[NFBMI-Talk] Fwd: Article from Detroit Free Press Sports Section 2023 01 01

[Kane Brolin]

Hello and Happy New Year to all.

Fred, this is a truly inciteful reading you have done of "The Detroit
Free Press" sports headline: being critical of the ableist language
they employed when inferring that the Detroit Lions used to resemble
"the blind leading the blind," before their good fortune of trading
for starting quarterback Jared Goff and perhaps qualifying for this
year's NFL playoffs.

Fred, I do not customarily get hung up on political correctness; but
this is a monumentally poor choice of words, and I agree that you
should contact The Detroit Free Press about this.  What might be best
here is submitting an op-ed, an open letter as it were, so that the
viewpoint of the organized blind movement could be published in a way
that the public readership of the Free Press could see and comment,
thus bringing this ableist language out in the open.  Thank you for
bringing this to our attention.

One reason I think you should do this is that this same phrase "the
blind leading the blind" was printed by another Detroit Free Press
journalist as recently as December 17, 2022, in yet another article:
"Gannett Journalists Reeling From New Cutbacks."
https://michiganadvance.com/2022/12/17/everyones-just-a-dollar-sign-to-them-gannett-journalists-reel-from-new-cutbacks/
"It’s the blind leading the blind. It’s madness. Earlier this year
they were talking about how great everything was. Two quarters later
it’s like, ‘We’re in the toilet.’ It’s like operating with a madman.
We don’t know what they’re doing; they don’t know what they’re doing."
 This commentary deals with the slashing of newspaper jobs and the
fight over resources by Gannett Corporation, owners of The Detroit
Free Press. Here, just as in that article you mentioned about recent
improvements in outcome for the Detroit Lions, no one mentioned in
this article to my knowledge lives with the physical characteristic of
blindness.  But "the blind leading the blind" is used here as a
metaphor for short-sightedness, ignorance, and dysfunction.

I do think this usage matters to us as blind people.  Words do matter,
and this matters probably a lot more than Mr. Magoo.  I remember that
a few years ago, the NFB protested Mr. Magoo, a comic cartoon
character Hollywood has trotted out every now and then for several
decades.  Mr. Magoo's schtik is that he becomes a bumbling idiot at
times when he forgets to put on his glasses, therefore becoming
functionally blind.  If we make a big deal about the cultural
inferences about the blind Mr. Magoo perpetuates, we should make a big
deal about this casual usage of phrases disparaging the blind, too.

For anyone interested in digging deeper, listen to two particular
episodes of Mosen At Large, the podcast produced and hosted weekly by
Jonathan Mosen.  For anyone not familiar with him, Jonathan definitely
is someone worth listening to; and even though he is a New Zealander,
he has partnered for years in some of the policies and programs of the
Federation.  He was a major mover behind the "We're With U" concert
for Ukraine back in April, and he has attended a lot of NFB National
Conventions over the years.  For a lively discussion of ableist
language that hurts the blind, and for some great observations on
whether or not we should claim creditve for a worldwide "blind
culture" and should be proud of it, pay particular attention to Mosen
At Large Episode 110.
https://mosen.org/episode-110-new-siri-voices-ableist-use-of-the-word-blind-in-the-media-cochlea-implants-ios-hints-and-more/
Jonathan covers this theme later on a number of other episodes,
especially #119 and #143.

We don't tend to talk about "blind pride" or the particulars of "blind
culture" in the Federation, because we seem to have taken the
corporate position that blindness is just as "normal" as any other
characteristic; and, given that our members inherently make up a broad
cross-section of American society, that we are therefore diverse
enough that we don't really share a common set of cultural
characteristics that we should be proud of in the same way that
members of various LGBTQ+ groups celebrate pride.  But the implied
Federation view on this subject is not the only view that blind people
of high self-esteem take around the world.

In the NFB we tend to affirm the word "blind" as we encourage our
members to embrace our blindness as a characteristic that is in
essence just as normal and as innocuous as any other characteristic.
But I don't hear us going to the next level, as it were, and
disparaging misuses of the word blind employed by ableist speakers and
writers.   But as we try to transform our society's expectations, it
is my personal opinion that we should point these things out.
Anything seemingly so small still has the power of perpetuating the
false belief in "ordinary" readers and listeners that if you are
blind, for whatever reason, you probably also are ignorant and
short-sighted--whether or not you can help it or not.
 Let's name it and claim it, contrasting this throw-away language used
so commonly in our world against the reality of who we are as blind
people--yes, defined by a visible characteristic, but proud of who we
are, what we have accomplished, and what greater things we will
accomplish in this country with the skills, tools, and training that
most in society at large don't know is available.

Fred, I am super glad you pointed this out and that you're continuing
to do what you can to fight for the spirit of our movement.

Cordially,

Kane Brolin
President, Indiana State Affiliate
National Federation of the Blind
(574)386-8868 (mobile)