Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!89.0!Jamal.Mazrui From: Jamal.Mazrui@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Jamal Mazrui) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Resignation Statement as an NFB Officer Message-ID: <16088@bunker.UUCP> Date: 3 Dec 90 16:59:36 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: Jamal.Mazrui@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/89.0 - BlinkLink, Pittsburgh PA Lines: 116 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 12173 [This is from the Advocacy Conference] Fellow Federationists, Today at the state board meeting of the National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts, I will be resigning as your Legislative Officer. I would like you to know why. This letter presents the positions I have taken which have caused so much controversy and ill will toward me by some of the constitutional officers that I find it impossible to serve in this capacity any longer. I have worked hard as Legislative Officer and done the best job I knew how. Since there are planned attempts today to distort my record and assassinate my character, I am attaching for your information and consideration some documents related to my participation in the movement over the last few years. Judge for yourself about my dedication, integrity, philosophy and actions. I wish to remain as a fellow member with you because I subscribe to the philosophy and objectives of our movement. Independent views I have publicly expressed and independent actions I have openly taken have culminated in the national president coming here today to seek to expel me as a member. The views primarily concern the national scholarship committee, unemployment of the blind, and matters of fair process within the organization. The actions I took primarily are the organizing of two blindness related groups, the Visually Impaired and Blind User Group and the Visually Impaired Persons Employment Group, which where not intended to be official affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind. Naturally, there have been some clashes between myself and those antithetical to my views and actions, but it is these issues not the occasional heated clash which lie at the heart of the attempt to expel me. On the subject of the scholarship committee, the controversial views I expressed can be summarized as follows: 1. Applicants who do not win as well as those who do should be notified in writing of the scholarship committee's decision. Considering the significant time, effort, and emotional investment in putting together a scholarship application, I think it is a matter of professional courtesy to notify people either way as to the final decision. Instead those who do not win endure an agonizing suspense, often for a week, wondering if a letter was lost in the mail or the phone rang when they were out. The practice of notification is standard in all other scholarship applications, grant applications, and school applications I know. 2. The scholarship committee should place as much weight on community service as on academic grades. Consistent with the imperative for collective action to advance the day of first class citizenship, we should be encouraging by our scholarship criteria blind men and women who volunteer significant portions of themselves and their time to improving life for others. Such a balance of academic grades and community service in the scholarship criteria is not only in the spirit of our organization, but profitable to our strength. I am dismayed at the number of scholarship winners year after year whose grades were good enough to be admitted to Harvard, but who have done little to add to our cause after winning the scholarship. On the other hand, taking into account service to the movement in the scholarship decision would affirm its value and encourage its growth. 3 I believe it was unethical, distasteful, and possibly illegal to award a scholarship to my brother and then retract it afterward because his wedding--which he had notified the scholarship committee of in his application-- was to occur on the Saturday before the convention and thereby preclude him from attending the first meeting of scholarship winners. My brother had never been informed of this pre-convention Saturday meeting and so could not plan for it. He in fact planned his wedding for the day prior to the convention so that he could take his bride there on their honeymoon and introduce her to the movement. Regarding my organizing of blindness related groups not within the Federation, let me explain as I have publicly stated before: 1. The Visually Impaired and Blind User Group, I believe can most effectively serve blind people as an integral part of a large and influential organization of computer users of all types, the Boston Computer Society. The annual budget, staff and equipment resources we receive from the BCS uphold this truth. I believe we should participate in the organized blind movement such that maximum gain will come to blind people. It is often but not always the case that this will occur by being the sole sponsors of program. 2. Likewise, I organized the Visually Impaired Persons Employment Group as a cooperative effort between as many consumer and professional groups as possible concerned with unemployment of the blind, the most serious and troublesome we face. From the beginning I have sought to ensure that wherever the sponsorship resources come from, the philosophy remains ours: a strong positive philosophy of blindness, encouraging people to support one another in seeking their career aspirations. The resources available from our Job Opportunities for the Blind program were in fact the topic of the first meeting. Even if you disagree with some of these or other positions I have taken, are they enough to warrant removing me as an officer or expelling me as a member? I hardly think so. Marc Maurer said to me last April that he uses me as an example of the democratic character of the National Federation of the Blind. Unfortunately, it appears that this democratic expression has proved too threatening to the desire of some for strict order and central control. Are these the kind of organizational processes that promote collective, considered action? No! I am convinced that our movement would be stronger and more effective if there were more open decision making and respect for differing views in our united cause of first class citizenship for the blind. Sincerely yours, Jamal Mazrui -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!89.0!Jamal.Mazrui Internet: Jamal.Mazrui@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com