Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!think.com!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!89!William.Wilson
From: William.Wilson@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (William Wilson)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: why blink?
Message-ID: <19163@bunker.isc-br.com>
Date: 4 May 91 04:14:00 GMT
Sender: news@bunker.isc-br.com
Reply-To: William.Wilson@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/89 - BlinkLink, Pittsburgh PA
Lines: 64
Approved: wtm@bunker.hcap.fidonet.org

Index Number: 15375

[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

To: cmfaltz@phoenix.princeton.edu (Christine Marie Faltz)

 CM>         I am relatively new to this news group, and I may be
 CM>     reopening an issue without knowing it, but I would
 CM>  appreciate responses. I am ot happy with the names "blinklink"
 CM>  or "blinktalk" since I have, along with most of my blind
 CM>  friends (and enemies!) always viewed "blink" as a pejorative
 CM>  term, analogous to "nigger" for African-Americans or "kike"
 CM>  for Jews.  Such terms offend me to a great extent.

Christine Mary,
    Unfortunately, not only are you new to the newsgroup, you are seeing
but a fraction of the messages that appear on this side of the FidoNet
gate to your network, and indeed it may be a bit difficult for me to
explain how we are using the term blink over here!  I can, however,
assure you that we have discussed this in the past, and even those who
are uncomfortable with the term agreed that its use here is something
special, and few, if any of them, are angered by our use of it!
    I don't want to prolong this any further than necessary, but I do
have to point out something that was obvious to me from day one, and
thus my use of the name BlinkLink for my board and BlinkTalk for the
echo.
    Bo out on the street and call anyone a Kike or a
Nigger, and you're going to get a response!  This response is going to
get you in trouble, as these are universally accepted as pejorative
terms as you said.
    Go out and call anyone a blink, and you will get most likely 1 of 2
reactions, a quizical look wondering what the heck you are talking
about, or a laugh as they will think you are making fun!
     Christine Mary, not only do most sighted people have no idea that
some people see blink as a negative term, very few adventitiously
blinded people know of its use that way till they run into someone who
was educated in a resident school for blind children whotells them!  You're
comparison to the terms Nigger and Kike is so far from reality I
can hardly take it seriously!When I first set up BlinkLink, of
the hundreds of people in Pittsburgh who call the boards and the dozens
of sysops in the net, only 2 others even had any idea why I called it
BlinkLink, and needless to say, both of them are blinks, right Gary and
Stu?
     Christine Mary, when I first learned about the use of the word
blink as a negative term for blind people by a girl who had been taught
its negative tone while a little girl at a residential school, I
decided it was ridiculous!  The fact that such a term could bring anger
or hurt to a blind person and yet mean nothing but a wink of the eye to
most of the world seemed ludicrous to me, and it still does.
     So then, here's where we stand...assuming you want to hang onto
your view of the word blink as a pejorative term, you have to go out and
teach about 99% of the world that this is the case.
    I, on the other hand, only have to convince about 1% of the world
that it isn't a negative term.
     Christine Mary, I have one heck of a head start on you, and with
every new participant in BlinkTalk and caller to my board I get one step
closer to my goal!
                                                        Willie

... BlinkTalk, Dr. Deb and Silver in Pittsburgh!

--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!89!William.Wilson
Internet: William.Wilson@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org