[ND-Talk] FW: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, April 2020
Sherry Shirek
sherrybeth7 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 26 15:34:26 UTC 2020
Hi everyone
Hope all of you are doing okay with the current circumstances of social
distancing.
Here is the Braille Monitor fresh off the press. The Braille Monitor is
available via the Newsline app for those of you who have signed up. I
encourage all of you to sign up for the free Newsline because it is not
something that is available in North Dakota ordinarily. We have it for 2
months to help support our state affiliate with current CORBID-19
Coronavirus information. There is also a very long list of newspapers,
publications and a variety of interesting magazines and ND Associated Press.
The NFB Newsline is incredible and so easy to use on your smart phone,
desktop, touch tone telephone, and Amazon's Alexa
I encourage all of you to give it a try. We need your subscriptions to help
with our advocacy efforts in ND to get our local newspapers added to NFB
newsline.
It takes moments to sign up. Contact Milton Ota via email to receive your id
and password. mota1252 at gmail.com
To sign up Milton will need your name, address, phone number and email
address.
Please feel welcome to contact us if you have questions or assistance.
Happy reading!
Be well and be safe out there!
Sherry
Sherry E. Shirek, Secretary
National Federation of the Blind of North Dakota
Voice/text 701-781-3055
Email sherrybeth7 at gmail.com
www.nfbnd.org
With love, hope & determination, we change dreams into reality
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles
between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want;
blindness is not what holds you back
Like us on Facebook
-----Original Message-----
From: brl-monitor-bounces at nfbcal.org <brl-monitor-bounces at nfbcal.org> On
Behalf Of Brian Buhrow
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 7:39 PM
To: brl-monitor at nfbcal.org
Subject: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, April 2020
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 63, No.4 April 2020
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash
drive, by the
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Mark Riccobono, President
telephone: 410-659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
website address: http://www.nfb.org
NFBnet.org: http://www.nfbnet.org
NFB-NEWSLINE. information: 866-504-7300
Like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind
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Letters to the President, address changes, subscription requests, and
orders for NFB literature should be sent to the national office. Articles
for the Monitor and letters to the editor may also be sent to the national
office or may be emailed to gwunder at nfb.org.
Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year.
Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation
of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE
CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE
EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES
BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT;
BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND-IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
) 2020 by the National Federation of the Blind
Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick
or USB flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a
National Library Service digital player. The NLS machine has two slots-the
familiar book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying handle and
a second slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This
smaller slot is used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective rubber pad
covering this slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one
position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again.
(Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive,
the digital player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is
inserted, the player buttons will function as usual for reading digital
materials. If you remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges,
when you insert it again, reading should resume at the point you stopped.
You can transfer the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to
your computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because thumb
drives can be used hundreds of times, we would appreciate their return in
order to stretch our funding. Please use the return envelope enclosed with
the drive when you return the device.
Houston Site of 2020 NFB Convention
As this goes to press, the 2020 NFB National Convention is taking
place July 14-19 in Houston, Texas, as planned. We will continue to
evaluate the COVID-19 situation and the needs of attendees. We will update
the national convention webpage (nfb.org/convention) regarding the status
of the event and any related precautions to be taken. More information
about our response to COVID-19 can be found at https://www.nfb.org/about-
us/press-room.
The 2020 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take
place in Houston, Texas, July 14 to July 19, at the Hilton Americas-Houston
hotel, 1600 Lamar Street, Houston, TX 77010. Make your room reservation as
soon as possible with the Hilton Americas-Houston staff only. Call 1-800-
236-2905 to reserve your room in the main hotel. If you wish to stay in our
overflow hotel, the Marriott Marquis Houston, the number to call is 1-877-
688-4323.
The 2020 room rate at our main hotel is $105.00 per night and applies
to singles and doubles as well as triples and quads. Hotel and sales taxes
are 13.38 percent and 8.25 percent, respectively. The rate for the overflow
Marriott Marquis is slightly higher at $119 and includes Hotel and sales
taxes of 13.38 percent and 8.25 percent, respectively. As with our main
hotel, this rate is good for up to four in a room. Both hotels will take a
deposit of the first night's room rate for each room and will require a
credit card or a personal check. If you use a credit card, the deposit will
be charged against your card immediately. If a reservation is cancelled
before Friday, June 1, 2020, half of the deposit will be returned.
Otherwise refunds will not be made.
Rooms will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Reservations may be made before June 1, 2020, assuming that rooms are still
available. After that time the hotels will not hold our room block for the
convention. In other words, you should get your reservation in soon.
The schedule for the 2020 convention is:
Tuesday, July 14 Seminar Day
Wednesday, July 15 Registration and Resolutions Day
Thursday, July 16 Board Meeting and Division Day
Friday, July 17 Opening Session
Saturday, July 18 Business Session
Sunday, July 19 Banquet Day and Adjournment
Vol. 63, No. 4 April
2020
Contents
The 2020 Washington Seminar
by Gary Wunder
Legislative Agenda of Blind Americans: Priorities for the 116th Congress,
Second Session
Access Technology Affordability Act
Greater Access and Independence through Nonvisual Access Technology (GAIN)
Act
Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HIGH) Act
Remarks of Congressman Bobby Scott
Hearing on Autonomous Vehicles: Promises and Challenges of Evolving
Automotive Technologies
by Mark Riccobono
Being Honest with Oneself Should Require No Debate
by Ryan Strunk
On Privilege
by Geerat J. Vermeij
The Tours in Texas
by Norma Crosby
I am a Federationist
by Jessica Reed
The Unknown
by Marc Maurer
Why Attend the 2020 NFB Career Fair?
by Dick Davis
The Blind Doctor of Rocanville
by Eva-Lis Wuorio
Blindness: Is the Public Against Us?
by Kenneth Jernigan
Continuing the Recipe Column
by Gary Wunder
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
Participate in Braille Monitor Survey
The Braille Monitor is a magazine that the Federation has published
since 1957. We call it our flagship publication. In terms not so tied to
the Navy, this means that it should be the lead publication of our
organization, the one which all of us follow and contribute to in order to
share what is going on in our Federation family, the latest news about
blindness-related activities, and the place we record the major milestones
of the National Federation of the Blind's progress.
For some time now we have been seeing Federationists-new
Federationists in particular, we believe-who don't seem to know about the
Braille Monitor and who have not subscribed because of it. We have
assembled a survey that will ask participants a number of things about the
Monitor, including whether someone has offered to sign them up for it;
whether they read it and why not if the answer is no; and what should
change to make the Monitor more the kind of magazine they want to see as
the flagship publication of our organization.
The Braille Monitor reflects many of our traditions, but it also must
evolve enough to clearly be relevant in this decade and those to come.
Please help us by telling us what you want, what you need, and what you
will read. Together we will keep making history, and the Braille Monitor
will continue to tell our story about defining a problem, talking it
through, and doing what it takes to see that it gets solved. Thank you for
helping the publication that states boldly "We are the Blind Speaking for
Ourselves."
How to Complete the Survey
. Online: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BrailleMonitor
. Phone: 667-888-2454
. Mail: Remove the survey from Monitor, mark your answers with an "X,"
and mail FREE MATTER FOR THE BLIND to Braille Monitor Survey, National
Federation of the Blind, 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230.
Braille Monitor Survey
Please complete the following survey questions.
1. How long have you been reading the Braille Monitor?
. I've never read the Braille Monitor.
. 0-5 years.
. 6-10 years
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. More than 15 years
. I've read it, but then I decided not to continue reading it.
2. If you've never read the Braille Monitor or you decided not to
continue reading it, please tell us why. If you read it regularly,
skip to question three.
. I didn't know about it.
. I am not much of a reader.
. From the name I thought it was only available in Braille.
. The articles do not seem relevant to me.
. I would read it if the articles were (please specify)
3. How did you hear about the Braille Monitor?
. Chapter meeting or chapter president
. Affiliate convention
. National convention
. NFB email, NFB website, or other NFB promotion
. I've never heard about it.
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4. What is your preferred reading method for magazines?
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5. What information are you looking for in the Braille Monitor? You may
select more than one.
. Organization philosophy
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6. Please provide any additional feedback regarding the Braille Monitor.
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Your responses will be anonymous. Thank you for your participation in our
Braille Monitor Survey.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Gary Wunder]
[PHOTO CAPTION: President Riccobono speaks to the National Association of
Blind Students session during Washington Seminar.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: President Riccobono welcomes members during a Jernigan
Institute Tour.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The crowd at the Great Gathering-In]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Richard Payne talks to Ohio Representative Bob Latta]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Georgia Representative Sanford Bishop speaks at the
Congressional Reception.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Erin Daring, NFB of Maryland president Ronza Othman, and
Sharon Maneki with Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin.]
The 2020 Washington Seminar
by Gary Wunder
When I was a young lad, there were some things I knew to be solid and
certain. My mother was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest woman in the world.
My father was the smartest, hardest working, most motivated man in the
world. He could walk into a room, and the room was his. People wanted to
talk with him, to know what he thought, and if by chance they didn't ask,
he let them know anyway.
But the one thing that surprised me was that when it came to
government action and policy, Dad would sometimes refer to himself as the
little guy or the little man. In no other area of his life did he think or
talk about himself as little or helpless or inferior to anyone. When he
would listen to the news and they talked about presidents, senators, or
congressmen, he would occasionally comment about what they did, but he also
made it clear that he had little to no influence over any of it except to
complain, and, once in a while, cast his vote for or against them.
What a shock it was to me when I came to this blind group who said
they routinely dealt with the House and the Senate at the state and
national level. They said these men and women with titles came to their
meetings and that the blind also went to visit them. They said that when
the blind talked, these officials often listened, and the Federation had
this impressive list of accomplishments that had come from their
interaction.
To say the least I was impressed and then almost overwhelmed when they
asked me to come along and speak with these powerful people. When I did it,
they listened, and when some of them knew my name in repeat visits, I was
on cloud nine. Almost as good was that my father was impressed and told
family and friends about how I went to Washington to talk with people about
what blind folks needed, and they actually acted.
For decades, the NFB has been coming to Washington, never deterred by
the weather and not even when one house declared it was going on retreat
after we had made plans to attend. One year we made it to Capitol Hill
when many congressmen and staffers had a hard time getting in because of
the snowy weather, and this helped immensely in convincing them of our
commitment and how seriously we took our issues. They mentioned our
presence for years after, and this was a big plus for a group considered so
limited in dealing with their environment.
The Washington Seminar focuses on our trip to the hill, but over the
years it has grown to be much more. This year witnessed a job fair
sponsored by our committee to encourage employment, and more about it will
appear elsewhere in this issue. The National Association of Blind Students
has long held what it calls its mid-winter meeting, and recently the trip
to Washington has been used for a meeting of state presidents. This, along
with a meeting of state legislative directors, has people really pumped
when it comes time for the Great Gathering-In meeting. This year it
occurred on Monday, February 10. It began promptly at 5 p.m., and this is
what President Riccobono said to open the meeting:
Why have we gathered here this evening? President Barack Obama
said, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we
wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We
are the change that we seek." President John F. Kennedy said, "Change
is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are
certain to miss the future."
We, the blind of this nation, have come from near and far to
take a stand for our future. We have come to stand for equality,
opportunity, and security. We have come seeking not to be cared for by
our government but to share in the responsibilities of building our
nation. The blind have come because for too long we have suffered the
injustice of low expectations. We stand together because we are not
satisfied with the second-class education we have been offered
compared to our sighted peers. We stand together because our
independence is threatened by the failure of manufacturers and
technology developers to include nonvisual access in their products.
We stand together because we represent blind individuals from every
state in the nation who seek to be the change needed. In standing
together we raise expectations and eliminate the obstacles that hold
us back.
We stand together in rejecting the institutionalized systems of
discrimination that have existed in the past and often continue to
define the present. We stand together with hope for the future. We
stand together in solidarity, supporting the conviction that blindness
is not the characteristic that defines us or our future. We stand
together even in the year when vision is being celebrated by every
agency and organization that believes that the future is exclusively
defined by eyesight. We stand together for the 2020 view on blindness,
one that is defined by our authentic experience, and where we are the
change we seek. We stand together knowing that united we can change
the world.
To those who say we are unrealistic and should compromise our
values, take note: we stand together, and we will not back down!
In 2018 the Office for Civil Rights of the United States
Department of Education arbitrarily changed its case processing manual
to strip away the protections that we had to make sure that we could
file complaints if we faced discrimination in education. The National
Federation of the Blind took a stand against the government deciding
on its own and without notice to take away our rights, and we invited
the NAACP and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates to stand
with us. The government does not get to decide when we have rights and
when we do not simply because it is not prepared to deal with the
barriers that stand between blind people and our dreams.
As a result of our lawsuit, the Department of Education
voluntarily returned to some of its previous policies; however, they
did so with no guarantee that they would not make changes again in the
future. Just a few days ago we announced a settlement agreement with
the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. As
a part of that settlement agreement, anyone who filed an OCR complaint
that was dismissed between March 5, 2018, and November 19, 2018, may
appeal the dismissal, thanks to the work of the National Federation of
the Blind. The United States Department of Education now knows that
we stand together, and we will not back down.
Michelle Clark is an information technology specialist with the
United States Department of Agriculture. Ironically, part of her
duties include Section 508 coverage for the agency. Michelle faced
significant discrimination due to inaccessible workplace technologies.
The National Federation of the Blind assisted her in resolving her
employment discrimination complaint and in filing a Section 508
complaint against the Department of Agriculture. The evidence that we
provided was overwhelming. The department was forced to investigate
its adherence to Section 508 and ultimately found against itself.
Specifically it found that, in procuring and implementing inaccessible
technology, it had violated federal law.
We have also stood with Amy Ruell and Joe Orozco in filing
lawsuits against their employers, Beacon Health Options and the FBI
respectively, because those institutions have implemented inaccessible
workplace technologies that prevent blind people from being fully
independent in their jobs. Similarly, we have supported NFB member
Maryann Murad in filing a suit against Amazon for implementing
inaccessible workplace technology that prevented her from being hired
as a virtual customer assistant using Amazon's platform. We offered to
help Amazon fix its platform, but instead they said that maybe Miss
Murad should "apply for a more appropriate position."
We support these blind individuals and others to let all
employers know that the future we seek is one in which the
technologies do not bar us from full participation. We stand together,
and we will not back down.
Similarly, in such an important election year, we face
discrimination in voting. Let any elected official who supports
unequal access to the American democracy that bars blind people from
having a secret, independently verifiable ballot know that we will
find a way to organize, and our votes will count against you. On the
issue of equal access to voting, we stand together, and we will not
back down.
We have come with solutions. We stand with a clear commitment to
demonstrate to others the future we believe is possible. Long ago we
recognized that the education system was failing our blind children.
The limiting effects of low expectations have held generation after
generation of blind youth back. We built training centers in Colorado,
Louisiana, and Minnesota to cultivate the capacity that America's
education system fails to recognize. But this has not been enough. So,
we committed that if they will not teach them, we will teach them
ourselves. We started programs in science, technology, engineering,
art, and math nearly two decades ago. Now hundreds of blind youth have
successfully pursued advanced degrees and careers in the most
innovative and cutting edge areas of our American society. Many of
those blind people have now come back to teach the next generation in
the Federation education program. This commitment was made by blind
people standing together for blind people. It was made with love,
hope, and determination for the future that we seek to build. For the
next generation we stand together, and we will not back down.
We will not back down because our future is on the line. We have
come because we want the future to be built on our terms, not on
outdated notions of blindness that have held us back. We have come
because we have real solutions to offer, and we are prepared to stand
together as long as it takes to get those solutions enacted into law
and implemented across the nation. We have come because the National
Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic
that defines us or our future. Every day we raise the expectations for
the blind because low expectations create obstacles between blind
people and our dreams. You can live the life you want, and blindness
is not what holds you back.
We stand together with love, hope, and determination. We will
not back down because we come to our Washington Seminar to transform
dreams into reality. This is the significance of the Washington
Seminar. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind!
President Riccobono's theme would be echoed again and again during the
Great Gathering-In, and the speaker who followed him used it several times.
Bobby Scott is the chairperson of the committee on education and labor, and
the remarks he made will appear elsewhere in this issue.
After Congressman Scott's moving remarks, President Riccobono noted
that in the audience were Immediate Past President Dr. Maurer, his wife
Patricia, and Mrs. Mary Ellen Jernigan. Their presence was greeted with a
warm round of applause.
