[nfbmi-talk] Here is something from Federation Literature thatyoumay wish to read.

[Larry D. Keeler]

Yah, I got the jist of the last messsage.  I feel that Terri just wants us 
to look at some of the old speeches so that we don't fortget what we stand 
for.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jacalyn Paulding" <jacalynpaulding at gmail.com>
To: "NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List" <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List" <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbmi-talk] Here is something from Federation Literature 
thatyoumay wish to read.


> Let me clarify I was speaking of the email that contained DR Jerrnigans 
> criticism of therehabilitation teaching manual that Terri sent out some 
> time ago. , not this most recent one.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Mar 5, 2013, at 12:54 PM, Jacalyn Paulding <jacalynpaulding at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I understand what Elizabeth was saying , the original email was 
>> confusing. It sounded as though the speech was the writing of the author 
>> of the email. It is important to give credit where credit is due.
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Mar 5, 2013, at 12:12 PM, Jordyn Castor <jordyn2493 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It just so happens that there is this little well-known tool called 
>>> Google.
>>> If you type in "NFB To Man the Barricades" the very first link that 
>>> comes up is:
>>> https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/convent/banque71.htm
>>> Under the first heading is who it's by, where the address was delivered, 
>>> and the date if you need that information as well. Very easy to find...
>>> So there you have it, the link to the properly cited article and all. I 
>>> hope you enjoy it.
>>> Jordyn
>>> On 3/5/2013 2:25 PM, Elizabeth Mohnke wrote:
>>>> Hello Terri,
>>>>
>>>> If you are going to post works that are not your own, please give 
>>>> credit to the person who wrote it.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Elizabeth
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>> From: "trising" <trising at sbcglobal.net>
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 1:08 AM
>>>> To: "nfbmi List" <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Subject: [nfbmi-talk] Here is something from Federation Literature that 
>>>> youmay wish to read.
>>>>
>>>>> Here is something from Federation Literature that you may wish to 
>>>>> read.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> To Man the Barricades
>>>>> Some of you may remember the story Will Rogers liked to tell about his 
>>>>> early career as a comedian in vaudeville. "I used to play a song 
>>>>> called 'Casey Jones' on the harmonica with one hand," he said, "and 
>>>>> spin a rope with the other, and then whine into the old empty rain 
>>>>> barrel ... and then in between the verses I used to tell jokes about 
>>>>> the Senate of the United States. If I needed any new jokes that night, 
>>>>> I used to just get the late afternoon papers and read what Congress 
>>>>> had done that day, and the audience would die laughing."
>>>>>
>>>>> This story reminds me of my own activities over the past twenty years. 
>>>>> I have gone all over the country as the guest of blind groups and 
>>>>> civic associations; and, like Will Rogers, I tell stories about the 
>>>>> Government of the United States-particularly the Department of Health, 
>>>>> Education, and Welfare, and the other "professionals" doing work with 
>>>>> the blind. And when I need any new jokes, I just get the latest 
>>>>> reports from the agencies and foundations and read what they have been 
>>>>> doing recently-and the audience dies laughing. Unless, of course, 
>>>>> there are people in the audience who are blind, or friends of the 
>>>>> blind-and they die crying.
>>>>>
>>>>> Which is a roundabout way of saying that much of what goes on in the 
>>>>> journals and laboratories and workshops of the agencies for the blind 
>>>>> these days is a cruel joke. It is a mockery of social science and a 
>>>>> travesty on social service. Far from advancing the welfare and 
>>>>> well-being of blind people, it sets our cause back and does us harm.
