Just Jot It January: BRAILLE IS STILL NECESSARY #WorldBrailleDay2021 #JusJoJan

I am so thankful for my fingertips. They allow me to read at night. They gravitate toward those little bumps (paper braille or electronic), flying along over the words beneath. They read the words in the books I love and write the dots, the cells that become the words I must express in my writing.

In 2020, while it was a tough year for many things, I did pretty well with writing and submitting. I was published in Oh Reader, a magazine all about reading I have an essay in and I wrote it about my love of braille.

I burnt one fingertip on a burner a few years ago and I immediately worried I would damage that finger, ruining the level of sensitivity I’ve developed over the years, since learning braille as a child.

Today I attended a Zoom event to celebrate Louis Braille on what would have been his 212th birthday. This event included a children’s braille story, a reader who was blind, reading a print/braille book called Harry’s Hiccups by Jean Little. Another reader handled the image descriptions.

Growing up, my mom didn’t wait to find the few print/braille children’s stories available somewhere. She went ahead and made her own, taking picture books and adding the lines of braille herself.

The books we had were braille, the words, but the pictures, it was up to the sighted parents or whatever to describe anything in the pictures that the story’s words didn’t already explain or point out.

That might be something most haven’t thought of. We didn’t think of it, when I was a kid or grown either, for years, but image descriptions for images (social media) is a big thing now and audio description on television and film and even live plays etc.

After today’s story time, there were panels with people from
National Network For Equitable Library Service
,
Braille Literacy Canada
,
Vision Impaired Resource Network
, and others.

They talked about what braille is, what it means in their lives, and how technology is teaming up with braille, not replacing it.

That part always gets me worked up. People ask if braille is still necessary because we have smart phones, tablets, screen readers, and audiobooks. Also, educators tell parents and children who have some vision left that they should stick to reading large print, that they don’t need to learn braille, but to me this is a lazy and a negligent thing to do. It is because disability has a stigma attached to it still, including things like braille in that.

It’s a human right to learn braille for all people who can’t see to read and write print. If they learn now, they have it if or when they might need it because even if a child is low vision now, that doesn’t mean they always will be. I had low vision and could read large print. I learned my print letters, how to write cursive, and read large print books. I also was taught braille. I owe my parents and my braille teacher and braille transcriber. They fought school boards and officials who wouldn’t have bothered with the time or the expense of hiring a teacher. I would suddenly lose more vision when I was twelve. It’s nearly all gone now and I’m so glad I know braille.

Braille is literacy, no matter how far technology has come. So is braille still relevant in 2021? I want that awful question to stop being asked, by anyone. Nobody would deny children the access to learning to read and write when we’re talking sighted children and print. Well, braille is my print and I see young children and the next generations coming along and technology isn’t the answer alone.

I wish braille were more common in society. It’s appearing on signs now, buttons in elevators, and yet I want braille/print books in the library, for all children to get accustomed to, instead of thinking some separate organization for the blind will handle it. I want to be included in my local library with everyone else. As a kid, I could see enough that I did feel included, loved going to the library, but now I am an adult and I don’t feel welcome in my library at all.

Of course, it’s pandemic times and libraries are often closed in lockdowns, but the only reason I was stepping foot in my town’s library before that was to attend a writing group I was in, where I had friends who I’d found who loved writing and stories like I do, but a meeting with the library CEO in 2019 was fruitless and frustrating because he should want to do what he could for a library patron.

Instead, I was told I had something, one option, and I should be happy with that. Other people get options, but we who are blind should be happy we have anything at all I guess he was saying.

As you can probably tell, I am emotional about all this and I can get worked up when I feel braille is portrayed as this daunting, scary, even unnecessary thing. It isn’t another language. It’s a code for writing and reading and it matters to many people around the world, just like sign language matters to many of those who are deaf.

Anyway, I could go on jotting about this for days, but I’ll just say that a group of people trying to all sing Happy Birthday to Louis together over Zoom at one time sounds silly and feels silly too, but that’s how much we care, what that man’s work over two-hundred years ago has meant to us.

I feel badly because I didn’t remember we’d had
this conversation
one year ago.

Such a busy year. So much has happened since then and I am embarrassed that I didn’t think of it, as I really appreciate that Linda remembered. I’d written about braille for JusJoJan on this exact date a year ago too which is what started it all and led us here this year.

I’m so grateful for Linda’s support (for braille and in checking out and promoting the radio show/podcast I do to speak about things like braille, technology, and equal access).

And Happy Birthday Louis.