For a very long time Diane McGeorge was the coordinator of the
Washington Seminar, but she announced last year that she was passing the
responsibility to Buna Dahal. After welcoming us to the 2020 Washington
Seminar, Buna asked us to give a shout-out to Diane, who was no doubt
listening on the seminar stream. This we did, and it almost brought the
house down. Buna thanked all of the people involved in the logistics that
make the Washington Seminar possible. She also said that she had had a talk
with the hotel staff and that they would be ready for the onslaught of
people who would visit after the Great Gathering-In meeting concluded.
Our director of communications, Stephanie Cascone, made her first
appearance at the Washington Seminar in her new capacity, and she took a
minute to talk about the importance of chronicling our activities on
Twitter and Facebook. She urged us to share with the world those
congressman and staffers we had met with but to refrain from announcing
endorsements until they are officially confirmed by our advocacy and policy
group when they review the list of those who have cosponsored.
Anil Lewis is our executive director of blindness initiatives at the
Jernigan Institute. He gave a brief overview of many programs that we
sponsor including the Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning Academy,
our Spatial Abilities in Blindness Engineering Research (SABER) program
that is funded by the National Science Foundation to help us in our work to
teach mechanical engineering skills to blind students, Youth Slam in which
we bring over two hundred blind students each year for a series of weeklong
activities, and the expansion of that program that we will bring to fifteen
of our affiliates. We continue to teach people how to create nonvisual
access in the programs and websites they design, and as an extension to
this, we are going to teach both novices and experts how to design mobile
applications that are similarly accessible. Much more detail can be found
on the NFB website about the programs, and we are hopeful that an article
with more in-depth coverage will be coming for the Braille Monitor.
The National Federation of the Blind wants to recognize innovative
programs and the people who create them. For this reason we created the Dr.
Jacob Bolotin Award, and President Riccobono reminded everyone that we
should get in applications before April 15. This is a marvelous opportunity
to give significant recognition to those who have made real advancements in
work on behalf of the blind.
Rideshare services represent a wonderful opportunity for blind people,
but we continue to see discriminatory behavior when it comes to
transporting people and their guide dogs. We have a monitoring program in
place. This is the last year of the program, but since discrimination still
persists, it is urgent that we use the service to report both the good and
the bad. Let us take this opportunity to make our voices heard so that we
as Federationists can decide what we should do next.
Jeannie Massay is the chairperson of the National Federation of the
Blind Membership Committee. She took the microphone to discuss our
initiatives to get new members and reminded all of us that if we know blind
people who were not members, we should make a special effort to let them
know about the programs and activities of the Federation. She also said
that we have initiated a quarterly call in which people who are not members
can talk with the leadership of the Federation and ask questions that they
may have about the organization. More information can be had by writing to
membership at nfb.org.
John Pari is the Federation's executive director of advocacy and
policy, and it was his turn to address the group. He said that we would be
highlighting three issues as we went to Capitol Hill but that we are
involved in at least six active issues. They include the Transformation to
Competitive Employment Act; legislation on autonomous vehicles; and Sami's
Law, a bill to enhance security when using rideshare services. The three
major issues we took to Capitol Hill were outlined by members of the
advocacy and policy team. Since the fact sheets will immediately follow
this article, we will not attempt to summarize them here.
Dr. Sachin Pavithran is the chairperson of the United States Access
Board, and he addressed the gathering. Dr. Pavithran said that many
universities tell us that they do not know how to comply with accessibility
requirements, but it is clear to him that the technology and techniques
definitely exist for them to comply. It is up to us to see that they do,
and from his fourteen years attending the Washington Seminar, he believes
we will. The executive director of the Access Board has announced his
retirement, and President Riccobono suggested that Sachin Pavithran would
make a wonderful replacement. The Access Board has never been headed by a
blind person, and he opined that, should Dr. Pavithran decide to apply for
the position, he thought that the Federation might support him. The room
evidenced its agreement with its cheers and applause.
The Dream Makers Circle is a program through which members and non-
members alike can make a contribution to the Federation on their death.
This support can make a tremendous difference in the lives of blind people
in the future, and President Riccobono encouraged those who are interested
to contact Patti Chang by writing to pchang at nfb.org or by calling her at
410-659-9314, extension 2422.
Scott LaBarre came forward to talk about the Preauthorized
Contribution Program. He observed that the changes we want to make in the
lives of blind people cannot be done on fumes. Progress will require real
fuel in the form of commitment and money. The Preauthorized Contribution
Program is an excellent way to see that the organization has the funds it
needs to be effective in pushing forward our agenda by allowing members to
make reliable and affordable monthly contributions to our organization.
Scott asked that we sing the PAC song twice since it is likely that we will
be changing the name of the program to avoid the frequent confusion with
organizations that make political contributions through what they call
PACS.
Terri Rupp of Nevada is the newest member of the Board of Directors
of the National Federation of the Blind. She announced that she would be
doing a 50-K run to raise $50,000 for the National Federation of the Blind.
She urged members to support her run using social media and suggested that
there is something beautiful in being able to unite three things she loves:
shoes, running, and the Federation. The crowd enthusiastically wished her
well in this endeavor and expressed gratitude for her enthusiasm and
commitment.
The next to last announcement of the evening was that the National
Association of Blind Students would be holding its Capitol Karaoke event
immediately following the Great Gathering-In, and all were encouraged to
attend either as performers or spectators.
Whether the last event at the Great Gathering-In qualifies as an
announcement or not I will leave to the reader. President Riccobono said
that the 2021 National Convention will be held from July 6 to July 11. He
started to announce the location, but since it was getting close to 7 p.m.
he said that announcement would have to wait.
After the Great Gathering-In meeting, some went to caucus and role-
play, some went to find dinner, and some went to karaoke.
On Tuesday morning the DC affiliate offered us delicious doughnuts to
ensure we would have the energy to take on the rigors of Capitol Hill.
Uber, Lyft, and the DC taxis were delighted by the morning rush. The halls
of the House and Senate were crowded, but not so crowded that one could not
hear the click of dog nails and the tapping of white canes. We had to
balance our desire to say hello, brag about our latest meeting, and hear
the same from our compatriots against the need to make our next
appointments.
After a busy day on Capitol Hill, many of us moved to the Kennedy
Caucus Room, one of the most prestigious in the United States Senate, where
we participated in the National Federation of the Blind Congressional
Reception. The purpose in holding the reception was to bring the 2020 view
on blindness to Capitol Hill. The Alliance of Automotive Innovators has
been very helpful in sponsoring this event, and Senator Ben Cardin of
Maryland helped us secure this beautiful room for the evening.
We have had a number of exceptional congressional receptions, but by
far this one was the most exceptional. Fourteen senators and
representatives attended, and a number of them made remarks, some of which
we will print here.
The first person introduced to speak was Senator Ben Cardin of
Maryland. He is the chief sponsor of the Accessible Technology
Affordability Act in the Senate. The senator very generously and
courteously acknowledged members of the House of Representatives and other
senators from both parties. He went on to say,
There's a lot going on in our country that challenges the values
of this great nation. I'm not going to go into all of that, but one
thing is clear: this country needs to make sure that every person is
treated fairly and equitably here in America and has every
opportunity. I want to thank my friend Fred Graefe for always
reminding me about the importance of these issues as they relate to
those who are visually impaired. We need to make sure we do what's
right, and today technology is out of the financial reach of too many
people who are visually impaired. That needs to change in this
country, and that's why I've introduced bipartisan legislation. I want
to thank Senator Bozeman, my cosponsor of this bill in the United
States Senate. This will provide the kind of financial help so you can
have the technology you need to be able to do all in your ability to
help your families and help this country. Yes, this is about
individual empowerment and fairness to the individual. But it's also
about the economic strength of America by using the talents of every
person in our country so that our country can perform at the level
that we need to for international competition. We need your talent; we
need you to help build our country; we need you to help build wealth
here in America. I couldn't be prouder of what you do as individuals
and as an organization. You really are carrying out the vision of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, 'Each one of us is here for a
purpose. Each one of us can make a difference in someone's life, but
when we join together, we can bring about change.' You are joined
together, you are bringing about change, we are on that journey, and
we are going to succeed.
Congressman Bob Latta from Ohio was the next member to address us. He
is particularly influential in the area of autonomous vehicles and the role
that the federal government will play in their regulation and adoption. He
thanked President Riccobono for the testimony delivered earlier in the day
to the Energy and Commerce Committee. The Congressman's mother was
significantly visually impaired, and she stopped driving when he was
sixteen and relied on others to help her with transportation. He is excited
about this bill because 37,000 people die on our nation's roads each year,
and the overwhelming majority of fatalities are caused by human error. We
concentrate on safety in many areas of our lives, and automobile and
pedestrian safety should rank high on the list. He noted that it is
wonderful when Congress can pass something that not only creates a safer
world but also extends such tremendous opportunities to those who need
equality in transportation.
Congressman Cathy McMorris Rodgers hails from the state of
Washington. She is our lead cosponsor on the Transformation to Competitive
Employment Act and is also heavily involved in the issue of autonomous
vehicles. She also has a deep commitment to raising expectations and
eliminating discrimination for workers with disabilities. Representative
McMorris Rodgers began by commending President Riccobono on the testimony
he gave earlier in the day. She said that when members of that committee
and the rest of Congress saw us walking those halls, there could be no
better testimony to our capabilities and the things we need in order to
enjoy full equality of opportunity. She said,
I have a son with special needs. He's in sixth grade, and I
often wonder about his future. Where is Cole going to live, where is
he going to work, and what kind of future is he going to have? You
know, I am super excited about his future right now as I think about
the policies you are advancing, not just for the blind but for so many
others around driverless cars, around competitive employment, and so
many other things. So you being here makes a difference, and I just
want to say thanks more than anything for doing that. I am proud to be
the Republican lead on the Transformation to Competitive Employment
Act. There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come, and
this idea has come. You look at the unemployment rate in America and
we're celebrating that the unemployment rate for those with
disabilities has come down; however, we need to make sure that as we
are moving forward that we are recognizing the ability of each person
and seeing them the way they deserve when it comes to their
employment. Thanks for being here, thanks for all you do; we're in
this together, and we're going to get it done. God bless you.
President Riccobono introduced our next presenter with these words.
"He is our lead champion in the House of Representatives for the Accessible
Technology Affordability Act. He serves as the chairperson for the
Subcommittee on Tax and Policy for the Ways and Means Committee. From the
great state of California, here is Congressman Mike Thompson:
Thank you to all of you for coming to Capitol Hill to work on
this issue. The bills you have heard about today are so incredibly
important, and your being here is going to be the impetus for making
sure that they become law. I've got to say a special thanks to Ben
Cardin who's carrying this bill in the Senate. I'm so proud that he's
doing that, and I'm so happy he could get this room for all of us
tonight. But you know, what I'm most happy about with Ben is that he
left the House to run for the Senate because I was able to move up on
the dais in the Ways and Means Committee. As a result I am the
chairman of the Special Revenues Subcommittee, and I'm able to really
work hard for your accessibility legislation. We are going to get this
bill passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and signed into law.
Congressman Sanford Bishop addressed the reception and began by
thanking all of us for being at our nation's capitol. He related a story in
which a high school friend was always chosen last for the basketball team,
and although people liked him, they couldn't figure out why he could never
keep hold of the basketball. When the congressman left to go to college,
his mother hired this young man to weed her garden. When she saw that he
had not cleaned all the weeds, she asked him why not, and he said that he
thought he had. She convinced his mother to take him to an ophthalmologist;
he was diagnosed as legally blind, he got services, went to college, and
finished Summa Cum Laude. He became a minister and pastored a church for
some thirty-five years. The take-away the congressman wished to share with
everyone is that ability is not measured by visual impairment if you have
the resources, and it has no bearing on your ability to become a fully
functioning American. He said,
When we invest in people, people succeed, so I am proud to be a
cosponsor of the technology bill. I'm proud to support AbilityOne, and
I'm proud to support all of the programs that enhance your position to
be able to realize a high quality of life. ... I say to my
constituents over and over again that it is the squeaky wheel that
gets the grease and the crying baby that gets the milk. Here at the
seat of power, I want you to squeak, I want you to cry, and I want you
to let all of the members of the Senate know just how important it is
to invest in each and every one of you through the Accessible
Technology Affordability Act and all of the resources that will make
your life better.
He concluded his remarks with these words:
Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make-
Ere life is flown-
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.
I want to thank you, each and every one of you, for not being a
stumbling block but for being a steppingstone for a higher, better
quality of life for all Americans, particularly those who are blind
and have vision impairments.
President Riccobono next introduced Congressman Bill Pascrell of New
Jersey. He began by acknowledging all of the distinguished persons who came
to the microphone before him and those in the room who would soon come to
speak. He observed that if a member of the House or Senate was not on the
Accessible Technology Affordability Act, there was something wrong with
him. The congressman noted that in 2016 he suffered significant vision loss
in one eye as a result of shingles on his head. He said that each and every
one of us, no matter who we are, all face problems and that we are all in
the same boat. This is why we must help one another.
Congresswoman Alma Adams thanked us for coming to the Capitol and
observed that this was where we needed to be because it is here we can meet
with the people who hold the purse strings and shape the policies that will
influence our lives. "I have always said that sometimes you can't change
policies unless you change policymakers, so if you have to do that, you can
go ahead and do it." The congresswoman has some special insight into the
needs of blind people, her sister being blind and having sickle cell
anemia. She assisted her sister through school, and this experience helped
her recognize some of the difficulties that blind people can face in the
world. She supports bills to see that blind people get into the workforce,
that once there we are treated as we should be, and that we have the skills
and technology to be effective in all walks of life. "You are in the right
place at the right time doing the right thing, and as you continue to
advocate, you need to make sure that what you need is known to each of us.
... You know it doesn't matter who we are; what matters is what we can
become." Thinking further about the future, she said, "A community can only
grow great when old men and old women plant trees under which we know we
will never sit. We are serving here in the Congress to plant those trees
for those who will come behind us and for those who are here right now.
Thank you for what you do, and thank you for your leadership as well."
Congressman John Sarbanes represents the district in which President
Riccobono lives and where the National Federation of the Blind has its
headquarters. He is a good friend of the Federation, and he next came to
the microphone. He said he is proud to represent the National Federation of
the Blind and proud of the advocacy work we do because he believes that all
of it is oriented to lifting people up, and when you lift them up, they in
turn lift everyone else.
The majority leader of the United States House of Representatives,
Congressman Steny Hoyer, was next introduced. The close working
relationship we have with him was evidenced by the applause he received as
he moved to the microphone. He reminded us that the Americans with
Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 and that he was the sponsor of the
bill. His only regret is that he believes the bill was misnamed and should
have been called the Americans with Abilities Act since the reason for its
being is to help all of us focus on the things that we can do. He tells
people that the Americans with Disabilities Act was not passed just for
people with disabilities but so that this great country could tap all of
our talents in making her the best that she can be. In closing he said, "So
I want to thank you for your advocacy, notwithstanding that which you can't
do but magnifying what you can do. That's what we all need to do."
Before leaving the stage, Congressman Hoyer introduced a friend and a
person he has known for a long time. "You now have somebody who has
dedicated all her life to educating, lifting up, reaching out, and making
lives better in so many roles. She is an extraordinary educator, a former
president of the University of Wisconsin, a former president of the
University of Miami, a former secretary of the health and human services
agency, and now a member of the Congress of the United States. She has
spent every day of her adult life advocating for better policies for all of
our people. I am so pleased to be her colleague and her friend; ladies and
gentlemen, Donna Shalala."
Congresswoman Shalala said that she spent a long time as secretary of
Health and Human Services and that she came back to Washington, DC, in her
seventies because she found herself "pissed off." In her opinion, we have
so much more to do. The Americans with Disabilities Act was step one, and
Congresswoman Shalala believes that it is our job to figure out what piece
of legislation will deal with the problems we face now and in the future
will be step two.
President Riccobono next introduced Senator Bob Casey of
Pennsylvania. The senator apologized for beginning with bad news but noted
that the poverty rate for people with disabilities far exceeds the rate for
those who are not disabled. Similarly, the rate of employment of disabled
people falls far below the employment rate for people without them. We all
know this is unacceptable, and Senator Casey discussed four bills intended
to address poverty and unemployment for the disabled. He began by talking
about the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act to phase out the
payment of subminimum wages and to create good jobs in their place. He
supports the Disability Employment Incentive Act to double the existing tax
credit for hiring a person with a disability. He similarly favors the Home
and Community-Based Services Infrastructure Improvement Act that will
provide additional Medicaid funds to states so they can increase the
availability of accessible housing, transportation, and funds for creating
competitive, integrated employment services. If passed it will also provide
funds for increased wages for direct service workers. Lastly, the senator
believes we need to grow the ABLE Act [Achieving a Better Life Experience].
