[stylist] question

Tue Mar 24 21:44:54 UTC 2009

John,
	While I agree with you that an over-dependent on eyesight causes a
good number of sighted people to be tuned out to other, perhaps far more
helpful information, and that many supercilious people don't look past what
they see visually, I can't dispute the logic of what Judith was saying. Our
senses are tools for gathering information, like the tools in your tool box.
If you don't have a particular tool you figure out another way to do the
job, that's adaptability we all need to have. On the other hand, the more
tools you have in the tool box the easier it is to do any number of jobs. 
	When you drop something on the ground and it bounces away from you,
a sighted person can see at a glance where it is. A hearing blind person can
maybe here where it bounced, and while we have to search a bit we have a
general idea where it went. A deaf-blind person, unless there's a technique
I'm not familiar with if so please tell me, would have to do even more
searching because he doesn't have visual or auditory information. In the
end, we all find the object, we just go about searching for it in difference
ways.  

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of John Lee Clark
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 2:36 PM
To: 'NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] question

Judith:

Oh, please.  Sighted is NOT better than blind.  It is just that those who
have sight are rewarded with more from society.  But EVEN SO, even with
society's favoring sightedness over blindness, I have often found blindness
to be better than being sighted in so many things.  In their over-dependence
on vision, sighted people neglect so many wonderful resources and potential
skills.  But it works all right for them to some shallow degree, but
whenever they hit an unusual situation or problem or lose something or
things don't go as planned or any number of other things, I've found that
they are often very weak, clueless, slow, lost.

Mayb e this is a deaf-blind perspective and not a blind one?  Maybe the
blind are the same as sighted people in their relying overmuch on one
sense--hearing--and in so doing experience disability more acutely when
encountering sight-related matter?  I don't know.  But let me assure you
that the other senses I had the privilege of cultivating are wonderful and
are better tools than full vison and hearing for many things.  Perhaps the
most important of them to me is kinethestics.

But the real bottom line is that we ALL are disabled in that we are merely
human and we ALL use our minds to overcome this universal problem.

Are you, then, suggesting that blind people's minds are not as good as
sighted people's minds?  Because that would be the ONLY explanation for
sighted being better than blind.  Otherwise, one wouldn't be better than the
other at all, just somewhat different.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Judith Bron
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 1:46 PM
To: NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] question

John, The reality, as much as you disagree, is that being sighted is better
than being blind.  Terms like "visually impaired", "Visually challenged" or
any of the like are legislated terms.  I can't see any better or worse when
a bureaucrat describes my visual limitations.  I am what I am.  Like I said
before, I have to take those limitations, do the best I can to do what I am
capable of and continue striving to be the best me I can be.  I don't care
how society looks at my limitations.  And, yes, they are limitations.  I
have to be the one to deal with them.  Almost every person in this world has

limitations.  Some can create beautiful artwork, some can't.  Some can write

beautifully, some can't put together a cognizant statement either verbally
or in writing.  Some have athletic prowess while others are happy being
couch potatoes.  Some love to eat while others are skinny and physically fit

their entire life.  All "problems", all "limitations" when put in the
perspective of the optimum and people all over the world live with them
every day.  When was the last time you heard of the "art impaired" person? 
Or the person who can't sing one note without causing distress to the other
person's eardrums?  Are there cultures for the tone deaf?  The person who
can't draw a straight line?  John, deal with John.  Society has enough
problems.  As a society we have a lot to deal with, but making John socially

comfortable isn't one of them.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Lee Clark" <johnlee at clarktouch.com>
To: "'NFBnet Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 1:56 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] question

> 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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