>>>>>
>>>>> The blind, along with some other groups in our society, have become 
>>>>> the victims of a malady known as "R and D"-that is, Research and 
>>>>> Demonstration. The R and D projects are largely financed by the 
>>>>> Federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and account for 
>>>>> an ever-increasing chunk of its budget. The whole tone and direction 
>>>>> of programs for the blind in the country-rehabilitation, education, 
>>>>> social services, and the rest-have been altered as a result. The art 
>>>>> of writing grant applications, the tens of millions of dollars 
>>>>> available to fund the approved R and D projects, the resulting 
>>>>> build-up of staff in universities and agencies for the blind, the need 
>>>>> to produce some sort of seemingly scientific results in the form of 
>>>>> books and pamphlets to justify the staff salaries and the field trips 
>>>>> and conferences, and the wish for so-called "professional" status have 
>>>>> all had their effect. Blind people have become the objects of research 
>>>>> and the subjects of demonstration. They are quizzed, queried, and 
>>>>> quantified; they are diagnosed, defined, and dissected; and when the R 
>>>>> and D people get through with them, there is nothing left at all-at 
>>>>> any rate, nothing of dignity or rationality or responsibility. Despite 
>>>>> all of their talk about improving the quality of services to blind 
>>>>> people (and there is a lot of such talk these days), the research and 
>>>>> demonstration people see the blind as inferiors. They see us as 
>>>>> infantile, dependent wards. The signs of this creeping 
>>>>> condescension-of this misapplied science, this false notion of what 
>>>>> blind people are, and of what blindness means-are all about us. Some 
>>>>> things are big, and some are little; but the pattern is conclusive and 
>>>>> the trend unmistakable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Consider, for instance, what has happened to the talking book. From 
>>>>> the very beginning of the library service back in the 1930's, the 
>>>>> first side of each talking-book record has concluded with these words: 
>>>>> "This book is continued on the other side of this record." The flip 
>>>>> side has always ended with: "This book is continued on the next 
>>>>> record." Surely no one can have any serious quarrel with this 
>>>>> language. It serves a purpose. The reader, absorbed in the narrative, 
>>>>> may well not remember whether he is on the first or second side of a 
>>>>> record, and the reminder is useful and saves time.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the last three or four years, however, something new has been 
>>>>> added. After the familiar "This book is continued on the next record," 
>>>>> the statement now appears: "Please replace this record in its envelope 
>>>>> and container." That one, I must confess, crept up on me gradually. 
>>>>> Although from the very beginning I found the statement annoying, it 
>>>>> took some time for its full significance to hit me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here I was, let us say, reading a learned treatise on French history-a 
>>>>> book on Gallic statesmanship-one which presupposes a certain amount of 
>>>>> understanding and mental competence. The narrative is interrupted by a 
>>>>> voice saying "Please replace this record in its envelope and 
>>>>> container." Then it strikes me: These are the words one addresses to a 
>>>>> moron or a lazy lout. These words do not appear on records intended 
>>>>> for the use of sighted library borrowers. They are intended for the 
>>>>> blind. To be sure, they are not an overwhelming or unbearable insult. 
>>>>> They are only one more small evidence of the new custodialism, the 
>>>>> additional input of contempt for the blind recipient of services which 
>>>>> is in the air these days.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have heard that the words were added at the request of some of the 
>>>>> regional librarians because certain blind borrowers were careless with 
>>>>> the records. Are sighted people never careless with books or records? 
>>>>> Are such words at the end of the record really likely to make the slob 
>>>>> less slobby? The ordinary, normal human being (blind or sighted) will, 
>>>>> as a matter of course, put the record back into the envelope and 
>>>>> container. What else, one wonders, would he do with it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regardless of all this, one thing is fairly certain: My remarks on the 
>>>>> subject will undoubtedly bring forth angry comments from library 
>>>>> officials and others that I am quibbling and grasping at straws, that 
>>>>> I am reading meanings that aren't there into innocent words. To which 
>>>>> I reply: I am sure that no harm was meant and that the author of the 
>>>>> words did not sit down to reason out their significance, but all of 
>>>>> this is beside the point. We have reasoned out the significance, and 
>>>>> we are no longer willing for our road to hell to be paved with other 
>>>>> people's good intentions, their failure to comprehend, or their 
>>>>> insistence that we not quibble.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here is another illustration-again, a slight and almost trivial 
>>>>> affair. I had occasion recently to visit a public school where there 
>>>>> was a resource class for blind and partially seeing children. The 
>>>>> teacher moved about with me among the students. "This little girl can 
>>>>> read print," she said. "This little girl has to read Braille." Now, 
>>>>> that language is not oppressively bad. Its prejudice is a subtle 
>>>>> thing. But just imagine, if you will, a teacher saying of a pair of 
>>>>> children: "This little girl can read Braille; this little girl has to 
>>>>> read print." The supposition is that the child possessing some sight, 
>>>>> no matter how little, is closer to being a normal and full-fledged 
>>>>> human being; the one without sight can't cut it and has to make do 
>>>>> with inferior substitutes.