"It's good legislation; we're glad we got it passed five years ago, but
ABLE, as it stands now, isn't good enough. We've got about 56,000 accounts
across the country, and we want that number to grow. One of the best ways
to grow it is to raise the age from twenty-six to forty-six. That will make
millions more people eligible including one million veterans. We want to
make sure we do that...I'm giving all the credit to all of you for walking
the halls, for making the case to move this agenda forward. God bless you
and thank you. Have fun tonight."
President Riccobono took the opportunity to recognize Dave Schwietert
from the Alliance of Auto Innovators. He thanked the alliance for their
tremendous support, both of the National Federation of the Blind and the
concept that accessibility of autonomous vehicles should be baked in rather
than added as an afterthought.
President Riccobono introduced our next guest by saying that the way
we got acquainted was by our president being called to the congressman's
office with the complaint that we were holding up action on an important
bill. When President Riccobono met with the congressman, the president was
pleasantly surprised when Representative Chris Smith said that he
understood why we were holding up his bill and that the safety provisions
it was intended to provide for users of rideshare services should not be
visual. He wanted to know how to change them and expected us to help. We
are working with the congressman to ensure that Sami's Law makes the world
a safer place for rideshare users and provides all of the benefits to blind
people that will be enjoyed by those who can see.
The congressman began his remarks with a cute story. He was asked to
give a keynote address, told to keep it to an hour, and delivered it in an
hour and five minutes. At the end of his presentation, a little girl came
up and told him that his speech was long and boring. A few minutes later
the father of the girl came and said, "I don't know what you two were
talking about, but I just want you to know my little daughter Melissa is
four years old, and she just repeats whatever she hears." He says he now
keeps all of his remarks to two minutes.
Representative Smith said that he has been in Congress for forty
years and that much of his time and energy have been put into civil rights
and disability issues. He introduced Sami's Law when the mother and father
of one of his constituents came to report her brutal murder after getting
into a vehicle that was not part of a rideshare service. The goal of Sami's
Law is to ensure that those requesting a rideshare vehicle can verify
before closing the door that they are indeed entering the vehicle they
ordered. Representative Smith is grateful for our input and believes that
the resulting legislation will be far better as a result of our
collaboration.
Congressman Steve Stivers was the last lawmaker to address the
reception. He said that his goals and our goals are aligned, that he was
cosponsoring some of our legislation, and that our shared commitment was to
see that blind people could live the lives we want with technology that is
accessible to us. He offered as one example his commitment to see that his
website was completely accessible and thanked the Federation for its
assistance with the project.
In wrapping up the reception, President Riccobono said, "We have
friends like these because all of you make the effort to come from your
local chapter of the National Federation of the Blind to Washington, DC, to
represent our movement. We've got some more work to do on the Hill, so
enjoy some food, enjoy some drink, and let's go build the National
Federation of the Blind." With a thank-you to all of the congressmen who
came and to the Alliance of Auto Innovators, the reception was adjourned.
There is much that could be said about the events of Wednesday and
Thursday, but I think the results of our seminar are best summarized by
John Pari when he says:
Thank you for your fantastic work at Washington Seminar. As
President Riccobono reported in his weekly notebook, we had a
significant increase in all of our cosponsor counts. In the House, the
Access Technology Affordability Act went from forty-nine to sixty-
three cosponsors. In the Senate it went from fifteen to seventeen
cosponsors. The GAIN Act went from four to thirteen cosponsors.
Finally, AIM HIGH went from four to twelve cosponsors in the House.
This Washington Seminar was one of the most productive in recent
history, and you deserve all the credit.
The Federation is built for and run by men and women who have too
often been counted out rather than counted on. When work has been needed,
we have been told to stand aside. Sometimes we are admired for wanting to
help but told we must be realistic about the things we can do and more
importantly the things we can't. But more and more because of events like
our Washington Seminar we are being welcomed into the workforce and seen as
contributors. We are far from our goal of total integration, but we know
progress is achieved one step at a time, and the journey is painfully slow
for those of us who are traveling it. But, we will not back down, we will
not give up, and we will not forsake our brothers and sisters who want and
demand a piece of the pie and to share in the American dream. We will make
the future we want because our principles are sound, our commitment is
unshakable, and our cause is as American as any challenge can be.
As you read about the issues we have taken to Congress, convert your
enthusiasm into action. Write, call, visit your members of Congress when
they are home, and build the relationships that make real for them the need
for the changes we propose. Step up; don't think of yourself as the little
man or woman. Exercise your right to be heard and taken seriously, and
bring others with you by building this marvelous organization we share.
----------
Legislative Agenda of Blind Americans: Priorities for the 116th Congress,
Second Session
The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. Every day we
work together to help blind people live the lives we want.
The Access Technology Affordability Act (ATAA) (H.R. 2086/S.815)
The cost of critically needed access technology is out of reach for most
blind Americans. By providing a refundable tax credit for qualifying
purchases, Congress will stimulate individual procurement of this
technology and promote affordability of these tools.
The Greater Access and Independence through Nonvisual Access Technology
(GAIN) Act (H.R. 3929)
Advanced digital interfaces create barriers that prevent blind individuals
from independently operating essential devices that enhance quality of
life. Congress must end the digital divide that threatens the independence
of blind Americans by developing minimum accessibility requirements for
such devices.
The Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HIGH) Act
(H.R. 5312/S.3095)
Until a market-driven solution for accessible instructional materials is
achieved, blind college students are denied access to critical course
content. The AIM HIGH Act will remove these barriers to equality in the
classroom by creating a set of guidelines that clearly define accessible
instructional materials.
THESE PRIORITIES WILL REMOVE OBSTACLES TO EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT, AND
INDEPENDENT LIVING. WE URGE CONGRESS TO SUPPORT OUR LEGISLATIVE
INITIATIVES.
----------
Access Technology Affordability Act (H.R. 2086/S.815)
Issue--The cost of critically needed access technology is out of reach for
most blind Americans.
The high cost of access technology creates a difficult economic
reality. Most access technology ranges from $1,000 to $6,000. For example,
a leading screen reader is $900, a popular Braille notetaker is $5,495, one
model of a refreshable Braille display is $2,795, and a moderately priced
Braille embosser is $3,695. According to the United States Census Bureau
69.5 percent of blind Americans are either unemployed or underemployed.1
Consequently, most blind Americans do not have sufficient financial
resources needed to purchase these items.2 These financial barriers can
ultimately lead to a loss of employment, insufficient education, or even
isolation from community activities.
Medical insurance will not cover the cost of access technology.
Current definitions of "medical care," "medical necessity," and "durable
medical equipment" within common insurance policies do not include access
technology. These definitions were adopted in the 1960s "when medical care
was viewed primarily as curative and palliative, with little or no
consideration given to increasing an individual's functional status."3 Many
states' Medicaid programs and individual health insurance plans have
adopted similar definitions and likewise will not cover the cost of access
technology.4
Access technology enables blind Americans to participate in today's
workforce. Blindness is well-defined and measurable,5 but affects each
person differently and at different ages. Since individuals' needs differ,
manufacturers have designed various tools that enable each blind American
to perform tasks that they were once unable to accomplish themselves due to
their blindness. Braille notetakers are frequently used in schools, screen
reading software allows workers to check their email at home, and screen
magnification software can help seniors losing vision learn about community
activities. Access technology equips blind Americans to seek employment and
stay employed. For the 69.5 percent of blind Americans who are either
unemployed or underemployed, it is a vehicle that facilitates the job-
seeking process. Despite this critical need however, public and private
entities struggle to meet consumer demand.6 This leads to untimely delays
in the delivery of necessary technology and ultimately harms the blind
consumer.
Solution-Access Technology Affordability Act:
Makes access technology more affordable so that blind Americans can
procure these items for themselves. It establishes a refundable tax credit
for blind Americans in the amount of $2,000 to be used over a three-year
period to offset the cost of access technology. The credit created by ATAA
will sunset after five years and will be indexed for inflation.
Provides flexibility for individuals to obtain access technology based
upon their specific needs. Accessibility requires an individualized
assessment of one's own skills and needs. Therefore, blind Americans should
be given the opportunity to procure access technology on their own to
ensure that they are receiving the tools that are most useful for them.
Will increase federal income tax revenue. More blind Americans working
means more people paying taxes. It also means that those blind Americans
who obtain gainful employment through this tax credit will no longer need
to draw from federal programs such as Supplemental Security Income or
Social Security Disability Insurance and will instead be paying into the
Social Security Program.
GOAL--IMPROVE AFFORDABILITY OF CRITICALLY NEEDED ACCESS TECHNOLOGY
NECESSARY FOR EMPLOYMENT AND INDEPENDENT LIVING.
For more information, contact:
Jeff Kaloc, government affairs specialist, National Federation of the Blind
Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2206, Email: jkaloc at nfb.org, Visit:
www.nfb.org.
1 See 2017 American Community Survey, www.disabilitystatistics.org.
2 Erickson, W., Lee, C., von Schrader, S. (2016). "Disability Statistics
from the 2014 American Community Survey (ACS)." Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Employment and Disability Institute (EDI). Retrieved November
11, 2016, from www.disabilitystatistics.org.
3 National Council on Disability, "Federal Policy Barriers to Assistive
Technology," (May 31, 2000) 8,
http://www.ncd.gov/rawmedia_repository/c9e48e89_261b_4dda_bc74_203d5915519f.
pdf.
4 Assistive Technology Industry Associates, "AT Resources Funding Guide,"
https://www.atia.org/at-resources/what-is-at/resources- funding-guide/
(last accessed December 10, 2018).
5 See 26 U.S.C. ' 63(f)(4).
6 See e.g. Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services and Disability
Research, "Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request,"
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget20/justifications/i-
rehab.pdf, p. I-50.
----------
Greater Access and Independence through Nonvisual Access Technology (GAIN)
Act (H.R. 3929)
Issue--Advanced digital interfaces create barriers that prevent blind
individuals from independently operating essential devices that enhance the
quality of life.
Home use medical devices, home appliances, and fitness equipment are
becoming less and less accessible for blind Americans. The rapid
proliferation of advanced technology is undeniable. Most new stoves,
glucose monitors, and treadmills now require that consumers interact with a
digital display, flat panels, and other user interfaces. This new
technology is inaccessible to blind individuals and creates a modern-day
barrier. Inaccessibility is not a mere inconvenience; it threatens the
safety, health, and independence of blind Americans. Advancements in
technology have the potential to transform how people live in a society but
are designed for those with no functional limitations.1 This flaw in
product design limits options for blind Americans who need nonvisual access
to important devices that are available to people without disabilities.2
Nonvisual access is achievable, as demonstrated by a number of
mainstream products. Apple has incorporated VoiceOver (a text-to-speech
function) into its touch-screen products, making the iPhone, iPod, and iPad
fully accessible to blind people right out of the box. Virtually all ATMs
manufactured in the United States are accessible, and every polling place
provides a nonvisually accessible voting machine. Frequently, a simple
audio output or vibrotactile feature can make a product fully accessible at
minimal cost.
Current disability laws are not able to keep up with advancements in
technology. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws
require physical accessibility for people with disabilities (e.g.,
wheelchair ramps, Braille in public buildings), no laws protect blind
consumers' right to access technology such as home use medical devices,
home appliances, or fitness equipment. The National Council on Disability
concluded that accessibility standards lag behind the rapid pace of
technology, which can interfere with technology access.3 This trend of
inaccessibility won't improve if accessibility solutions are ignored. Only
a fraction of manufacturers incorporate nonvisual access standards into
their product design while others resist solutions.
Solution-Greater Access and Independence through Nonvisual Access
Technology (GAIN) Act:
Calls on the Access Board to conduct a nonvisual access standard
review. The Access Board (an independent federal agency and leading source
of information on accessible design) will review the current marketplace,
consult with stakeholders and manufacturers, and will issue a report with
findings and recommendations for a minimum nonvisual access standard for
home use medical devices, home appliances, and fitness equipment.
Establishes a minimum nonvisual access standard for home use medical
devices, home appliances, and fitness equipment. The Access Board will
issue a final rule, not later than thirty-six months after the date of
enactment of the act, to establish a minimum nonvisual access standard for
home use medical devices, home appliances, and fitness equipment. The
standard will go into effect two years after the final rule.
Authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce the
nonvisual access standards for home use medical devices. Under its
authority to ensure the safety, efficacy, and security of medical devices,
the FDA will investigate and, when appropriate, assess civil penalties
against manufacturers who fail to comply with the standard.
Authorizes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce the nonvisual
accessibility standards for home appliances and fitness equipment. Under
its authority to investigate and enforce consumer protection matters, the
FTC will investigate and, when appropriate, assess civil penalties against
manufacturers who fail to comply with the standard.
GOAL-END THE DIGITAL DIVIDE FOR BLIND AMERICANS.
For more information, contact:
Stephanie Flynt, government affairs specialist, National Federation
of the Blind, Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2210, Email:
sflynt at nfb.org,
Visit: www.nfb.org.
1 See NATIONAL COUNCIL ON DISABILITIES, National Disability Policy Progress
Report: Technology that enables access to the full opportunities of
citizenship under the Constitution is a right at 19 (October 7, 2016),
available at https://ncd.gov/progressreport/2016/progress-report-october-
2016.
2 See Id.
3 See Id.
----------
Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HIGH) Act (H.R.
5312/S.3095)
Issue--Until a market-driven solution for accessible instructional
materials is achieved, blind college students are denied access to critical
course content.
Technology has fundamentally changed the education system. The scope
of instructional materials used at institutions of higher education has
expanded. Curricular content comes in digital books, PDFs, webpages, etc.,
and most of this content is delivered through digital databases, learning
management systems, and applications. The print world is inherently
inaccessible to students with disabilities, but technology offers the
opportunity to expand the circle of participation. There are currently
seven million students with disabilities in grades K-12, and that number
keeps growing.[1] It is reasonable to presume that the number who go on to
pursue postsecondary education is similarly trending upward.
Blind students are facing unlawful and overwhelming barriers to
education. Instead of fulfilling the promise of equal access, technology
creates more problems when not developed with accessibility in mind. Data
show that students with disabilities face a variety of challenges,
including matriculation and college completion failure,[2] solely because,
in the absence of clear accessibility guidelines, colleges and universities
are sticking with the ad-hoc accommodations model.[3] Currently, schools
deploy inaccessible technology and then create another version for blind
students, usually weeks or even months into class, creating a "separate-but-
equal" landscape with nearly impenetrable barriers. With only 30.5 percent
of blind people being employed full-time year round,[4] compared to 69.5
percent among people without disabilities,[5] students with disabilities
should not be denied access by the innovations that can ensure full
participation.
Higher education institutions struggle to identify accessible material
and comply with nondiscrimination laws. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act and Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act require
schools to provide equal access, and in 2010, the US Departments of Justice
and Education clarified that the use of inaccessible technology is
prohibited under these laws.[6] The 2011 AIM Commission recommended to
Congress that accessibility guidelines be developed for postsecondary
instructional materials.[7] In the nine years since,[8] over three dozen
institutions have faced legal action for using inaccessible technology,[9]
and complaints are on the rise. Most litigation ends with a commitment from
the school to embrace accessibility, but that commitment does little in a
vast and uncoordinated higher education market.[10]
Solution--Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act:
Develops accessibility guidelines for instructional materials used in
postsecondary education. A purpose-based commission is tasked with
developing accessibility criteria for instructional materials and the
delivery systems/technologies used to access those materials. Additionally,
the commission is tasked with developing an annotated list of existing
national and international standards so that schools and developers can
identify what makes a product usable by the blind.
Provides a digital accessibility roadmap for institutions of higher
education. The guidelines developed by the commission will contain specific
technical and functional criteria that will clearly illustrate how to make
educational technologies usable by the blind and other students with print
disabilities. Such criteria will be beneficial to procurement officers,
informational technology staff, chief technology officers, and other key
personnel at institutions of higher education.
Offers flexibility for schools while reiterating that pre-existing
obligations still apply. Colleges and universities are permitted to use
material that does not conform to the guidelines as long as equal access
laws are still honored. Conformity with the AIM HIGH guidelines is only one
path to compliance; schools can pursue a different path but in doing so
will forfeit the combined expertise of the relevant stakeholder communities
involved in the development of the AIM HIGH guidelines.
GOAL--REMOVE BARRIERS TO EQUALITY IN THE CLASSROOM.
For more information, contact:
Stephanie Flynt, government affairs specialist, National Federation of the
Blind
Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2210, Email: sflynt at nfb.org, Visit:
www.nfb.org.
