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

[J.J. Meddaugh]

I find we as an organization get hung up too often with word choice and 
portrayals. Our language is full of idioms, and I would wager that if we 
took a look at our own writing, we probably use quite a few that may 
have questionable origins.

It's not a battle I would waste my time on, though I can see where some 
may be offended.



On 1/2/2023 5:42 PM, Kane Brolin via NFBMI-Talk wrote:
> 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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