A Review of Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma

BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog

By M. Leona Godin

Haben Girma’s memoir, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law contains many gripping moments. For example, in the opening scene, her father is taken off the plane in Ethiopia, leaving seven-year-old Haben, with her limited vision and hearing, to puzzle out the mystery of his absence and how she will make it home to Oakland California by herself.

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law also contains many humorous nuggets about navigating our society’s rampant ableism that creeps even into the mind of her little cousin who demands Haben make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, while insisting that blind people cannot make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: “You said a blind person can’t make a PB&J. So how can I make you a PB&J?” she asks him to which he responds: “But I saw you!”

“His personal observations contradict the ‘truth’ he…

View original post 917 more words

Outlook: Now On #iTunes and #Spotify

Recording Outlook: a show about accessibility, advocacy, and equality
during a pandemic has been a bit of a change.

We were so used to going into the radio station, every Monday, for eleven o’clock eastern each week.

94.9 CHRW Radio Western, radio station on the campus of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada

When corona hit, we had to rethink how we did the show if we wished to continue, as in studio was no longer an option.

“Go home and stay home,” were the words of Canada’s PM back in March and so we’ve been doing the show remotely ever since.

We’re coming up on our radio show’s two year anniversary next month, perfect time to announce that we’re finally available on
Spotify
and on
ApplePodcasts
in podcast format.

I guess COVID-19 has given us the time we needed to get on this finally, but we’ve had some really awesome interviews and show topics in these last six months. We’ve talked to allies and to writers, to historians and to educational assistants.

We’ve done documentary and book reviews and covered recently deceased US congressmen John Lewis and the 2020 National Federation of the Blind convention coverage, all virtual for the very first time.

Any listens, downloads, follows, or ratings would be most helpful in building a further audience.

We’re still always available on
SoundCloud
and on
Facebook
or, Twitter: @OutlookCFB

My brother and I, we thank you and we are always available for questions or ideas for show topics. You can email us at:

outlookonradiowestern@gmail.com

Be well everyone.

Navigating My Blindness with a Guest Post #NavigatingBlindness

I think this blog is important for finding common ground and others who’ve been there. When the blog’s owner invited me to write a
guest post
about blindness in my own life and the lives of my family, I couldn’t pass it up.

Thanks, NB, for sharing your navigational space and making a place for other stories of the navigation life requires.

Be sure to check out this blog from a mighty mom who works diligently on advocacy for the benefit of her son and so many others.

It Could Fill An Ocean #BlackDisabledLivesMatter #SoCS

I haven’t done one of these in a while.

I could say I’ve been lazy, but this is a double “z” post and so that won’t cut it.

I’m genuinely
puzzled
by so many things, too many to list, but I’ll give it a try.

How people disregard the potential seriousness of this coronavirus.

I know we need an economy and we need human contact and touch and socialization and companionship. I know I know – when I hear people I once spent time with, how they think there’s more than this virus to consider. Of course there is, but I also know I’m afraid of getting covid-19 and it destroying my life with my father’s kidney, let alone worse possible outcomes. I am not overly cautious, but I also haven’t gone out much. I try not to let it take over, but it is here to stay, for the foreseeable future. I am scared, when I hear reports of how other organs are damaged, not only the lungs.

When I hear the phrase now: “I can’t breathe,” I think of both George Floyd and all biopic who fear for their Black men and women, not wanting the children to inherit this version of the world, and I also think of people on ventilators and I shiver slightly for a moment in bewilderment.

That racism is still a thing or ever was one.

Of course, that’s a simplistic, childlike way to look at it and I am no longer one, still wishing I could be again now. I know the reasons behind, as awful as they are, and I am doing my best to educate myself even further.

I’ve been away from blogging, on the whole, for a while now and I’m more overtaken by all that’s going on in the world.

I am worried this will be a long summer, longer than last year after I hurt someone badly and even longer than the summer of 2016 when the whole world seemed sure Hillary Clinton was certain to win.

I was confused about how people could be so sure because I wasn’t.

Now here we are again. What happens in the US seems to leave its mark on us in other places. As hard as I’d like to escape from the reality of racism in 2020 and in the prospect of #45 winning a second term, I cannot.

I am genuinely baffled that anyone ever saw him as successful and, thus, giving people hope they could also be rich and powerful? I think that’s what it is.

I sense bullshit easily and he has always given off that air, even before people called him Mr. President.

People are out in the streets here in Canada too, protesting because this matters. I am puzzled by power and the lengths some will go to get it, but I wish I could experience a Black Lives Matter protest. I admit I am afraid, even with being outside and social distancing and masks, I am afraid I could be exposed and be one of those who are worse off after being positive. My kidney won’t work forever, like my technology won’t, but I am still hoping to avoid losing my transplant to this pandemic.

