[nagdu] Re Guide Dog Forced to Ride in Trunk

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Elizabeth,

Well, as someone who has tried out both forms of victimization for herself
-- with the same shocking lack of access to legal recourse because, well,
who cares?  I need to learn to forgive and forget and move past it and if I
can learn to be nice maybe people won't do these things to me.  If I can't
do that, I'm certainly  not worth being a burden on the legal system,
especially since it never happened in the first place, so I need to just
learn to be quiet and stop saying mean things about good people like that,
blaming them for my problems like physical pain and medical expense and ...

I wish I could say that your drawing a parallel between rape victims and
blind victims was out of line, inappropriate, nowhere near the same thing.

Trust me, though.  You  hit the nail on the head.  We blame the victim,
because if it's her fault, then it can't happen to us, right?

The only part you left out was the inexplicable human tendency of the victim
to blame her (or him) self.  My current working theory is that it is that
tendency that is behind what so many in the independence movement call the
slave mentality.  If it wasn't wrong for them to do it to me, it didn't
really happen to me, I can keep it from happening again if I don't make the
same mistakes that made that person do that to me ...  So if it happened to
you, and you stand up and call it wrong and keep insisting that it happened,
that *they* were wrong, that it is unacceptable for them to do that to you
or anyone ...

Where does that leave me?

Sigh.  I do not love getting to run up against that sort of thing from
others I would rather expect to be my allies in this day and age and in my
adult life, where I should be able to expect to be in control of my own fate
and destiny and don't like admitting that someone can take everything from
me and leave me battered and fighting to survive and recover for years to
come...  But I learned how to break the power of the secret and lie way too
early in life (by happenstance, but I got it instantly, so I am a sane and
functioning adult thanks to that nurse...) to put up and shut up now.  And I
already have plenty of experience at the "blame the victim" game from
others, in addition to knowing how to combat it in myself.

Yeah, I would like to deplore and decry this woman's act of giving in to a
lawbreaker so far as to have her dog put in the trunk of a cab...  But I get
the pressures.  I get the constant beating down some of us go through, from
friends and family when we're losing our sight -- I don't know of the
equivalent pressures for those who are born blind or lose it early on, but
I'm sure they have their own struggles to overcome those low expectations
and abuses of those who want to enforce them -- to the rehab agencies and
other resource providers, to some guide dog program staff, to the stranger
on the street who stands in the way of you and your white cane (and guide
dog prospect puppy) to tell you that what you need to do is go to church
because God doesn't want you to be blind...  Huh?  I'll be honest, I was to
exhausted to figure out a safe way to get around that one, but I did begin
to consider the option of just going ahead and giving myself a concussion on
the tree limb I knew to be somewhere handy.  /lol/  Then again, maybe I can
thank that guy because as a grown up guide Mitzi is pretty good at whizzing
me around people who take it upon themselves to stand in front of me to say
stupid things.  Not that many do, but if she notices a random conversation
is not to my liking, she's ready to take me past it the instant I let her
know it's okay to move on now.  Gotta love that dog.  /lol/

Anyway, I'm afraid I have heard exactly the same things said to my face --
and no doubt behind my back, as well -- as a victim of violence and abuse as
a blind adult that I did as a childhood victim of sexual and physical abuse.
It shocks and disgusts me, and it's harder now that I know it continues to
happen to others because, well, if people are mean to us it's our fault for
being blind and we're just not worth the cost to the legal system, and
anyway, what's wrong with us that we would say such awful things about good,
kind people who only want to help us?

So then, when I'm just going along trying to get somewhere and suddenly
someone is controlling me because they are my way to get there, I have a
hard time bucking it up yet again.  I can honestly say that I don't see
myself caving in *that* far, but I do understand the pressure to just put up
and shut up because if I stand up for myself I will lost something on the
other end because if a blind person is late to an appointment...  Depends on
the appointment, of course, and the people involved and what one hopes to
get by going wherever it is in the first place... I haven't had the exact
same situation as the woman in Denver, but I've been in the lose-lose
position a few too many times over the past 5 years not to realize how hard
it can be to figure out the best choice on the spot and then stand by it no
matter what...  Still, one does one's best.

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Elizabeth Rene
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2011 8:24 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nagdu] Re Guide Dog Forced to Ride in Trunk

I am more than a little concerned about a seeming tendency to judge the 
woman whose taxi driver forced her to put her guide dog in the trunk of his 
car.

This tendency toward censure has arisen before with regard to other guide 
dog users encountering problems in the past, and I, for one, want to 
discourage it.

Thankfully, I have never been faced with this woman's "Sophie's choice." 
But I have been abandoned by taxi drivers more than once over the years, 
and, like many others of my blind brothers and sisters, have probably faced 
my share of humiliating infringements of my civil rights.

The view that I want to express is that it is wrong to judge the victim of 
crime, no matter how much more responsible or effective or independent we 
think we might have been in similar circumstances.

No one lives at the height of vigilance at every moment of  life.

The victims of sexual assault, for example, have had to struggle for years 
not to be blamed for crimes against themselves.  Rape victims are blamed for

irresponsibly walking late at night, for dating the wrong partner, for 
drinking at the party, for selling their bodies, for dressing provocatively,

for being where they don't belong, for failing to set their own limits, to 
guard their own boundaries, to fight back more fiercely, etc., etc.  But 
rape is still a vicious crime, the offender is guilty, and the victim 
deserves our support and our compassion no matter how much better we may 
have behaved, or think we may have behaved with similar choices before us.

When I practiced criminal law, I was counseled to remove women from juries 
in sex cases because they were more likely to acquit.  If they could 
separate themselves from the victim--if no way could they ever be caught the

way she was by virtue of their own good choices--then they could leave the 
courtroom in confidence and go home feeling safe.  If only bad girls got 
attacked, then nothing could happen to them.  Women were expected to judge 
other women harshly in order to quell their own fears.

I think it is fear that makes us judge other blind people for falling short 
of our own self-expectations when they become victimized.  The idea might be

that if we are perfect, no one will hurt us; if we are perfect as a group, 
no one will even dare to try to hold us back.  WE might say to ourselves, 
"I'd never let the movement down by acting like that."

I'm all for independence, safety, effective self-advocacy, and responsible 
living.  But perfection and control are illusory goals.  They're impossible 
standards to maintain.

If we judge and find wanting those who have been victimized rather than 
holding  wrongdoers truly accountable for their illicit acts, then we become

victimizers too.

I think we can be stronger than that.

No one deserves to be victimized, ever.

Period.

Elizabeth, a former prosecuting attorney, and Ingram and Fiesta, who took a 
bite out of crime.




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