[Nfbmo] Fw: [Chapter-presidents] Letter to the Editor Concerning "Dining in theDark"

fred olver goodfolks at charter.net
Fri Mar 12 16:12:13 UTC 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "fred olver" <goodfolks at charter.net>
To: "NFB Chapter Presidents discussion list" <chapter-presidents at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Chapter-presidents] Letter to the Editor Concerning "Dining in 
theDark"


>I have read with great interest the article and your letter which you sent 
>to the newspaper, however I would take issue with your statement "I am 
>writing to comment on the article "Awareness Was the Main Course" by Laura 
>Reiley that appeared in the March 10 Metro section of the St.
> Petersburg times. As a blind person, I often meet people who are amazed by 
> the fact that I can perform even the simplest of tasks. Generally this 
> attitude
> is based on their own experience attempting to perform the same task 
> without eyesight and failing at it miserably. ." I would contend that as 
> stated in my book "dealing With Vision Loss," published 2007 through 
> Author-House and also available from  my website 
> http://www.dealingwithvisionloss.com that the problem is that most seeing 
> folks when confronted with either a blind-fold experience or with dealing 
> with with a person who is blind can for the most part, only think of how 
> it would be for them or how they would react if they lost their vision or 
> a large portion of it. The problem is not blindness, but their perception 
> of it, from their perspective. Sure, it is easy or easier for most of us 
> to say that blindness is insignificant, but look at what we know, the 
> education we have received, the training, the adaptive aids we have 
> learned to use.
>
> Fred Olver
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: Marion Gwizdala
>  To: NFB Chapter presidents
>  Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 7:55 AM
>  Subject: [Chapter-presidents] Letter to the Editor Concerning "Dining in 
> theDark"
>
>
>  Dear All,
>      Pasted below is an article that appeared in the March 10 issue of the 
> St. Petersburg (Florida) Times concerning a fund raising event for the 
> Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Letter to the Editor I wrote.
>
>  fraternally yours,
>  Marion Gwizdala, President
>  National Association of Guide Dog Users
>  National Federation of the Blind
>  813-598-7161
>  President at NFB-NAGDU.ORG
>  HTTP://NFB-NAGDU.ORG
>
>
>
>  Awareness Was the Main Course
>  by Laura Reiley
>   Published in the St. Petersburg Times
>  March 10, 2010
>
>  ST. PETERSBURG
>  You knew your plate had been set before you only by sense of smell. It
>  smelled like beef, something braised and hearty. On your right a voice 
> asked
>  what you do for a living. You turned and lobbed an answer in that 
> direction.
>  Tuesday night was the Foundation Fighting Blindness's first Tampa Bay 
> Dining
>  in the Dark event at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club. More than 
> 200
>  people, dressed fancy and sipping cocktails, took seats in the main 
> ballroom
>  and eventually donned something called a Mindfold face mask, impervious 
> to
>  light and lined with foam. The lights dimmed and as emcee Dick Crippen of
>  the Tampa Bay Rays goaded the crowd, the group endeavored to enjoy "the
>  first meal you will never see."
>  Other senses were heightened, texture became paramount. But more 
> important,
>  it gave all of the assembled a greater window into the world of the
>  sightless. Many had come because their lives had already been touched by
>  degenerative retinal diseases. Briana Pompilus, 24, was there as a 
> volunteer
>  with her mother Veronica Floyd, 44, who was diagnosed with retinitis
>  pigmentosa at age 22. Still driving now, eventually her vision will close 
> up
>  as if looking through two drinking straws.
>  Mary Lou Johnson Evans was there for a similar reason. Her 14-year-old 
> son,
>  Josh, suffers from the same disease.
>  One of the evening's speakers, April Lufriu, a former Mrs. Florida 
> America
>  pageant winner and president of the Tampa Bay area chapter of the
>  foundation, spoke of her sister's retinal disease and, more haltingly, 
> about
>  her two children's recent diagnosis.
>  Degenerative retinal diseases affect more than 10 million Americans. As
>  keynote speaker James Minow described it, the foundation's aim is to put 
> an
>  end to retinal disease by replacing defective cells in the retina, 
> replacing
>  defective genes and by developing new treatments to protect degenerating
>  retinas. The obstacle? As is so often the case, it's money.
>  According to Kim Marlow, regional director of development for the
>  foundation, the evening in St. Petersburg will raise $100,000 for the 
> cause.
>  The most successful Dining in the Dark event to date, in New York, raised
>  $500,000 in a single evening.
>  The evening's honorees, doctors James Gill and Stephen Klasko, were
>  feverishly optimistic about conceivable cures for blindness. For those
>  assembled, a half hour in the dark was a humbling, and bumbling, reminder 
> of
>  the magnitude of the gift of sight.
>  Laura Reiley can be reached at
>  lreiley at sptimes.com
>  or (727) 892-2293.
>  March 11, 2010
>  Dear Editor,
>
>              I am writing to comment on the article "Awareness Was the 
> Main Course" by Laura Reiley that appeared in the March 10 Metro section 
> of the St.