I’m always puzzled about computers and how they work. I don’t get there naturally.

So before this stream of consciousness threatens to run wild, I will end by offering one final observation, less timely than what I’ve been writing so far.

But wait…

I note the differences between the US and Canada like I think of the letter “Z” because, while we say it as “ed,” the US says it like: “e.”

And that’s just the start of our differences, but when it comes to thinking Canada is so much better adjusted than our neighbours, I want to believe it, but I know, wherever you are, there is tribalism and fear of “the other” in our society. I am genuinely bowled over by some things, but I can’t look away and pretend I don’t see.

I am blind and I see less and less, but I am more and more puzzled by the state of things and I feel it all most intensely.

Speaking of technology, I do like to think of zz as a funny sound when my technology, my screen reader says it, zz zz zz zz

It makes me want to go to sleep: zzzzzzzzzzz

Culture-Hacking and Seeing the World Differently #Culture-Hacking #Podcast

I came across a woman, near the end of last year, who had a strong message in her own story. I reached out to see if she might consider me as one of the first guests on her show:

Episode 2 – “Seeing the World Differently”

On this episode we talk about gratitude and when to speak up. I firmly believe we must share our stories with one another and be proud of the life we’ve lived.

So thank you
twitter daniella young
for this opportunity.

I Am No Rarity #JusJoJan

I took yesterday off, from this
Just Jot It January #JusJoJan
challenge, but there remains a lot to do.

I had an
experience
yesterday, a speaking invitation to something called
PROBUS.

This was a chance to be a guest speaker for a room of retired professional women. I wasn’t just there to speak about my life as a sideshow of what’s known as inspiration porn, meaning a story of my disability that does nothing to truly educate, challenges preconceived notions and to show them what has been kept too well a hidden secret up until now.

I wanted to talk to the ladies about my life, my blindness sure, but of some of the things I’ve accomplished. I made the theme fear and travel and they were amazed I traveled to Mexico alone, to attend a writing workshop in 2017. Sure, many sighted people are amazed I can dress myself let alone travel by myself.

The point is that there are ways to know what I’m wearing and how I get to my gate to fly somewhere. I don’t do it without practice and, sometimes, without assistance.

I talked about my fears and the fears my parents had when they first learned I was blind. I talked about my loss of sight over the years and how I faced my fear of rejection to start this blog and share more of my writing with the wider world. I talked about how to face the fears and push passed them, while they keep on coming.

I impressed them, all kinds of them coming up to me after to shake my hand and tell me to keep it all up.

I couldn’t hope to change every mind about the capabilities of blind people, but maybe I enlightened some of them so that they will realize that I am not such a rarity, that many blind people live happy and active lives.

There is much work to do, why I’ve become involved with the
Canadian Federation of the Blind
to, in many cases, fight back against society’s fears of blindness and what it’s really like to live with it.

I want to improve opportunities for my own life and for those born blind or who go blind later in life. It isn’t a black hole of hopelessness.

The government could be doing a lot more to help. If they listened more and realized it is a good investment to make into disability communities like that of the blind, that given the right kinds of opportunities and supports and training, we can give back to society like we want, like anyone else might do.

Our challenge is to make blind people, struggling to know their options and worth and opportunities, understand and believe that they can live the life they want.

I have been to a yearly convention for the CFB in Canada for the last two years and to one in the US in 2018. I wish I had more money for travel because it isn’t only a chance to do that, but it’s a chance to gather together and share with one another and boost each other in our lives all the rest of the year. I face my fears by traveling, again and again and again, and to put myself squarely in a situation where I am anxious and uncomfortable, a large crowd or group of people.

The experiences I’ve had since I realized my power to make changes through advocacy with like-minded blind people have been some of the best of my entire life and I’ve met people that inspire me for those times when I do feel like it’s all too much and I’d like to give up all together.

It’s often stressful because there’s more work to do than those of us willing to pitch in with our own unique talents and skills, but it’s a brand new year here and I know I’ll keep busy, whatever happens. Life is rarely ever boring for long.

Thanks,
Dan,
for this prompt that I had a lot to speak on. My life has been a rich tapestry of meaningful and impactful experiences for sure.

Writing A Wrong, #JusJoJan

A bunch of holes, punched into a piece of paper – what is it?

As it was once done, braille still can be written with the slate and stylus, a piece of metal or plastic with lines of the six cells that make up braille.

A piece of paper is slipped inside the slate, lined up, so the stylus can
poke
holes in the appropriate spots to make all the individual braille letter combinations.

I know it sounds confusing and complicated to people upon hearing this, but it is how I’ve known to read and write since I was a child.

