[NFBOH-Cleveland] Braille Monitor: Words Matter by Maurice Peret

[Suzanne Turner]

Words Matter


by Maurice Peret

>From the Editor: In this time of social change, I find that I particularly
like the title of this article. Although I do my best to stay up-to-date,
listen to every point of view I can, and seem to spend most of my time
reading, there are many terms I do not understand, yet I see them used in
our literature, some of which I have some responsibility for editing.
Several years ago someone wrote an article in which they opined that this
condition really sucks. I replaced the word, and my young assistant laughed.
She said it was a commonly used word and that I should not shy away from it.
She said she could well understand the origin of the word that I initially
understood but that it had changed and was now part of the common parlance.
Of course she did more than laugh at me. There are times when she cautioned
me against words that I wanted to use. I wanted to refer to Dr. Jernigan and
Dr. tenBroek as intimates, but again she suggested that there was a
disconnect between my understanding of common day usage and what I was
intending to say.

I have been reading a book by Ibram X. Kendi about being an antiracist, and
I was struck by these sentences: "Definitions anchor us in principles. This
is not a light point: If we don't do the basic work of defining the kind of
people we want to be in language that is stable and consistent, we can't
work toward stable, consistent goals."

As a reader of the Braille Monitor, I'm not sure that I have ever been
properly introduced to the term "othering." I believe it means to consider a
group different from oneself and to see that difference as negative rather
than positive. The Oxford dictionary offers these synonyms: rejected,
excluded, shunned, spurned, rebuffed, snubbed, scorned, ostracized, and
repudiated. I take from this that the term refers to a group considered so
foreign that I pretend that I cannot relate to their experience or feel I
have no obligation to see the world as they experience it. 

So what about other terms that float into the language? One I recently
questioned was "woke." This word can be troublesome because the definition
is not as clear. It depends on when the word was used and by whom. In its
simplest form it means to have passed from sleep to consciousness, but other
definitions definitely exist, and this is when things get complicated. To
some the word woke means to be mindful of current issues and to be
supportive of them, particularly as they relate to social movements. To some
the word means a decision to be aware that what is reflected in your life
may be very different in the lives of others. To some the word evokes all
that is offensive about political correctness, and to call someone woke is
not to flatter or compliment but to say they have bought into division and
the fragmenting of society. To them it embodies all of the evils of "cancel
culture," yet another term, and the ideology of victimhood. So when we use
words like this one, we better be certain that we understand the different
meanings it has and think about whether our concept can be explained as well
with other words that make clear our meaning.

All of this is to say that I want us to be careful in the language we use.
The Monitor should not be a tool that divides us, but neither should it be
so antiseptic that we avoid understanding the issues our fellow blind people
experience. 

Now for a word about Maurice before he begins speaking for himself. He is
not easily categorized politically. He spends a lot of time reading, and
some of the characters that are treated unfavorably in our culture are ones
he believes are misunderstood. If he believes that Karl Marx and Vladimir
Lenin have points of view with which he agrees, the fact that we print his
comments does not mean that the National Federation of the Blind or the
Braille Monitor has an opinion about these revolutionaries. What it does
mean is that we believe Maurice has opinions that we benefit from
organizationally if we share them, come to understand them, and can then
decide with reason what we will take and what we will reject in our own view
of the world. 

So, in furtherance of better communication about issues of importance to us
today, here is what Maurice has to say: 

I have previously written in these pages about the pitfalls of popular
social trends such as is engendered in identity politics while we in the
National Federation of the Blind continue to celebrate and embrace our
differences and "otherness." 

An interesting debate from 2019 about whether identity politics is tearing
our society apart can be found via a British program called Intelligence
Squared at https://youtu.be/hVMYfuzhbxk. 

