[Nfbmo] The value of research, the value of sight, and our place as blind people in the world

[Julie McGinnity]

Hi Gary and all,

Gary, your message is well-written and full of wisdom.  The speech I
thought of was the one given by Dr. Maurer at this year's convention.
In this speech, he considered the advantages of blindness, something
the public can hardly fathom and something we rarely ponder.  Of
course, blind people can read in the dark, function in low to no
lighting, and are not light dependent in general.  But he also brought
up situations that I had never consider.  We do not judge people based
on our looks.  Yes, we are trained by society to dislike certain
physical traits, but when we are interviewing someone for a job, we
would not dismiss someone because their appearance was not pleasing to
us.  There were others in the speech.  I would encourage anyone who
didn't hear it to go find it on the website if it is available.

It is interesting to think of blindness (and disability in general) as
a type of diversity.  On its surface, this seems like a great idea.
After all, we have a "diverse" view of the world as a minority group,
don't we?

I attended an event last spring held by a group that discusses and
promotes the benefits of diversity.  They go into workplaces and
explain what it means to be a diverse world and how to welcome and
nurture a diverse work environment.  The groups they considered in
these categories were African Americans, the LGBT community, minority
religious groups, and people with disabilities.  The whole experience
of meeting these people and learning about their work was unsettling
to me.

Is disability truly considered diversity?  I believe that unlike the
other groups listed above, people with disabilities are not understood
as a diverse group of people because we are labeled based on what we
cannot do rather than what we are.

There are studies showing that the brain is able to compensate for
loss of sight by redistributing brain power to other parts of the
brain.  (Forgive me; I am no scientist.)  We learn to use our other
senses to perceive the world in ways most sighted people cannot even
imagine.  We have discussed before that the world would look different
if all its inhabitants were blind, but we would make progress just the
same.  For many of us, this is our perspective; this is how we live.
But it is not the reality that we find when we look for jobs, try for
that degree the university believes unreasonable for a blind person,
or refuse help from one well-meaning sighted person after another.

We are not yet appreciated for our unique perspective on the world
because the world is still mainly focused on fixing us.  You cannot
appreciate something you believe to be broken.  The answer is not to
stop the research but to change the attitudes of those doing the
research.  Sight is a good thing to have because the majority of the
world has it, not because without it one cannot live.

That, in escence, is what separates us from the other categories
mentioned above.  They (the African Americans, LGBT community, etc)
are appreciated and respected for who they are, at least in a mindset
focused on diversity.  Disability, on the other hand, is accomidated
and included.

I sincerely hope I didn't offend anyone in the making of this message.
These are simply some thoughts I have been considering over the past
few months.

