[nfb-talk] To Be or Not to Be, Irritated

[T. Joseph Carter]

Jim,

The wheelchair user analogy you'd likely get from the ACB is the wrong
one.  (I consider John in the ACB camp since I see him on their lists and
every message he posts to ours is in support of their agenda, regardless
of what he says to us)

When Katie, my GF and a wheelchair user, applies for a job, nobody really
questions whether or not she can get to work every day because she lives
in Portland, Oregon.  The entire city has curb cuts at every intersection.
She doesn't need them usually.  Any curb or single step of less than four
inches is easy enough for her to navigate.  She can get around Monmouth
just fine, and Monmouth has old, broken, bumpy, rocky sidewalks on many
streets, no sidewalks on several, and curb cuts are entirely hit and miss.

Now, there are times when navigating in this town means she is walking
(rolling?) in the street because there literally isn't anywhere else for
her to be, but I do the same thing myself, and we stick to the side of the
road so that cars can easily go around us.  Fortunately, in Monmouth,
there isn't that much traffic except around 5pm as the University office
employees are leaving town.

When I apply for a job, people aren't so sure about me.  No of course I
know this going in and I make sure that within five minutes, there can be
no doubt that I can do just about anything they could imagine.  I know
that if I don't do that, I won't be getting the job.  It's that simple.

That isn't really an argument FOR chirping signals--I don't use the
things, and frankly even the new ones are an irritating interference to
street crossing.  But consider instead the situation with money..

Sighted people don't know and can't imagine how we can avoid being ripped
off several times a day.  I do it, but they can't think of how.  Now, if
they can't imagine how I'm going to identify the money, are they likely to
hire me for a position that includes managing money as part of my daily
job duties?  Again, if I can't convince them that I can do it, they won't
hire me.

In that way, the ACB's efforts to secure a currency the rest of the world
KNOWS we can use is a very good thing.  I'd go a little further and
suggest that we need a way to verify the money is the real thing, similar
to the way sighted people use that pen that temporarily changes color when
marked on the higher denomination bills.  No cashier I've seen will take a
$50 or $100 bill without checking it, and we shouldn't either.  Maybe in
addition to making a purple mark on a real $50, it could smell like grape
until the mark fades, I don't know.  *grin*

For me, the currency thing is less about the poor blind person being
unable to spend money without being ripped off--that happens to sighted
people about as often as to us, I suspect, and we have a way to know.
It's slow, it's inconvenient, and it's a technology-based solution that
costs about $$150 too much in my opinion, but it's there.  No, for me the
really big issue is changing that perception that we can't do it.

The other factor is that I'm Catholic and believe strongly in my faith--it
is a Christian ethic that we do things to help others because it is the
right thing to do--not because it's easy or because there's no cost
involved with doing it or even because they're hopeless without that help.
Would a currency that a blind person could (relatively) quickly and safely
identify without trusted assistance or some slow $200 gadget be helpful to
us?  Absolutely it would.  If it is done the right way, the per-person
costs are downright reasonable (even if the numbers get large when you
look at sum totals), and it gives the general public one less thing to
think we can't do.  For these reasons, it should be done.

Now, is this lawsuit by the ACB the right vehicle to do it?  Probably not.
Are some of their claims about the plight of the blind person, cheated at
every turn a bit ridiculous?  From our perspective, very much so.  But the
judge included in his findings of fact that sufficient accessibility to
the currency isn't there.  That finding is no longer up for debate--you
don't appeal findings of fact.  The findings of law are another matter.

GIVEN that the currency is was found to be not sufficiently accessible
(which is better than saying inaccessible because the latter isn't true),
does the law demand that the government do something about it?  The ACB
and the judge say yes.  The government says no, and they appealed the
judge's decision.  Now under these circumstances, I hope the ACB wins the
appeal and that either the government decides not to appeal to the supreme
court OR that the supreme court decides not to hear the case--I would
expect the supreme court to rule against the ACB and take a hammer and
chisel to the Rehab Act in the process.  ACB and NFB would both be held
responsible in my mind if that happens--the ACB for pursuing this through
the courts rather than through the legislators, and the NFB for giving
them ammunition to do it when we rightly should have stayed out of it.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks it is silly that the government
can afford to:
  - send everyone a kicker check
  - bail out big banks who made bad loans
  - possibly bail out homeowners who took loans they can't afford
  - drop the gas tax for the summer, despite economists' claims this would
    be a bad idea
  - provide every single household in the country not one but TWO set-top
    TV boxes just about for free
.... but they cannot afford to give vendors a tax break so they can update
their machines to accept a new format to the paper currency gradually over
the next FIFTEEN YEARS it would take to accomplish such a changeover?

Remember class, politicians' first duty is to their re-election campaign.

Joseph

On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 10:05:45PM -0600, Jim Marks wrote:
> John, I am saying you're shooting at the wrong targets.  You seem like a
> bright enough guy, so I presume you're aim is deliberate.  No one said that
> accessible money or audible pedestrian signals are the cause of the
> prejudice.  However, they can be and often are the symptoms of the
> prejudice.  Spare us the analogies about wheelchair users and sighted people
> getting something we poor blind people do not get.  Blind people know we
> have to look to ourselves in the things that count.  The way I see it,
> accessible money doesn't really matter that much, and audible pedestrian
> signals can be harmful, especially if they are forced on us by knotheads who
> don't really believe in the abilities of the blind.  You troll here telling
> the most powerful organization of the blind that we are somehow cramping
> your style.  Well, you know what?  We're going to do it our way.  And our
> aim is more than just a matter of bravado and twisting of words.  If you
> would simply examine your beliefs and compare them with the ones most
> Federationists hold, you might learn a thing or two.  There was a time when
> I thought and acted like you are here on NFB-Talk.  I woke up to the fact
> that there are no real curb cuts for the blind and that no one was looking
> out for the interests of the blind except for those who understand the
> personal responsibility and positive attitudes bit.  You will not fix
> blindness with accessibility alone.  Plus, the more you believe in the
> abilities of the blind, the less accessibility you will want.
> 
> John, I have one last something to tell you.  If you don't want to know,
> don't look down.  If you were to look down, you would see that you are
> standing on the shoulders of Federationists.  We're going to be there for
> you regardless of how you spit, fuss, and shake your tiny fists.  Best to
> you.  I really mean it.
> 
> 
> -------
> Jim Marks
> blind.grizzly at gmail.com
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-talk-bounces+blind.grizzly=gmail.com at nfbnet.org
> [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces+blind.grizzly=gmail.com at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
> John G. Heim
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 7:32 PM
> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] To Be or Not to Be, Irritated
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> Holy cow! We don't *HAVE* accessible money. To suggest that this guy's
> attitude is the result of accessible money or audible walk signals is
> ridiculous.
> 
> If someone already thinks blind people can't do anything, how in the world
> are you going to convince him otherwise if you can't even tell your own
> money apart?
> 
> Man, this is ridiculous. I've never seen such a series of absurd
> rationalizations in my life. 
> 
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