[Education and Welfare] an observation and a few thoughts

[Anne Murphy]

I believe tenure is something you are given to after a number of years on 
the job.  Then you are secured a position.  i.e. college professor.
You were only elected to fulfill a term until October.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dauidr at juno.com>
To: <ew at moblind.org>
Cc: <chat at moblind.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:18 PM
Subject: [Education and Welfare] an observation and a few thoughts


Hi, everyone.

Please, bid me a couple minutes to make an observation that troubles me. 
That is how we who are blind often view the world of adaptation and advocacy 
from a fatalistic point of view. What I mean is that 1. We seem to want all 
or nothing. 2. We take an us-versus-them approach to our sighted 
counterparts in such a way that we view them as having an innate disregard 
for our neds and concerns.
Now, anyone who has read my posts since beforeand during my tenure as 
education and welfare knows that I am all for advocacy. I am all for 
adaptation and, in the words of CharlieCrawford, “changing the world with 
ACB.”
Yet, when we turn our reps into bad guys or insensitive brutes, we suppose 
our agenda automatic sets opposed to theirs. When we speak about freemarket, 
small business America with the same disdain we presuppose they feel toward 
us, we lose our sense of objectivity, even when a solution to problems is 
presented.
For example, yes, we agree the proposed budget transfer is wrong and hurtful 
the the livelihood of blind and visually people. However, to vent our 
frustration in a personified way on one or two reps as if they “should know 
better” by default, puts them in a gotcha position where, in our eyes, 
nothing they do or say can help. When we paint individual general managers 
of a hotel or the overexuberant, well-intended passer-by on the street in a 
bad light, we cloud our own perceptions and, what either person does in 
helping us correct a situation is automatically “not good enough” in our 
eyes.
I think we can picture a four-sided table with four seats an analogy here. 
Often, we speak of sitting opposite each other to dialogue. Great, that way 
we don’t to have to turn our head to make eye contact for get in relative 
facial alignment. So, it’s easy to oppose each other at the four sided table 
where we’re sitting on opposite sides.
How about taking that same table and sitting two parties a round the corner 
from each other. Both parties need to turn their heads toward each other 
about forty-five degrees to make relative eye contact since they are at a 
ninety degree angle from each other.
When doing advocacy or discussing points of view—whether concerning 
blindness issues or the like, it behooves us to think of ourselves sitting 
on the  side of the table which is adjacent to the one onn which our 
counterpart sits. Then, we’re are more or less working with them, gaining 
common understanding of language, aims, ideas, etc.
Whether we are negotiating reimbursement for a restaurants burning our food, 
discussing audio pedestrian signals with the city council or encouraging our 
Congressmen to vote a certain way on a bill, advocacy usually takes a long 
time. It doesn’t happen overnight. Often, the social changes we want to see, 
we present to government now. But, our children and grandchildren may 
benefit from such changes more or in a different way than we do.
That’s why I often think of legislative victories like care packages. When 
sent, their purpose is to support our body and life. They cheer us as we 
face the tasks adapting of home, work, and school. When we propose an idea 
to our local, State, or Federal legislatures, we are helping them do the 
vocation for which each of the  members are called.
Or, think of parents. Do you who are parents always know how to help your 
children or tend to their needs? No. So, a friend or relative lends you a 
hand. Like someone who daily takes being the head of a family seriously, 
governing officials serve us like parents. Do they always what’s best for us 
on their own. No. Do they always get it when we present our side, hopefully 
with tact, to them? No. Yet, what an opportunity we each have to make that 
call to an office in order to be that friend or relative to them.
Yet, friends and relatives snit at each other from time to time. But, even 
in a family demanding our own way never works for the household. Rather, 
sitting at that dinner table on adjacent sides, we can more easily work with 
each other and with those whose daily vocation is to care for our needs of 
body and life.
David rosenkoetter
Kansas City, MO



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