Idea: Special Issue of the Braille Monitor or JBIR on What Structured Discovery Is Supposed to Be
Hi everyone,
As we're all in the middle of the firestorm about Structured Discovery centers and NFB in the news, I'm wondering if it might be helpful for us to push out a special issue of either the Braille Monitor or JBIR to talk about what Structured Discovery is supposed to be and to try to articulate how low expectations and other social phenomena have created a volatile situation that enabled these systemic problems to occur.
For example:
I believe respectability politics has played a big role in this. Basically, in our society, we are only allowed to be progressive to a certain extent before society rejects us. The groups that are the most progressive at anything and successful at all tend to be pretty conservative in other areas. For example, a lot of successful LGBT Q IA / SOGIE activist groups have a lot of challenges with racism. A lot of racial justice groups have a lot of challenges with homophobia and ableism. It's not that surprising that we have struggled with other dimensions of diversity in the NFB because we have spent all of our progressiveness allowance on blindness. I think we are currently reassessing that, and I think we're better for it.
Whether or not you agree with me on that hypothesis, I think it could be really helpful for us to publish some materials relatively quickly on the interplay between Structured Discovery and the issues that are now coming to public consciousness. Perhaps, if lots of us tried to hone in on what societal problems have made these issues possible, that can become the foundation for the beacon that we build to guide our reform.
I obviously do not have the authority to decide that such a publication would exist, but I think there are a lot of people here who could be capable of putting out Braille Monitor-type articles explaining what we think made this all possible. I am NOT (in all caps) suggesting that we try to excuse what bad things have happened, but that we really pinpoint the core social foundations of these issues so that then we can work to change those foundations, which will impact the entire blind rehab system.
I think there are a lot of things that have made these misconduct issues possible that go beyond exactly what our existing materials have been articulating, such as what I put above with the respectability politics. That's what has enabled these things to become what they have become.
What do you all think? Am I off-course? Do you think it could help us? Would you actually make the time to help, or does it just sound cool?
Aloha,
Justin
Justin Mark Hideaki Salisbury
he/him/his
Phone: 808.797.8606
Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu
Justin, First of all let me say thank you for terminology. I like the phrase respectability politics. I have long wondered how to put into words what I have noticed inside my Federation. we are the largest civil rights organization of blind people but I have always felt like we dropped the ball when it came to blind people who were not just what the old-timers called ?vanilla blind ?. We have always come short when it comes to blindness and?. Our deaf blind division is made up mostly of people who are blind and have lost hearing due to age related issues. Maybe there are a handful who come as deaf and recently blind or losing vision and hearing both but generally it seems to be age related and we don?t seem to be reaching out to deaf blind people as a group to include them as one of us. So it didn?t surprise me when LGBT friends said Nfb didn?t really seem interested in them. Several people have told me that they felt they were simply not included. We don?t need you here. We just wanna deal with your blindness, you need to leave the rest of that at home. We?ve always acted as if we were proud about how we dealt with race. When the other organization had segregated chapters, NFB didn?t allow it. We would pat ourselves on the back and say good job. We are inclusive. Well, I?m a white woman so I?m not sure I would be aware of exactly how inclusive we really are so that doesn?t surprise me either. What did surprise me and anger me was when I would listen to the presidential report at convention, hear all these wonderful stories about people being vindicated in court, winning their SSDI benefits from a Social Security administration that went miles out of its way to keep them from getting what they needed to survive until they could get their blind skills training, and then I turn around and send clients into the hands of an organization that really didn?t seem to want to do much for them. no names here, not an elected official, but I did have one nationally prominent leader tell me that my person wasn?t good for Nfb?s image. That person would do well never to move to Oklahoma. If I thought for a minute that the majority of us felt that way, I would not be able to stay. Now when I listen to the presidential report, I have to remember that only the pretty people get help. If Gary wants to throw together A special issue of the monitor, that?s one thing and it may or may not help but we need a presidential release. This is something only the president can really address and he can?t do it until he takes the time to have a good, hard look around. When President Riccobono was first elected