[NFB-Talk] Civil rights advocate, Judy Heumann, dies at 75

[John Heim]

The culture in the NFB was, and still is,  to ask blind people to adapt 
to the world instead of asking for the world to adapt to us. You can see 
this in the recent debate over asking Disney to stop doing fireworks.

Another good example from the distant past. The NFB was part of a 
coalition that asked Microsoft to not include a free screen reader in 
Windows. The rationale was that they might do a lousy job while still 
putting Freedom Scientific out of business. But what we should have done 
was to demand that every operating system have a free, built in screen 
reader. We should have fought to make that a law and if Microsoft or 
Apple did a crummy job, kick their ass.

The NFB filed amicus briefs against accessible money and described 
video. The President of the NFB at the time, Marc Maurer, went to 
Washington and testified against accessible money. Imagine what the NFB 
could have accomplished if all that energy had been devoted to fighting 
for something instead of against something. Think about the amount of 
additional energy that could have been generated had the NFB been 
fighting *for* things that would have made the lives of blind people better.

I know what some people on this list are thinking, what they are going 
to say. We can never know for sure what would have happened had the NFB 
taken the other side on these issues. But that's why I brought up the 
life story of Judy Heumann. She wouldn't have have said that we're 
asking for too much. She wouldn't have been afraid of what would happen 
if we failed.


On 3/7/23 12:41, Karen Rose via nFB-Talk wrote:
> Hi John. Just wondering why we would have a posed accessible pedestrian signals??
>
> Karen Rose MFT/LPCC www.career-therapy.net
>
>> On Mar 7, 2023, at 9:29 AM, John Heim via nFB-Talk <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> We need to change the culture in the NFB. Years ago, the Access Board was going to propose a regulation requiring cities to install accessible pedestrian signals whenever an intersection was built or rebuilt. The Access Board can't just impose regulations like that. It would have had to go through channels. But had it been approved, by now there would be millions of these things around the country. And probably dozens of lives would have been saved. But the NFB organized protests to stop it and the Access Board dropped the idea.
>>
>> We need to change the culture so that kind of thing can never happen again. We should have been out there organizing sit-ins to make it happen, not fighting it.
>>
>>
>>> On 3/7/23 10:26, broanna49--- via nFB-Talk wrote:
>>> John thank you so much for sharing this information on the list. Judy Heuman was a staunch activist for those with disabilities. I am also of the firm belief that we need to fight for our rights. The National Federation Of The Blind should join advocates in fighting for our rights.
>>>
>>>> On Mar 7, 2023 11:01 AM, John Heim via nFB-Talk <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>> I think Judy Heumann's life story is a lesson for members of this list.
>>>> Please watch/listen to this:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/because-she-made-a-fuss-judy-heumann-made-everyone-s-life-better-164606021818
>>>>
>>>> Rachel Madow makes a point there that I have tried to make many times on
>>>> this list. By advocating for our rights, we make everyone's life better.
>>>> When we choose not to push for reform, we are damaging society as a whole.
>>>>
>>>> Judy Heumann was once part of a cit-in at a federal building that lasted
>>>> 28 days. As messy and inconvenient as that was, it was a huge boon for
>>>> our society as a whole. Judy Heumann is a hero.
>>>>
>>>> We need to change the culture within the NFB. We shouldn't have fought
>>>> accessible money and accessible pedestrian signals. Yes, I know those
>>>> issues came up a long time ago. But the culture within the NFB is the
>>>> same as it was back when we made those mistakes. We need to start
>>>> believing that when we fight for our rights, we're helping our society.
>>>> We're correcting a mistake. That helps us all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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