Remarks of Congressman Bobby Scott
From the Editor: Representative Bobby Scott has been the congressman
for the Third District of Virginia since 1993. He has the distinction of
being the first African-American elected to Congress from the Commonwealth
of Virginia since Reconstruction. He currently serves as the chairperson of
the Committee on Education and Labor in the United States House of
Representatives. From this position he demonstrates his courage and
commitment as the chief champion with his commitment to the Transformation
to Competitive Employment Act, that, when passed, will eliminate unequal
pay to workers with disabilities. Here are the remarks he made:
Thank you Mark for your very kind introduction, and thank you for
inviting me to join this year's Great Gathering-In. You know, you gave us
all those quotations. Let me give you another one. Martin Luther King
frequently said that "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends
toward justice."
Now others have added in, "The moral arc of the universe bends toward
justice, but it doesn't bend by itself." The National Federation of the
Blind is bending that arc toward justice, and I want to thank you for all
of that work. I want to recognize the NFB board and the staff as well as
Federation members from around the country. I want to especially thank
those who are here from Virginia. How many of you are here? I want to give
a shout-out to Tracy, Eureka, Stuart, and everybody from Virginia who are
here today. Advancing equal opportunity and independence for the blind and
people with disabilities requires us to work together. Thanks to your hard
work and some strong partnerships, I'm happy to report that the House
Committee on Education and Labor is making progress. Last October we
introduced the College Affordability Act or the CAA, a comprehensive
overhaul of the nation's higher education system. The proposal not only
lowers the cost of college, improves the quality of college, but also
expands the opportunities for those students to graduate, including those
with disabilities. Specifically the bill provides faculty with the
resources to deliver accessible and inclusive instruction and leverage
instructional materials and technology. Simply put, the College
Affordability Act better aligns our higher education system with the
Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act so that all students can reach their full potential.
We've also worked with Congress to guarantee workers with disabilities
the right to earn a fair wage. This past July the House passed the Raise
the Wage Act, which will gradually increase the federal minimum wage to
fifteen dollars an hour by 2025. We've gone more than ten years without a
minimum wage increase, the longest period in history. This bill will
increase the pay for over 33 million workers, and lift 1.3 million out of
poverty, including 600,000 children. But the Raise the Wage Act does not
just ensure that some workers have access to a decent wage. It ensures that
all workers receive the full minimum wage by eliminating the Section 14(c)
subminimum wage. That 14(c) subminimum wage is outdated and discriminatory.
It has not been reformed since 1938 when the Fair Labor Standards Act was
created over eighty years ago. The provision continues to allow employers
to pay workers with disabilities subminimum wages based not on performance
and skill but on their disability status alone. Today more than half the
workers with disabilities who are paid a subminimum wage make less than two
dollars an hour. In the worst cases, workers with disabilities can be, and
some are, paid just pennies an hour. The 14(c) subminimum wage is a relic
of those times that assumed that people with disabilities could not
perform. Yet, thanks to generations of struggle, federal laws like the ADA
now guarantee the right to access and participation in our communities.
This year we'll celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the ADA, which
passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was even signed by a
Republican president. Every member of Congress should now agree that it's
long past time for all workers, regardless of zip code, race, gender, or
ability status to have the right to earn a fair wage. But it's been more
than two hundred days since the House passed the Raise the Wage Act, so you
need to talk to your senators to tell them to take up this bill. We have to
keep up the pressure. Senators blocking this bill must explain to voters
why they do not believe that workers deserve a decent wage, especially when
studies have shown that if you are working full time at the minimum wage of
$7.25, you cannot afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in any county in
this country. I didn't say can't afford it in San Francisco or Manhattan;
in no county in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a modest
two-bedroom apartment.
So, while the Raise the Wage Act awaits action in the Senate, the
committee is also working on ways to ensure that workers with disabilities
can successfully transition out of the 14(c) subminimum wage. Earlier this
year I introduced H.R. 873, the Transformation to Competitive Employment
Act, which is a bipartisan proposal to accompany the Raise the Wage Act.
While the minimum wage bill phases out the 14(c) subminimum wage, this bill
compels states and employers to work with the disability community toward
creating fully integrated and competitive employment opportunities for all
workers with disabilities. The bill establishes a competitive grant program
to push states to transition workers with disabilities being paid a
subminimum wage to competitive, integrated employment. Even in states that
don't want to participate, the bill provides resources directly to
businesses to independently form partnerships to meet the needs both of
employers and workers. Finally, the bill establishes a nationwide technical
assistance center to help transition individuals to competitive, integrated
employment.
The evidence is clear: individuals with disabilities are more
productive and effective when they are integrated into the general
workforce and paid a fair wage. Transformation to the Competitive
Employment Act protects the civil rights of individuals with disabilities
and encourages businesses to tap into this underutilized resource. With
your support, we will continue to work on a bipartisan basis with our
colleagues to bring the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act to the
House floor. Finally, I'm pleased to see that the members of the NFB were
able to offer testimony to the US Commission on Civil Rights at a hearing
on the subminimum wage last November, where I also testified on the need to
support workers with disabilities to end the 14(c) subminimum wage and
provide resources to transition workers with disabilities into competitive,
integrated employment. Ending 14(c) is a critical civil rights issue that
deserves our nation's attention.
Throughout the last eight decades NFB has been a critical advocate for
the rights of blind Americans. Please continue to stay engaged, make your
voices heard, and do not back down!
In the words of NFB's founder, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, "If we work
together, we can do more than just guarantee the right to live in this
world. We can empower people with disabilities to thrive in this world."
Thank you very much for all that you do.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]
Testimony about Autonomous Vehicles
Hearing on Autonomous Vehicles: Promises and Challenges
of Evolving Automotive Technologies
by Mark Riccobono
My name is Mark Riccobono, and I serve as President of the National
Federation of the Blind, America's civil rights organization of the blind.
Thank you for allowing me to share our thoughts with you about the
potential of autonomous vehicle technology to enhance the independence of
blind Americans.
The promised benefits of autonomous vehicles are well known, ranging
from fewer road fatalities to greater independence to better fuel economy.
Autonomous vehicles are poised to be the next great American innovation. In
order to unleash the myriad benefits that autonomous vehicles and their
associated technologies represent, it is imperative that Congress be
proactive and expeditious in paving the way for the development,
deployment, and full and equal enjoyment of autonomous vehicles for all
Americans.
Blind Americans are enthusiastic about the prospect of autonomous
vehicles. By potentially enhancing our independence by providing reliable
transportation that we can access whenever we need it, just as other
Americans are currently able to do, autonomous vehicles would also improve
our productivity, economic outcomes, and community engagement. It is
important to recognize, however, that none of these benefits will be
actualized without a clear and forward-thinking approach to the autonomous
vehicle issue at the federal level, which includes ensuring full and equal
access for everyone.
To ensure equal access, two items must be a part of any final
legislation promoting autonomous vehicles, and only one of which has to do
with the design of autonomous vehicle technology. The first item is
protecting the blind and other people with disabilities from discrimination
in the licensure process; in other words, eyesight must not be a
requirement for a license to operate an autonomous vehicle. The second item
is requirements related to nonvisual accessibility of user interfaces and
vehicle design. Without these two requirements working in tandem, we could
find ourselves in one of two ironic yet equally untenable scenarios. In the
first, the blind could have unfettered access to autonomous vehicles via
nondiscriminatory licensing practices, but are then unable to operate the
vehicles due to inaccessible user interfaces. In the other scenario,
autonomous vehicles could be designed and manufactured ideally in terms of
accessibility, yet many blind people are then unable to enjoy the fruits of
such innovation due to discriminatory licensing mechanisms.
The National Federation of the Blind supports the responsible
production and deployment of autonomous vehicles that are safe, reliable,
and fully accessible. We also support nondiscriminatory public policies
that make these vehicles equally available to both the blind and others
with disabilities or other characteristics that prevent them from operating
traditional vehicles. Early and consistent guidance from policymakers as
these technologies are developed, tested, and deployed, and as states and
territories craft legislation and regulations supporting their operation,
is critical to realizing the promise autonomous vehicles hold for all
Americans. I therefore ask this committee to take urgent action to ensure
that promise comes to fruition. Thank you again for the opportunity to
address you today.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ryan Strunk]
Being Honest with Oneself Should Require No Debate
by Ryan Strunk
From the Editor: This item is taken from the Minnesota Bulletin,
spring edition, published by the National Federation of the Blind of
Minnesota. Ryan Strunk is the president of the affiliate, and his
perspectives are always worth reading. Here is a good one:
I was not an athlete in high school. (Sadly, I suspect this is true
for a lot of blind children.) I did think of myself as an intellectual
though, and mom always accused me-rightly-of being argumentative, so when I
learned I could combine the two by joining the debate team, I was excited
at the prospect. When I read in the informational packet that I could use
the powers I would develop to argue for a later curfew, I was hooked.
Within a week of joining the team, however, everything changed. Our
first assignment was to debate the pros and cons of capital punishment.
Each of us was given a side to discuss, and we were told to research the
arguments for that side of the issue. We were encouraged to make use of the
library and the internet, and we were given free reign for forty minutes a
day during the A lunch period. At the end of the first week, we were told
that we would come back and discuss what we had learned in order to
formulate arguments for the debate.
This assignment terrified me to the point of freezing. I had never
needed to do open research before for a school assignment, and I had no
idea how. I knew how to read books, having scanned a few of them for book
reports, but I had no idea how to make use of the library as a blind
person. I was overwhelmed by the shelves and stacks, the inaccessibility of
the racks of old newspapers and sheets of microfiche, and I could not even
fathom where to begin. I could read a book if I had it, but I didn't know
how to find a book in the first place. I should have been saved by the
internet. After all, everyone was coming online back in the late 90s, and
there was no shortage of content online. In those days, however, I only
used the internet for chat, email, and gaming. It never occurred to me that
newspapers were electronically available, let alone how to find and read
them, so that direction was closed to me as well.
I spent my first week on the debate team sitting in the classroom
idly starting to write arguments out of my own head and deleting them,
picking at my lunches, and filling time with nothing. Instead of asking for
help from the teacher, I sank deeper and deeper into hopelessness until I
could not find a way out. Before the first assignment was due-before anyone
could realize I had no idea what I was doing-I went to the teacher and told
him I wanted to drop the class.
I never told him the real reason. The one I gave him was that I was
just too closed-minded. I didn't have the ability, I said, to see things
from multiple points of view, especially on that issue. My mind was made
up, and it couldn't be changed. He laughed in a way that sounds, in my
memory, like the verbal equivalent of a shrug and signed the drop form.
I liked that version of my story better than the truth. It made me the
maverick, the kid who didn't play by the rules, the guy who already had the
answers and didn't need to find them in books. That was a lot more
palatable than the guy who didn't know how to do research and was too proud
to ask for help. I wrapped that version around myself, and I wore it so
long that I eventually believed it. When the subject of debate would come
up in college and beyond, I told people that "debate just wasn't for me,"
and I believed it.
It wasn't until just a few months ago that I realized the truth I had
been hiding from myself for half my life. The topic of high school debate
had come up again in some mundane conversation, and when I reached to pull
out that worn old story, I saw what was hiding behind it. I was a kid who
didn't have the skills I needed to be successful, and I was too scared and
too proud to ask for help.
To this day, I don't know what kept me from reaching out. I can guess
at reasons, but I'm not sure I'll ever know exactly why. I spent too long
denying reality. What feels more consequential to me now is that all the
reasons I can think of today are things that can still hold me back, and I
suspect they drag at a lot of people who are blind: admitting I can't do
something makes me less independent, asking for help makes me less
independent, and solving the problem is complicated to the point of being
impossible.
The paradox of that thinking though, is that not asking for help, not
admitting the places where I don't have the answers, and abandoning a
problem rather than solving it actually makes me less independent. I never
learned how to debate. I'm marginally competent at doing research. It took
me years to develop the ability to see an issue from multiple perspectives.
All those deficits narrowed the options available to me and had a huge
impact on my life. Had I made that realization in high school, things could
have turned out different-not better, but different.
The truth about blindness is that sometimes we do things differently.
We use alternative techniques to accomplish ordinary tasks, and we live
fulfilling lives as a result. Sometimes we create those techniques
ourselves, but often we learn them from blind people who have gone there
before us and can teach us what they learned. If we don't admit what we
don't know, choosing instead to try to figure out our own way in the name
of supposed independence, we can miss out on learning the answers someone
else has already discovered. Choosing to ask for help doesn't make us
dependent. It means we're strong enough to admit when we need a hand.
Over the years, I have received a hand from the National Federation of
the Blind on numerous occasions. Even now, as I write this, my first
successful attempt at polishing shoes are drying on an old grocery bag. I
learned that blind people polish shoes from Dr. Maurer's article "Gray
Pancakes and the Gentleman's Hat" [from Kernel Book Gray Pancakes and Gold
Horses]. Members have taught me how to barbecue a steak, match suits and
ties, find a bus stop in the snow, create a complicated to-do list, host a
convention, pass a bill in the legislature, and so much more. If I hadn't
had the help and understanding of the National Federation of the Blind over
the years, things would have turned out different-and likely worse.
I'm happy with the life I have now. I like how things have turned out,
and I wouldn't change them. I want to make sure though that other people
who don't have the answers they need know that it's okay to ask for help
and that other blind people are here for them. If they're struggling with
school, work, technology, cooking, or anything else, the members of the
National Federation of the Blind will be ready with understanding,
encouragement, and advice.
I couldn't admit in high school that I didn't know how to do research.
I believed it was my responsibility to figure out my problems alone. I know
better now. I know that asking for help makes me more independent-not less.
I know that I have a whole support system of friends and family who will
help me to be successful. If you need help, we're here for you, too.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Geerat J. Vermeij]
On Privilege
by Geerat J. Vermeij
From the Editor: Geerat J. Vermeij is a distinguished professor in
the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of
California, Davis. He can be reached at gjvermeij at ucdavis.edu. When he
writes, I always find what he has to say of interest:
Every day I wake up knowing how fortunate I am. I have a loving and
interesting spouse, a deeply fulfilling career, access to excellent food, a
house that is fully paid off, a successful daughter and her family, a
supportive brother in the Netherlands, and so much more. In short, I am
privileged, so much so that the word "privileged" appears in the title of
one of my books.
But one way in which I am not privileged in the traditional sense is
that I am totally blind. I belong to a small minority that has historically
been deemed subnormal, with the result that society has often withheld
opportunities that other members of the community have come to expect. How
should we respond to the age-old subordinate status of the blind in
society? We can't simply ignore it and accept the status quo. Should we
instead look in every corner for more evidence of denied privilege?
In his unfortunate essay entitled "Sighted Privilege: Recognition of
the Problem is the First Step Toward Resolution," published in the February
2020 Braille Monitor, Justin Salisbury embraces the latter option. He is
engaged in a diligent search for confirmation of pervasive social privilege
enjoyed by the sighted majority at the expense of the blind minority. The
evidence is not hard to come by; if you look for it, you will find it. But
then what? Without proposing a remedy, Salisbury's essay offers only a
recipe for stoking resentment, affirming continued victimhood, and sowing
mistrust.
To my mind, this approach is ultimately destructive and unproductive.
As the National Federation of the Blind has demonstrated for eight decades,
the blind have individual and collective agency, the ability and the will
to change our circumstances by educating the public, changing laws, and
setting good examples. With reasoned confidence in our abilities and with
productive engagement in the wider world of the sighted majority, we can
shake off the insecurity that feeds resentment and free ourselves of
victimhood. We do this not by emphasizing differences from the majority but
by cultivating affirmative attitudes toward others. A chip on the shoulder
is a heavy burden that does nobody any good. Let's make the most of what we
have and seek to improve our collective position by making the fruits of
privilege more widely available.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Norma Crosby]
The Tours in Texas
by Norma Crosby
From the Editor: Norma Crosby is on top of things. She and her
affiliate are well organized and ready for us to come to Texas. Here is
what she says about tours, and more of what is promised for next month:
The 2020 convention of the National Federation of the Blind is almost
here, and boy are we getting excited in Texas. We are making plans to host
the biggest and best Federation family reunion ever. As I told you in the
February issue, Houston has lots to offer, and we are planning to make it
possible for you to take advantage of some great opportunities while you
are in town. Let me tell you what we have in store for you.
Space Center Houston is a fun and educational place for people of all
ages, and we are working with the accessibility team to develop tours while
we are in town for the 2020 convention. Tour prices will be all inclusive,
except for food and drinks or souvenirs purchased on-site. The tour will
include a tactile artifact room, a STEM activity, a touch tour of Starship
Gallery, and a tram tour that will include an opportunity to get up close
and personal with NASA rockets. Tours will be available on the morning or
afternoon of July 15 and on the afternoon of July 16.
