[Nfbc-info] Changing What it Means to Be Blind

[Serena Olsen]

[This is a response to an email thread on the Chapter Presidents
Listserve that I wanted to also share with my own chapter and
affiliate.]

Hi Listers,

I have been enjoying the conversations arising from Mary Kendricks'
request for feedback for her research, and am extra motivated to get
my two cents in after reading Michael Barber's recommendation to
listen to Dr. Jernigan's "Dishwashing Tapes" seminar (I found the link
at http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Audio-Video_Center.asp), which I'm sure I've
heard before, but revisiting items like these is always great.

Changing what it means to be blind, for me, is blurring the lines
between and changing people's misperceptions about the discrimination
between "total" and "low-vision".  I have quite a bit of useable
vision and my condition, Stargardts, deteriorated slowly over time.
Consequently, I was never seriously thought of as **blind** and passed
for sighted all of my young adult life.  I struggled through too many
years of college using no adaptive techniques save an old camera lens
used as a magnifying glass.  It wasn't until my early-to-mid twenties
that I miraculously became connected with the Braille Institute and
began to learn about magnification devices, campus DSP services, and
the Department of Rehabilitation.  All this was an improvement, of
course, and the glass ceiling I had come to feel pressed against but
had no idea there was anything I could do about it, loosened a little.
 However, by the time I finished graduate school at nearly 30, I had
chronic headaches, backaches, neck pain and all the other discomfort
and indignity that comes with perpetual stooping and squinting.  And I
was learning to acknowledge the difficult fact that, in all my years
of college, I could never really keep up with the readings.  I didn't
even know how to touch type until my last semester of graduate school.
 So maybe I was doing more than all my sighted friends and family put
together--higher education, international travel, etc., but I knew I
had to work at least twice as hard and still not really keep up with
my peers.  How could I possibly leave the comfortable bubble of
academia and truly have a successful career?  All of the same
insecureties I experienced before acquiring low-vision techniques were
creeping back.

In 2004, in my late twenties, I finally encountered the Federation,
spent quality time with competent blind individuals who were doing
even more ambitious things than I, and realized I had a lot more to
learn.  I attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind in 2007, learned
to use and love JAWS & braille, surprised myself in the woodshop,
conquered my greatest nemesis, cane travel, and learned to consciously
and unconsciously use the rich diversity of non-visual information
that is in the environment all around us.

Do I use my residual vision?  Sure.  I just have a better quiver of
tools to draw from and many more options to problem solve all those
day-to-day and even bigger life issues that we all face as blind
people.  I have a better understanding of exactly how much I **can't**
see and I find that, more often than not, non-visual techniques are
more efficient, and   best of all, they allow me to stand and sit
straight--great for your posture & body, even better for your
confidence and sense of well-being.  The NFB has brought dignity and
grace into my life and made me a more effective, efficient, and
competent person.  Especially in the current economic climate, we must
be able to compete effectively with our sighted peers more than ever
and ensure that employers see past our blindness and primarily as
qualified to do the job, regardless of how we choose to do it.

In all that I do to give back to the NFB and the organized blind
movement, the mission I hold nearest and dearest to my heart is
convincing both blind and sighted alike that non-visual technique,
training, and technology is as vitally important to someone with
residual vision as it is to someone who is totally blind.  The notion
that "(I/he/she/you) can still see and don't need (braille, a cane,
JAWS, etc.)" is a frame of mind that will only cement in that glass
ceiling.  It is a mentality that I have not only encountered with
low-vision folks and the general public, but was implicit in the
services I received from the Department of Rehabilitation, and I feel
it unnecessarily hindered my progress towards full employment.  Of
course, on this listserve, I am mostly preaching to the choir, but
this is a theme that I find myself coming back to over and over and
over again and if the statistic that only about 10% of blind people
are totally blind, then we have a lot of work to do.  How can we
really empower blind people if they don't first identify as blind and
see & experience for themselves how empowering it is to be able to do
things effectively without taxing their residual vision?  Dr. Jernigan
comes to this in "Dishwashing Tapes," and my mission is to, first and
foremost, lead by example, and secondarily, to take advantage of as
many teachable moments as I can in my daily life to demonstrate that
yes, I "can still see some," but choose to use the same skills as a
totally blind person, because it is more effective.

As of 2010, I work for a living, pay taxes, made my first stock, 401k,
and IRA investments, am paying down debts, and have the relative
luxury of a chronic Starbucks habit, getting semi-regular manicures,
and going out to eat or otherwise indulging without that heavy stone
in the pit of my stomach that my debit card will be declined because
my Social Security funds didn't last past the first two weeks of the
month.  I am still focused on career development--I still have goals
to achieve, but I can honestly say that I have never felt happier or
more on track to achieving those goals than I do now.  In the identity
struggle over "I'm not blind, I'm not sighted" that so many low-vision
people stagnate in, I have learned that it is tremendously more
valuable to identify as blind first, and use my residual vision where
it's useful and be aware of its limitations.

So much for my two cents--we'll chalk it up to inflation--thanks to
all of you who read this far.  I hope it gives some food for thought
and helps Mary out with her paper.  Feel free to quote or contact me
for more info as needed.

Cheers!

-- 
Serena Olsen, MAIPS, NCLB
Staff Assistant, Japan Society of Northern California (www.usajapan.org)
Braille Instructor, Lions Center for the Blind (www.lbcenter.org)
President, NFBC East Bay (nfbc-east-bay at googlegroups.com)

"We are all born to be the hero of our own story." --Deepak Chopra