>  Petersburg times. As a blind person, I often meet people who are amazed 
> by the fact that I can perform even the simplest of tasks. Generally this 
> attitude
>  is based on their own experience attempting to perform the same task 
> without eyesight and failing at it miserably. It is for this reason that 
> most blind
>  people are opposed to using the type of simulation exercises featured in 
> this article. Blindfolding a sighted person and asking them to perform 
> even a
>  simple task does not, as the article purports, give a person any 
> awareness of what the life of a blind person is like. In fact, such 
> exercises only serve
>  to reinforce the misconceptions and promulgate the myths about blindness 
> that create the social, legal, and economic barriers that prevent us from 
> achieving
>  true equality with our sighted peers. Those of us who are blind have 
> developed an array of non-visual techniques to perform activities of daily 
> living,
>  such as eating, just as effectively as sighted people do using eyesight. 
> Blindfolding a sighted person and asking them to perform a task is like 
> putting
>  someone in the cockpit of a jetliner and telling them to fly! Lacking the 
> proper skills, the results of both would be disastrous!
>
>              The real problem of blindness is not the lack of eyesight; 
> rather it is the manner in which we are treated as the result of the 
> misconceptions
>  people have about blindness. If one really wants to find out what life is 
> like for a blind person, there is no need to don a blindfold! All one 
> needs to
>  do is carry a white cane, the international symbol of blindness,  and go 
> about their everyday life. Then they would feel the crushing insults  of 
> public
>  misperception that blind people, except for those few who are believed to 
> be amazing and extraordinary, are innately ignorant and helpless. They 
> would
>  experience the waitress who asks a five year old what the blind adult 
> wants to drink. They would encounter the librarian who admonishes them for 
> going
>  out alone, thus exposing them to the hazards of opening a door. They 
> would be confronted by the Employer who inquires about who will bring them 
> to work.
>  They would learn that even well educated doctors are so ignorant as to 
> ask them who bathes them! Though you might want to minimize these 
> incidents away,
>  they are examples of the type of ignorance I - and other blind people - 
> encounter on a regular, almost daily, basis!
>
>              I am not asserting that eyesight is not beneficial nor that 
> the work of the Foundation Fighting Blindness is not valuable. What 
> concerns me
>  is that organizations that assert they want to "serve the blind" do us 
> such a disservice by reinforcing the public misconceptions and fears that 
> create
>  the problems we face. I am all for raising money to cure retinal 
> degenerative diseases, especially since the condition that has caused my 
> blindness, that
>  of my 14-year-old nephew , and several other members of my family is 
> retinitis Pigmentosa. I am, however, opposed to creating the type of fear 
> and pity
>  that results from blindfolding people for the purpose of raising money! 
> Such a practice is as offensive to me as a black-faced minstrel would be 
> to an
>  African American! These misconceptions are the reason fewer than 10% of 
> blind children are learning to read and write Braille, producing 
> functionally illiterate
>  blind adults. These fears and misconceptions are the reason that the 
> unemployment rate among the blind is more than 70%!
>
>              The veracity of my concerns are supported by the numerous 
> inaccurate statements made by the author who has bought into the false 
> perceptions
>  of the blind. Does she really believe that "other senses are heightened" 
> by taking away one's sight or "; texture became paramount" as the result 
> of simulated
>  blindness? Does she really believe that blindfolding participants "gave 
> all assembled a greater window into the world of the sightless"? Does she 
> really
>  believe that blind people go through life "bumbling" their ways around or 
> did she just irresponsibly promulgate the pitiful stereotype in an effort 
> to
>  sell your newspapers like the Foundation Fighting Blindness did to sell 
> themselves and selfishly generate  revenue with no concern about the 
> social consequences
>  of their actions?
>
>              The belief that blind people are endowed with heightened 
> senses and special powers is a myth. Blind people simply learn to use 
> their other senses
>  and alternative techniques to perform the tasks sighted people do with 
> eyesight. Like any skill, these techniques are generally not acquired in a 
> half-hour
>  nor mysteriously and supernaturally endowed. However, these skills enable 
> blind people to function independently, efficiently, and effectively. In 
> fact,
>  the average blind person can perform the same tasks as their sighted 
> peers as well, if not better, by employing these alternative techniques. 
> Our blindness
>  is not the problem. The real problem of blindness is the misunderstanding 
> and lack of information that exists. If a blind person is given proper 
> training
>  and opportunity, blindness is only a physical nuisance.
>
>              In the future, when your paper is doing a story about 
> blindness, it would be helpful to get accurate information and the 
> perspective of a blind
>  person who is qualified to speak to these issues by being chosen by the 
> blind to speak on their behalf. The National Federation of the Blind is 
> the oldest
>  and largest organization of the blind in the United States. We are not an 
> organization that speaks on behalf of the blind; we are the blind speaking 
> for
>  ourselves. For accurate information about blindness or the blind, please 
> feel free to get in touch with me or visit one of our websites at
>
>  HTTP://WWW.NFB.ORG
>
>  Or
>
>  HTTP://WWW.NFB-NAGDU.ORG
>
>  Respectfully yours,
>
>  Marion Gwizdala, President
>
>  National Association of Guide Dog Users
>
>  National Federation of the Blind
>
>  813-598-7161
>
>  President at NFB-NAGDU.ORG
>
>
>
>
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