Galveston Island is Houston's playground. In just about an hour, you
can leave the city behind and experience a day at the beach. During our
convention, we are planning to make it possible for members who want to get
away to spend some time visiting the beach, the historic Strand District,
Moody Gardens, and the Pleasure Pier. Moody Gardens is a great space for
families to visit. Attractions include a ropes course and zip line,
amusement rides, and Galveston's only white sand beach. We'll provide
transportation and a day pass that will entitle visitors to access the
beach and the seven major attractions. There will be a separate charge for
zip line and ropes course tickets.
The Strand Historic District is primarily a shopping and dining
destination, but there is also a railroad museum located within the
district as well. The Pleasure Pier is a dining and amusement area on
Seawall Boulevard, and our visitors can purchase tickets for the pier as
part of the tour package we will offer.
Galveston is not a large island. So if you choose this tour, you will
be able to have more than one sightseeing experience simply by taking a
short rideshare or taxi trip. Our tour package will include the cost of
roundtrip transportation to the island and the cost of tickets to Moody
Gardens and/or the Pleasure Pier. A visit to the Strand Historic District
is free except for the food, drinks, and merchandise you may elect to
purchase.
If you just want to have a day at the beach, we can drop you off at
Stewart Beach for a day of family fun. This beach has amenities that
include a playground, concessions, chair and umbrella rentals, a pavilion,
a beach volleyball court, and more. Alcohol is not allowed at Stewart
Beach.
Specific times for the tour have not been set as of this writing, but
we plan to offer an opportunity to tour Galveston on July 15 and 16. We
will provide information about drop-off and pickup points prior to the
convention.
The Kemah Boardwalk is a little closer to town than Galveston.
Families may choose to spend a few hours there if they are looking for some
fun and food. The boardwalk is on Galveston Bay, approximately twenty miles
from downtown Houston. It includes amusement rides, retail shops, and
dining. We will offer a tour on the afternoon of July 16. Ticket prices
will include roundtrip transportation and admission fees.
Specific information about tours will be posted on our affiliate's
website no later than April 15. Tickets will be sold online and by
telephone only. Tickets are first come first served and will be available
from April 15 to July 1 or until the tours sell out. To purchase tickets
online, go to https://nfbtx.org or give us a call at 281-968-7733. Our
office hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Tickets will not be sold
by telephone outside of regular business hours. Ticket purchases are
nonrefundable. See you in Houston!
----------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Jessica Reed]
I am a Federationist
by Jessica Reed
From the Editor: I think this article is a pearl, and the truth is
that I almost lost it. It got stored in a pending folder, and evidently I
pended the desire to look at it. It came six months ago, but thank
goodness, it is as timely now as it was when submitted.
Jessica Reed is the mother of two children ages five and two. She is
the vice president of the Fredericksburg Chapter of the National Federation
of the Blind of Virginia. An active Federationist since 2004, she enjoys
reading, physical fitness, the outdoors, and history.
In this article Jessica speaks eloquently to the value of sight, the
sadness in losing it, the reluctance to believe other blind people might
have answers, and the life-changing realization that those of us in the
Federation have some. Here is what she says:
I cry over my blindness, and all too often fall into the trap of "Why
me!" I have never felt that my blindness was "just a characteristic." I
would take my vision back in a nanosecond. As a student at the Louisiana
Center for the Blind, I took two weeks to make a lemon meringue pie,
dropping more than one egg yolk on my classmate's foot.
I am many things, but I would never call myself super blind. If we are
totally honest, for the first ten years of my blindness I would have
flinched and may have smacked anyone who called me blind. All this and I am
a Federationist.
I lost my vision at the age of nine as a result of medical
malpractice. To say that my family and I were devastated would be an
understatement. I was close to needing to repeat the third and fourth
grades because, when I did make it to school, I was more often than not
missing and later found hysterical in the girl's bathroom.
When it first happened, doctors assured my family that my vision loss
was only temporary. I woke every morning expecting to see. Not until years
later was I told point-blank by a prominent neurosurgeon, "There isn't a
snowball's chance in hell." My family was never the same after this doctor
visit.
Today I am a stay-at-home mother to two beautiful thriving children. I
have a sighted husband and live in the historic town of Fredericksburg,
like I always dreamed. I have traveled, jumped out of a plane, ran a
marathon, graduated from college, and have worked. I am a Federationist.
When I ventured off to the Louisiana Center for the Blind at the age
of eighteen, I went with the conviction that I would try out its training
(which I wasn't convinced I needed), but they could keep their NFB hard-
nosed, militant philosophy to themselves. I loved guide dogs and was not
the political type. I had many sighted friends so therefore did not need
any blindness social club. While in Louisiana, I questioned and argued with
almost everything they taught. The word blind was a slap in the face. It
was a scarlet letter I had to attempt to hide and mask at every turn, and I
was baffled at how the staff and students could have no shame in it. These
were educated, well-put-together, attractive people. There were people with
children, some with advanced degrees, some who were wealthy, and some who
lived paycheck to paycheck. I slowly began to fall off my pedestal. There
were also those who struggled immensely with cane travel, cooking,
computers, or knew no Braille at all. There were those that knew nothing
other than blindness and those like me trying to navigate a jagged road of
anger, frustration, and immeasurable grief.
The National Federation of the Blind philosophy is not the delusion I
was once convinced it was. Yes, I would love to know exactly what my
children look like and see another sunrise, but what stabs through my heart
most of the time is not that. It is the frustration of not being able to
drive. It is the sadness that I will never be able to teach my son to
drive. It is the anger that rears up when I hear of another blind Lyft or
Uber customer being stranded by a driver because they have a guide dog. It
is the anger that claws up at me when I hear of another blind parent having
their child removed by CPS [Children's Protective Services] solely due to
their blindness. It is the sadness I feel when I meet a highly educated
blind person who cannot find even a minimum-wage job. These people are all
me, so I am a Federationist.
As a little girl, I had a little wooden cross I would hold nightly
during prayers. I would trace the metal figure of Jesus nailed to that
cross. The number of tears I cried while clutching that cross and wondering
what I did wrong and the number of times I kissed his little feet cannot be
counted. The word "inconvenience" was jarring even when put into context
with "the proper training and opportunity." The phrase was jarring because
I didn't fully understand its meaning ...until now. I could not see that
the NFB was simply saying that it did not have to be the debilitating death
of my hopes and dreams that much of society tries to impose. The NFB
philosophy that I can live the life I want is not incongruous with the
grief at suddenly and unexpectedly going blind; instead it compliments it.
I know what it is to beg, bargain, and plead for a so-called cure. I woke
up every day for years expecting to see. I had no blind role models who
successfully lived the lives they wanted. I could not picture being a blind
high schooler, then a blind college student, and finally a blind adult. I
felt like I was waiting for my real life to begin-and let me tell you that
is agonizing and exhausting!
Today the NFB is the beacon of hope that I craved. The NFB fights to
protect the interest of blind parents so that their children are not
needlessly removed from loving homes just because a well-meaning social
worker cannot understand how we safely provide for our children. The NFB
fights for the equal opportunity of guide dog users to use ride-sharing
companies such as Uber and Lyft without fear of being stranded. The NFB
legislates for continued accessibility on the internet and everyday home
appliances. The NFB has been fighting for my dreams long before I knew
there would be a fight.
Would I like to have my vision back? Yes! Though he was so cruel in
his delivery all those years ago, the prominent neurosurgeon was correct.
There is little in optic nerve research, so the potential for any vision
restoration is nil. My love and contributions to this world are not. The
National Federation of the Blind is the vehicle to my contributions, hopes,
and dreams. I have learned that what cripples me most is not always my
blindness but an inaccessible world that does not always understand me.
This is a measurable variable that can be improved, and that is what the
NFB strives to do. I am a Federationist.
Today, I am a Federationist because my Federation family understands
my sadness, anger, and frustrations of being blind. They listen to and
challenge in the way that only they can. I am a Federationist.
Just as no two sighted people are the same, no two blind people are
the same. I have learned that there are many who have never viewed
blindness as a tragedy. While I do understand where they are coming from, I
think we are falling short as a Federation family if we do not acknowledge
that there are also those like me who have come from a place of tragedy.
The NFB philosophy was never meant to imply that blindness is not
traumatizing for some, but, instead, it does not have to be our end. I am a
Federationist.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
The Unknown
by Marc Maurer
From the Editor: Marc Maurer is a man who needs no introduction, his
tenure as the longest-serving President of the National Federation of the
Blind and his continuing legal work speak for themselves. What many may not
know is the constant wondering, thinking, and imagining that goes on in his
head and which his reduced schedule now allows him to write for
consideration and discussion.
One question we are constantly asked is what we think about when
someone talks about color. If we are totally blind, what color do we see in
our heads? I used to think that my answers were shared by all totally blind
people, but Dr. Maurer convinces me that this view is wrong. Here is how he
did it:
In the National Federation of the Blind we talk about blindness a lot,
but the conversations are different from those that occur in other arenas.
Diabetes is a major cause of blindness-some would say the major cause of
blindness--in the United States. Retinitis pigmentosa and macular
degeneration are also significant causes of blindness. However, we don't
spend a lot of time on these topics because our focus is not on what causes
blindness but on what to do as a blind person to lead a joyful life when
the time has come that the medical profession has decided that it has no
remedies to offer that will restore sight. We take blindness as a given,
and we try to decide what can be done to bring productivity and an active
life to those who are blind.
Nonetheless, the calls we get at the national headquarters of the
Federation are often from people who want to tell us about their vision
loss, the causes of their vision loss, the difficulties they encounter
because of vision loss, the unusual experiences they have because of vision
loss, and their heartfelt longing to have their vision restored. These
expressions come both from people who are encountering vision loss for the
first time and from people who have encountered vision loss in the past but
are experiencing more of it today.
Consider for example a person who has been partially blind but who is
now losing the remainder of that person's vision. Even if that person has
been a part of the Federation and has learned thoroughly the philosophy of
opportunity that we proclaim in the Federation, that person experiences
loss and distress that accompanies loss with the diminution of vision. Ray
McGeorge, a leader from Colorado who joined the Federation in the 1950s,
sometimes possessed vision and sometimes not. He knew what the Federation
believed about blindness, and he knew about the capacity of blind people.
He was a machinist, and he was very good at what he did. Sometimes he was
able to drive, and sometimes he could not. When in later life he lost his
remaining vision, he agonized over the process. He worried not only about
his personal loss but also about what people thought about his reaction to
it. I learned this only later when I discussed his vision loss with others.
I did not know it had been so hard on him, and I was sorry that I hadn't
been aware of his personal struggle.
In the last year, I have had the opportunity to visit with a number of
eye doctors. They have a very predictable point of view. They believe that
loss of vision is a tragedy, and they believe that anybody who has lost it
is in terrible circumstances. They believe that maintaining any amount of
vision is the highest priority in their practices, and they will not
consider the possibility that any loss of vision may have advantages.
Some of the people who call here to our headquarters tell us that they
have a tiny bit of remaining vision but that the eye which has this vision
also gives them extraordinary pain. One of the people who called said the
eye hurt so much that it ought to be removed, but medical officials
refused. The person calling asked us for advice about what to do. Somehow,
we are expected to have answers.
In my visits with the eye doctors in the last year, I have asked a
number of questions about the prognosis for restoring tiny amounts of
vision or about what the doctors expect in the progress of certain eye
diseases. The astonishing part for me in the answers these doctors have
given is that they don't really know. When eye diseases have progressed to
a certain degree, the doctors don't know what they can do, and they don't
know what the patient can expect.
None of this would be especially revealing except that discussions
among Federation members also demonstrate phenomena that have not
previously been brought dramatically to my attention. Blind people (or some
of them anyway) "see" things all the time. What is it that they see? What I
have heard from my colleagues is that they see white mist, black dots,
flashing lights, bands of color, or a kaleidoscope of images. The images
are not always static-they change and progress. Sometimes the images are
superimposed on visual cues, which can be confusing. Sometimes the images
are strong enough that they disturb sleep or interrupt thought.
I want to emphasize that I don't believe the people from whom I have
heard these things are experiencing psychological disorders. I think the
phenomena they experience are real. However, I don't think the doctors know
much about it. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, the mystification in the
medical profession is sufficiently profound that this type of experience is
outside the current realm of study. Are these phenomena caused by specific
conditions of the eye created by stimulation to the brain that occurs only
in certain eye diseases? I don't think that there is currently an answer to
the question. Consequently, it seems to me that we should share information
on the point. Do these thoughts change our point of view in the Federation?
I suspect that they do not, but I imagine that a greater knowledge of the
experiences that blind people have with the phenomena that comes to us will
be beneficial in welcoming people to the ranks of our membership.
Confronting myths about blindness is one of the things we do in the
Federation. A number of sighted people have indicated to me (I suspect
doctors feel the same) that blind people see black all of the time. I am
totally blind, and I do not have this experience. My imagination tells me
that I see light and color. I don't imagine that my imagination of light
and color matters very much except to me, but the experience of black which
is attributed to the blind also suggests to those who believe in it that
the lives of blind people are dark and dreary. My imagination gives color
and light to my life even though I don't see it in a physical sense.
However, I have not interviewed other blind people to learn what their
experiences tell them about light, color, depth, perspective, and the other
attributes of existence associated with vision. It might help us to know
what the range of these experiences could tell us, and what better place to
discuss this than in our magazine.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Dick Davis]
Why Attend the 2020 NFB Career Fair?
by Dick Davis, Chairperson, NFB Employment Committee
From the Editor: Dick Davis has a distinguished career helping blind
people. He has worked as the assistant director of BLIND Inc., our training
center in Minnesota. He also worked for Dr. Jernigan at the Iowa Commission
for the Blind. But what really impresses me about Dick is that all of this
has been more than a job for him-it has been a crusade to improve the lives
of blind people and has been more than a salary. In fact, it has been a
life's goal.
Dick currently serves as the chairperson of the NFB Employment
Committee, and he is active in the work he leads. Here is what he has to
say about the two career fairs the NFB holds each year:
Frequently, people call me and tell me how much difficulty they're
having finding employment. They apply online or send out cover letters and
resumis, sometimes without getting any kind of response. Frustrating! Then
I ask them if they are planning to attend one of our upcoming career fairs,
either the one at our national convention or the one at our Washington
Seminar. Some say, "Great idea; tell me more!" And I give them the
information, and they go.
But too many offer some kind of excuse: they weren't planning to go
this year, the convention is too expensive, or they went to the career fair
once and didn't get a job. Sometimes they blame discrimination or the 70
percent unemployment and underemployment rate among blind people, which is
just a statistic and has nothing to do with an individual's likelihood of
success. So they just keep spinning their wheels, sending out unanswered
resumis.
People, people! There is no easy way to get a job, especially if all
you do is send out resumis. If those resumis don't result in job
interviews, you're using the wrong method. The only way you will ever get a
job is if you meet and talk with employers face-to-face. And with increased
emphasis on diversity hiring, many employers really do want to meet you.
That is what our NFB career fairs offer you-an opportunity to talk
with employers we've pre-screened, employers who actually want to hire you.
This year in Houston we plan to have more than fifty employers from
throughout the nation in attendance. We have expanded the length of the
career fair to three hours, and there will be more space too.
The career fair will be Wednesday, July 15 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. The
Job Seeker Seminar, which will prepare you for the career fair by allowing
you to meet many of the employers and give you lots of other useful
information, will be Tuesday, July 14 from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Its focus this
year will be full inclusion.
We will also have an employment committee meeting on Tuesday, July 14
from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Dates and times for the Upward Mobility Seminar and
Etiquette Dinner are still under discussion. Jobseeker/employer networking
sessions may occur over some lunch hours.
To sign up for the career fair and get more information, keep
watching this link: https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/national-convention.
It also has information on Kenneth Jernigan scholarships for first time
convention attendees. Keep in mind that many NFB state affiliates and local
chapters can offer some financial assistance to members.
Finally, remember that you'll be in the presence of over 3,000 other
blind people, and since NFB members have a higher employment rate than
blind people in general, most of them will have jobs. They may know of jobs
where they work and jobs with other places. Our convention has many
division meetings that may cover your field of interest too. So what's
keeping you? See you at the 2020 NFB National Convention and career fair!
