go be the change you want to see. Do something that
helps people, rather than disparage a community on mass by putting them
in a box that you can write an article full of stereotypes around.

On 4/13/2021 5:02 PM, Joe Orozco via NABS-L wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Considering I wrote the post below with this list audience in mind, it
> makes sense to share it here. I'll reiterate these are just personal
> opinions, not an authority by any means.--Joe
>
> There’s never been a better time to be blind, or so I’ve heard. And I
> have to ask: How low have we dropped the bar?
>
> I was recently chatting with a friend. I forget exactly how the
> subject came up, but we found ourselves discussing blind people and
> entry level jobs. I expressed frustration at the blindness consumer
> groups for not doing a better job of partnering with national chains
> to employ blind people.
>
> If the unemployment rate among the blind persists deep into double
> digits, why would we not fight to change the landscape?
>
> The number of jobs that ask for a high school education or jobs that
> do not require formal education to fulfill are growing at the slowest
> rate compared to other trends. Blind people should be prepared for the
> inevitability of automation, but in the meantime, it does not seem
> reasonable that blind people should be kept out of the jobs in retail,
> hospitality, and recreation so common to Americans as early as
> adolescence.
>
> In 2021, Amazons announcement to make more opportunities available for
> the blind should not have been newsworthy. It should have been
> commonplace. Why are we not demanding more companies follow Amazon’s
> example of opening their industry to blind workers? It’s fine for
> diversity campaigns to be inclusive of all genders, ethnicities, age,
> and religions, but if companies are not stretching themselves to
> accommodate disabilities, they are still blocking the doorway to
> equality.
>
> And then my friend said something that stopped my rant in its tracks.
> She said that maybe it was because blind people were not ready for
> those jobs...
>
> I’ve prepared a few thoughts on the steps the up and coming generation
> of blind individuals should follow as they prepare to meet the real
> world. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do claim to be
> successful. These are just one guy’s personal opinions, and hey, if
> you disagree, you know where to leave your comments.
>
> You can read the entire post here:
>
> https://joeorozco.com/preparing-blind-people-for-the-rest-of-reality/
>
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--

Take Care,
Tyler Littlefield (he/him/his)

Tyler Littlefield Consulting: website development and business
solutions. <http://tylerlittlefield.me> My personal site
<http://tysdomain.com> My Linkedin
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/ty-lerlittlefield> @Sorressean on Twitter
<http://twitter.com/sorressean>

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