[Mt-blind] MAB Affiliation with NFB

[BRUCE&JOY BRESLAUER]

Hi, list.

I wasn't going to chime in on this, but I have a couple of suggestions that 
might be helpful for those of us who are newer to the organization and that 
includes me, having been a member for only ten years.

On some of our MAB letterhead there is a statement that we are an affiliate 
of the National Federation of the Blind.  Perhaps it would be helpful to 
have someone knowledgeable about such things post to the list or write for 
The Observer an article detailing the history of this affiliation -- how it 
came to be, when, and why.  It might help to clarify some things for those 
of us who came into the organization later, after the decision was made.

The discussion of why we are affiliated or whether we should remain so seems 
to come up every few years.  I hope we can continue to examine or re-examine 
this affiliation in a respectful and nonhostile manner.

It wouldn't hurt some of us who have time or are interested to look at the 
web sites of the two major consumer organizations of the blind, to research 
their histories and study their philosophies and how they are the same and 
how they are different.

  There is strength in numbers, and there are times when affiliating with a 
national organization is helpful in making a needed change in a law or a 
practice, or an attitude.  It's like belonging to a union, which some think 
is a good idea and others do not.  With the changing times and changing 
demographics of people who are blind or visually impaired, the organizations 
representing them have had to change as well.  However, there are certain 
things that do not change.  Those who are blind or visually impaired still 
need good educations.  They need to be literate in order to get and keep 
jobs.  They need to be economically self-sufficient in order to build 
productive lives for themselves and their families.  They need to have 
access to adequate, safe, reliable, and affordable transportation.  They 
need to have hope that life is worth living no matter what stage of life 
they are currently in, and that things can be better for them than they were 
for those in generations past.  we are not that far removed from being 
institutionalized, from working in sheltered workshops or living on welfare, 
from not being allowed to get married or own property or have bank accounts, 
from living in group homes or being wards of the state or having 
state-appointed guardians, from having our children taken away from us only 
because we are blind.  Historically, society's expectations of us have been 
extremely low, and we have often been taught to have these same low 
expectations of and for ourselves.  Those in generations before us fought 
long and hard to change some of these limiting attitudes, and to develop 
successful -- albeit alternative -- methods of coping with the challenges of 
everyday life --mobility, home or money management, transportation, 
vocational or recreational pursuits, just to name a few.  Today they 
continue to explore and challenge such things as the deplorable 
underemployment and unemployment rate among the blind, their elementary, 
high school, and college success rate, their ability to obtain and retain 
employment, their ability to remain self-sufficient and in their homes as 
long as possible.  These things are important to all of us.

I grew up in what I now choose to call the fortunate fifties, when I 
received a good education and grounding in the skills of blindness from the 
Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind, and went on to graduate from 
public high school near the top of my class and go to college.  My parents 
thought that growing up with my own family in my own neighborhood was 
important enough that they moved to the same town where the school is so 
that I could come home every night, rather than stay there as a residential 
student nine months of the year.  I think that has made a huge difference in 
my adult life in knowing what a family is and appreciating its benefits, and 
knowing how to nurture and sustain one as an adult.  Growing up, I was 
treated as normally as possible by my parents and friends.  I had chores and 
expectations that were no different than those of my siblings.  I was 
encouraged to do well.  The only things I could not do were to read print 
and drive.  Not being able to drive was painfully obvious to me during the 
teenage years, when if I got mad at my parents for some reason and wanted to 
leave to cool off, there was no place for me to go and no way for me to get 
there except to walk.    It didn't occur to me that I couldn't or shouldn't 
go to college, get married, own a home, have children, just like everyone 
else.  I never questioned it until later, when others questioned it.  By 
then of course it was too late because I was already doing these things, and 
I had had the lifetime momentum of a can-do attitude to back it up.

Now I feel a responsibility to the next generation of people who are blind 
or visually impaired, to see that they have the same opportunities to build 
that same can-do attitude that I was fortunate to have grown up with.  Is 
literacy still a priority for them?  Do they have early access to the skills 
and tools of blindness that will serve them well throughout their lives in 
school, college, work, retirement, and whatever other vocational or 
recreational endeavor they choose?  Can they climb the socioeconomic ladder 
or Mount Everest or whatever other obstacle is in their path?  Who are their 
role models?  How realistic are their expectations for their lives?

In the Bible, after having been in Babylonian captivity for seventy years, 
the Israelites came back to Israel and were warned about becoming complacent 
living in houses they did not build, tending vineyards they did not plant, 
reaping the benefits from the toil of others without being mindful of the 
cost.  I hope we don't do the same thing, forgetting the struggles of the 
past and why they were fought and the price that was paid to win them, and 
realizing that there are still struggles to be fought and battles to be won. 
Sometimes they are the same for each generation, sometimes they are 
different, but whatever they are, it is a good idea for each generation to 
learn about their history -- the victories and the mistakes that were 
made -- so that the victories can be capitalized on and the mistakes need 
not be made again.  There is that saying that says the best way to know 
where you're going is to know where you've been.  I think the discussion 
about where we are going as the Montana Association for the Blind should 
necessarily include a factual discussion of where we have been, not just an 
emotional one.  Many of the ones who lived that history and know it 
firsthand have passed on, and I think it would be wise for us to record that 
history now before too many more of us who lived it pass on, and it is lost 
forever.

So are there any archivists among us, or those who wish to share memories of 
the way it was back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and what it 
meant to be blind was different than it is now?

I wish my parents were still alive so that I could ask them how they coped 
with raising a daughter who is blind without the benefit of a Parents' 
Division.  They mostly flew by the seat of their pants I suppose, as I did 
in school and still do at work, advocating for myself when necessary and 
knowing that if I didn't, no one else would.  I didn't know at the time that 
there was an organization I could have belonged to that might have saved me 
in some cases from reinventing the wheel.

Joy