[blindLaw] Discrimination

[Laura Wolk]

Dear Daniel and all,

I simply cannot agree with the fatalistic understanding of "privilege"
sketched in the second half of your email.  When I went to law school,
I had no lawyers in my family, let alone well-connected ones.  Any
connections I did have dropped me like a hot potato after my religion
and politics changed.  I had no connections to any of the groups that
are supposed to mysteriously place people with the right ideologies in
the right places.  And I floundered and did horribly trying to go to
large cocktail mixers on my own.  My 1L summer I interviewed with over
40 firms, with top-notch grades and a law review placement.  I  got
one callback.  But guess what?  I made my own connections.  And I
firmly believe that I don't possess any characteristic that any other
human can't or couldn't develop.  I worked extraordinarily hard,
perhaps hardest, at developing the infrastructure and support network
that some folks are just born into.  Yes it's harder, but just like
everything else we do when compared to the sighted world, it is very
doable.  I learned how to tell my own story, to get people interested
in me, to learn the things about me that stood out and made people
take notice.  And anyone on this list can do the same.

Our biggest hurdle is not the type of invidious, hateful
discrimination that kept black men off of juries.  Our biggest hurdle
is innocent ignorance and lack of exposure.  Those two forms of
employment discrimination are not remotely the same, and so I don't
think employers are purposely screening out blind applicants in the
way you are describing.

Laura

On 9/24/19, Daniel McBride via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Dear Group:
>
> This must be among the more remarkable discussions I have followed since
> joining this list fifteen years ago.
>
> Going back to the original post in this thread, I have several observations
> regarding discrimination and job opportunities.
>
> In the 1986 SCOTUS case of Batson v. Kentucky, the issue was raised whether
> state prosecutors could use preemptory challenges to strike minority
> veniremen based solely on their minority status. The answer was No in
> theory
> and Yes in its real application.
>
> The case said that preemptory challenges cannot be used to systematically
> strike minority veniremen solely because of their being a minority. Rather,
> in utilizing a preemptory challenge, the State must have a rational and
> articulable reason for using a challenge on any venireman.
>
> The reality of Batson, over the last 33 years, simply changed the State's
> approach to voir dire. Prosecutors now ask very clever questions of
> minority
> veniremen in a manner calculated to give the prosecutor a rational,
> articulable reason to justify their challenges on minority veniremen, and
> the systematic exclusion of minority veniremen, in Texas courts, has not
> changed much at all.
>
> So, the true effect of Batson was to tell State prosecutors that they can
> continue to systematically discriminate against minority veniremen, but
> that
> they must do so through a filtering system that will allow the prosecutor
> to
> take the witness stand in a Batson hearing and articulate their rationale
> for using preemptory challenges on all the minorities they struck.
>
> In a similar fashion, the laws allegedly prohibiting discrimination against
> blind persons do not actually prohibit the discriminatory practices we
> encounter. Rather, the laws create merely a filter through which the hiring
> employer must pass to allow them to reject the blind applicant.
>
> Minority vemiremen continue to be systematically struck by use of the
> proper
> filter. Blind persons continue to be discriminated against through the use
> of the correct filters. This is reality, and I am at a loss for a solution
> to the problem.
>
> Second, whether a sighted or blind person, the American system is a system
> of privilege. Those with connections get jobs, those without connections do
> not. I don't offer this observation as an absolute, but, as a general rule,
> this is how America works. Over the 36 years I have been licensed, many of
> the jobs I desired were denied, not because I wasn't qualified and capable,
> but because I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and had no
> connections. On the other hand, had I been born to parents with serious
> connections, I could have had most any job I wanted, no questions asked.
>
> This is, again, just the sad reality of how things really work in America.
> The official story as to how things are "supposed" to work, and how things
> "really" work in America are, many times, the difference of day and night.
>
> Just my two cents worth.
>
> Daniel McBride
> Fort Worth, Texas
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindLaw mailing list
> BlindLaw at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlaw_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindLaw:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindlaw_nfbnet.org/laura.wolk%40gmail.com
>