[Ohio-Talk] The Blind of the World: Spreading the Federation Message

[Richard Payne]

This message was written awhile ago but it speaks to the message for tonight
also.
	The Blind of the World: Spreading the Federation Message
by Fredric K. Schroeder


>From the Editor: Fredric Schroeder is a man who needs little introduction.
His work in the United States in the fields of education and rehabilitation
is well-documented, and the passion he has for this work and the compassion
for the people in it has made him an outstanding representative of blind
people. It is not surprising that the world wants a bit of this man's time.
He currently serves as the first vice president of the World Blind Union,
and in 2016 he will run for the office of president. Here is the moving
speech he gave to a crowd so enthralled by his remarks that one could have
heard a pin drop. 
I remember Dr. Jernigan saying that, as long as one blind person is subject
to discrimination, we are all subject to discrimination. I believe that sums
up the essence of our philosophy, the philosophy of the National Federation
of the Blind. 
Seventy-five years ago, a small number of blind people from seven states
came together to found the National Federation of the Blind. The times were
hard-very hard. There were no laws prohibiting discrimination against the
blind. Employers could openly refuse to hire blind people with no fear of
penalty. Buses and trains could refuse to transport blind people, unless
they were accompanied by a sighted person. Landlords could refuse to rent to
blind people, and hotels could turn away the unaccompanied blind. Many banks
refused to rent safety deposit boxes to blind people, and blind people were
routinely denied life insurance. When a blind person was hit by a car, the
doctrine of "contributory negligence" held that the blind person, by virtue
of blindness, contributed to causing the accident, thereby absolving the
driver of responsibility for any injury the blind person may have suffered.
Literally, blind people were deemed negligent simply by walking the public
streets. 
In 1940 nearly all blind people were unemployed, and there was no uniform
welfare payment to meet basic needs. At that time the vast majority of blind
people had to rely on the charity of family and friends for food and
shelter. Most blind people suffered abject poverty with little hope of
something better. But their hardship was more than the consequence of
opportunity denied. 
The blind of 1940 were subjugated to the status of virtual wards of the
private and governmental agencies for the blind. The agencies exercised
nearly total control over their lives. You may think I am exaggerating or
overstating the situation, but consider this: in 1940, in my home state of
Virginia, the state rehabilitation agency required sterilization whenever
two blind people wished to marry. The agency explained that without a
sighted person in the home there would be no one to care for the children,
but there was a more ominous aspect behind the sterilization requirement. It
was believed that sterilizing blind people was necessary to prevent
hereditary blindness from being passed on to their children.
Unfortunately, the assumption that blind people live lesser lives was not
aberrational to Virginia or unique to a single state official. In 1940, here
and abroad, forced sterilization, under the banner of the eugenics movement,
enjoyed nearly universal public acceptance. Eugenics was rooted in the
biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, first expounded in the
1880s. Galton concluded that the social position of the upper classes of
Britain was due to their superior genetic makeup. Early proponents of
eugenics believed in selective breeding of human beings and supported the
forced sterilization of the poor, the disabled, and the immoral. How do you
like that? Not only were we lumped together with the poor--no shame in being
poor-we were lumped together with the immoral. I have full confidence in the
ability of blind people to be immoral, but no more so than the sighted. But
I digress.
In 1924 the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted eugenics legislation known as
the "Virginia Sterilization Act." It was challenged; however, the
Commonwealth soon found the courts to be sympathetic to its goal and what
eventually became the goal of thirty-one other states, to rid society of
those who were presumed to pose an unreasonable social burden. In the United
States Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell (1927), Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., writing for the majority, found that the Virginia Sterilization
Act permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, "for the protection
and health of the state," did not violate the Due Process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. That was 1927, and
the Virginia Sterilization Act was not repealed until 1974-yes, I said
1974-and, incredible as it may sound, Virginia was not the last state to
repeal its forced sterilization law. 
In 1940 the times were hard and hope a cruel dream. But out of subjugation
and despair, somehow, a small, unimaginably fragile flame of hope first
sparked and then gradually took hold and steadied. And from that small flame
of hope came action. 
My purpose is not to romanticize human suffering. Tyranny and bondage are
cruel and defy moral justification; oppression, however well intended, is
evil; despair is not the antecedent to enlightenment. But, in the lives of
the oppressed, subjugation has been their reality, forcing the choice to
endure or rebel. That was the condition of the blind in 1940, and the blind
chose rebellion over obeisance. They would no longer endure; they had to
rise up and take concerted action. They came together to seek social change,
to seek expanded opportunity, to seek the chance to work and live as others
do. They knew in their hearts that, joining together, blind people could
change their condition and work toward social acceptance. 
Reflecting on that time, our first president, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, said:
"When the founding fathers of the Federation came together at Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, to form a union, they labored in a climate of skepticism and