On 9/12/15, Daniel Garcia via Nfbmo <nfbmo at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Gary:
>
> This message is very thoughtful.
>
> As I was reading it I was reminded of a speech titled " Within the Grace of
> God" delivered by Jacobus tenBroek on July 1, 1955.
>
> https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/convent/tb1956.htm
>
> The end  of the speech follows:
>
> Begin quote
> In the Sixteenth Century, John Bradford made a famous remark which has ever
> since been held up to us as a model of Christian humility and correct
> charity and which you saw reflected in the agency quotations I presented.
> Seeing a beggar in his rags creeping along a wall through a flash of
> lightning in a stormy night Bradford said: "But for the Grace of God, there
> go I." Compassion was shown; pity was shown; charity was shown; humility
> was
> shown; there was even an acknowledgement that the relative positions of the
> two could and might have been switched. Yet despite the compassion, despite
> the pity, despite the charity, despite the humility, how insufferably
> arrogant! There was still an unbridgeable gulf between Bradford and the
> beggar. They were not one but two. Whatever might have been, Bradford
> thought himself Bradford and the beggar a beggar-one high, the other low;
> one wise, the other misguided; one strong, the other weak; one virtuous,
> the
> other depraved.
>
> We do not and cannot take the Bradford approach. It is not just that
> beggary
> is the badge of our past and is still all too often the present symbol of
> social attitudes towards us; although that is at least part of it. But in
> the broader sense, we are that beggar and he is each of us. We are made in
> the same image and out of the same ingredients. We have the same weaknesses
> and strengths, the same feelings, emotions, and drives; and we are the
> product of the same social, economic, and other environmental forces. How
> much more consonant with the facts of individual and social life, how much
> more a part of a true humanity, to say instead: "There, within the Grace of
> God, do go I."
> End quote
>
> When this subject came up a few weeks ago I was thinking. If a blind person
> were to regain or gain his eyesight he would have to undergo rehabilitation
> to use the alternative techniques of sight to do as a sighted person what
> he
> used to do as a blind person. My statement might seem preposterous to some,
> but it is based on logic. Blind people do not use their eyes to gain
> information about the world around them, they used other senses. If
> suddenly
> they had the ability to see, they would have to learn to use their new
> found
> sight in order to correctly interpret what information they were
> perceiving.
> This is especially true of people who were totally blind from birth.
> Imagine
> if other blind people felt sorry for those that gained their eyesight
> because they had to relearn how to do things. In his speech, Dr. tenBroek
> used a parable to illustrate the divide that exists between sighted and
> blind. Though it was given 60 years ago, it still resonates today.
>
> Daniel
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gary Wunder via
> Nfbmo
> Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2015 9:23 AM
> To: 'NFB of Missouri Mailing List'
> Cc: Gary Wunder
> Subject: [Nfbmo] The value of research, the value of sight, and our place
> as
> blind people in the world
>
> Greetings to my friends and colleagues who have posted on this topic about
> the value of sight, research, and how it relates to the National Federation
> of the Blind. I believe this post started with a comment from Rosina about
> the absolute insistence of researchers that the only way blind people will
> have a quality of life is when they are able to see. That discussion
> quickly
> moved into whether or not blind people who are in the National Federation
> of
> the Blind thought sight had value and whether we would like to see. I think
> this discussion is one of those that I hope to this list would see more of,
> and I'm gratified by it.
>
>
>
> I don't think that there is a blind person alive who doesn't understand at
> some significant level how great the advantage of seeing can be. This
> morning I'm getting ready to vacuum my rug. Before doing that I will
> painstakingly walk around my living room in an attempt to find any mislaid
> dog bones, torn up dog toy parts, or even spare socks from those of us who
> did not take them off in the correct place and put them in the dirty
> clothes. Does it cross my mind that any one of my daughters could sit on
> the
> couch, turn her head, move her eyes, and ascertain the same information? Of
> course it does. Do I wish I could do that? Absolutely. Will all of that
> wishing get my floor cleared for vacuuming? It certainly won't. So rather
> than fret about what some can do that I cannot, I take charge of my life by
> walking around that room and being grateful for the fact that I can walk,
> going back and forth in that room being grateful that I can use my mind to
> create a system that will ensure that the floor is clear. Then I take that
> vacuum cleaner, being grateful for the fact that I earned the money to buy
> it, and I set to work making my house presentable.
>
>
>
> When people who can see go shopping at a big box store, I realize they have
> a lot of advantages over me. They are not concerned about whether something
> is or is not accessible. They may be concerned about whether it is too
> complicated for what they want, but they never once have to worry about
> whether it will talk or whether it has Bluetooth capability so that it can
> interface with a braille display or their iPhone or some other device that
> can render speech or braille. I wish we did not have to fight for access,
> but I am glad that we at least have the ability to do it and realize
