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

Tue Jan 3 17:08:33 UTC 2023

I completely agree with Kane. 

Fred you did an excellent job spotting this headline. Go Forth Man, Tell the Free Press that blindness is not synonymous with disaster! Indeed the blind have led the blind to new heights of excellence in the 21st century!  

Good Luck!

With warm regards,
Christine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: NFBMI-Talk <nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Kane Brolin
> via NFBMI-Talk
> Sent: Monday, January 2, 2023 4:42 PM
> To: NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Kane Brolin <kbrolin65 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [NFBMI-Talk] Fwd: Article from Detroit Free Press Sports Section
> 2023 01 01
> 
> 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)
> 
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