[nabs-l] Social Stuff

[Christoper Kchao]

Hi,
It was not my intent to personally call anyone out in my last post. In fact,
I agree with Meghan that the orientation of the roommates has little to do
with whether or not people drew inappropriate things on the walls. More to
the point, I'm tempted to think that Teal's word were more than likely
misinterpreted or poorly chosen, and he simply brought up the nature of his
roommates to further shed light on what exactly the inappropriate
phrases/drawings involved. I apologize if i was at all unclear regarding the
intent of my message, given the brief nature in which it was written.

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Sean Whalen
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 2:57 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Social Stuff

It may be beside the immediate point, but is certainly relevant. Attributing
the inappropriate drawings to the fact that the roommates were gay is
completely absurd. Sure, the inappropriate content may have been different
inappropriate content had the roommates been heterosexual, but it would have
been inappropriate content just the same.

As a minority population that is often discriminated against, misunderstood,
and mischaracterized, I find it odd that some among us think it respectable
to do the same to other groups.

Believe me, there are plenty of college apartments with heterosexual content
that would offend many scrawled on their walls.

It bothered me when I first saw that message, but I decided to let it go.

Now that we're here, Meghan is 100% right. Here here and two thumbs up!

More to the immediate point, I don't think filthy apartments are any
indicator of social awkwardness or akin to eye poking, rocking, etc. While I
agree wholeheartedly with Arielle on the issue, I think it is also useful to
realize that social norms apply to the blind as well as the sighted. I don't
think it holds water to say that sighted people have their own idiosyncratic
things about them so it is OK for blind people to rock. Social norms matter.
How you look and present yourself matters. It is certainly inappropriate to
label every undesirable behavior of a blind child, e.g. obstinacy or
egocentricity as a symptom of social dysfunction, but I think it useful and
appropriate for parents to discourage behaviors, commonly called blindisms,
which only serve to perpetuate societies views on blindness and to further
set apart the blind individual as different.

Sean


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