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<P>Dear All,</P>
<P>> Pasted below is an article that appeared in the March 10 issue of the
</P>
<P>> St. Petersburg (Florida) Times concerning a fund raising event for the
</P>
<P>> Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Letter to the Editor I wrote.</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> fraternally yours,</P>
<P>> Marion Gwizdala, President</P>
<P>> National Association of Guide Dog Users</P>
<P>> National Federation of the Blind</P>
<P>> 813-598-7161</P>
<P>> President@NFB-NAGDU.ORG</P>
<P>> HTTP://NFB-NAGDU.ORG</P>
<P>></P>
<P>></P>
<P>></P>
<P>> Awareness Was the Main Course</P>
<P>> by Laura Reiley</P>
<P>> Published in the St. Petersburg Times</P>
<P>> March 10, 2010</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> ST. PETERSBURG</P>
<P>> You knew your plate had been set before you only by sense of smell.
It</P>
<P>> smelled like beef, something braised and hearty. On your right a voice
</P>
<P>> asked</P>
<P>> what you do for a living. You turned and lobbed an answer in that </P>
<P>> direction.</P>
<P>> Tuesday night was the Foundation Fighting Blindness's first Tampa Bay
</P>
<P>> Dining</P>
<P>> in the Dark event at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club. More
than </P>
<P>> 200</P>
<P>> people, dressed fancy and sipping cocktails, took seats in the main </P>
<P>> ballroom</P>
<P>> and eventually donned something called a Mindfold face mask, impervious
</P>
<P>> to</P>
<P>> light and lined with foam. The lights dimmed and as emcee Dick Crippen
of</P>
<P>> the Tampa Bay Rays goaded the crowd, the group endeavored to enjoy
"the</P>
<P>> first meal you will never see."</P>
<P>> Other senses were heightened, texture became paramount. But more </P>
<P>> important,</P>
<P>> it gave all of the assembled a greater window into the world of the</P>
<P>> sightless. Many had come because their lives had already been touched
by</P>
<P>> degenerative retinal diseases. Briana Pompilus, 24, was there as a </P>
<P>> volunteer</P>
<P>> with her mother Veronica Floyd, 44, who was diagnosed with retinitis</P>
<P>> pigmentosa at age 22. Still driving now, eventually her vision will
close </P>
<P>> up</P>
<P>> as if looking through two drinking straws.</P>
<P>> Mary Lou Johnson Evans was there for a similar reason. Her 14-year-old
</P>
<P>> son,</P>
<P>> Josh, suffers from the same disease.</P>
<P>> One of the evening's speakers, April Lufriu, a former Mrs. Florida </P>
<P>> America</P>
<P>> pageant winner and president of the Tampa Bay area chapter of the</P>
<P>> foundation, spoke of her sister's retinal disease and, more haltingly,
</P>
<P>> about</P>
<P>> her two children's recent diagnosis.</P>
<P>> Degenerative retinal diseases affect more than 10 million Americans.
As</P>
<P>> keynote speaker James Minow described it, the foundation's aim is to put
</P>
<P>> an</P>
<P>> end to retinal disease by replacing defective cells in the retina, </P>
<P>> replacing</P>
<P>> defective genes and by developing new treatments to protect
degenerating</P>
<P>> retinas. The obstacle? As is so often the case, it's money.</P>
<P>> According to Kim Marlow, regional director of development for the</P>
<P>> foundation, the evening in St. Petersburg will raise $100,000 for the
</P>
<P>> cause.</P>
<P>> The most successful Dining in the Dark event to date, in New York,
raised</P>
<P>> $500,000 in a single evening.</P>
<P>> The evening's honorees, doctors James Gill and Stephen Klasko, were</P>
<P>> feverishly optimistic about conceivable cures for blindness. For
those</P>
<P>> assembled, a half hour in the dark was a humbling, and bumbling,
reminder </P>
<P>> of</P>
<P>> the magnitude of the gift of sight.</P>
<P>> Laura Reiley can be reached at</P>
<P>> lreiley@sptimes.com</P>
<P>> or (727) 892-2293.</P>
<P>> March 11, 2010</P>
<P>> Dear Editor,</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> I am writing to comment on the article "Awareness Was the </P>
<P>> Main Course" by Laura Reiley that appeared in the March 10 Metro section
</P>
<P>> of the St.</P>
<P>> Petersburg times. As a blind person, I often meet people who are amazed
</P>
<P>> by the fact that I can perform even the simplest of tasks. Generally
this </P>
<P>> attitude</P>
<P>> is based on their own experience attempting to perform the same task
</P>
<P>> without eyesight and failing at it miserably. It is for this reason that
</P>
<P>> most blind</P>
<P>> people are opposed to using the type of simulation exercises featured in
</P>
<P>> this article. Blindfolding a sighted person and asking them to perform
</P>
<P>> even a</P>
<P>> simple task does not, as the article purports, give a person any </P>
<P>> awareness of what the life of a blind person is like. In fact, such </P>
<P>> exercises only serve</P>
<P>> to reinforce the misconceptions and promulgate the myths about blindness
</P>
<P>> that create the social, legal, and economic barriers that prevent us
from </P>
<P>> achieving</P>
<P>> true equality with our sighted peers. Those of us who are blind have
</P>
<P>> developed an array of non-visual techniques to perform activities of
daily </P>
<P>> living,</P>
<P>> such as eating, just as effectively as sighted people do using eyesight.
