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From: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: (2 of 3) Responses to three posting responding to me
Message-ID: <16342@handicap.news>
Date: 21 Jun 91 18:51:22 GMT
References: <16147@handicap.news>
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Reply-To: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax)
Organization: Princeton University
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Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 16342

In article <16146@handicap.news> Dr.Deb@f90.n129.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Index Number: 16146
> >
> > 2) It is not surprising, nor is it inonsistent, that a person who has
> > been blink for decades would find the word 'blink' unacceptable and yet
> > use the word 'sighty'.  The relationship between the two words is not
> > symmetric, because the relationship between the two groups is different.
> > The sighted have tried to define and control the lives of blind people
> > for centuries.  The blind have not tried to do the reverse to the
> > sighted.  It's not a symmetric power relation; it is oversimplifying and
> > naive to assume that the two words should be treated the same.
>
>Dear Sir,
>
>    The relationship between the two words is more direct and
>symmetrical than you would have people believe.  The terms are
>offensive to the person or group to which they are applied.(see
>nigger-honky, spick-gringo)  

Yes.  The words are often taken as offensive to those to whom they are
applied.  Yet that, in and of itself, does not make the *use* of the
word symmetric.  Let me give you a simple example: suppose we had a
slave plantation in which the owners happened to be all white, and the
slaves happened to be all black.  (Our country had these for a while.)
Suppose the slaves called the masters "whities" and the masters called
the slaves "blackies."  (This part is just a hypothetical.)  The masters
might feel really hurt when they found out that they were called
"whities" and the slaves might feel really hurt when they found out they
were called "blackies."  But that does not make the use of the two words
symmetric -- one word could be used as a means of empowerment on the
part of those whose freedom had been systematically denied while the
other word would be part of that very oppression.  Superficially, the
two words would appear the same, but only superficially.

>                            When the sole use for a descriptive
>noun is to belittle, aggravate, or insult it has a wide company.

Again, the "sole use" of "sighty" is not to "belittle, aggravate, or
insult."  It also can be used as a tool of empowerment and education.
Not that I am requiring that you use it as such, but am I wrong in
pointing it out as an option?

>    The second "point" made is also based on a  fallacy.  The
>blind, along with other handicapped persons and other minorities,
>have more than evened the power relationship.  

Huh?  Are we living on the same planet?  What is the unemployment rate
for blind people?  The underemployment rate?  The percentage on SSI?
The percentage with PhD's?

Either you have a very restricted definition of "power" that includes
only legislation and ignores the real world, or you have a radically
different perception of the world than other blind people with whom I've
spoken.

>                                              With the current
>state of politics, they have actually taken the superior position
>in the contest and hold people not in the politically advantaged
>minorities hostage to laws and regulations that force them to
>modify business access, hire by quota rather than merit, expend
>resources and capital to benefit the minority at the expense of
>both the majority and the individual business, take verbal and
>physical assault and degradation as though it didn't matter, and
>now even change their speech to pander to their assailants.

Wow!  All in one sentence.  You forgot about fluoridation of the water
supply and the encroaching Communist Menace.  And I didn't know that
minorities were exempt from laws prohibiting assault and battery.

>Unfortunately, you can dismiss this whole argument not with logic
>or facts, but with the sure knowledge and unflinching conviction
>known in the deepest heart of every leftist, socially ignorant
>radical born.

What argument?  How do you know whether a leftist or a libertarian?
Don't you know that my convictions flinch more than I'd like to admit?
Why do you call me socially ignorant -- don't you know that I've dated
at least *two* women?

There was an interesting article recently posted to this group which
pointed out how printed numbers on elevator buttons were "accomodations"
to sighted people in exactly the same way that brailled numbers on
elevators would be "accomodations" to blind people who read braille.
Please re-read your diatribe a few sentences back keeping that in mind.
>

marshall
-- 
/****************************************************************************/
/* Marshall Gene Flax '89       (609)258-6739  mgflax@phoenix.Princeton.EDU */
/* c/o Jack Gelfand|Psychology Dept|Princeton University|Princeton NJ 08544 */
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