Thoughts on the Death of Sheldon Scott – a blind man who fell to his death in an elevator shaft

Guide Dogs Inspire Paula Abdul to Join Campaign

Assalamu alaikum, while this can’t obviously be a bad thing, and while my first reaction was “wow, that’s pretty cool”. My next reaction was kinda like “meh”. I have a strange, I’m not sure how to explain it, I guess you could say I get kinda prickly when celebreties decide to champion a cause. Perhaps I’m just being a party pooper, maybe it’s the latent bitterness at the “sighted world” rearing its ugly head, I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out myself as I am writing this.

I mean, are we educating people on the training and the use of dog guides, or is it just a “wow that’s really cool” kinda thing. Because unfortunately many people out there could use some educating. And if Paula Abdul somehow uses Amiercan Idol to do it, I think it could be a good thing. But if it’s somehow parading a foster puppy raiser in front of the TV or, worse for me anyway, parading a blind person and their dog in a “oh look how cool that is” kinda way, that’d be what I’d have a problem with. I guess my question would be, are we going to educate people or just make a spectacle out of them, and further infuse stereotypes of what the blind, and in this case, their guides can do?

Also, I’m wondering how much having a blind contestant on the show affected this decision? Again, not that that’s a bad thing, I’m just musing. And on that note, I’m off to get ready for work for the day. Just thought I’dpost this before running along.

On Blindisms: What Are They and Do I Display Them?

Assalamu alaikum, talk about being put in my place…

I was watching the “We Are One” concert on HBO, and Stevie Wonder and Shakira (who imho sounded awful) were performing the song Higher Ground together. I went to ask my husband if Stevie was displaying, what we in the blind community refer to as “blindisms”. These consist of things like rocking back and forth, taking our fingers and pushing on our eyes, and rapidly moving our heads back and forth (the blindism that Stevie Wonder is well-known for displaying). I asked my husband if he was doing that, my husband said he was, and I said, in a tone of disgust and derision, “Oh how embarrasing”. To which my husband replied, when I asked, “do I do that?” “yes you do, and most blind people do”. I was shocked! Talk about deflating my ego!

I know I tend to move my head around, in fact, I’m doing it now. I notice I do it when I’m writing. I’ll cock my head to the side, then I’ll hold my head back, and then I’ll move it forward. But it’s kind of in a slow motion, not in a rapid, back-and-forth movement. Or at least, I didn’t think I did that.

Now I’m like, “oh my” what other blindisms am I doing in public that I don’t know about? Am I rocking back and forth (I used to do that when I was a child, especially when I was listening to music, I’d rock to the beat of the song). And hopefully, I don’t do the horrid flipping your hands about in the air… Oh boy… Now I’m thinking I look like a freak or something!

But I think most of this sort of thing is limited to blind people who’ve been blind their whole lives. I don’t know of any people who lost their vision later in life exhibiting this kind of behavior. I’d also be interested in knowing if any research has been done into why we do this? Because a lot of this is quite common among blind people.

Anyway, I’ve tried to stop my various blindisms, some I have, like rocking, but I still press on my eyes, and I do it without even thinking about it. When we were kids we were told that if we didn’t stop doing that, that it would change the whole structure of our faces, that we’d press our eyes all the way back into our sockets, and I think that’s happened to me. I know my eyes are further into my head than other people’s, and my forehead isn’t as rounded as other people’s. I mean, it’s not like my eyes are completely sunken in, but I do wonder what my adult facial features would have been like if I’d not been putting my fingers in my eyes as a child. And I remember being scolded about this for as long as I can remember! And no method that was ever tried ever broke the habit.

PETA’s Vice President: We don’t want to take your dog away (unless you’re blind and use a dog guide, in that case it’s abuse)

Assalamu alaikum,

Quoted from the article at the link below (or wherever you guys that can see actually see it).

There will never be a perfect world, but in the world we’re in now, we support some working dog situations and decry others. Hearing dog programs that pull dogs from animal shelters and ensure that they are in safe and loving homes have our stamp of approval; they live with the family for their entire life, they learn interesting things, enjoy life, and love helping. On the other hand, we oppose most seeing-eye-dog programs because the dogs are bred as if there are no equally intelligent dogs literally dying for homes in shelters, they are kept in harnesses almost 24/7, people are prohibited from petting or playing with them and they cannot romp and run and interact with other dogs; and their lives are repeatedly disrupted (they are trained for months in one home and bond, then sent to a second, and after years of bonding with the person they have “served,” they are whisked away again because they are old and no longer “useful”).

