[nfbwatlk] *HAVE* the blind lost their way or their will? Never!

[Carl Jarvis]

Thanks for your thoughts, Lisa.  I hope you folks are looking ahead to a 
very successful New Year.

Can you imagine what would happen if some nation announced that it had an 
unemployment rate of 70 percent?  Our government probably would very quickly 
send relief funds, and the World Bank would float them huge loans to get 
their economy jump started.
Maybe we should stake out some land, like the Olympic Peninsula, and declare 
it a separate nation, move all blind folks here and demand financial aid.

But since that's a silly idea which would never work, we need jobs.
Naturally there are many jobs that we simply can't do.  Jobs like bus 
driver, truck driver, airline pilot, commercial photographer and Sea Hawk 
running back.
But there are some jobs that we cut ourselves off from.
Cashiers, bank tellers, store clerk, and any other job that entails our 
being able to quickly identify money.
Like you, I fold my money.  That means that at some point I must have a 
method of identifying the paper currency.  Usually this is through the eyes 
of another person.
When I worked in the Business Enterprises Program, I had to trust the public 
to hand me the correct bill.  If they said it was a five dollar bill I could 
only hope that they had not passed a one off on me.
I did have a few tricks up my sleeve, but if I worked for someone else, say 
for example the local banker, he would probably not be eager to gamble on my 
tricks or on the public's honesty.  So he would hire a sighted person.
So now we have thousands of jobs that we could do with ease, if only we 
could identify one bill from the next.  But we want to save our US Treasury 
the cost of making our money identifyable, thus cutting ourselves out of 
employment.
This means that thousands of blind men and women who want to work, are 
forced to live on SSI.  And what is SSI?  Well, SSI is the price our Federal 
government is willing to pay us rather than make our money usable to the 
blind.  It's costing the tax payers either way you slice it.  Wouldn't it be 
better to see blind men and women walking with their heads up, to hold down 
a job that is now out of their reach?
Seventy percent unemployment is Class discrimination of the top order.
But as long as we don't make waves, and so long as we are satisfied with the 
crumbs from Master's table, and as long as we kiss up to an administration 
that is stealing not only our money but our dignity, then we will continue 
to sit in our hovels and eat worms.

Carl Jarvis