Handy when writing postcards when traveling, though they are less common than when I was younger.

It makes that simple thump thump thump sound as I press the stylus into the correct spot in the small six dot space, which lets me know I am right where I mean to be. One centimetre off and the letter I meant to write has a wrong dot in it.

Though I no longer use the slate and stylus method, as I prefer the speed of Perkins brailers or, nowadays, my electronic/Bluetooth braille display.

Sure, technology truly is amazing and has made literacy for the blind more efficient, but without the basic yet brilliant invention of braille to begin with, the world would be without the beauty of braille for all these years.

Viewfinder, #JusJoJan #Outlook

Here’s my view. It’s taking a while to find what that is, but this blog allows glimpses of some of the insights I seek.

Welcome to 2020 on this blog and off of it too. New decade and I overwhelm myself when I look back on the last one. So, instead, I try to live in this moment.

I do like having this first month designated for finding my direction for the year head. The blogging world has given me many tools, including this
Just Jot It January #JusJoJan
for jotting down thoughts to hopefully unscramble them.

Day one of
Just Jot It January
because January 1st was a restful New Year’s Day and a Wednesday, which will be my break day throughout the rest of this month and this blogging exercise.

Today’s prompt is about taking a photo and posting/sharing with any jot that might go along with the image.

This image is one taken on Monday, my day to travel a distance of less than an hour, to my brother’s town to record the half hour radio talk show on disability/blindness. I do this with my brother.

We have guests on occasionally, mostly we like to do interviews, but this time it was a friend and we had him in the background, as more of a guest host really, as we did a round-up of 2019 for Outlook.

After which we went out for lunch to celebrate the holidays. We’ve known him since before we can remember.

Thing is, I am blind and I still find managing the world of the sighted difficult, specifically when it comes to photos. They are an important part of life for most people, or at least a common enough occurrence. Hell, my brother is a photographer and a damn good one, but my memories of pictures that capture a particular moment in time fades as the years pass me by.

I wasn’t born unable to see photos at all. I am at that point now though.

I find many things about losing more sight frustrating, but then I try to tell myself it doesn’t really matter, to focus on the things that do make sense to me.

I don’t take the pictures housed on my iPhone currently. My mother took this one, one of four she ended up leaving, after she deleted some. She told me what they were, but I forgot the order of the four and am on my own today as I post this.

I usually like to include a caption in words, when I post a photo on my FB page or on the public pages I run. I do this for any other blind people, like me, who don’t see the photos and still want to know, to feel included as best we can.

This time, I don’t know if the photo I have chosen is just my brother and myself or if our friend is in this shot. We were at a restaurant that had a Christmas tree and some photos were taken in front of it. The other, at our table.

I fight with my frustrations, the sighted world being one of them, but I wanted some photos to choose from, to post on the FB page of the radio show we do. It’s called Outlook and past episodes can be found at our podcast archive page:

https://soundcloud.com/ketchuponpancakes

There are more and more forms of technology now, including photo recognition apps, but they are far from perfect. I often grow more frustrated when trying to use them than I would if I didn’t bother.

I will find a more upbeat and positive outlook for my 2020 and here, hopefully, as the month goes on. It’s there and coming.

I think it’s important to share and show the frustrating moments, as well as the times where a more optimistic tone can be struck. I have both inside. That’s what this first month is for, finding a balance, though I’ve been away from this blog for far too long and I need to warm up to it again.

Serenity and the Frail Petunia

Dear Reader:

I am blind and getting more blind by the decade. It’s not all I am, not by a long shot, but it’s a core part of me that I wrestle with every day, some days more in a nuisance way and some days it brings me down.

I wrestle with how to balance that part of me with the rest, in my interactions with people: if I bring it up too much, I’m using it as a crutch; if I pretend it doesn’t have an influence, I won’t ever speak up for what I need or get those needs met in any way necessary.

Different blindness organizations have differing views, but as I grew and went along, I felt I had to get involved in something I felt represented me, without letting the activism and hard work of advocacy take over my life entirely either.

It’s hard enough to focus on ourselves, let alone having to work or worry on or about the issues someone else might be living with. Some prefer to get things squared away in their own lives and leave it at that.

I am like most in Canada and those living in North America in 2019 – I only recently heard of
the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB)
recently, but I found people and projects there that did make me feel like I belonged and had something worthwhile to contribute.

Just a few of the things we are constantly fighting and working to improve:

The guide dog discrimination and misinformation issue just won’t go away. In fact, depending on who you happen to ask, it’s grown worse in recent years.