</P>
<P>> Blindfolding a sighted person and asking them to perform a task is like
</P>
<P>> putting</P>
<P>> someone in the cockpit of a jetliner and telling them to fly! Lacking
the </P>
<P>> proper skills, the results of both would be disastrous!</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> The real problem of blindness is not the lack of eyesight; </P>
<P>> rather it is the manner in which we are treated as the result of the
</P>
<P>> misconceptions</P>
<P>> people have about blindness. If one really wants to find out what life
is </P>
<P>> like for a blind person, there is no need to don a blindfold! All one
</P>
<P>> needs to</P>
<P>> do is carry a white cane, the international symbol of blindness, and go
</P>
<P>> about their everyday life. Then they would feel the crushing insults of
</P>
<P>> public</P>
<P>> misperception that blind people, except for those few who are believed
to </P>
<P>> be amazing and extraordinary, are innately ignorant and helpless. They
</P>
<P>> would</P>
<P>> experience the waitress who asks a five year old what the blind adult
</P>
<P>> wants to drink. They would encounter the librarian who admonishes them
for </P>
<P>> going</P>
<P>> out alone, thus exposing them to the hazards of opening a door. They
</P>
<P>> would be confronted by the Employer who inquires about who will bring
them </P>
<P>> to work.</P>
<P>> They would learn that even well educated doctors are so ignorant as to
</P>
<P>> ask them who bathes them! Though you might want to minimize these </P>
<P>> incidents away,</P>
<P>> they are examples of the type of ignorance I - and other blind people -
</P>
<P>> encounter on a regular, almost daily, basis!</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> I am not asserting that eyesight is not beneficial nor that </P>
<P>> the work of the Foundation Fighting Blindness is not valuable. What </P>
<P>> concerns me</P>
<P>> is that organizations that assert they want to "serve the blind" do us
</P>
<P>> such a disservice by reinforcing the public misconceptions and fears
that </P>
<P>> create</P>
<P>> the problems we face. I am all for raising money to cure retinal </P>
<P>> degenerative diseases, especially since the condition that has caused my
</P>
<P>> blindness, that</P>
<P>> of my 14-year-old nephew , and several other members of my family is
</P>
<P>> retinitis Pigmentosa. I am, however, opposed to creating the type of
fear </P>
<P>> and pity</P>
<P>> that results from blindfolding people for the purpose of raising money!
</P>
<P>> Such a practice is as offensive to me as a black-faced minstrel would be
</P>
<P>> to an</P>
<P>> African American! These misconceptions are the reason fewer than 10% of
</P>
<P>> blind children are learning to read and write Braille, producing </P>
<P>> functionally illiterate</P>
<P>> blind adults. These fears and misconceptions are the reason that the
</P>
<P>> unemployment rate among the blind is more than 70%!</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> The veracity of my concerns are supported by the numerous </P>
<P>> inaccurate statements made by the author who has bought into the false
</P>
<P>> perceptions</P>
<P>> of the blind. Does she really believe that "other senses are heightened"
</P>
<P>> by taking away one's sight or "; texture became paramount" as the result
</P>
<P>> of simulated</P>
<P>> blindness? Does she really believe that blindfolding participants "gave
</P>
<P>> all assembled a greater window into the world of the sightless"? Does
she </P>
<P>> really</P>
<P>> believe that blind people go through life "bumbling" their ways around
or </P>
<P>> did she just irresponsibly promulgate the pitiful stereotype in an
effort </P>
<P>> to</P>
<P>> sell your newspapers like the Foundation Fighting Blindness did to sell
</P>
<P>> themselves and selfishly generate revenue with no concern about the </P>
<P>> social consequences</P>
<P>> of their actions?</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> The belief that blind people are endowed with heightened </P>
<P>> senses and special powers is a myth. Blind people simply learn to use
</P>
<P>> their other senses</P>
<P>> and alternative techniques to perform the tasks sighted people do with
</P>
<P>> eyesight. Like any skill, these techniques are generally not acquired in
a </P>
<P>> half-hour</P>
<P>> nor mysteriously and supernaturally endowed. However, these skills
enable </P>
<P>> blind people to function independently, efficiently, and effectively. In
</P>
<P>> fact,</P>
<P>> the average blind person can perform the same tasks as their sighted
</P>
<P>> peers as well, if not better, by employing these alternative techniques.
</P>
<P>> Our blindness</P>
<P>> is not the problem. The real problem of blindness is the
misunderstanding </P>
<P>> and lack of information that exists. If a blind person is given proper
</P>
<P>> training</P>
<P>> and opportunity, blindness is only a physical nuisance.</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> In the future, when your paper is doing a story about </P>
<P>> blindness, it would be helpful to get accurate information and the </P>
<P>> perspective of a blind</P>
<P>> person who is qualified to speak to these issues by being chosen by the
</P>
<P>> blind to speak on their behalf. The National Federation of the Blind is
</P>
<P>> the oldest</P>
<P>> and largest organization of the blind in the United States. We are not
an </P>
<P>> organization that speaks on behalf of the blind; we are the blind
speaking </P>
<P>> for</P>
<P>> ourselves. For accurate information about blindness or the blind, please
</P>
<P>> feel free to get in touch with me or visit one of our websites at</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> HTTP://WWW.NFB.ORG</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> Or</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> HTTP://WWW.NFB-NAGDU.ORG</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> Respectfully yours,</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> Marion Gwizdala, President</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> National Association of Guide Dog Users</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> National Federation of the Blind</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> 813-598-7161</P>
<P>></P>
<P>> President@NFB-NAGDU.ORG</P>
<P>></P>
<P>></P>
<P>></P>
<P>></P>
<P>>
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<P>></P>
<P>></P>
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<P>></P>
<P>>
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<P>> 03:42:00</P>
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