Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!yale.edu!yale!bunker!wtm From: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: (1 of 3) Responses to three posting responding to me Message-ID: <16341@handicap.news> Date: 21 Jun 91 18:50:22 GMT References: <16147@handicap.news> Sender: wtm@bunker.isc-br.com Reply-To: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax) Organization: Princeton University Lines: 112 Approved: wtm@hnews.fidonet.org Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference Index Number: 16341 In article <16120@handicap.news> William.Wilson@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org writes: >Index Number: 16120 > > MG> 1) I believe that it is common, when one is making sarcastic > MG> comments, to include the characters :-) in the text. (The > MG> punctuation marks approximate a smiling face on its side.) > >Marshall, > Actually, the use of the punctuation marks :-) to denote a >smiley face, is considered by many on this side of the gate to be not >only demeaning, signifying that the poster of the message considers the >audience incapable of recognizing sarcasim when it hits them in the face, >but in a situation where most of the people are using speech synthesis, >and thus probably have the pronounciation of punctuation marks off, a >waste of 3 columns in a message! > Of course, the choice of which symbol to use to indicate sarcasm is not the point. Personally, I prefer the "[Sarcasm On]" and "[Sarcasm Off]" symbols. But I do not think that the use of such symbols is demeaning; are question marks demeaning because they suggest that the reader is incapable of detecting a question? Of course not -- they are redundant but useful. I believe that the same is true of "sarcasm" marks. > MG> relationship between the two groups is different. The sighted > MG> have tried to define and control the lives of blind people for > MG> centuries. The blind have not tried to do the reverse to the > MG> sighted. It's not a symmetric power relation; it is > MG> oversimplifying and naive to assume that the two words should > MG> be treated the same. > >Marshall, and I find it ironic that you, who has posted in many of your >messages a disclaimer saying that you are "Not Handicapped", are now >telling me what a blind person has the right to say or assume, or even >how the sighted world treats us as blind people! I find it ironic that you seem to suggest that my sight disqualifies me from offering my opinions. If find it ironic that you suggest that your lack of sight exempts you from considering advice that I would give anyone. I find it ironic the implication that people who happen to be blind are so different from the "sighted world" that a single code regarding what may be "said or assumed" is impossible. > You can justify Christine Marie's use of the word Sightee and her >disapproval of the word blink by bringing up the fact that she has been >blind for sooo long, Ms. Faltz has not been blind for "sooo" long; she's still a young woman, barely graduated from college. I do not have to justify her objection to being called a "blink"; it stands on its own. If she did not like being called "Christine Marie" and prefered "Christine", that would stand on its own too. Who am I (or you) to tell a person what they should like to be called and not called? On the other hand, Christine's use of the word "Sighty" does need some support, because there is a _prima facie_ case against it. The prima facie case is simply that some sighted people might not like being called "Sighty" (see the previous paragraph.) Yet, Christine would argue, their objections are overridden by the *realities* of the power relationship between the two groups. > and I won't even say a word about how some of us >blinks might find that condesending, Please, please, please do. Nothing is worse than bottled-up feelings of being condensended-to. Honesty and bluntness are difficult, but good. Let me now be blunt: just as mobility impaired people who are able to walk very short distances have different experiences than those who are completely unable to walk, it may be that people who are born blind have different experiences than those who become blind later in life. Is it condenscending to suggest that blind people are not monolithic? I would think than an appreciation of the ways in which people who happen to be blind are *different* would be less condscending than an attitude of "oh, they're all the same!" > and I'll even allow you to call me >naive ane and accuse me of over simplifying the comparison of the two >terms, But are you over-simplifying the comparision of the two words? This is an important question. I'm not interested in you being polite enough to withstand my analysis. I am interested in your responses to it. I am interested in *why* you believe that your analysis was not naive. > but I do suggest you go back to putting your disclaimer on the >top of your messages, cause I don't want anyone mistaking your opinion >as being one from this side of the visual fence! Why are you so preoccupied with the "visual fence?" Why do you see it as a fence at all -- especially since the gradations between bad eyesight, low vision, and profound blindness are so murky and ill-defined as to make the "fence" more like a sieve! >Justifying the use of a pejorative term by some people because they are >handicapped is definately not something with which many of us want to be >associated, I assure you! No -- you misunderstand! Not because they are disabled, but because they live within a society that oppresses them because they are disabled, and because "perjorative" terms can be a legitimate part of the empowerment of disabled people to change that very fact. There's a world of difference. > Willie marshall -- /****************************************************************************/ /* Marshall Gene Flax '89 (609)258-6739 mgflax@phoenix.Princeton.EDU */ /* c/o Jack Gelfand|Psychology Dept|Princeton University|Princeton NJ 08544 */ /****************************************************************************/