There are a lot of points here that I need to address, just in this first passage alone. Firstly, I don’t know why hearing ear dogs are taken from shelters (though I didn’t think they were exclusively taken from shelters, but I guess it depends on the particular program), but the reason, to my understanding, that most dog guide programs do not use rescue dogs (though some are used), is to insure that they know the dog’s medical history, temperament, etc., and it does not mean that dog guide schools don’t care about placing dog guides in so-called “loving homes”. The assumption is being made here that while the hearing-ear program is “compassionate to dogs” the programs for training and handling dog guides are somehow cruel to animals.

Secondly, while the dog has to bond with many people before being placed with a handler, this is something that is thoroughly addressed while you are in training with the dog, and there are no lasting affects to the dog as a result of having to bond with more than one person! And the implication is being made here that dogs in shelters and/or hearing ear dogs don’t have to go through having to bond with many different people, before they themselves are placed in a “loving home”, which I’m not sure anyone could say is necessarily true, given the fact that many people are probably interacting with the dog in the shelter environment before they are actually placed.

As far as the dog being made to be in a harness 24/7, the amount of time the dog spends in harness is dependent upon the time that their handler needs them to work. And it’s not normally “24/7″. And as far as not being able to romp and play, I don’t think any service dog, be they dog guides, hearing ear dogs, or any kind of service animal would be given free license to romp and play and to interact with other dogs at will. In fact, service dogs, no matter what kind they are, need to be on their best behavior in many situations and can’t just go off and play whenever they want as that could put both themselves and their handler in danger. Conversely, even dog guides get a chance to romp and play and interact with other dogs, every once in a while, at least, as long as such romping and playing and interacting with other dogs is not compromising their work and/or the safety of their handler. Also, to my knowledge, when the dog is retired, the handler can choose to keep them at home with them, or find another suitable home for the dog if keeping them at home is not an option. They’re not just “whisked away” to “bond with another person”. And even if they were, the insinuation is somehow being made that we humans are just heartless brutes who aren’t taking the feelings of our dogs/other animals into account when we have to do things like “whisk our dogs away to another home” when we presumably, according to this woman, have no further use for them anymore. And as someone who’s had to go through the pain and stress of retiring a dog (and possibly losing them soon due to illness), I really take offense to this woman’s comments and presumptions about dog guide handlers.

Speaking for myself, retiring my first dog (I gave her to my parents, as taking her with me when moving to Florida would have been harder on her healthwise than leaving her with them) was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Retiring her was painful for me as she’d been a faithful and trusted companion to me for ten years!

We have a member who is blind who actually moved states to avoid “returning” her beloved dog.

I really can’t speak on this, just sounds like anecdotal evidence that is being used to back up this woman’s argument, as the member, nor the school in question, are mentioned.

We feel that the human community should do more to support blind people, and give dogs a break.

And how does she suggest this happen? Have a sighted guide at your beck and call 24/7?

A deaf person can see if a dog has a medical issue such as blood in her urine, a blind person living alone cannot, and so on.

Ah haw! I think I see where Daphna Nachminovitch is going with this! Basically, that dog guides (unlike hearing ear dogs) are overworked, stressed, are being ripped from people they’ve bonded with, and oh, by the way, blind people just aren’t capable of taking care of their dogs anyway, so they just shouldn’t have them. Because ya know, a blind person wouldn’t be capable of knowing if their dog had a medical issue or not! In short, blind people shouldn’t have dogs because the use of dog guides (unlike the use of hearing ear dogs) is cruel to animals, and not only this, blind people, because they are blind, are not capable of taking care of their dogs!

So even if dog guide schools adapted the same model of acquiring dogs and training them as hearing-ear dogs are, according to her, acquired and trained, Ms. Nachminovitch would still, it seems, not be in favor of the blind using dog guides ostensibly because we’d not be able to “know whether or not the dog was having a medical issue”!

