[NABS-L] Who Is the Perkins School for the Blind Named After?

[Kane Brolin]

Hi, Justin.

I am not officially a NABS member.  But being a subscriber to the
NABS-L listserv as a result of my involvement with the NABS Midwest
Student Seminar this past March, I would give a qualified yes to your
query.

The mood of the country is mixed in respect to how we should preserve
(or not) those portions of the USA's legacy that are inglorious.  But
I think your inquiry into the why behind the naming of Perkins
School--(and don't forget the Perkins Brailler)--is quite apropos as
we go through this moment of collective reflection as a country.
After all, just this year we saw the renaming of Fort Bragg; even the
rather conservative types who inhabit commanding positions within the
U.S. Armed Services considered that a traitorous, seemingly
incompetent Confederate general named Braxton Bragg was not exactly
one after whom we should continue to name an acclaimed army base
representing the United States.  So why should the blind not take back
our legacy?

I would argue that it is the myriad alumni who have graduated from the
Perkins School over the years that have built and sustained the legacy
of this school, through how they have impacted the world in a positive
way, that deserve to be venerated for the sake of posterity.  Justin,
I take it from your research that Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1) was not
blind, (2) did not develop technology or pedagogical techniques for
the blind, and (3) earned some part of his fortune through activities
that now would be considered illicit and dehumanizing more or less
worldwide.  So while it is significant that Mr. Perkins wrote big
checks to start and maintain what turned out to be an important school
that has helped many, why shouldn't the stakeholders of Perkins School
for the Blind pick as namesake someone who better typifies the values
that Perkins School has exemplified over the years?  Why not Helen
Keller?  If she seems a bit anachronistic, I'm sure there must be
plenty of modern or postmodern exemplars who would fit the bill
better.

Yes, I believe this is something worth fighting for, if for no other
reason than to prove that social justice is just as important, and
just as needed, in supposedly progressive New England as it is in the
Deep South where Confederate statues proliferate.  And it is just as
needed in the blind community and the deafblind community as it is in
communities of color or, say, in trans communities.

Just one person's opinion.  Whereas I am not an alumnus of Perkins
School, and whereas the Perkins School is not a part of the National
Federation of the Blind, I speak only of my own feelings in this
matter.

"No man is an island entire of itself; "every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any
manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind."
--John Donne

Respectfully,

-Kane
(574)386-8868 (mobile)