[NFBMT-Parents] The Braille Monitor for April is out

Fri Mar 27 11:29:47 UTC 2020

In case anyone needs a refresher on NFB philosophy, President Mark Riccobono
expressed it well in his opening speech to the Great Gathering-In on February
10 at the Washington Seminar.  You will find this in the April 2020 Braille
Monitor.

Why have we gathered here this evening? President Barack Obama said, "Change
will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other
time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we
seek." President John F. Kennedy said, "Change is the law of life, and those
who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

We, the blind of this nation, have come from near and far to take a stand for
our future. We have come to stand for equality, opportunity, and security. We
have come seeking not to be cared for by our government but to share in the
responsibilities of building our nation. The blind have come because for too
long we have suffered the injustice of low expectations. We stand together
because we are not satisfied with the second-class education we have been
offered compared to our sighted peers. We stand together because our
independence is threatened by the failure of manufacturers and technology
developers to include nonvisual access in their products. We stand together
because we represent blind individuals from every state in the nation who
seek to be the change needed. In standing together we raise expectations and
eliminate the obstacles that hold us back.

We stand together in rejecting the institutionalized systems of
discrimination that have existed in the past and often continue to define the
present. We stand together with hope for the future. We

      stand together in solidarity, supporting the conviction that blindness
is not the characteristic that defines us or our future. We stand together
even in the year when vision is being celebrated by every

      agency and organization that believes that the future is exclusively
defined by eyesight. We stand together for the 2020 view on blindness, one
that is defined by our authentic experience, and where we are the change we
seek. We stand together knowing that united we can change the world. 

To those who say we are unrealistic and should compromise our values, take
note: we stand together, and we will not back down!

In 2018 the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of
Education arbitrarily changed its case processing manual to strip away the
protections that we had to make sure that we could file complaints if we
faced discrimination in education. The National Federation of the Blind took
a stand against the government deciding on its own and without notice to take
away our rights, and we invited the AACP and the Council of Parent Attorneys
and Advocates to stand with us. The government does not get to decide when we
have rights and when we do not simply because it is not prepared to deal with
the barriers that stand between blind people and our dreams.  As a result of
our lawsuit, the Department of Education voluntarily returned to some of its
previous policies; however, they did so with no guarantee that they would not
make changes again in the future. 

Just a few days ago we announced a settlement agreement with the United
States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. As a part of that
settlement agreement, anyone who filed an OCR complaint that was dismissed
between March 5, 2018, and November 19, 2018, may appeal the dismissal,
thanks to the work of the National Federation of the Blind.  The United
States Department of Education now knows that we stand together, and we will
not back down.  

Michelle Clark is an information technology specialist with the United States
Department of Agriculture. Ironically, part of her duties include Section 508
coverage for the agency. Michelle faced significant discrimination due to
inaccessible workplace technologies.  The National Federation of the Blind
assisted her in resolving her employment discrimination complaint and in
filing a Section 508 complaint against the Department of Agriculture. The
evidence that we provided was overwhelming. The department was forced to
investigate its adherence to Section 508 and ultimately found against itself.
Specifically it found that, in procuring and implementing inaccessible
technology, it had violated federal law.

We have also stood with Amy Ruell and Joe Orozco in filing lawsuits against
their employers, Beacon Health Options and the FBI respectively, because
those institutions have implemented inaccessible workplace technologies that
prevent blind people from being fully independent in their jobs. Similarly,
we have supported NFB member Maryann Murad in filing a suit against Amazon
for implementing inaccessible workplace technology that prevented her from
being hired as a virtual customer assistant using Amazon's platform. We
offered to help Amazon fix its platform, but instead they said that maybe
Miss Murad should "apply for a more appropriate position."

We support these blind individuals and others to let all employers know that
the future we seek is one in which the technologies do not bar us from full
participation. We stand together, and we will not back down.

Similarly, in such an important election year, we face discrimination in
voting. Let any elected official who supports unequal access to the American
democracy that bars blind people from having a secret, independently
verifiable ballot know that we will find a way to organize, and our votes
will count against you. On the issue of equal access to voting, we stand
together, and we will not back down.

We have come with solutions. We stand with a clear commitment to demonstrate
to others the future we believe is possible. Long ago we recognized that the
education system was failing our blind children.  The limiting effects of low
expectations have held generation after generation of blind youth back. We
built training centers in Colorado, Louisiana, and Minnesota to cultivate the
capacity that America's education system fails to recognize. But this has not
been enough. So, we committed that if they will not teach them, we will teach
them ourselves. We started programs in science, technology, engineering, art,
and math nearly two decades ago. Now hundreds of blind youth have
successfully pursued advanced degrees and careers in the most innovative and
cutting edge areas of our American society. Many of those blind people have
now come back to teach the next generation in the Federation education
program. This commitment was made by blind people standing together for blind
people. It was made with love, hope, and determination for the future that we
seek to build. For the next generation we stand together, and we will not
back down.

We will not back down because our future is on the line. We have come because
we want the future to be built on our terms, not on outdated notions of
blindness that have held us back. We have come because we have real solutions
to offer, and we are prepared to stand together as long as it takes to get
those solutions enacted into law and implemented across the nation. We have
come because the National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not
the characteristic that defines us or our future. Every day we raise the
expectations for the blind because low expectations create obstacles between
blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want, and blindness is
not what holds you back.

We stand together with love, hope, and determination. We will not back down
because we come to our Washington Seminar to transform dreams into reality.
This is the significance of the Washington Seminar. Let's go build the
National Federation of the Blind!

Please read the current issue or any issue of The Braille Monitor for more
stirring, uplifting, and challenging articles like this, and please become an
active member of the National Federation of the Blind of Montana so that we
can transform our dreams into reality.  

Joy Breslauer, First Vice President

National Federation of the Blind of Montana 

Web Site: http://www.nfbofmt.org <http://www.nfbofmt.org/> 

Live the life you want

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. Every day we work
together to help blind people live the lives they want. 

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