I recently engaged with some leaders of our diversity and inclusion
initiative about the use of the term "ally" as part of the conversation
around diversity. Popular linguistic conventions creep up in social
discourse, which we sometimes accept by rote without much analysis. We could
discuss the efficacy of the use of the "N" word, the "B" word, "queer," or
other language adopted by some members of marginalized groups.
Parenthetically, it has become difficult for me to keep up with all the
alphabetic augmentations encompassed in the LGBTQAI+ category. I know what
L, G, T, B, and Q stand for, but I wonder what the AI is for and whether the
plus simply is intended to include those not yet integrated into the
acronym. 

My personal measure has been to consider whether any of these terms are ever
used to uplift rather than disparage others. I never heard the term "blink"
in reference to a blind person or "gimp" in referring to someone who uses a
wheelchair until I went to college. While it might sound playful to some
within the disability community to implore terms such as these under the
justification of "taking the term back" and rebranding it for our own
purposes, I don't think a very strong argument can be made that they are
anything but derogatory. Others may argue that it is in the eye (or ear) of
the beholder. 

In another more recent instance, the term "cisgender male" was used in
reference to me. I had never heard this term before that utterance. While
this came from a colleague whom I admire and respect, I have wondered ever
since about it being hung around my neck. It is not a term that I claimed
nor necessarily accept. A person who used the term frankly did not know me
well enough to put me into such a box. One might say that, well, Maurice is
married and has children and thus and such, but as we all know, these are
not definitively exclusionary criteria. We must be careful in our pursuit of
group affinity and identification with oppressed people groups not to
unwittingly alienate ourselves from a broader and stronger majority whom,
together, I am confident can conquer all remnants of racism, nationalism,
sexism, ableism, and all forms of oppression. 

A reference was made during our exchange to the civil rights movement in
this country. It is noteworthy to consider the substantial number of
Caucasian people-freedom fighters-who literally positioned their bodies as
shields to defend black protesters under the tremendous disciplined
leadership of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party, as
well as a host of other Black-rights organizations. It is true that young
people from many racial groups and backgrounds shed blood in the struggle.
The term that unified these fighters was "Freedom Riders," not allies. In
the huge militant industrial labor battles of the 1920s and 1930s in this
country, made up in large part of immigrant workers, solidarity was a
concept shared among comrades, again, not allies. Ally was a term reserved
for those individuals, and they were usually heroic individuals of which
history is plentiful with examples, but who were nonetheless from alien
class forcers or interests. For example, they would include secretaries and
messengers of bosses who were planning attacks on striking union workers.
Their contributions to the struggle were no less appreciated, but they were
not strictly "comrades-in-arms union members." 

The reason why I respectfully but firmly reject the term ally is that it
creates a socially-artificial and embattled barrier among us and can imply a
certain hierarchy. For instance, we hear of allies when studying
interimperialist wars throughout history. Most United Nations or so-called
peacekeeping military adventures are dominated by United States military
brass, (read Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan), as was true during the
two world wars. In those instances, a hierarchy existed between European,
British, and smaller and weaker powers and the dominant United States Armed
Forces. In every theater of operation, United States political and military
leaders gave the orders to all other operational troops.

Just as a way of contextualizing where I am coming from, my political and
historic orientation can be summed up as not fitting neatly within political
conventional categories of left or right. Instead, I adhere to a historic
continuity that goes back to Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Eugene V.
Debs and Hellen Keller, and other past leaders of revolutionary caliber.
Within that proud tradition, it would not necessarily be inaccurate to say
that my views are rather orthodox. The problem is that my views are neither
very popular nor widely well understood, which I think is quite sad since it
represents an important part of our collective history. I have always had a
deep and abiding interest and appreciation for folks who come from so many
varied backgrounds and nations. My mom, a single parent and French immigrant
who raised me, possessed what I consider a healthy distrust of power and
authority. I evolved my thinking beyond merely iconoclastic rebellion
chiefly because I am more interested in results in matters of justice and
equity. I am more interested in expressing what I am for as opposed to what
I am against, which is too easy for all of us to do. I look to leadership
from the likes of those such as Malcolm X., Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez,
Ernesto Che Guevara, and others who have demonstrated a capacity to lead
truly mass movements. In so doing, I would joyfully submit myself to the
discipline and conduct inspired by such leadership. That would, in my humble
opinion, make me a soldier in the struggle rather than an ally. Colin Wong
expressed this beautifully in his wrap-up as moderator of the diversity
panel presentation during the NFB 2021 National Convention. I am so
heartened and inspired by strong and vibrant leadership that is represented
in our various areas of work in the Federation, which I believe to be the
hope and strength of our movement in all its diversity and inclusivity.