So not only is she ignorant of how the procurement, training, handling, and eventual retiring of a dog guide actually works, she also displays woeful ignorance of the capabilities of blind and visually impaired people as a whole!

Because she is applying a double standard by allowing the use of hearing-ear dogs, but being against the use of dog guides, as both work, both have to have good behavior, and both have to maintain conduct becoming of a service animal out in public. So is this really about cruelty to animals, or is it just about a continued perpetuation of negative stereotypes associated with the blind and their capabilities.

And btw, there are many other ways to tell if a dog is having a medical issue other than sight, namely, the smell of the urine, a sudden change in the dog’s bathroom habits, a change in the dog’s behavior, just to name but a few examples. However, if worse really came to worse, generally speaking, a blind person usually would have a sighted person, such as a friend or family member, to ask if they suspected a problem!

And at this point, I have nothing else to say, as I’m all “writed” out… Ms. Daphna Nachminovitch’s ignorance and assumptions about the use of dog guides, as well as how the blind function in everyday life are just, well, astounding!

And that’s all I have to say. Writing this has really exhausted me for some reason, and people’s ignorance really angers me!

PETA’s Vice President: We don’t want to take your dog away | L.A. Unleashed | Los Angeles Times

Possible Series: “Blind School Experiences” The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”?

Assalamu alaikum, it’s not just the “bad” (some of which I referred to in yesterday’s post)that makes me who I am. It’s the “good” too. Because I’d not be who I am if it wasn’t for my parents, teachers, etc., who pushed me to succeed and to be the best that I could be. As I said yesterday, if it wasn’t for the school for the blind, there are a lot of experiences that I’d never have had. So I don’t want to give the impression that things were all bad. Unfortunately, though, it’s sometimes only the bad that you remember.

However, I was musing today, wondering why it is that some “bad” things stick with you more than others? An example with this would be the time I had to go to juvenile court to testify against a boy who sexually assaulted me (another long story). I was about 14 or 15 at the time. I know what happened to me, I could even relate the whole series of events today. However, because no one saw him, and I was totally blind and only could identify him by voice, the judge felt he had no choice but to find the boy not guilty, because ostensibly, my blindness prevented me from identifying him visually which, in turn, caused enough reasonable doubt (and the standard of guilt has to be “beyond a reasonable doubt”), such that he couldn’t find him guilty, although he told the prosecutor after the trial was over that he felt, personally, that the boy was guilty. The message I got is that if you are blind, and you can’t see your attacker, even if you can identify him (or her) by voice, or some other means, your testimony is just not valid and it’s not going to lead to any kind of conviction or finding of guilt. God forbid if anything like this ever happened to me again, I’d darn sure not report it! Why put myself through all of that? Because when this sort of thing did happen to me, I did all of the “right” things, the things I was told that I should do. I told my houseparent, I told my parents, I decided to press charges, I wanted to “fight” as I put it (although the rumor was the school wanted to sweep it under the rug, go figure). I went through all of the interviews, the state police coming and taping my side of the story, I was interviewed over and over again, to insure my story didn’t change! I had to tell a lot of different people what happened to me. I was embarrassed, I felt ashamed, I felt violated, I felt vulnerable! And this boy pretty much got nothing! To my knowledge anyway, as after this (and another incident) happened, he was no longer attending the school. Which was a good thing, because if they had let him back, my parents stated emphatically that they’d have pulled me out of there and kept me home/sent me to public school. And the school just couldn’t have that. So anyway, I went through all of that only to be pretty much told that what happened to me really didn’t happen, or that no one could prove that it happened, because I was blind. And oh, the defense attorney made me look like a little liar who was just trying to pin something on this “poor little boy” because I didn’t know who’d done it actually! So anyway, all I’m saying is I understand why the majority of rapes and sexual assaults are not reported. Because it’s not the perpetrator that usually suffers, but the victim.

The blind school I went to was, from what I’ve heard, one of the better schools for the blind in the country, but I’m telling you, some of the stuff I saw there, the politics, the gossipping of the staff members about other students and staff (many times right in front of other students), the favoritism they showed toward other students, the mistreatment of students they didn’t like? I don’t like to say that I hold grudges, because I don’t feel that I do, but when I recall this time in my life, and certain events which happened during that time, it still evokes raw emotions. I don’t know if that’s normal or not. I’m not sure if it’s something that I should “get over” or not.