> ourselves worthy of access. There was a time when there was no collective
> activity on the part of blind people, and the thought that we might boil
> water or cook a meal was absurd both to us and to those who looked after
> us.
> The idea that we might actually make a meaningful contribution was barely
> considered, and we were nothing more than the family's burden and the bad
> luck of the person who drew the short straw.
>
>
>
> I grew up in a family with a disabled aunt. In today's world her disability
> would've been seen as rather insignificant. She traveled using a walking
> cane, but she was well read, had a great conscience, was funny, was
> motivated, and took care of the house so that two people who didn't really
> want her could both work outside the home. I thought that might be my life
> as well, but circumstances placed me in a time when our country was
> reassessing what it thought about blind people, how we could be educated,
> and how we could be integrated. I think this occurred in no small part due
> to our organization.
>
>
>
> So what about research? I favor research on how to restore sight in the
> same
> way that I think of research to kill the AIDS virus, grow new kidneys for
> those on dialysis, and figure out how to stop the ravages of diabetes and
> keep people from insulin resistance and the damage done to their pancreas.
> What I object to is the kind of publicity about research that says one
> should give because the quality of life for those to be served is currently
> intolerable. My life is not intolerable. It is rich, and I am blessed
> beyond
> measure. This is not just a subjective judgment I make about the quality of
> the time I have spent on earth. I have it as well as most other human
> beings
> can hope to have it. I have a family who loves me, a group of people who
> think that what I do and say has some importance in their lives, a job that
> provides me with a good standard of living, enough reading material that I
> understand the state of the world at least as much as the person on the
> other end of the journalists pen can. I have problems aplenty, but at least
> I have received enough God-given gifts that these are ones I can handle. I
> think this is true for many of the people I know, so when people sell
> research on the pathetic state of our existence, then I object to the way
> they are selling it, and I think it is fair for us to say that we have
> lives
> that are worth living, whether or not we gain vision.
>
>
>
> I think there are many things about the NFB's position on living as blind
> people and the restoration of vision that are misunderstood. When we say
> that it is respectable to be blind, we do not mean that being blind in and
> of itself conveys respect. We do not mean that it is somehow superior to be
> blind. What we do mean is that there is nothing about blindness that should
> make people pity us, fail to consider us for responsible positions, or set
> us up in the community as pathetic examples of what they might have been
> had
> it not been for the grace of God. When we say that blindness is a nuisance
> and an inconvenience, it is not that we treasure the nuisance or don't at
> times get mad about the inconvenience. We are proudly affirming that there
> is a great difference between a nuisance and an inconvenience, and a tragic
> condition that makes our lives substandard.
>
>
>
> Lastly, if I had the opportunity to experience vision, would I be
> interested? Yes I would. I would love to take a look at the stars. I would
> love to take a look at enough faces that I would understand why people are
> so spellbound by the Mona Lisa. I would love to look into the eyes of
> another and see whether it really gives me a read on what is going on in
> their sole or whether, like the human voice, it can sometimes be
> significant
> and can sometimes be deceptive. I would love to spend several hours
> watching
> YouTube videos and learning passively what can sometimes be more difficult
> because I don't see it done. I would love to look through a microscope and
> see items that are smaller than a hair with such clarity that I could make
> out their individual components. I would like to look at a two dimensional
> picture and see how people form three-dimensional images in their mind that
> convey beauty and tragedy. To me many of these simply feel like lines on a
> page when someone has taken the time to put them in raised-line form.
>
>
>
> As it is, those things are not likely to come my way anytime soon, so I
> take
> my job to be enjoying the life I have, sharing it with others to the extent
> that I can, and thanking God for the quality time he is given me on earth.
>
>
>
> I love hearing your opinions. Thank you for putting them to paper. If you
> have more of them, please use this list to flesh them out.
>
>
>
> Gary
>
>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
> Gary Wunder, President
>
> National Federation of the Blind of Missouri
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nfbmo mailing list
> Nfbmo at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbmo_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Nfbmo:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbmo_nfbnet.org/dangarcia3%40hotmail.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nfbmo mailing list
> Nfbmo at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbmo_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Nfbmo:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbmo_nfbnet.org/kaybaycar%40gmail.com
>


-- 
Julie McGinnity
National Federation of the Blind of Missouri second vice president,
National Federation of the Blind performing arts division secretary,
Missouri Association of Guide dog Users President
graduate, Guiding Eyes for the Blind 2008, 2014
"For we walk by faith, not by sight"
2 Cor. 7