----------
The Blind Doctor of Rocanville
by Eva-Lis Wuorio
From the Editor: This comes to us courtesy of Mary Ellen Gabias, a
former employee of the National Federation of the Blind who now lives in
Canada. What a find it is, and how fantastic to find something from seventy
years ago that is still so relevant to us today. Here is the article from
Maclean's Archive, April 15, 1949:
Rocanville, Sask [Saskatchewan] is a village of 475 people, thirteen
miles from the Manitoba border, on the Bulyea branch line that meanders
across the prairie toward the Qu'Appelle Valley. At the station, there are
four grain elevators, an oil tank, a water tower, and a memorial for the
1914-18 war dead. The train goes east once a day and west once a day,
except on Sundays. Main Street is ninety feet wide-there is land to spare
here-and all the shops and offices are on it. Some of the side streets are
lined with poplar, birch, and scrub oak; the neat small houses are set back
from the wide streets. The prairie licks close to the flat little
settlement.
Dr. Roy C. Merifield returned here at forty-five years of age ten
years ago on a stormy winter day from the hospital in Moosomin, knowing he
was broke and going blind. He had practiced in the village for only
eighteen months previously. He had a wife and a young daughter. The future
looked as dark as the dimming light of his eyes. Today, totally blind,
remembered months of despair behind him, Dr. Merifield has a successful
medical practice, lives a useful, busy life, solidly built on a foundation
of sheer guts.
It is a life of normal pursuits and normal worries, the later
accented, however, by ever-present darkness. There are people on the town
and municipal councils who speak against him because he is blind and who
would like to get in a doctor who can see. There are grocery bills. There
are dreams at night of golden fields swaying to the prairie winds, or of
operations when the keenness of eye and hand are of paramount importance.
And there are dark awakenings. There are, too, afternoon hours when the
feet itch for the open road and the mind turns to escapades of other days,
but darkness walls you in. Then there is nothing but the quiet, empty
office and ears painfully keen, waiting for a diversion heralded by
footsteps or the ring of a telephone. But these are things blind Dr.
Merifield would speak about seldom, if at all.
The small old house, modern and pleasant inside, stands on a quiet
street beneath evergreens and oaks. You turn in at a well-cleared walk-the
doctor shovels the snow daily for exercise-and ring at the side door marked
"Dr. R. C. Merifield." The doctor himself comes to let you in. He is a
small man, five foot four, 135 pounds, with grey hair waving off a broad
forehead, good big nose adding character to his face, blue eyes brooding
over your shoulder. If you are an old patient or a friend, he knows you
practically before you speak. "I think your other senses quicken when you
lose one," he'll explain.
His voice is firm, friendly, and confident. The sort of a voice we've
come to expect from a man to whom we go with our fears and troubles. The
small sitting room and adjoining office have an immaculate, reassuring
look.
One ordinary day, into the office and out, came these following
people. A South African War veteran suffering from Buerger's disease. The
doctor eased his tight worry by saying mildly that he was in very good
company. That was the King's illness too. "Why," the doctor joked, "I was
the first one to diagnose the King's trouble. We were sitting in John
Anderson's kitchen after dinner. When the news of his illness came over the
radio John said, 'What, do you suppose it is, phlebitis?' I said it sounded
more like an arterial rather than a venous trouble and was likely
Buerger's." The elderly patient relaxed with the story. He reported that
the alpha tocopherol (vitamin E) treatment Dr. Merifield had put him on
made him feel much better.
Then, in quick succession, two young women for prenatal examination,
on routine visits. Up and down the countryside the doctor's reputation in
obstetrical cases is sky-high. One woman said, her smile barely disguising
the sharp edge of truth, "Perhaps we like him just because he can't see."
Merifield says, "Delivery is so much a matter of touch, even in an
instrument case, that it's not surprising one can still do it." Later in
the afternoon a French-Canadian woman for a check on her anemia and
hypertension. "It just makes me feel good to talk with the doctor
regularly," she confided.
There has been a peculiar flu prevalent in the district this winter
which leaves the patient dizzy for quite some time afterward. Dr. Merifield
diagnosed the trouble as due to disturbance of the function of the
balancing organ in the inner ear. Fred Davis, principal of Spy Hill School,
came twenty miles to consult the doctor about that.
Around 10 p.m., Dalton Strong arrived to ask the doctor to come to
visit his 91-year-old mother. The old lady had just got back from a visit
to Kingston, Ont., and had been, it seems, suffering most of all from acute
homesickness. She wouldn't eat anything and seemed terrified of all
strangers. All she wanted was to stay home on the prairies she knew. "If
you'll just come and see her," Strong asked the doctor, "she'd take
something from you." "All right, I'll come along," the doctor said. Mrs.
Merifield, a slight, grey-haired little woman, with bird-quick manner,
checked on the doctor's case and got on her overshoes, coat and scarf. The
doctor went firmly to the cupboard and got into his coat and checked cap.
He followed Mrs. Merifield out of the door and slipped his hand under her
elbow. Strong had left the engine of his car running. It was twenty below
that night.
The Strongs live in the old school building, partitioned to make rooms
for the big family. The doctor, his hand under his wife's arm, came at a
crisp, quick walk across the snowy road, up the steps. The sick old woman
was moaning in one of the rooms. Dr. and Mrs. Merifield went in to see her.
Mrs. Merifield reported on the count when the doctor checked on the blood
pressure. He listened to her heart, talked to her soothingly, finally gave
her a sedative hypodermically. She was much quieter when he left.
There are other cases Dr. Merifield handles as a matter of course:
they include anemias, hypertensions, digestive disturbances, appendicitis,
gall bladder, gallstones, ulcers of stomach or duodenum, and cancer. "After
all," the doctor says, "it is not very different diagnosing without eyes.
Dr. William Goldie, associate professor of medicine at Toronto, used to
tell us thirty years ago that 70 percent of the points of evidence upon
which a diagnosis is based comes from the patient's history. About 20
percent from a physical examination in which most information comes from
auscultation (listening with stethoscope), palpitation (sense of touch),
and even from olfactory (sense of smell). Why, on occasions I've diagnosed
diphtheria and some other things from my attention being attracted by the
characteristic smell. "The final 10 percent comes from X-ray and laboratory
reports. Of course, even sighted doctors obtain these from technicians
usually.
"The only part in all the foregoing where I am handicapped is the part
of the physical examination which depends upon sight. I get this
information from my nurse. "In maternity cases one's difficulties are
greatest before the baby arrives. Here again it is examination and
manipulation with the gloved hand, where touch is the only sense one can
bring into play at this stage. The secret of any success I may have had is
in the fact that I never leave a maternity case once labor has started.
And, in other cases, I try to do every bit of work just as carefully as
possible. I have to check and recheck. I cannot take as great a chance as
the sighted doctor, for the public is naturally afraid that the blind
person may make a mistake."
I met Mr. Gordon Hodgins the next day. Gordon edits the Rocanville
Record (circulation 580) and runs a print shop as his father did before him
on Main Street. He's a young, blunt guy. "Sure," he said, "the wife's a
patient of the little doc's. She went down to the Grey Nuns' Hospital in
Regina at the doc's suggestion. At the Medical Arts Clinic a Dr. Smith
examined her. Gallstones, he reported just like the little doc said. 'Not
bad for a blind man,' the wife commented. That threw them. 'You don't mean
to say you were diagnosed by a blind doctor,' they all said, down there in
the city." "That's the way it was," Mrs. Hodgins said. "The doc's a wonder
on diagnosing. Doesn't often happen he's wrong." Gordon spoke sharply.
"There are some of the people in this town who have it in for him because
he's blind, see. But let them have a twinge of pain and they are right
there screaming for him. And he's right there to help them. "I've had him
for both of my children," Mrs. Hodgins said. "And Palsy was an instrument
case, too. I'd have him again." "Hold on there," Gordon said, grinning at
her.
"The thing I like, too," Mrs. Hodgins added, "is that he tells you to
go to other doctors. He hasn't a bad word for anybody." Gordon came in
again. "He gets his own mail. You ought to see him, feeling his way by the
wicket to his box, working the combination. Sometimes be stops to talk to
you on Main Street (in the summer he gets around more, with his cane, see,
winters are more difficult), and he'll take out his watch. Not a Braille
watch, just ordinary, with the glass taken off so he can feel the numbers.
And he'll say, 'Time for me to be going now.'
"His worst difficulty is crossing the street. Someone will shout 'Hi,
Doc,' and he'll turn to greet them, and lose his direction. 'There are some
in this town that'll just stand and watch him then. And some that'll call
out, 'Just a little left, Doc,' or, 'Just a little to the right.'"
"Mrs. Merifield, now," Mrs. Hodgins said, "she's fine. She'll try to
make him help himself instead of doing everything for him, and her heart in
her eyes, so you can see it plain. No fuss at all from her."
"We're lucky to have him," Gordon ended definitely, "and no mistake.
This district is too small for a young man, and no hospital. They like to
have hospitals. There are people who've tried to get him out, and perhaps
one of these days they'll succeed, but then they'll find themselves with no
doctor at all." "I'll have him anytime," Mrs. Hodgins repeated, and looked
with a smile at Gordon.
Though Mrs. Merifield has had no training as a nurse she always wanted
to train for it. Her two sisters were nurses. To help Roy Merifield get
through his medical schooling after the 1914-18 war she worked in a nurse's
office. It came as good experience later. Besides always going on cases,
Mrs. Merifield (who is a little deaf, so that where she serves as her
husband's eyes he lends his ears to her) also helps in public health work,
such as immunization. She accompanies the doctor to schools and loads hypos
for the shots. Babies and children under school age get their inoculations
during summer months; the district is immunization-conscious. She does the
doctor's blood count examinations, all the dressings, and at times has even
sutured wounds.
Roy Merifield was born in Ottawa. Many of his mother's relatives were
doctors and he can't remember back to a time when he didn't know he was
going to be one, too. He took his B.A. course at Victoria College in
Toronto, one year behind Sir Frederick Banting with whom he belonged to a
students' dinner club. During World War I he enlisted in the Royal Flying
Corps but didn't get overseas. He got married during that period. When he
resumed his medical course, Mrs. Merifield helped him get through by
working in the winters, while he went on construction jobs in the summers.
He graduated in 1922. By this time his family and his wife's family were
living at Prince Albert, Sask., and he took a practice in the village of
Kinistino, forty-five miles east from Prince Albert. "Those were the days
when I worked hard, walked fast, drove fast, lived hard. It seemed to me I
had boundless, endless energy," he recalls.
They were still the rousting, rocking years of the young West and Roy
Merifield found them to his liking. He turned down an offer from a
California hospital in the 20s, for he was doing well and loving the wild,
free life. So, with heavy drinking, long hours, northland journeys, and
much work, the Roaring Twenties changed to the Hungry Thirties. Finally in
1936 the Merifields moved to Rocanville.
In 1939, when he was forty-five, Dr. Merifield found he was losing his
vision. For about eight years more he could see faint shapes, light, and
darkness. Two years ago he went completely blind. He speaks of those years
now calmly, though in strong words. "It was still depression when I lost my
sight. Like most country doctors, I had no ready cash. Those were the years
your accounts only figured in your books."
"I think that sometimes, then, as I sit in my office day after day
with not a patient coming in and misty shapes wavering before my eyes, I
could easily have killed myself. But there were my wife and my daughter. I
would go home after an empty day, wondering how long my wife could carry on
with no money coming in. There were nightmares at night and worrying by
day."
"And then, so gradually you couldn't put your finger on it, but it
must have been after two years of great anguish, my practice began to
improve. I brought my office home. My wife was there to help me. She was
present on every call. She drove me night and day, winter and summer,
whenever I had to go to see a patient. She even came on cutter trips over
roads that were impassable by car."
First hope, after the two dreadful years, was fostered by the fact
that Merifield learned to type. It was a new skill, learned on a borrowed
machine from a book of instruction, but it gave him confidence. Winter
evenings passed more quickly now, his fingers grew firm and sure. Then,
too, R. W. Beath of the Institute for the Blind in Regina hearing of Dr.
Merifield, put the services of the Institute at his disposal. Now again
there were new opportunities.
Geraldine McEwen, blind music-teacher in Winnipeg, lent the doctor a
book of instruction in Braille. The doctor learned it alone, now spends
time each evening reading. There is medical news as well as entertainment
in Braille-a constant joy to him. His wife reads for him the additional
information on new finds in medicine that would help and interest him.
That turning point, year of 1941, when Dr. Merifield moved his office
from the town building to his home, learned to type and read Braille,
heralded brighter times. Patients came back. Young daughter Betty was able
to go to the University of Manitoba and later to take an additional course
in social science. (She's now a social service worker in Winnipeg.) Forced
to move from a rented house, the doctor bought a lovely, little old one and
renovated it into a comfortable pleasant home. He bought a car. He keeps
the drive shoveled, and old Archie Black keeps the garden in flowers
throughout the summer months. The doorbell rings constantly now.
It's a success story all right. It's the story of a man who did not
want charity. "You must carry on," Dr. Merifield would say
conversationally, and there's the bugle call of a motto that should be
embossed on the Merifield family crest. "I'd like others to know it's
possible to carry on," he says, "under any circumstances."
Within their rights, some villagers-a few members of the town council,
the village manufacturer of oil cans-speak against him and advertise for a
young, seeing doctor. Merifield says, "I'll leave, of course, and let him
take over when he comes. But I'll stick here until they get one."
Meanwhile, Billy Conner comes for his cough, a mother from Manitoba across
the provincial border brings in a seven-year-old son who won't talk, a
farmer's wife comes in with a tumor, and the doctor sends an appendicitis
case to a hospital in Moosomin or Regina.
"I won't worry about it," the doctor says, "but I won't be stepped on
either. I'm too stubborn to walk out while there are loyal patients. Also,
you see, I must-and am-earning my living. Regardless of who is right, the
main thing which I'd like to say to all blind folks is that even a blind
person need never be pushed around if he decides to be like other human
beings."
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Leave a Legacy
For more than seventy-five years the National Federation of the Blind
has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people
into reality, and with your support we will continue to do so for decades
to come. We sincerely hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring
movement by adding the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary in your will. A gift to the National Federation of the Blind in
your will is more than just a charitable, tax-deductible donation. It is a
way to join in the work to help blind people live the lives they want that
leaves a lasting imprint on the lives of thousands of blind children and
adults.
With your help, the NFB will continue to:
. Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille;
. Promote the independent travel of the blind by providing free, long
white canes to blind people in need;
. Develop dynamic educational projects and programs that show blind
youth that science and math are within their reach;
. Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide
blind people the essential information necessary to be actively
involved in their communities;
. Offer aids and appliances that help seniors losing vision maintain
their independence; and
. Fund scholarship programs so that blind people can achieve their
dreams.
Plan to Leave a Legacy
Creating a will gives you the final say in what happens to your
possessions and is the only way to be sure that your remaining assets are
distributed according to your passions and beliefs. Many people fear
creating a will or believe it's not necessary until they are much older.
Others think that it's expensive and confusing. However, it is one of the
most important things you will do, and with new online legal programs it is
easier and cheaper than ever before. If you do decide to create or revise
your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary. Visit www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314,
extension 2422, for more information. Together with love, hope,
determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into
reality.
Invest in Opportunity
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. You can live the life you
want; blindness is not what holds you back. A donation to the National
Federation of the Blind allows you to invest in a movement that removes the
fear from blindness. Your investment is your vote of confidence in the
value and capacity of blind people and reflects the high expectations we
have for all blind Americans, combating the low expectations that create
obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
In 2019 the NFB:
. Distributed over seven thousand canes to blind people across the
United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently
throughout their communities.
. Hosted forty-eight NFB BELL Academy programs, which served more than
three hundred and fifty blind students throughout the United States.
. Provided over one hundred thousand dollars in scholarships to blind
students, making a post-secondary education affordable and attainable.
. Delivered audio newspaper and magazine services to 118,900
subscribers, providing free access to over four hundred local,
national, and international publications.
. In the third year of the program, over three hundred fifty Braille-
writing slates and styluses were given free of charge to blind users.
Just imagine what we'll do next year, and, with your help, what can
be accomplished for years to come. Below are just a few of the many
diverse, tax-deductible ways you can lend your support to the National
Federation of the Blind.
Vehicle Donation Program
The NFB now accepts donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats,
motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free,
and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation-it
doesn't have to be working. We can also answer any questions you have.
General Donation
General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and
the work to help blind people live the lives they want. Donate online with
a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit
www.nfb.org/make-gift for more information.
Bequests
Even if you can't afford a gift right now, including the National
Federation of the Blind in your will enables you to contribute by
expressing your commitment to the organization and promises support for
future generations of blind people across the country. Visit
www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more
information.
