[gui-talk] currency and the NFB

[Joel Deutsch]

Since no one's posted it, yet:

The Midas Touch - New York Times
The New York Times
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December 18, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

The Midas Touch
By MARC MAURER

IN a ruling in a lawsuit last month, Judge James Robertson of Federal
District Court said that United States currency discriminates against blind
people
because bills are all the same size and cannot be distinguished by touch.
His decision was applauded by some advocates for the blind, including the
American
Council of the Blind, which brought the lawsuit. But as president of the
National Federation of the Blind, the nation's oldest and largest
organization
of the blind, I believe that Judge Robertson's ruling is wrong.

Discrimination occurs when the blind are barred from enjoying benefits,
goods or services. This definition of discrimination is what most people
understand
the word to mean. If a landlord refuses to rent an apartment to someone
because of race, color, creed or disability, then discrimination occurs.
Sometimes
people with disabilities are barred from certain facilities or services
because of the way they are designed. A person in a wheelchair cannot climb
the
steps of a public building; if the building does not have a wheelchair ramp,
that person is prevented from entering it. In another example, my group is
suing the Target Corporation because the company's Web site doesn't
accommodate the special text-reading software that the blind use to surf the
Internet.
In both cases, a person with a disability is kept out of a public place or
denied use of a service, just as African-Americans were not welcome at
whites-only
lunch counters.

But while blind people cannot identify paper currency by touch, that does
not prevent us from spending money. When we hand merchants our money, they
take
it and provide us with the goods or services we have paid for, no questions
asked. People with whom we transact business provide us with correct change
if needed, and we then organize the money in a manner that allows us to
identify it in the future. We transact business in this way every day.

There is no evidence that the blind are shortchanged more often than the
sighted; if a question does arise about a particular transaction, it is the
responsibility
of the blind person to sort out the matter. Identifying money by feel, as
the blind are often able to do in many other countries, may be more
convenient,
but inconvenience is not the same thing as discrimination.

While it is crucial that minorities have a voice in society, it is also the
responsibility of every minority group to use that voice wisely and not to
cry
"discrimination" when no discrimination has occurred. The blind of America
will fight discrimination wherever we find it, but we achieve nothing by
falsely
portraying ourselves as victims and engaging in frivolous litigation.

Marc Maurer is the president of the National Federation of the Blind.

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The New York Times Company