And I don’t like to boo-hoo about it because I know than many others have gone through a whole lot worse that I could even ever dream of. So I really don’t want this to be a “feel sorry for me” type of post. Part of why I’d started this blog in the first place was to create a platform to try to hash the things that I felt comfortable enough sharing with the world out, and perhaps get some feedback, advice, discussion, whatever. And as my mood has gotten better since Sunday evening lol, at this point, I don’t see any reason to change anything that I’ve done in the past (except to utilize my password protect and “private post” features a lot more freely).

So there you go. Not that this is going anywhere lol. But I feel like some of my best posts, the posts that seem to flow more freely, are the posts where I just start writing! The “planned posts” never really have worked for me. But I find myself sometimes revisiting certain events that have happened in my life, to try to gain some wisdom from them, to try to learn from them. And since I have become Muslim, I try to put an Islamic outlook on things. Perhaps if Allah didn’t will for me to go through these things, I’d not have been the person that I am today. And whatever “wrong” has been done to me, Inshallah, I’ll be rewarded for my struggle in dealing with it. Putting things in that light makes me feel a whole lot better.

I’d had the idea that perhaps I should start a series on some of my “blind school experiences”, both the good and the bad. And I’m wondering if any other blind bloggers have done this. That is something that I’ll have to research. Perhaps if I did start something like this, I could share my experiences with others who may have gone through similar experiences. Or at least give those who didn’t go through something like this a taste of what I went through. It seems like a good idea now, and I’d like some feedback on what others think, but who knows, it might not seem like such a good idea later on.

My Early Voting Experience

Assalamu alaikum, well, I voted early this year, mostly because I didn’t want to have to worry about it on Election Day and risk the horrifying (to me anyway) possibility that I’d get so preoccupied with work and other matters that I’d forget to vote.

So my husband and I got up last Saturday morning, October 25th, and went to the voting location here in Winter Haven. We got there at about a quarter to ten or so, and the line was already out the door, almost out into the parking lot. I think we waited for maybe 45 minutes or an hour, I’m not sure. While we were standing in line, a poll worker (I think) came up to us and informed us that there was an audio (seemingly accessible) way that I could vote, whee I’d wear a headset and push a button corresponding to my choice! I thought this was great, I could vote and do it all by myself. However, my husband suggested that, as much as accessible voting was a good thing, that if there was no way to verify my vote, then perhaps we should just do like we’d always done and use a paper ballot, where he assisted me in filling in my answers. And as much as I wanted to try the other option, I reluctantly agreed with him, as I’d rather my vote count, I mean, actually count, and have it be what I’d actually intended it to be, rather than for it to be “accessible”. And not be able to actually verify my choices, or to have them flip to something else I didn’t want, or to have my vote thrown out for some other technicality, like I didn’t push on the button hard enough, or I pushed it too hard, or something like that.

And as I’m thinking about it now, it really was, well, I’d not say a “painful” decision, but a hard decision. Having to choose between accessibility and my votes actually counting. To be honest, the thought just occurred to me, why couldn’t they have paper ballots in Braille? I’d think with the computer technology being the way that it is, they’d not be too costly to produce? But I’m sure there’s some justification as to why a blind woman who reads Braille can’t reasonably expect to walk into a polling place on election day, even if she called ahead and requested it, to have a paper ballot in Braille waiting for her, when she gets there. I mean, if they can put your phone bills and utility bills in Braille, why not the ballot? Or if I can go out to a restaurant and be offered a Braille menu, why can’t I get a Braille ballot on election day? And that’s something that, for some odd reason, I’d not thought of until now. Hmmm…

So anyway, my husband and I finally get to the front of the line, I swipe my state ID card into this machine that looks like the machines they have at the stores at the checkout counters, where you swipe your debit card through and put in your pin number. Only on this machine, we had to confirm my address, and I had to sign my name (I sure hope my signature matched), and then they assigned us a little booth to vote, and I did.

Gosh, now I’m paranoid that my vote somehow didn’t count, even though I checked the list from the Florida Division of Elections and my name’s on it, does that mean my vote counted? Oh boy, why didn’t I think of that before?