some people, unnamed, who had a connection with the Louisiana center felt that Mr. Riccobono had been disrespectful of the center because he graduated from Colorado. They felt that he had made some comments that were disparaging of Louisiana in favor of his own alma mater. I don?t know if that was true or not because I wasn?t around but as these people were whining and complaining to me about the imagined slight of our new president, all I could think was, Gee, sounds familiar. That?s exactly what you did to me when I came to tech from Colorado center. I didn?t say it of course out loud but all I could think was, well what goes around comes around. I don?t think he really did anything like that because I?ve met the man and I can?t imagine that he would but I wasn?t too broken up about it if he did. Nfb has had hard times before and we know how to stand together but this time some new chickens are coming home to roost and we had better look around us and make sure we have everybody included. We can?t just include the popular ones, we can?t just include the pretty ones or the convenient ones. You need everyone. Y ou need the mortar in the clay if you?re going to keep your shiny bricks in place. You need to cool people and the less than lovely people. You need the old farts like me who were around when we were working hard to change what it means to be blind instead of just floating around and trying to live the life we want. Justin I?m going to leave you and everyone else with this final old fart thought. It is as true for individuals as it is for organizations and for nations. What you want is irrelevant, what you have chosen is at hand. Jane Lansaw NOMC Tulsa Oklahoma Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 21, 2021, at 2:32 PM, Justin Salisbury <PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu> wrote:
? Hi everyone,
As we?re all in the middle of the firestorm about Structured Discovery centers and NFB in the news, I?m wondering if it might be helpful for us to push out a special issue of either the Braille Monitor or JBIR to talk about what Structured Discovery is supposed to be and to try to articulate how low expectations and other social phenomena have created a volatile situation that enabled these systemic problems to occur.
For example:
I believe respectability politics has played a big role in this. Basically, in our society, we are only allowed to be progressive to a certain extent before society rejects us. The groups that are the most progressive at anything and successful at all tend to be pretty conservative in other areas. For example, a lot of successful LGBT Q IA / SOGIE activist groups have a lot of challenges with racism. A lot of racial justice groups have a lot of challenges with homophobia and ableism. It?s not that surprising that we have struggled with other dimensions of diversity in the NFB because we have spent all of our progressiveness allowance on blindness. I think we are currently reassessing that, and I think we?re better for it.
Whether or not you agree with me on that hypothesis, I think it could be really helpful for us to publish some materials relatively quickly on the interplay between Structured Discovery and the issues that are now coming to public consciousness. Perhaps, if lots of us tried to hone in on what societal problems have made these issues possible, that can become the foundation for the beacon that we build to guide our reform.
I obviously do not have the authority to decide that such a publication would exist, but I think there are a lot of people here who could be capable of putting out Braille Monitor-type articles explaining what we think made this all possible. I am NOT (in all caps) suggesting that we try to excuse what bad things have happened, but that we really pinpoint the core social foundations of these issues so that then we can work to change those foundations, which will impact the entire blind rehab system.
I think there are a lot of things that have made these misconduct issues possible that go beyond exactly what our existing materials have been articulating, such as what I put above with the respectability politics. That?s what has enabled these things to become what they have become.
What do you all think? Am I off-course? Do you think it could help us? Would you actually make the time to help, or does it just sound cool?
Aloha,
Justin
Justin Mark Hideaki Salisbury he/him/his
Phone: 808.797.8606 Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-salisbury ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Justin_Salisbury
?Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.?
Cesar Chavez
_______________________________________________ NOMC mailing list NOMC at lists.nbpcb.org http://lists.nbpcb.org/listinfo.cgi/nomc-nbpcb.org
Hi Jane,
Thank you for all of that.
What I was hoping to accomplish in this thread was really to ask if:
1. People think the idea would help
2. People think they would actually contribute (no shame to those who have too much on their plates, but, we would need to know how many submissions to expect if we wanted to try something)
Aloha,
Justin
Justin Mark Hideaki Salisbury
he/him/his
Phone: 808.797.8606
Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu
participants (2)
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PRESIDENT＠alumni.ecu.edu -
widearc2000＠gmail.com