>>>>>
>>>>> Confront that teacher with her words, and she will be hurt. She will 
>>>>> say, "But that is not how I meant it. It was simply the way I said 
>>>>> it." It is true that she was not consciously aware of the significance 
>>>>> of her statement and that she did not mean to say what she said; but 
>>>>> she said exactly what she meant, and how she felt. And her students, 
>>>>> as well as visitors to her classroom, will be conditioned accordingly. 
>>>>> I don't wish to make too much of the teacher's terminology, or the 
>>>>> words on the talking-book record. Neither exemplifies any great 
>>>>> cruelty or tragedy. They are, however, straws in the wind; and either 
>>>>> of them could be the final straw-the straw that breaks the blind man's 
>>>>> back, or spirit. Far too many backs and spirits have been broken in 
>>>>> that way, and the breaking must stop.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I have said, some of the recent incidents in our field are small, 
>>>>> and some are big; but they fit together to make a pattern, and the 
>>>>> pattern is conclusive. During the past decade, for instance, the 
>>>>> vocational employment objective of rehabilitation has steadily receded 
>>>>> before the advancing tide of "social services" and "research and 
>>>>> development," and the Division for the Blind in the Federal 
>>>>> Rehabilitation Service has diminished accordingly in prominence and 
>>>>> importance. By 1967 rehabilitation had taken such a back seat that it 
>>>>> became submerged in a comprehensive pot of Mulligan stew set up by the 
>>>>> Department of Health, Education, and Welfare called "Social and 
>>>>> Rehabilitation Service," with the emphasis clearly on the "social." A 
>>>>> new public-information brochure turned out by HEW, listing all the 
>>>>> department's branches and programs, placed rehabilitation-where do you 
>>>>> suppose?-dead last.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as the blind were concerned, the ultimate blow fell late last 
>>>>> year. Federal Register document 70-17447, dated December 28, 1970, 
>>>>> announced the abolition of the Division for the Blind altogether, and 
>>>>> its inclusion in the new Division of Special Populations! And who are 
>>>>> these "special populations"? They include, and I quote, "alcoholics, 
>>>>> drug addicts, arthritics, epileptics, the blind, heart, cancer, and 
>>>>> stroke victims, those suffering communication disorders, et cetera." 
>>>>> (I leave the specifics of the "et cetera: to your imagination.) 
>>>>> Therefore, half a century after the establishment of the Federal 
>>>>> vocational rehabilitation program, and almost as long after the 
>>>>> development of a special division of services for the blind (and still 
>>>>> longer since the creation of separate agencies or commissions for the 
>>>>> blind in most of the States) the blind of America were to lose their 
>>>>> identity and return to the almshouse for the sick and indigent.
>>>>>
>>>>> This was too much, and every major national organization and agency 
>>>>> (both of and for the blind) combined to resist it. By February of 1971 
>>>>> the HEW officials had made a strategic withdrawal. They announced that 
>>>>> they had never intended to downgrade or de-emphasize services to the 
>>>>> blind; but that in order to clear up any possible misunderstanding 
>>>>> they were establishing a new "Office for the Blind," to be on a par 
>>>>> with the "Division of Special Populations," and in no way connected 
>>>>> with it. Thus (for the moment) the tide was reversed and the power of 
>>>>> united action demonstrated; but the tide is still the tide, and the 
>>>>> trend is still the trend.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is not difficult to find the evidence. For example, under date of 
>>>>> February 4, 1971, the Federal Rehabilitation Services Administration 
>>>>> issued an information memorandum entitled "Subminimum Wage 
>>>>> Certificates for Handicapped Workers." The document is 
>>>>> self-explanatory; it is damning; and it is all too indicative of what 
>>>>> is happening to the blind in America today. "A recent revision to the 
>>>>> wage and hour regulations," the memorandum begins, "broadens State 
>>>>> vocational rehabilitation agencies' certification responsibility with 
>>>>> respect to employment of handicapped workers at subminimum wages. The 
>>>>> responsibility was previously limited by regulation to certain 
>>>>> categories of handicapped persons employed by sheltered workshops.