Here I was all excited about voting, and now, well… It’s just that I’d read an article on a blog a few days ago about a lady who’s vote was rejected, it was an absentee ballot, that was rejected, because her signature didn’t match the one on file, and she wasn’t allowed to redo her vote, or do anything that would have verified it was actually her that voted… *sigh*

So anyway, I voted, we put the ballot into this little, I don’t know, thingy, and we left. When I got in the car and looked at the time it was 11:15 AM. We then went to the sotre to get a few things and then went home.

I’m just wanting this election to be over, because this is too stressful for me. I *really* don’t want McCain to win! And if he does, well, I guess if I survived the last 8 years of Bush, Inshallah, I can survive the next at least 4 years of McCain. But if Palin somehow becomes President, well, oh my, then I’m not sure. I thought it couldn’t get any worse than Bush, I thought that no one any more ignorant couldn’t have been pushed into public office, and then they went and found Sarah Palin. And that’s all that needs to be said about that.

Blind People Aren’t Supposed to Get Lost

Assalamu alaikum, well, I had an experience today (and I just got home so I’m still kinda processing it, complete from cooling off from the, what turned out to be, hot and humid morning), that left me quite embarrassed/irritated/frustrated.

I walked my step-daughter to the masjid for Islamic school, I took Chloe with me because I thought I could find my way back. I mean, I was told that the masjid was “just past the park, right there on the street, just keep going straight and you’ll run right into it”.

I’m telling you, sometimes sighted people can give the worst directions. It turned out to be one small turn, the what seemed to be another little turn, and then a short walk through the grass, and through the gate leading toward the masjid building (which is actually a converted house). So after the park, which I knew about, you had to cross a street (a pretty significant detail which was left out), then continue down the street you were walking along in the first place, then make the two small turns, and then end up walking through the grass, to the gate at the masjid.

So anyway, my step-daughter said bye to me, and walked in the door, someone said hi to her, and I started back down the grass, and a car was pulling up, I think a little boy was getting out (and if they were Muslims, they didn’t give me salams, perhaps seeing me with the dog threw them off). And I walked won what I thought was the right street I was on before. Only … it wasn’t.

Not only did I end up on the wrong street, I ended up, I think, the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. So much so that the streets where I ended up actually had sidewalks, and here I was telling Chloe to walk on the shoulder of the road. I started to realize that something was wrong when I started hearing cars going around me. Then, a lady pulled up and said “Do you know you’re in the middle of the road?” She then proceeded to explain to me that there was a sidewalk and that I needed to go to my left to get on it. Then she said “where are you going?” I then asked her where I was, because if I knew where I was, I’d probably be able to find my way home.

She told me to go back the way I’d come, because I was coming to a busy intersection, which I already knew because I could hear the cars in front of me, and go back through the neighborhoods. And that was what I did, however, the lady followed me in her car down the street, was stopping to talk to someone, I told her I wanted to go to Avenue Y (my street), and I heard a lady say, “Why does she want to go to Avenue Y”? Uh, because I live there. I said outloud. Because I was pretty angry at this point. Not so much because I was being followed, not so much because the whole block was seemingly watching me, but mainly because by this point, the lady in the car has contacted the Winter Haven Police Department. At this point, I was angry and upset. I explained to her that I was not stupid, not crazy, not incapable of traveling by myself, I’d been doing it since I was a teenager. It’s just that I wasn’t given good directions, and if someone would have just told me where I was, that I could probably find my way back home. And she said “I know, I know”, in that patronizing tone that sighted people like to use when they want you to think they believe you, but in actuality, they don’t.

So the policeman came, he got out and talked to me, and after I explained to him how I’d gotten lost, where I was going, what I was doing, he offered to take me home because “people don’t know you around here, and if I don’t, they’ll keep calling us anyway”. So I reluctantly took him up on his offer.

I don’t know whether to laugh about the situation, or burst into tears. I’m kind of vascillating between the two extremes. I’m going from laughing at the situation, to feeling angry, embarrassed, feeling like I’ve lost my dignity, that no matter if I have a house, a job, my own money, that at the end of the day, I’m just a helpless blind person. And you know, I live in a predominantly minority neighborhood, one of probably a few white people, so that probably played into it, as well as being in hijab. I’m sure some people thought I was a mental case, walking around in circles, even accidentally ending up in the road because I didn’t know there was a sidewalk, wearing “those hot clothes”. Which makes me even the more angrier.