Pre-Authorized Contribution
Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters
sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making
recurring monthly donations by direct withdraw of funds from a checking
account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, visit www.nfb.org/make-
gift, and complete the Pre-Authorized Contribution form, and return it to
the address listed on the form.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan]
Blindness: Is the Public Against Us?
by Kenneth Jernigan
From the Editor: In our discussions about sighted privilege, one of
the concerns that has been raised is that the concept is very different
from what we have previously thought about the role of blind people and
sighted people in society. There have also been concerns that by even
venturing to use the term privilege we are allying ourselves with what some
call a leftist victim mentality. As you read this speech that was delivered
almost forty-six years ago, I urge you to think about whether some in the
audience felt the same discomfort in being associated with civil rights and
the cause of black people that we feel today as a new generation seeks to
understand those things that retard their progress and ways of explaining
and redressing them. Here is what Dr. Jernigan said in 1975:
When the orange-billed seagull scares from my shadow and flees from my
pass, I look up and see the sun laughing a smile on the water.
When mothers and fathers shout and hit their children for discipline,
I look up and see the sun lure transient clouds to cover her face.
And when the blind man, dogless, loses his homeward path, I have seen
the stranger straighten his solo way while the sun sets.
I have wondered: Is there a land where the birds are unafraid, where
the little children are uncried, and the blind people see
Where the sun won't laugh at the seagulls and hide from the children
and leave when the blind man is lonely.
That poem-which appears on the wall of a California coffee house-
portrays to a remarkable degree (even if only in microcosm) both the best
and the worst traits of humanity: compassion, bigotry, sensitivity,
obtuseness, concern, arrogance, perceptive awareness, and a total lack of
understanding. Certainly with respect to blindness it exemplifies every
misconception of the darkest middle ages. When the blind man (dogless or
otherwise) is lonelier than others-when he has it so bad that the sun
itself must flee from his plight, it is not the blindness which should be
mourned but the social attitudes and the cultural heritage-the root causes
of the broken spirit and the blighted soul. Second-class status and deep
despair come not from lack of sight but from lack of opportunity, lack of
acceptance, lack of equal treatment under the law, and (above all) lack of
understanding.
Not only does the coffee house poet speak about blindness but also
(doubtless without knowing it) he speaks about our reason for organizing;
for if the principal problem we face is the blindness itself (the physical
loss of sight and its alleged inherent limitations) there is little purpose
in collective action. If, as the poem puts it, the only solution is, "a
land where the birds are unafraid, where the little children are uncried,
and the blind people see," we had better pack it in and leave it to the
experts. And even then, there will be no real solution; for (with present
knowledge and foreseeable technology) most of us who are blind today are
going to stay that way, and that is that. If this is truly the way of it,
let us take such comfort as we can from the doctor, the preacher, and the
psychiatrist-and let us square our shoulders and take it alone, not seeking
the company of others with similar affliction, who (at the very best) can
only remind us of what we are not, and what we can never become.
But, of course, this is not the way of it-not at all. Everything in
us rejects it. All of our experience denies it. We know that with training
and opportunity we can compete on terms of absolute equality with the
sighted, and we also know that the sighted (with education and correct
information) can come to accept us for what we are-ordinary human beings,
neither especially blessed nor especially cursed-able to make our own way
and pay our own tab.
This is why the National Federation of the Blind came into being. In
1940 a small band of blind people from seven states met at Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, to begin the movement. At first it was mostly faith and
dreams, but that was over a generation ago. Today (with more than 50,000
members) we are a nationwide crusade with local chapters in every state and
the District of Columbia. At an accelerating pace we have become aware of
our needs, our potential, and our identity. An increasing number of the
sighted have also become aware and now march with us, but the mass of the
public, a majority of the media, and most of the social service agencies
still think in pre-Federation terms.
Deep down (at the gut level) they regard us as inferior, incompetent,
unable to lead an everyday life of joy and sorrow, and necessarily less
fortunate than they. In the past we have tended to see ourselves as others
have seen us. We have accepted the public view of our limitations and,
thus, have done much to make those limitations a reality. But no more! That
day is at an end.
Our problem is so different from what most people imagine, that it is
hard for them even to comprehend its existence. It is not the blindness,
nor is it that we have lacked sympathy or goodwill or widespread charity
and kindness. We have had plenty of that-too much, in fact. Rather, it is
that we have not (in present day parlance) been perceived as a minority.
Yet, that is exactly what we are-a minority, with all that the term
implies.
Do I exaggerate? In the summer of 1972 the National Federation of the
Blind held its convention in Chicago. A local television station sent a
black reporter to do coverage. She went directly to the exhibit room and
used most of her film on various mechanical aids and gadgets. To round out
her story, she came to me and asked that I comment on the value and benefit
of it all.
I responded obliquely, asking her how she would feel if she were at a
national meeting of the NAACP or the Urban League and a reporter came and
said he was there to film the shoe shining and the watermelon eating
contest. She said she wouldn't like it. "Well," I said, "suppose the
reporter took another tack. Suppose he wanted to spend all of his time and
film on an exhibit of gadgets and devices incidentally on display as a
sidelight of the meeting, ignoring the real problems which brought the
group together in the first place." She said she wouldn't like that either.
In fact, she said, it would be worse since the question about the shoe
shining and the watermelons could be easily discredited, while the other
approach was just as bad but far less apparent and, therefore, probably
more destructive.
I then told her about a reporter who came to one of our meetings and
said, "I'd like to get pictures of blind persons bowling and of some of the
members with their dogs." I tried to explain to him that such a story would
be a distortion-that we were there to discuss refusal by employers to let
us work, refusal by airlines to let us ride, refusal by hotels to let us
stay, refusal by society to let us in, and refusal by social service
agencies to let us out. He said he was glad I had told him and that it had
been very helpful and enlightening. Then he added, "Now, could I see the
dogs and the bowlers? I am in quite a rush."
As I told this story, the black reporter was obviously uncomfortable.
She seemed truly to understand, but when I asked her if she still intended
to feature the exhibits and the gadgets, she stuck to her guns. "In the
first place," she said, "I've already used all of my film. In the second
place my editor told me to do it, so that's the way it has to be." The
television coverage appeared on schedule-usual image, usual distortion.
There is nothing wrong with bowling or dogs or canes or exhibits, but it
was a bad scene.
A year later (in June of 1973) the blind were again in Chicago-this
time for a different reason. The National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) was meeting, and
the blind were demonstrating and picketing. Formed in the mid-1960's by the
American Foundation for the Blind, NAC symbolized (as it still does)
everything odious and repulsive in our long and painful tradition-
custodialism by governmental and private social service agencies, ward
status, vested interest, intimidation, exclusion, and second-class
citizenship. Our attempts to gain representation on NAC's Board were
answered by double-talk and tokenism, by Uncle Toms representing nobody but
themselves and their masters, and by threats and reprisals. Finally, we had
had enough.
So when (without warning and in violation of its own bylaws and
policies) NAC tried to hide from us by changing its meeting from Cleveland,
Ohio, to an out-of-the-way motel in Chicago (a motel in the midst of
construction and remodeling), we came to confront them. And not just a few
of us, but the blind of the Nation. It was short notice and difficult
doing, but we came-hundreds of us, from all over the country: California,
New England, the deep South, and the Midwest.
It was a day of dramatic importance. It was the first time in history
that the blind as a people (not just a local group or a given segment but
the blind as a people) had mobilized to take to the streets for collective
action. There were state delegations, placards and signs, marches in
downtown Chicago, and a rally at Civic Center Plaza. Was it newsworthy? By
every test known to journalism, the answer would have to be yes.
Yet, the Chicago Tribune for Thursday, June 21, 1973, carried not a
single line about the demonstrations. It was not that the Tribune forgot
us. Far from it. There was not just one, but two stories about the blind.
And what were these stories that were of such importance as to be more
newsworthy than the first national demonstration by the blind in history?
One was headlined "Busy blind man finds time to help children." The other
was captioned "Blind, he directs music in city school."
What a commentary! It was all there. The blind are especially
talented in music. They are also burdened and deprived. Therefore, when one
of them (instead of just doing the normal thing and receiving) turns it
around and gives to others (particularly, children), it has human interest
and news value. What would have happened if Martin Luther King had been
leading the first black demonstrations in Chicago and the papers had
ignored it-printing, instead, "Busy black man finds time to help children"
and "Black, he directs music in city school"? I think you know what would
have happened, and so do I. There would have been a furor of massive
proportions. Yet, the incidents I have related passed without notice or
ripple, almost as a matter of routine.
What I have said must be seen in perspective. The Tribune writers and
the other members of the Chicago press were not trying to put us down or
conspire against us. They were calling it as they saw it, writing what
tradition had taught them to write. Like any other cross-section of
society, they doubtless were (and are) people of integrity and goodwill. It
was not a matter of morals or motives, but of comprehension. It was all
tied up with their notions about blindness. Pathos, compensatory talents,
musical ability, inspiration, bravery against odds, world of darkness,
heart-rending tragedy-these they (and even their editors) could understand:
run-of-the-mill, good human interest, no sweat. But the blind as a
minority? Discrimination? Marches? Confrontation with the social service
agencies, the very people who were trying to help the blind? Ridiculous!
The reporters couldn't understand it, and (at least, at the emotional
level) they didn't believe it. So how could they write it? And even if they
did, how could their editors approve it, or the public buy it? Forget it.
Don't think about it. Let it alone.
Of course, the attitudes of the press are representative of the
broader society, and the situation is certainly not unique. It is exactly
the way the blacks were treated 50 years ago. They were lumped together and
seen as a single caricature-good-natured, irresponsible, rhythmic,
shiftless, and a mite dishonest-second-class all the way. A black person
was never shown in a straight role on the stage or in the movies but only
as a foot-shuffling, jolly simpleton. It was Amos and Andy and Uncle Remus
and Aunt Jemima; and not only the blacks but all of us will bear the scars
for generations to come because of the failure to understand, the lack of
concern to care, and the absence of the courage to act. Fifty years ago it
was the blacks. Today it is the blind. But we are organized, and we are on
the move. We want no strife or confrontation, but we will do what we have
to do. We are simply no longer willing to be second-class citizens. They
tell us that there is no discrimination-that the blind are not a minority.
But we know who we are, and we will never go back.
Lest you think I am picking on Chicago, let me say that New York was
about the same. In July of 1973 (only a month after the NAC demonstration
in Chicago) the largest group of blind people ever to assemble anywhere in
the world up to that time met in New York. For almost a week we discussed
our hopes and our problems-planned and dreamed. Some 2,000 of us marched on
NAC headquarters. There was a considerable amount of local radio and
television coverage, and a little in the papers. Nationally there was
hardly a ripple. I can only explain it as before.
It was not conspiracy or deliberate put-down. In some ways it was
worse, for an individual can be made ashamed of prejudice and repression
but rarely of charity and kindness. They didn't understand it; they didn't
believe it; and (above all) they didn't know how to write it. It didn't fit
the image and the preconception.
Sometime back a local student chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind undertook to analyze advertisements mentioning blindness. An ad
to help people stop smoking came to their attention and resulted in the
following correspondence:
CAMPANA CORPORATION
Division of Purex Corporation Limited Batavia, Illinois
DEAR SIR: At our April meeting, we read part of an advertisement
from your University Plan to Help People Stop Smoking. The reading
states in part: "Try smoking with your eyes closed and see how much of
smoking is visual. Blind people rarely smoke, not only because of fire
danger, but because they are not influenced by these visual aspects of
smoking." Since blind people do smoke as much and as often as their
sighted friends, and since blind and sighted alike have little
conscious concern for the fire hazard involved, we found your
advertisement of BANTRON both inaccurate and annoying.
We hope that you will reread your information concerning
BANTRON, and see the misconceptions about blindness in it so they may
be corrected.
Thank you very much.
A courteous letter-not unreasonable, belligerent, or full of
recrimination. Back came the reply, loud and clear-saying, perhaps, more
than its author intended or realized:
Thank you for your letter of April 29. Your comments about the
sweeping generalizations of blind people not smoking are well taken,
and did indeed cause me to study the package directions for Bantron.
Although I have yet to know a blind person who did smoke, I will
concede the point on the basis that (a) you are more expert on the
subject than anyone here, and (b) any such generalization such as
blind people fearing fire, left-handed people being awkward, black
people being shiftless, Italians gangsters, Jews cunning, Germans
warlike, or Iowans as corn growers is by nature indefensible and
inaccurate.
Unfortunately, Bantron is not a high volume product, and it may
be some time before package directions are next redesigned, and some
time after that before the new directions achieve distribution. In
fact, it may be years before your suggestions bear tangible fruit. But
they have been considered and will be acted upon when the time finally
arrives.
A casual (one might almost say a cavalier) response. A rather glib
admission that the statements about blindness in the ad were probably false
and that nobody around the office had any real information on the subject-
or, for that matter, cared to have any, one way or another. No recognition
that lives might have been damaged or opportunities lost. Only the godlike
statement that, "...it may be years before your suggestions bear tangible
fruit. But they have been considered and will be acted upon when the time
finally arrives." What insensitivity! What contempt! What arrogance!
What irrefutable proof of the absolute necessity for the National
Federation of the Blind! Yet, they tell us that there is no discrimination-
that we are not a minority. But we know who we are, and we will never go
back.
Not only must we deal with the ad writers and the working press but
also with Mr. Magoo-lovable Mr. Magoo. Because he is almost blind he
bumbles and blunders through a series of bloopers-walking into telephone
poles and apologizing to them because he thinks they are people, patting
the tops of fireplugs and speaking to them as children, and walking up half-
finished skyscrapers to the brink of disaster and ruin. It's funny because
he can't see and makes such stupid goof-ups. Never mind that blindness
isn't like that and that no blind person in the world is so incompetent or
stupid as to hit a telephone pole and believe it's a human or think the top
of a fire plug feels like the head of a child or wander up the girders of
an open building. It fits the stereotype, so it's hilariously comical.
But what does it do to blind people-to our public image and our
private lives? A few weeks back I received a call from a blind woman in
Indianapolis. She said, "The other day I was at the home of a friend, who
is also blind, and her four-year-old son was watching Mr. Magoo on
television. He turned to his mother in hurt and bewilderment and said,
'Mother, why are they making fun of you?'" My caller went on to tell me
that later that same week she was walking down the street when a small
child spit on her and said, "You're old Mr. Magoo." She was so shaken by
the two incidents coming together that she called to ask what the
Federation could do about it.
Of course, this negative behavior is not surprising from small
children or even from the public at large; but surely we have the right to
expect better from the social service agencies, the very people who are
supposedly knowledgeable and established to help us. Yet, an outfit in
Seattle calling itself Community Services for the Blind (ultra-respectable
and approved by the United Way) decided this spring to make Mr. Magoo the
principal focus of its public relations and funding. The leaders of our
Washington affiliate protested, but to no avail. A blind man on the
Community Services board (Uncle Toms are, indeed, pathetic; and we have our
full quota) thought it was funny, and even constructive. But the board's
sighted president put it all in perspective:
The advertising message [he said in a letter to one of our
members] is especially directed at people who are responsible for the
blind-not the blind themselves. We don't feel the blind person will
tend to identify himself with Mr. Magoo, necessarily; in fact, many
may not even know who he is.... If there is any kind of a negative
aspect in the fact that Mr. Magoo has poor eyesight, it is all the
more effective, just as a crippled child on a muscular dystrophy
poster is more effective than a normal child. [Emphasis added.]
What a damning self-indictment! What an ironic commentary on the end
of an era and the death of a system. Yet, they tell us that there is no
discrimination-that the blind are not a minority. But we know who we are,
and we will never go back.
To round out the picture of the public mind, consider the following
recent examples: A man wrote to me a few months ago saying that he would
like to buy a cat or dog for every blind person in Colorado Springs. "I saw
a young blind boy," he said "with a white cane and a puppy dog. He seemed
so happy. If you think it would help I would be glad to see every blind
person in Colorado Springs has a pet. Cat or dog."
A dental hygiene student wrote to me from Fresno, California: "I am
working on a research paper," she said, "concerning the special needs of
visually handicapped or blind people with regard to dental care. I hope to
determine: (1) how the dental procedure needs to be altered to accommodate
them, and (2) special dental problems of these patients."
Recently a blind woman was in the hospital for gall bladder surgery.
A tape on the foot of her bed was inscribed in large letters: "Patient is
blind but self-sufficient." It's all tied up in the word "but." Am I
quibbling? Not really. Is it subtle? Not very.
