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<TITLE>Attention Cleveland, Please join this philosophical discussion on Tomorrow</TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">Cleveland Members,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">The Ohi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">o President is inviting all</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">and I am also urging you</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">to join him</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">On</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">tomorrow,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">Wednesday April 22</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">, 2020</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Arial">from 6:30PM until 7:30 PM</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR ALIGN=CENTER><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT FACE="Arial">The topic is:</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B> <FONT FACE="Arial">the movement AND the message</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">As educators and organizers we must be able to encapsulate the Federation's philosophy into short, digestible messages with which people can connect. The following ten-point summary, excerpted from Jim Omvig's book,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I><FONT FACE="Arial"> Freedom for the Blind,</FONT></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial"> (provides an excellent overview of the NFB's philosophy about what it does and does not mean to be blind:)</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(1) Blind people are simply normal, ordinary people who cannot see.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(2) The blind are merely a cross-section of society as a whole, mirroring society in every way with the same hopes, interests, and desires, the same dreams, abilities, and potential as everyone else.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(3) The physical condition of blindness is nothing more than a normal, human characteristic, like the hundreds of others which, taken together, mold each of us into a unique human being.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(4) Given proper training and opportunity, the average blind person can do the average job in the average place of business, can have a family, can be a tax-paying and participating citizen and can be in every way a contributing member of society who can compete on terms of absolute equality with his or her sighted neighbors.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(5) With proper training and opportunity, blindness is not a tragedy. It literally can be reduced to the level of a physical inconvenience or nuisance.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(6) The actual physical limitations associated with the characteristic of blindness can easily be overcome by using alternative techniques for doing without sight what you would do with sight if you had it.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(7) The concept of the hierarchy of sight--that is, the notion that the level to which a blind person can be competent and successful rises or falls in direct proportion to the amount of vision he or she has--is nothing more than a myth and is completely false.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(8) To sum it all up, "it is respectable to be blind," and the blind, themselves, are primarily responsible for pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and changing what it means to be blind in the broader society.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(9) "You can't have your cake and eat it too." That is, blind people cannot on the one hand use their blindness to get some advantage or something they want and then on the other hand demand equality and opportunity when it would be nice to have it--the blind deserve freedom and equality, yes, but hand-in-hand with equality comes responsibility.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">(10) The real problem of blindness is not the physical loss of eyesight at all, but rather is to be found in the wide range of societal misunderstandings and misconceptions about blindness shared by the blind and sighted alike. Putting it quite bluntly, the blind are, in every sense of the word, a minority group, with all of the negative implications which this phrase conjures up.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">I would like for you to read and be prepared to actively participate in the meeting.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">To Join the Zoom Meeting</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial"> <</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="https://zoom.us/j/4081850851"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0563C1" FACE="Arial">https://zoom.us/j/4081850851</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN><A HREF="https://zoom.us/j/4081850851"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0563C1" FACE="Arial">https://zoom.us/j/4081850851</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">Meeting ID: 408 185 0851</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">Meeting ID: 408 185 0851</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">Find your local number: <</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="https://zoom.us/u/acrm88WYQX"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0563C1" FACE="Arial">https://zoom.us/u/acrm88WYQX</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN><A HREF="https://zoom.us/u/acrm88WYQX"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0563C1" FACE="Arial">https://zoom.us/u/acrm88WYQX</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">Richard Payne, President</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">National Federation of the Blind of Ohio</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">937/829/3368</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="mailto:Rchpay7@gmail.com"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U></U></SPAN><U><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#0563C1" FACE="Arial">Rchpay7@gmail.com</FONT></SPAN></U><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Arial">The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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