All I kept thinking to myself was, if I were sighted, I could have gotten lost and no one would have batted an eye, and I guess to some, I should feel lucky that people “cared” enough to make sure I got home OK. But there is a difference between caring, and treating someone like they’re a complete imbicile, which I’m quite sure I’m not. I guess blind people aren’t supposed to get lost, if we want to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.

One final thing, though, Chloe did a wonderful job, she was a little excited, but she really did her best, I think she was just as confused about the whole situation as I was. I mean, if you don’t know where you’re going, the dog sure won’t, unless they somehow know the route, which Chloe didn’t. And in the end, the officer said “you weren’t too far from your home, if you’d have just kept going straight you’d have found your street.” To which I said, “I tried to tell that lady that.” Which is where he again reiterated that it was probably better that he took me home
because people would have kept calling anyway.

I’m just feeling completely embarrassed right now, and I can’t tell you how, uh, “de-dignified” I feel. I wish I could explain my feelings better, but perhaps only another blind person would understand.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

Assalamu alaikum / greetings, well now that I’ve hashed out my feelings (once again) on my experiences with blindness, and the attitudes of both the blind and sighted, the thought that’s been occurring most to me, during the past few days is, where do we go from here?

As far as the sighted dealing with the blind, I think the first step would be to admit that we may not truly be as advanced as a society in dealing with the disabled, as we think we are. And that our attitudes toward the disabled may not be all that “liberated” either. Just as racism and sexism is still an issue, ableism is still an issue also. The first step is for people to truly be honest with themselves as regards their own attitudes toward the disabled, i.e., whether the disabled can hold down a full-time job, raise a family, and/or otherwise lead a full and productive life as their non-disabled peers would.

If you don’t think that the disabled are capable people, can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to do things like work, have children, etc., why is that? If you were educated to the abilities of those who are blind, for example, would that change your mind? Would “education” actually help? The thing is, I had a recent conversation that made me wonder if, just as people don’t want to face their prejudices regarding race, that they may not want to face their prejudices regarding disability either.

So the first step is to deal with whatever prejudices people might have and then we can move forward from there. Also, blind people need to be honest with themselves as well, i.e., do they like their “condition”, would they change it if they could, is being sighted “better” than bieng blind, would being sighted make them more of a “normal” person, does being blind make you less of a person?

Because I’ve struggled with self-esteem issues for years, and I still struggle with issues of self-esteem and self-worth. And for years, I was not honest enough with myself to admit that. I told myself that I was just as good as anyone else, that I was capable, independent, all of that. I was intelligent, fun to be around, well-liked. But then, sometimes I wondered, did people talk to me just because they felt sorry for me. Did people really care about what I had to say or were they just telling me so so as not to hurt my feelings. I often wondered was I stupid, pretty, smart intelligent, ugly, nerdy, how did I look to other people.

I didn’t face my self-esteem issues until after I’d gotten divorced from my first husband, and I felt I had to face them, or else I’d probably end up in another abusive relationship and I definitely didn’t want that.

I think you tend to attract the people who kind of fulfill what you truly feel about yourself, when they tell you you’re stupid, you say in the back of your mind, yeah, I must be stupid, something must be wrong with me for me to end up in this situation.

It’s only when you recognize the issues that you have, that you say, wait, it’s not me that is stupid, or whatever, it’s *them* who has the problem. I try not to get too upset when a sighted person makes a stupid comment or when people decide that I can’t do something. Because it’s not me who has the problem, I have nothing to prove to anyone…

Because I’m doin’ it, I have a job, I participate in my community as best I can, I do pretty much everything else a sighted person does, and even if I didn’t, I’d still not be less of a person because of that. If I chose to live iwth my parents, or to not work, that would be OK, I think the issue is not what society decides is best for you, or what some blindness organization or training program decides is best for you, it’s what you decide is best for you. Whatever makes you happy, fulfilled, content.

And Alhamdulillah that I got to this point.

Daily Kos: Court: Paper Money Discriminates Against Blind

Daily Kos: Court: Paper Money Discriminates Against Blind