President Riccobono's banquet speech was most illustrative as he recounted
the rough racial waters the Federation navigated during the 1950s and 1960s
Jim Crow era, along with the rest of the nation. Unfortunately, this has not
always been so prolific in the literary historic account of our movement. It
is often said that history is always written from the point of view of the
victors, although this is rather simplistic. I look at this from a decidedly
internationalist perspective, as well. Malcolm used to remind us that while
African Americans, Latinos, indigenous Americans, Asian and Pacific
Islanders, along with those of us with disabilities suffer the indignities
of a minority class in the United States, that fact is not reflected in much
of the world's composition. In building truly effective mass movements,
therefore, I believe we must come to understand our capacity to come
together in united action. Our experiences are not the same, and I would not
suggest otherwise. To consider another angle, the so-called progressive left
liberals in this country completely missed the mark in maligning whole
swaths of people who could and should have been considered "allies," to
borrow the term, in the political theater that led to the election of Donald
J. Trump. They wrote off these people by consistently vilifying
working-class voters throughout the Midwest, Appalachia, and the South who
voted in large numbers for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries
but for Trump in the general election. Many of these folks have been and
continue to be economically, socially, and culturally devastated by the
steady economic decline and slow-burn deindustrialization occurring over the
past several decades. Many of these workers hold bitter memories of the
Clinton dynasty's dismantling of the social net, "ending welfare as we know
it," bloating the prison population in the name of the "war on drugs," far
more than occurred even under the Reagan administration, etc. It has been
observed that the last true liberal president this country had in terms of
policy was Richard M. Nixon. 

To mention so-called "white privilege" to a laid-off coal miner in Kentucky;
Pennsylvania; Alabama; or West Virginia, where I lived for several years,
will likely provoke an animated response. That does not make these people
definitively racist. Backward ideas about the "other" certainly exist
throughout our society. I nonetheless hate to see so many of the gains we
have made as a people be subverted by trendy language shortcuts as, again in
my humble opinion, is used in the term "ally," no matter how well-intended.

I am reminded of a speech presented by the late great Federation leader, Dr.
Kenneth Jernigan in an October 1994 issue of the Braille Monitor entitled
"Reflections On Race, Religion, Disability, Sex, and Broader Issues" in
response to a letter accusing him of racially insensitive language in
presenting a distinguished award to Ms. Doris Johnson. [That article appears
immediately following this one.] In his article, Former President Jernigan
stated "Despite the attempts of some of our detractors to create a race
problem in the Federation, we have never had one, and I doubt that we ever
will." With the passing of some twenty-seven years and a different era in
the Federation notwithstanding, this assertion can certainly be debated and
discussed. Clearly members of our movement have experienced treatment
beneath their dignity and worth as human beings and as comrades in our
movement. Nonetheless, I believe that Dr. Jernigan passionately expressed
the unified focus of our collective strength and power. 

Finally, I believe that using the term "ally" condescends to set a lower
standard of the capacities of folks who happen, by accident of birth or
upbringing, to be Caucasian, Christian, or whatever dominant American
cultural divide. To rise to a level of solidarity that inspires one to be
willing to lay down their lives for their brother or sister of any
background is a friend, a brother or sister, a fellow combatant or, if you
will, a comrade is more than an ally. Those who help in a cause not directly
their own should have a term that raises one to the level of an equal: not
an overlord, not the driver of the cause, but not an underling whose
investment of time, treasure, and even personal risk is discounted.

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