An expert on penology and social reform wrote to me to say that, in
his opinion, the blind (regardless of their misdeeds) should not be put in
the penitentiary. "If the seriousness of their offense merits
incarceration," he said, "they should be dealt with in a special manner."
In other words, even in the "big house" we should be second-class and
segregated.
The author of a book on the teaching of medical transcribing wanted
her work put into Braille. "I wrote you," she said, "because I have watched
the teaching of this subject to the blind over a period of years and it is
unnecessarily painful and lengthy. They do make first-rate transcribers and
always seem so pathetically grateful for a chance to learn."
A religious organization circulates a card called "Courtesies of
Gentleness for the Sighted in Contacts with the Blind." It says:
A handshake to a blind person is like a smile to a sighted
person. So shake hands on greeting and on leaving your blind
acquaintance.... Never fill to the brim a cup given to a blind person;
it is too hard to keep on an even keel. Give him a refill instead....
Don't express sympathy for a blind person in front of him. In
motoring, guard against slamming the car door on the blind person's
hands. Also see that he doesn't extend his arm or hand outside the
car.... Never force an approaching blind person to give you the right-
of-way, for every time he has to deviate from his course, he loses his
bearings; In other words the blind can't plan or do for themselves. Do
it for them, and think for them, too. And don't express pity for them-
at least, not to their faces. Gentle and courteous all of the way.
Incidentally, the Federationist who sent me this card said: "I find
it demeaning and offensive."
A doctor at the Mayo Clinic wrote: "I am sorry to say she is blind
and cannot be helped. Anything you can do to make her life easier would be
greatly appreciated." From Pennsylvania comes this:
Today I was advised by the Department of Labor Inspections
Division that under the new life safety measures, which will emanate
from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, it will not be
possible to allow a blind person to live on the second floor of a
boarding house having more than three guests unless the building
totally conforms with the federal specifications and standards.
Southern College, located in Orlando, Florida, announces:
"Tuition for all students is basically $417 per quarter. There is an
additional quarterly fee of $125 for visually-impaired students."
In 1972, James Reston, the well-known syndicated columnist, commented
on Senator Eagleton's forced withdrawal from the Democratic vice-
presidential nomination: "This is not primarily Eagleton's fault," Reston
said, "but the system's. That system is very compassionate to human beings
whose age and health interfere with the efficient execution of their work.
It tolerates Supreme Court justices who are in serious ill health or who
are even almost blind."
The key word (as I am sure I don't have to tell you) is even. That
"even" is at the center of our problem as blind people. It takes for
granted (as an obvious commonplace, needing no argument) that the blind are
unable to perform competently as Supreme Court justices; in fact, that it
is ridiculous even to assume that they might; and that any system which
tolerates such manifest irrationality can only be explained on the basis of
compassion.
Compassion, indeed! The compassion is often misplaced. Recently, for
instance, we held a luncheon for employers so that they could get
acquainted with blind job applicants, and the East Moline, Illinois, Metal
Products Company saw no reason to come.
"Because of the type of business we are in," their letter said,
"metal stampings and weldments involving punch presses, shears, brakes, and
welders, we feel that we have nothing to offer the blind inasmuch as we
have nothing in a counting or packaging type of work."
The irony is that one of the people attending the luncheon (totally
blind from childhood) works every day shearing steel and operating presses.
He has done it for 15 years and is considered the best in the plant.
In Michigan in 1970 Tom Munn (a blind man) took a State Civil Service
examination for the position of mechanic. He passed with a score of 96, and
his name was placed on the register. He was not offered employment; others
(with lower scores) were hired. In 1972 the Civil Service Commission
created a separate list for the handicapped. Munn's name was transferred
from the open register to the separate list, and his score was reduced from
96 to 70-which (regardless of performance) was the grade to be given to all
so-called "successful" future blind applicants. Munn requested that his
performance be evaluated. The request was refused. In 1974 (acting on his
own) he secured a work trial evaluation with the Motor Transport Division
of the Department of Management and Budget. He did the job without
difficulty. The results were ignored. In 1975 (his patience finally
exhausted) he contemplated a lawsuit. Officials of the State agency for the
blind (the very people charged by law with the duty to help him) allegedly
tried to coerce him into silence. Tom Munn and the National Federation of
the Blind have now brought action in the federal courts against both the
State agency and the Civil Service Commission. Yet, they call it compassion
and say we are incompetent. They tell us that there is no discrimination-
that the blind are not a minority. But we know who we are, and we will
never go back.
Surely all of this is sufficient, but it is only illustrative.
Southern Illinois University plans to make a study of the dating and mating
selection patterns of the blind; the Minnesota Braille and Sight Saving
School plans a course in sex education and wants specialized materials and
techniques; and the National Enquirer puts it all together in a November
11, 1973, article entitled "Finds Blindness Upsets Sexual Functioning."
The sex drives of the blind, [the article says] are upset by
their inability to see light, states a West German researcher. Dr. H.
J. von Schumann, of Dusseldorfs, said he found that irregular
menstrual cycles in blind women and loss of sexual ability in blind
men seem related to their inability to see light. The hormone-
producing system controlled by the pituitary gland appears to need
stimulation by light if sex hormones it produces are to be kept at
adequate levels.
Hardened as I am to ignorance and superstition, I still find it
difficult to know exactly what to do with that one. I confess that I was
reluctant even to bring it to you at all for fear some of the sighted
(lacking first-hand experience) might be tempted to believe it. The demands
of modesty and the wish to be seemly would seem to rule out any attempted
refutation by personal laboratory performance, and the customs and laws of
the day make it inadvisable to stage mass exhibitions to place the matter
in perspective. So I guess the best I can do is this: pick any random
hundred of us, and put them alongside any random hundred of them; and I
believe we will acquit ourselves with credit and pleasure--probably with
volunteers to spare. Ask the sighted with the background to know.
What a dreary picture! We are dogless and lonely; we can't enjoy
smoking; we are Mr. Magoo; we need pets to keep us company; we have
different dental needs; we must be segregated, even in the penitentiary; we
should be pitied, but not to our faces; we cannot live on the second floor
of a boarding house; our college tuition is higher; we cannot shear steel
or operate presses; we cannot compete in the Civil Service but must be
content with a separate list and a score of 70; and, finally, we are even
inadequate for the joys of sex. It would seem that all that is left is to
pack it in; and even that is taken care of in an article on the right to
death by choice appearing in the January 1974, Atlantic: "I do not wish,"
the author says, "to survive any accident or disease resulting in vision
too impaired to see or read. A world without beauty seen is no world for
me. A life without freedom and movement is no life for me. If age and
illness deny me these, I choose death."
So where does all of this leave us? In the first place it leaves us
with the need for perspective; for as the saying goes, we have never had it
so good. Despite the exclusions and the denials, we are better off now than
we have ever been. It is not that conditions are worse today than they were
ten or twenty years ago, but only that we are more aware of them. In the
past we wouldn't have known of their existence, and even if we had, we
wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.
Today we are organized, and actively in the field. The sound in the
land is the march of the blind to freedom. The song is a song of gladness.
Yes, there are discriminations and misconceptions; but there are also joy
and promise. The old is dying, and the new is at hand.
It is true that not all sighted people have goodwill toward us, but
most do. As we begin to move toward first-class citizenship (especially, as
we insist upon our rights), we will inevitably provoke hostility; but we
will also inspire understanding and respect.
If we simply go forth with chips on our shoulders and bitterness in
our hearts, we will lose. We must have greater flexibility and more
positive belief in ourselves than that. There is a time to fight and a time
to refrain from fighting; a time to persuade; a time to take legal action;
a time to make speeches; a time to educate; a time to be humble; a time to
examine ourselves to root out arrogance, self-deception, and phony excuses
for failure; a time to comfort our fellow blind; and a time to stand
unflinchingly and uncompromisingly with the fury of hell against impossible
odds. Above all, we must understand ourselves and have compassion in our
hearts, for the sighted as well as for our fellow blind-and, yes, even for
ourselves. We must have perspective and patience and the long view; and we
must have the ability and the willingness to make sacrifice, and the
courage to refuse to wait.
We must destroy a system which has kept us in bondage, but we must
not have hatred in our souls for that system or that bondage-for the
bitterness will destroy, not our enemies but us. We must recognize that the
system was an indispensable element in making us what we are, and,
therefore, that its chains (properly seen) are part of our emerging freedom-
not to be hated or despised but to be put aside as outdated and no longer
to be borne.
As we look ahead, the world holds more hope than gloom for us-and,
best of all, the future is in our own hands. For the first time in history
we can be our own masters and do with our lives what we will; and the
sighted (as they learn who we are and what we are) can and will work with
us as equals and partners. In other words, we are capable of full
membership in society, and the sighted are capable of accepting us as such
and, for the most part, they want to.
We want no Uncle Toms-no sellouts, no apologists, no rationalizers;
but we also want no militant hell raisers or unbudging radicals. One will
hurt our cause as much as the other will. We must win true equality in
society, but we must not dehumanize ourselves in the process; and we must
not forget the graces and amenities, the compassions and courtesies which
comprise civilization itself and distinguish people from animals and life
from existence.
Let people call us what they will and say what they please about our
motives and our movement. There is only one way for the blind to achieve
first-class citizenship and true equality. It must be done through
collective action and concerted effort; and that means the National
Federation of the Blind. There is no other way, and those who say otherwise
are either uninformed or unwilling to face the facts. We are the strongest
force in the affairs of the blind today, and we are only at the threshold.
We must operate from a base of power-yes; but we must also recognize the
responsibilities of power and the fact that we must build a world that is
worth living in when the war is over-and, for that matter, while we are
fighting it. In short, we must use both love and a club, and we must have
sense enough to know when to do which-long on compassion, short on hatred;
and, above all, not using our philosophy as a cop-out for cowardice or
inaction or rationalization. We know who we are and what we must do and we
will never go back. The public is not against us. Our determination
proclaims it; our gains confirm it; our humanity demands it. My brothers
and my sisters, the future is ours. Come! Join me on the barricades, and we
will make it come true.
----------
Continuing the Recipe Column
by Gary Wunder
In a recent issue I asked readers to tell me whether or not you
thought the recipe column we have run since 1971 was still of value. The
email and telephone calls I have received are overwhelmingly in support of
our keeping the column. Whether the Monitor survey echoes this we will see,
and please do take the survey. The question I most frequently get is why we
would consider doing away with the column.
If readers of the Braille Monitor want the column, we will keep it.
The problem is that we continue to have difficulty getting state affiliates
to submit. I try to contact each affiliate that will be asked at least six
months out to tell them where they are in the flow of states. I then offer
a warning about two months out. If I haven't heard anything by the time we
are starting to edit the articles, I used telephone calls. Sometimes I am
told that pleas for recipes go unanswered. Sometimes I receive no response
at all.
If you want the recipe column to continue, please contribute when
asked by your state president. If you don't see your state represented in
the alphabetical list of recipes, one state per month, ask why not, and
help your state president assemble them. If this is a tradition worth
keeping, let's do it right and with the pride that is represented in
everything we do.
----------
Recipes
Recipes this month were contributed by members of the National Federation
of the Blind of North Carolina.
Ralph Tucker Spaghetti Sauce
by Mary Le O'Daniel
This recipe is a family favorite. Ralph Tucker was a former mayor of
Terre Haute, Indiana. I got the recipe from a daily radio program while
living there in the early 70s.
Ingredients:
< cup olive oil
= cup butter
2 cups onion, chopped
1 cup green pepper, chopped
2 pounds ground beef
5 cloves garlic crushed
< cup parsley
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 or 1 = cups red wine
2 cups tomato puree
4 cups tomato paste (six 6-ounce cans)
3 cups canned tomato juice
2 tablespoons oregano
Method: In large skillet, melt butter and heat oil slightly. Sauti
onion and green pepper until golden. Add hamburger and cook stirring
constantly. Add seasonings and mushrooms and cook ten minutes. Add wine,
cover and let sit for five minutes. In three-quart kettle, combine tomato
ingredients and oregano and bring to boil. Add skillet mixture and cook
over medium heat one hour, stirring occasionally. Enjoy.
----------
Marinade for Roast or Steak
by Mary Le O'Daniel
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons wine
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon catsup
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
Salt to taste
Method: Use meat tenderizer on a three-pound roast. Mix above
ingredients in a glass bowl. Soak roast in sauce for 24 hours. Broil
fifteen minutes on each side, five inches from flame. Slice on diagonal.
----------
Parmesan Chicken Cutlets (Heart Healthy)
by Christy Wheeler
Ingredients:
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
2 tablespoons dried Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 pound)
Method: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In re-sealable plastic bag,
combine cheese, crumbs and all seasonings; shake well. Transfer mixture to
plate; dip each chicken breast in cheese mixture, turning to coat all
sides. Arrange on nonstick baking sheet. Bake until chicken is cooked
through, 20-25 minutes. Enjoy! (Only 178 Cal/5 G Fat/3.3 G Carbs/28.1 G
Protein)
----------
Pasta Corn Casserole
by Christy Wheeler
Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked pasta (small shells, rotini, broken spaghetti or any pasta)
2 cans cream style corn
2 cans whole kernel corn (drained)
2 cups grated cheddar cheese (or cheese of your choice)
1 stick melted butter
1 chopped onion
Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients in a 9 x 13
inch casserole dish. Cook uncovered for approximately 50 minutes.
----------
English Pea Salad
by Alvin Ricks
Ingredients:
1 can English peas
1/2 cup grated cheese
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup sweet pickle cubes or pickle relish
3 boiled eggs, chopped
Mayonnaise
Method: Combine all ingredients in a medium-size bowl using just
enough mayonnaise to moisten the mixture. (Adjust to your taste)
Refrigerate until ready to serve.
----------
Pickled Peaches
by Alvin Ricks
Ingredients:
Fresh peaches (peeled and halved)
1-1/4 cups rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 - 1/2 inch ginger root
Method: Heat all ingredients (except peaches) in a medium-sized pot,
until small bubbles appear. Remove from heat and let cool. Place peaches in
a quart jar. Pour cool syrup over peaches. Refrigerate for two weeks before
eating. Generally lasts up to one month in the refrigerator.
----------
Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
The National Federation of the Blind DeafBlind Division Mentoring/Mentee
Program:
Are you a person who is both blind and has a hearing loss, has
attended many national conventions, and would like to mentor other persons
who are deafblind? Are you a deafblind person who would like to teach
others about hearing loss and how they live their life successfully? Are
you a deafblind person who will be attending the convention for the first
time but has never experienced such a gathering? Are you a deafblind person
who would like to learn from other deafblind persons on how they get food
in a large hotel without assistance, find their room, check in to the
hotel, browse the tables in the exhibit hall, and/or navigate the hotel
lobby?
Well then you have come to the right place. The NFB DeafBlind Division
is coordinating a mentoring and mentee program designed for those who are
deafblind who will be attending this year's 2020 National Convention in
Houston, Texas. Deafblind individuals who have been to a national
convention in the past will be paired up with persons who are first-time
convention attendees and who are new to hearing loss. If you are willing or
in need of this program, as a mentor or mentee, please email:
marsha.drenth at gmail.com.
----------
NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
-----------------------
[1] US Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics,
"Children and Youth with Disabilities," last updated May 2019,
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp
[2] Brand, B., Valent, A., Danielson, L., College & Career Readiness &
Success Center American Institutes for Research, "Improving College and
Career Readiness for Students with Disabilities," 2013.
[3] "Report of the Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional
Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities."
(2011)
[4] United States Census Bureau American Community Survey, "The percentage
of non-institutionalized persons aged 21-64 years with a visual disability
in the United States who were employed full-time/full-year in 2017,"
http://www.disabilitystatistics.org/reports/acs.cfm?statistic=4
[5] United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, "69.5
percent of people who worked in 2017 worked full time, year round,"
December 20, 2018, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/69-point-5-percent-of-
people-who-worked-in-2017-worked-full-time-year-round.htm
[6] Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and Department of Education
Office of Civil Rights Letter to College and University Presidents, June
29, 2010.
[7] "Report of the Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional
Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities."
(2011) 42, No. 1. Higher ED Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and
Settlements
[8] LaGrow, Martin. "From Accommodation to Accessibility: Creating a
Culture of Inclusivity." March 13, 2017.
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/3/from-accommodation-to-accessibility-
creating-a-culture-of-
inclusivity?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=ER.
[9] Information Technology Systems and Services, University of Minnesota
Duluth, "Higher Ed Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and Settlements,"
https://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/atteam/lawsuits.html.
[10] Government Accountability Office. "Education Needs a Coordinated
Approach to Improve Its Assistance to Schools in Supporting Students."
Report to the Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, House of
Representatives. 10-33 (2009).
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