[stylist] question

[helene ryles]

John,
I feel the same way as you regarding any sort of animal based research
promising people cures. I'm ok non animal based research for things
like cancer, but whatever the reason for reacherch, if rehabilitation
came first (as it should do) we would be 'curing' most differantly
abled people's problems.
By promising a cure we are actually holding people back, and we are
hurting millions of animals in the process.

A sighted woman once said to me "I wish you could see" so I explained
exactly why I chose to accept my blindness. I offended another'friend'
by not being interested in a coclear implant. Right now some people
are having a hard job undersanding why I arn't going for a 3rd guide
dog.

I think we go too far to correct a blind child's sight. Even when it's
a losing battle and the sight is likely to go anyway eventually.
People need to know when to stop trying to stop sometning that isn't
really broke.

Helene

On 24/03/2009, John Lee Clark <johnlee at clarktouch.com> wrote:
> Lori:
>
> I love the words blind and deaf.  I abhor anything with impaired in it.
>
> Although the definition of blind may say one who cannot see, and that's a
> negative description, we still have the opportunity to neutralize the word
> itself and have it convey something else entirely, into something that's
> cool.  Same with deaf.  We can take it and turn it around, and associate it
> with culture, pride, ASL, all sorts of great and positive things.
>
> But you can't neutralize and turn around a term like sight impaired.  Tthat
> term does two very bad, bad, bad things.  First, it implies that sight is
> the ideal, that it's right, and what we SHOULD have, and that if we don't
> have it, we SHOULD want it.  This is society talking, "Sight is better."
>
> Second, the term implies that we're broken or we're short of the ideal, or
> we've fallen from the grace of what society says is normal.  This is very
> bad, bad, bad.
>
> Does NFB merely "prefer" the word blind?  It shouldn't.  it should embrace
> it absolutely.
>
> John
>
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