[nfbwatlk] A Day of Frustrations!

[Nathan, Kevin]

Hi Again Kris,

Sorry, I misspelled your name in my previous post here.  I'm brand new
to the list and didn't look.

I find this incident very interesting in juxta position to the other one
about your treatment by the agent at Amtrak.  My initial reaction is
that if we are to hold those who are sighted responsible for treating us
with respect and dignity, then we need to hold ourselves and others who
are blind to the same high standard in terms of responsibilities for our
actions.  Someone needs to confront this individual and call him/her to
account for what this does in terms of harming our efforts to achieve
and maintain first class citizenship.  I'm afraid we don't do things
like that often enough.  I know I certainly don't. 


Kevin Nathan, NOMC 
Independent Living Program Manager 
Dept. of Services for the Blind 
3411 S. Alaska 
Seattle, WA 98118 
Voice:  (206) 721-6450 
Cell:  (206) 619-5175 
Toll Free:  (800) 552-7103 
Fax:  (206) 721-6403 
Email:  KEVNATHAN at DSB.WA.GOV 


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of kris Lawrence
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 8:33 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Subject: [nfbwatlk] A Day of Frustrations!

OK, so the first thing with Amtrak wasn't bad enough. Now get this
blindness related story.

A person who has a good amount of residual vision, pretended to be
totally blind. They used this farce to ask a gentleman if they could
"touch his face to see what he looks like". The gentleman refused saying
he was married and did not feel comfortable with such intimate contact. 
He was also perfectly aware that while this person may have a vision
problem, they were not totally blind. I am also aware that this person
has a fair amount of residual vision and am embarrassed for them that
they (1) tried to perpetuate a common misunderstanding and (2) this
person made such a poor choice in judgement.

I am also a bit angry with this person. This type of behavior makes it
more difficult for those of us who are partially sighted. There are
expectations from both sides of the fence (blind and sighted) that those
who have residual vision have to deal with. The lack of integrity that
this person shows, the lack of understanding what their actions do to
the blind community as a whole, makes it very difficult to communicate
with them. What suggestions do you have?


Kris
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