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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Ohio, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Consider attending this meeting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I have inserted the article below!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suzanne<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>///<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dear Friends:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On Monday, October 5, 2020, at 7:30 pm central time we will have a meeting of the National Federation of the Blind Personal & Career Development Group. The meeting will be held on Zoom and the invite is at the bottom of this message.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We will be discussing a short article that appeared in the May, 2015, Braille Monitor titled “Blind People and Talking Dogs.” No, this is not a fancy new guide dog for the blind; the article provides some insight about the issue of the lack of blind CEO’s and executive managers. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>You can read the article <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><b><span style='font-size:30.0pt;color:black'>Blind People and Talking Dogs</span></b><b><span style='font-size:30.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>by Dick Davis</span></b><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f">
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</v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Dick Davis" style='position:absolute;margin-left:218.8pt;margin-top:0;width:270pt;height:231pt;z-index:251658240;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:0;mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:0;mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:right;mso-position-horizontal-relative:text;mso-position-vertical:absolute;mso-position-vertical-relative:line;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-width-relative:page;mso-height-relative:page' o:allowoverlap="f">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><![if !vml]><img width=360 height=308 style='width:3.75in;height:3.2083in' src="cid:image001.jpg@01D69B41.9AC7C050" align=right alt="Dick Davis" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_3"><![endif]><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>From the Editor: Dick Davis chairs the National Federation of the Blind’s employment committee and will soon retire from BLIND, Incorporated after a long and distinguished career in work with the blind. He is the assistant director for employment at BLIND, Inc., and as a sighted advocate he wrote a response to the question of why there aren’t more blind executives. Undoubtedly many issues come into play when talking about employment and advancement, and I hope that this piece will start an in-depth discussion about what we can do to realize the dream of Dr. Jacobus tenBroek and other founders who believed that a job, a home, and the right to participate in the community were the reasons for the creation of the organization and the movement it represents. Here is Dick’s take on the issue:</span></b><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>I like the article Michelle Clark recently posted on the NFB Jobs Listserv, “Where Are the CEOs and Executive Managers with Disabilities?” by John D. Kemp, president and CEO of The Viscardi Center. You can read it at <<a href="https://usodep.blogs.govdelivery.com/2015/03/13/where-are-the-ceos-and-executive-managers-with-disabilities/"><span style='color:blue'>https://usodep.blogs.govdelivery.com/2015/03/13/where-are-the-ceos-and-executive-managers-with-disabilities/</span></a>>. </span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>Mr. Kemp, who has four prostheses, asks a valid question: why are disabled people being left out of executive and management jobs? </span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>I think it is because most people look at blind and disabled individuals as “talking dogs.” What do I mean by that? There is an old saying, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, that the remarkable thing about a talking dog is not what it says but the fact that it talks at all. Public expectations are so low that anything a person with a disability can do is thought to be remarkable. But “talking dogs” never make it to the higher echelons of any organization. They are curiosities at best. </span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>A few years ago one of our local television stations did an article on Disability Employment Awareness Month. It featured an enclave of developmentally disabled people who were able to get part-time jobs cleaning the equipment in a local gym. The anchors were so touched that they almost cried. I didn’t throw a shoe through our TV screen, nor did I attempt to explain to the station that what they had done was worse than if they had done nothing at all. Weren’t those disabled people remarkable? No, they weren’t. They were “talking dogs,” trotted out once again so that people could marvel at the little things they could do. </span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>We must really ditch this charity thing. No employer hires a person because it feels sorry for him or her. And the ADA, although helpful from a legal sense, has not been the employment panacea that many people thought it would be. In my opinion the diversity movement has more potential, because employers have not been trained to hate the diversity movement like they have the ADA. The healthy thing about the diversity movement is that it teaches that difference is not a weakness but a strength, and blind people are definitely perceived as different. </span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>My belief is that blind people are stronger than sighted people, because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Dealing successfully with blindness through effective training makes a person more creative, more organized, more persistent, tougher, a faster computer user (no mouse to slow you down), and better in a whole host of other ways. Blind people are definitely the better hire. If you really think about it, you will come to realize it is true. Many sighted people lack those mind-and-character-building experiences and in my opinion are weaker as a result. So instead of thinking of blindness as a disability, maybe we should think of sightedness as one instead. In my opinion blind people belong at the top.</span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;background:white'><b><span style='font-size:22.5pt;color:black'>Media Share</span></b><b><span style='font-size:22.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Blind%20People%20and%20Talking%20Dogs%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nfb.org%2Fsites%2Fwww.nfb.org%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fnfb%2Fpublications%2Fbm%2Fbm15%2Fbm1505%2Fbm150506.htm" target="_blank"><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=48 height=39 style='width:.5in;height:.4062in' id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image002.png@01D69B41.9AC7C050" alt="Tweet This!"></span></a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=%3c;url%3e" target="_blank"><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=48 height=48 style='width:.5in;height:.5in' id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image003.png@01D69B41.9AC7C050" alt="Facebook Share"></span></a></span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;background:white'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'>(<a href="https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm15/bm1505/bm150505.htm"><span style='color:blue'>back</span></a>) (<a href="https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm15/bm1505/bm1505tc.htm"><span style='color:blue'>contents</span></a>) (<a href="https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm15/bm1505/bm150507.htm"><span style='color:blue'>next</span></a></span><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>by clicking the link below:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm15/bm1505/bm150506.htm">https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm15/bm1505/bm150506.htm</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Or you can listen to the mp3 version by clicking the link below:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/braille_monitor/2015/may/09_blind_people_and_talking_dogs.mp3">https://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/braille_monitor/2015/may/09_blind_people_and_talking_dogs.mp3</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The goal of the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri Personal & Career Development Group is to encourage people to find employment and develop their careers through personal growth strategies. In the Personal & Career Development Group we believe that personal growth leads to career growth. Though it is important to have a good resumé, network, etc., to find work, it is equally important to be confident about yourself and what you can accomplish. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Daniel Garcia is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Topic: National Federation of the Blind of Missouri Personal & Career Development Group October 2020 Meeting<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Time: Oct 5, 2020 07:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Join Zoom Meeting<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8166210902">https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8166210902</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Meeting ID: 816 621 0902<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>One tap mobile<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>+13126266799,,8166210902# US (Chicago)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>+16465588656,,8166210902# US (New York)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dial by your location<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Meeting ID: 816 621 0902<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Find your local number: <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kzA7bCWkg">https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kzA7bCWkg</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Regards<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Daniel Garcia, Public Relations Chair<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>National Federation of the Blind of Missouri<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:dangarcia3@hotmail.com">dangarcia3@hotmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>(816) 621-0902<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.nfb.org">www.nfb.org</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.nfbmo.org">www.nfbmo.org</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Live the life you want.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>