scorn. The experts said it couldn't be done; the agencies for the blind said
it shouldn't be done. 'When the blind lead the blind,' declared the prophets
of doom, 'all shall fall into the ditch.'" 
Dr. tenBroek's words remind us that our struggle, then as now, is a struggle
against prejudice and misunderstanding; a struggle against the social
attitudes that presume inferiority and prescribe isolation. We struggle to
free ourselves from the low expectations that constrict opportunity and
diminish our humanity. We struggle to rid society of its low expectations
for blind people, as we struggle to rid ourselves of those same low
expectations-low expectations that crush the spirit. Tragically, far too
many blind people, lacking hope, conclude that living to endure is not
living at all. 
In December 2012, identical twins in Belgium were killed at their own
request. The forty-five-year-old men, who were born deaf, spent their lives
side by side, growing up together and later sharing an apartment and working
together as cobblers. The two men had been losing their eyesight and soon
would have been completely blind. According to their doctor, the prospect of
being blind as well as deaf was unbearable. After winning approval from
Belgian authorities, the two men were given lethal injections, ending their
lives. 
Under Belgian law people may be assisted to die if a doctor determines that
the individual has made his or her wishes clear and is suffering unbearable
pain. A member of the Belgian Commission of Euthanasia said that the twins
met the legal requirements to end their lives since their suffering was
grave and incurable. The official said that, when they became blind as well
as deaf, they would not have been able to lead autonomous lives and that
with only a sense of touch they had no prospects of a future. 
The struggle of 1940 is the struggle of today. It is the struggle against
low expectations. It is the struggle against the idea that it is acceptable,
even merciful, to euthanize the blind to relieve their suffering and
acceptable to sterilize the blind to relieve society of their burden. 
While it is true that the forced sterilization of the 1940s is mostly a
thing of the past, the underlying attitudes that gave forced sterilization
its moral justification and legal protection remain. The courts still leave
open the door to state-imposed sterilization, the authority to remove from
society the unfit and undesirable. As disturbing as it is to contemplate,
the United States Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell has never been
overturned. As recently as 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the
Eighth Circuit cited Buck v. Bell to protect the constitutional rights of a
woman coerced into sterilization without procedural due process. The court
stated that error and abuse will result if the State does not follow the
procedural requirements established by Buck v. Bell for performing an
involuntary sterilization. In other words, according to the courts,
compulsory sterilization is still okay, as long as the rules are followed. 
For seventy-five years we, the blind of the United States, have worked
together to forge new opportunities for the blind. For seventy-five years we
have helped one another to live the lives we want to live, not the lives
others prescribe for us, and our progress has been greater than the blind of
1940 could possibly have imagined. Still, while progress has been made, more
remains to be done here in the United States and throughout the world, for
the blind of the world are truly our brothers and sisters. Their hopes are
our hopes; their dreams are our dreams; and their tears are our tears. 
In August 2016 the World Blind Union will hold its ninth General Assembly in
the United States, here in this very hotel. The General Assembly will be a
time for the blind of the world to come together, encourage one another, and
plan together, just as we in the National Federation of the Blind have been
coming together, encouraging one another, and planning together, now for
seventy-five years. 
At the 2016 General Assembly, it is my intent to run for the position of
President of the World Blind Union. The World Blind Union represents an
estimated 285 million blind people around the world-285 million blind people
struggling to free themselves from the low expectations that for far too
long have defined the boundaries of their lives. The struggle ahead is
daunting, but we know that progress begins with hope, the determination to
seek a better life and to reject society's kindly meant but misinformed
assumptions about us--assumptions that have been used to justify euthanizing
the blind to relieve their suffering and sterilizing the blind to relieve
the burden they impose on others. 
We must work together to increase access to education for blind children; we
must work to expand employment opportunities; we must work together to gain
recognition of our basic civil and human rights. And we must nurture and
spread the flame of hope born of self-respect and the determination to
govern our own lives, here and across the world. 
No blind person suffers discrimination alone. As Dr. Jernigan taught us, as
long as one blind person is subject to discrimination, we are all subject to
discrimination. And the opposite is also true: the success of one blind
person is the success of all blind people. The accomplishment of the
individual is the accomplishment of us all, and with each step forward our
collective future is brighter and more ablaze with opportunity. 
We must fan the flame of hope until it becomes an all-encompassing
conflagration, an irresistible force impelling a change in the public
consciousness leading to a change in educational and employment
opportunities; a change in civil rights protections; and, most important, a
change in the hearts and minds of blind people-a change that begins with
hope and turns hope into action, action into opportunity, and opportunity
into equality-equality for the blind of the United States and for the blind
of the world.


Richard Payne,  President
National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
937/829/3368
Rchpay7 at gmail.com
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


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