Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!714!404.0!Greg.See-Kee From: Greg.See-Kee@p0.f404.n714.z3.fidonet.org (Greg See-Kee) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Person or Disability first ? Message-ID: <10482@bunker.UUCP> Date: 2 Mar 90 05:22:08 GMT Sender: news@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: Greg.See-Kee@p0.f404.n714.z3.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 3:714/404.0 Lines: 88 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 7033 BA> --although I know my Pastor well, and he knows BA> me as well, I still have Some concerns about being up BA> there as "the blind woman" rather than being a woman BA> who Happens to be blind. Before my own car accident turned me into something like someone who had a stroke, I was a professional do-gooder. One of my do-gooding achievements was to launch a radio program for blind people. I was executive Producer, and they did everything else. Then we launched "Radio for the Print Handicapped". Let me know if you need that explained to you. What amazed me, as someone who was not disabled, and who had not been much with disabled people, was that THEY are DISABLED, then PEOPLE. Able-Bodied People (I call them ABs) are so familiar with other ABs, that they treat each other as EQUALS. But should an AB like I used to be before my accident, should we meet a disabled person, it is quite a surprise to us. Some of the surprise is - we don't mix with them, so we don't know how to react, how to behave with them. All we know about these DPs are the stereotypes that we've seen on TV or read in books. So when an AB meets anty rare person, like a DP, then the AB needs to see if the ideas of this REAL person is anything like the stereotyped fantasies that he has. As a colored man living in white Australia, I have alsways had this problem. The white people would relate to me as a stereotypical Chinese person. They would apologize because they didn't have Chinese tea. "Is it ok if we just have a hamburger & chips? We don't have rice." As a professional do-gooder, an Abled-Bodied person, I had the same problem when I met DPs (Disabled Persons) for the first time. In my earlier career as a professional community activist, I met a wide range of DPs: midgets, deaf, polio, multiple sclerosis, retarded, schizophrenic, manic-depressives, youth refugees, rape victims, recent divorcees, and so on. Each time, I had to see the DP, first in relation to my existing fantasies and my stereotypes about them. I used these rare encounters with these exotic people as a learning tool. BA> plan to first write a letter to my Pastor explaining BA> to him that it is lonely as hell to be thought of as BA> "the blind woman" rather than as the person I am. I do BA> Not want to be interviewed as a blind person. I want BA> to be interviewed as a person who deals with the BA> dissability of blindness, and that blindness is Not BA> the main issue in my life. It is important to me that BA> people see the woman first, and the disability Two issues here. You are medically disabled. The ability of the vision parts of your body are not as able to work, as is normal in able-bodied people. However, you are socially & politically handicapped. Just as I am a colored man, I face handicaps when I try to deal the a predominantly white society. It is not that they deliberately are hostile, suspicious nor vindictive to me. They are handicapped because they only have very untested ideas of what people like me are supposed to be. BA> to make this letter as honest and real as posi do not BA> want to be offensive in the way I write i Agreed. Talk it out. Rehearse it here. Practice dealing with uninformed and misinformed people. Most ABs have the wrong ideas about DPs. There are so many different types of DPs in the world, I don't blame anyone for being misinformed or ignorant about DPs. Let us know how the interview was. What did it feel like? -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!3!714!404.0!Greg.See-Kee Internet: Greg.See-Kee@p0.f404.n714.z3.fidonet.org