>>>>>
>>>>> "The revision to the wage and hour regulations, effective February 4, 
>>>>> 1971," the memorandum continues, "authorizes State rehabilitation 
>>>>> agencies to certify certain disabled persons for work in competitive 
>>>>> employment at less than fifty percent of the statutory minimum wage 
>>>>> but not less than twenty-five percent."
>>>>>
>>>>> So said HEW in February of this year! No longer must the pay be even 
>>>>> fifty percent of the minimum wage! No longer is it limited to the 
>>>>> sheltered shop! It may now be extended to private industry, to 
>>>>> so-called "competitive" employment! And this, we are told, is 
>>>>> rehabilitation. We are not to quibble. We are not to read meanings 
>>>>> into things which are not there. We are not to find patterns or trends 
>>>>> or hidden significance. No! We are to take our twenty-five percent 
>>>>> "competitive" employment, and be grateful for it. That is what we are 
>>>>> expected to do, but I doubt that we will do it.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have already spoken about R and D-the so-called "research and 
>>>>> demonstration"-financed ever more heavily and lovingly by the 
>>>>> Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I have at hand a typical 
>>>>> product of "R and D"-a comprehensive 239-page publication of the 
>>>>> American Foundation for the Blind, entitled A Step-by-Step Guide to 
>>>>> Personal Management for Blind Persons.1 I invite you now to accompany 
>>>>> me on a step-by-step guided tour through its pages and mazes. But let 
>>>>> me warn you: It may be a bad trip.
>>>>>
>>>>> "One of the areas," we are told at the outset of this guidebook, 
>>>>> "where independence is valued most highly by a broad spectrum of blind 
>>>>> persons ... is personal management." I myself would put that a little 
>>>>> differently. I would say that the blind person should, and commonly 
>>>>> does, take for granted that independence begins at home-that self-care 
>>>>> comes before self-support-but that what he values most highly in life 
>>>>> is not his ability to master the simple rituals of daily living, such 
>>>>> as are detailed in this manual. It is not his ability to wash his 
>>>>> face, take a shower, clean his nails, brush his hair, sit down on a 
>>>>> chair, rise from a chair, stand upright, wash his socks, light a 
>>>>> cigarette, shake hands, nod his head "yes," shake his head "no," and 
>>>>> so on and so on through two hundred-plus pages of instruction. No, 
>>>>> these are not the supreme attainments and values in the life of the 
>>>>> blind person, or of any other civilized person. They are merely the 
>>>>> elementary motor and mechanical skills which represent the foundation 
>>>>> on which more meaningful and significant achievements rest. The skills 
>>>>> of personal management are rudimentary, not remarkable.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, the American Foundation's Guide to Personal Management for 
>>>>> Blind Persons does not put the matter in such modest perspective. 
>>>>> Rather, it is blown up to majestic proportions, as if it were not the 
>>>>> beginning but the end of self-realization and independence. Most of 
>>>>> all, it is presented as a very difficult and complicated subject-this 
>>>>> business of grooming and shaving, bathing and dressing-virtually as 
>>>>> the source of a new science. Much is made of the "need for an 
>>>>> organized body of realistic and practical personal management 
>>>>> techniques." The American Foundation, out of a deep sense of 
>>>>> professional obligation and the excitement of pioneering on new 
>>>>> scientific horizons, agreed as long ago as 1965 (in its own words) "to 
>>>>> undertake the responsibility for developing, ov
>
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