[nfbwatlk] Greater Seattle Chapter meeting summary and announcements

Wed Jun 6 04:57:37 UTC 2012

Really? Dining in the dark event, for this chapter's events? I was told on another NFB listserve, that blindness organizations should not organize or do Dining in the Dark events, especially an organization like the NFB, that promotes positive attitudes of blindness and positive philosophies of blindness. It has been claimed that, even though you are trying to make your diners have a positive experience, no matter how positive you are, the diners still get the notions that "oh, how does this blind person eat this?" or "how the heck can a blind person use a spoon or knife to cut and or put food in the mouth?" or "It must be so hard being blind; I just can't think of myself not being able to even eat because I can't see!" or "Blind people are so freekin' amazing! They have heightened senses! I am not sure if I could do that if I couldn't see!" 

Before organizing these events, you need to consider those things I just mentioned. Dining in the Dark events do not show sighted communities that in fact, blind people can do everything and anything a sighted person can, and that they are normal beings, and simply, their eyesight does not work, causing them blindness, which is just a physical nuisance. Instead, they show the negative perceptions I just quoted above, and bring those outdated stereotypes that people always seem to have. If I were an experienced pilot or airline crew member, and was to make you get on the cockpit of a Boeing Jet plane, take the pilot seat and the controls, and tell you, "Fly to this destination." What would you do? What would you think? What would you say? How would you react? What attitudes may you have?

Well, you might think, "how the h*ll can this pilot lift this thing into the air and fly?" and "this is impossible. I can't do this; I'm not a pilot." Why might you think this? Because you haven't had the training and crucial skills that pilots undergo in order to fulfill the task of flying an air craft. You don't know what it's like, because you don't have the experience of flying and driving an airplane into the air and knowing how to take off and land. Well, it is the same thing. A sighted person does not know that a blind person can do all this and that and go here and there with independence and skill, competently and confidently, and with freedom. Just like with the pilot Vs. Untrained person, the sighted need to realize that it takes us training, a lot of training indeed to fulfill the tasks that we do every day. They need to know that, since we are little and learning, we need to learn how to do everything nonvisually. They must know that we need to have instruction in the fields of Braille, Adaptive technology, and learn to say "yes I can" to every challenge. Blind people need to be skilled, since they are kids, to do everything a sighted person can do, self-sufficiently and with ease. Heck even I can insure you in the future that blind persons will be able to drive, given the proper skill and training they could get! (smile).

Marci, I am not cancelling your event what so ever. I am just making sure that you can indeed understand and think about all I have told you about promoting blindness with Dining in the Dark events like the one you are going to put together as a chapter. Yes, I have learned a lot myself, even from reading the conversations and threads that were going around a couple of months ago when a Calif. newspaper covered a story about a foundation that's supposedly doing a dining in the Dark event to show how blind people could or could not eat, or more metaphorically, how they can or cannot do things. The facts, according to list member, started the thread. 

If you really want to organize the event you are going to organize that day, please find interesting, more appealing, creative ways, and I mean Creative with a capital C, about this Dining in the Dark event, that fosters a positive view of blindness. Something you could do is: you can bring together some blind chefs that you know in your chapter, or blind people who have great experiences in cooking who are blind and are positive in their blindness themselves, who are willing to volunteer their time. They could cook and put together a very delicious meal for dinner at a nice, public facility and many sighted people can attend. They can support your local chapter by donating a few bucks for purchasing the meal cooked totally by blind people, and, more importantly, they can watch how the meal is being cooked if they want to, and how they serve, ETC. they could see for themselves that positive attitude of blindness the NFB is trying to promote. This could be quite the contrary to a Dining in the Darks Event. 
Otherwise, if you don't come up with something so creative, a federation leader or someone experienced in the positive philosophies of Blindness of the NFB, will ticket the Dining in the Darks event and perhaps call it "quits". Isn't that right, Mike?

Well, quick but quite lengthy reflection for you. My 5 dollars, for what is worth.

Cheers,
Humberto

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of mjc59 at q.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 7:55 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Greater Seattle Chapter meeting summary and announcements

He everyone, 

Well, we had another great chapter meeting in May. We will be participating in Dining In The Dark fundraisers this Friday and Saturday, June 8th and 9th. These dinners are being coordinated by A Federation member and will incorporate positive attitudes about blindness. They will take place at the Fremont Baptist Church at 7:30 p.m. each evening. Federation members will sit at the tables with the sighted diners. 

We finalized plans for our chapter picnic. Noel Nightingale and Jim Peterson will host the chapter picnic at their lovely home. The picnic will be held on Saturday, July 28th at 4 p.m. The chapter will provide hamburgers and hot dogs. Those attending are asked to bring a side dish or dessert. Address and transportation details will be included in the June meeting summary. Everyone is welcome to attend. The picnic is always a lot of fun! 

Our iPad 3 raffle tickets will be available at the June meeting. Tickets will be $5 each. The raffle drawing will occur during the NFBW State Convention in Everett in October. 

We passed a motion officially supporting our participation in the 2012 Shop  For A Cause at Macy's at the end of August. James Janney has secured a good location on the first floor for our table. For a suggested donation on $5 shoppers will receive a coupon for a discount on their Macy's purchases. 

A new member, Cindy Bennett, joined the chapter. Cindy is a recent graduate of BLIND, Inc. and has recently moved to Seattle. 

Our June meeting will be held on Saturday, June 16th at 10:30 a.m. at the Downtown Seattle Public Library, 1000 4th Avenue; 4th floor, room 2. Please join us there! 

Marci Carpenter 

Secretary 

Greater Seattle Chapter 

NFB of Washington 

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