People get refused service from businesses and things like Lyft or by Uber drivers. Sometimes a cab will see the dog and then pull away, intending to pretend that they were never there, leaving the person waiting in vane for a ride.

Blind people are one of those groups of people who can’t simply get behind the wheel of a vehicle and get somewhere themselves. Public transportation and rides from helpful friends or family are our best bet if we want to leave our homes. PSST…we do.

Those who say: “no guide dog allowed” claim it’s an allergy issue or a cultural one. These do give the issue a two-sides-to-every-story feel for many people, but it matters to those who depend on their guide dog to give them back their independence.

Also, I am trying to get my local library to offer me as much access to literature as possible. People unable to read print have only about ten percent of the access to the written word and books as those who can see. A library should want to do all it can to get me access to books, as I can’t pick up any book on their shelves and read at will.

Being in my local library now makes me sad and resentful. I can deal with the fact that I’ll never see print again, like when I was a child reading large print, but I go to my library twice a month (to attend a local writing group) and I am surrounded by some of the things I love most in the world, yet they are just out of reach.

There are places to get more access to books:
National Network For Equitable Library Service
and
Centre for Equitable Library Access,
but they are not just duplicates of each other. If one has even one more book than the other, that the other does not, don’t I deserve access to both?

Libraries in Canada have always kind of passed the buck of literacy for the blind onto the
Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB),
but (in my opinion) they should care for every client and want to offer inclusivity and a welcoming atmosphere for all.

Instead, I am disregarded and left not wanting to even step foot into the building most times, even to see writer friends I love and to share stories with them, because the library has become a bittersweet and even painful place.

And finally, there’s this…

****

The antidotes to job-seeker deceptions presented here reduce but don’t eliminate employers’ risk of getting snookered. For example, I’ve had clients with a disability who withheld that information, knowing there now are laws that limit the interviewer’s ability to ask about them. And then as soon as hired, they disclose the disability because now they’re protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

****

Go ahead and read the
full article (for full context),
but many do not and so I’ve decided to paste in the above paragraph separately.

I really don’t want to give this article more views, but I also think people should be aware of where stigma like this persists from. I happen to believe the written word is a powerful thing.

I am not into shaming or attacking anyone/not without cause or reason, but I do believe we should do more calling people out on something if it is hurting a whole group of people.

I believe this writer disguised this attack by inserting this as one of his final points of proof of his main article’s point of view.

Most people won’t see this because attentions are short in 2019 and reading to the end of an article is often not practical for those on the go and with mile long to-do lists. I probably shouldn’t have even made this blog post this long and left this part for the end. This is not an accusation, as I understand people’s time is precious. I just wish people were more thoughtful about things )like this writer) and I hope someone does get this far in my post.

I believe, in life, we should all pick our own battles, but I am getting tired of visible ablism and the perpetuation of stigma.

The reason I wanted to start a support and resource group, which we’ve called our Employment Mastermind Group or EMG, and through some Canadian Federation of the Blind members and others, we are doing it, is because of writers such as Nemko.

We can argue all day about the real unemployment rate for people with disabilities and who are blind, but either way it’s much too high still.

Of course, the ways in which we’re told we can reach people and change minds are things like social media, Twitter private messaging, but I don’t really think a tweet sent from me to him will get me anywhere. I came here, though I write here less often than I used to, because I have a place to speak openly and honestly about something that hurts, as much as I try not to take it to heart.

Do guys like this truly think he’s helping anyone, to warn unsuspecting employers? What was the editor of this article thinking, putting the Psychology Today name on this?

I may have thought, as a freelance writer, of writing for this publication at one time, but I don’t think I want to now. (One to cross of the list.)

The question of whether to disclose disability on a resume or application for a job is often asked in the blindness community. People only want to find meaningful employment like anybody else, to feel useful and for independence and self sufficiency.

We are honestly afraid we’ll be weeded out before we’re given a chance to prove our skills. We’re not saying we deserve special treatment, given a job even if we aren’t up to it, but employers are often afraid to hire someone with a disability because they think it’s not going to be worth their time/money/energies, that it will be too much of a hassle or a risk to them because not everyone understands that blind people aren’t helpless and don’t need to be watched over every minute.

Who would admit they do this? Doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what some employers (not all) would do, hoping not to be caught doing it.

It’s like when you want a person to like you, on a date, so you hold back on something you think it may be too soon to share. You do have to take the risk sooner or later, but you have no idea how they will take it when they find out. This is where it can get tricky. Maybe…you think…if they get to know you a bit first, then when you do finally bring it up, you’ll have left such a wonderful impression that all will work itself out. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

I happen to think being upfront, as soon as possible, is best (in all types of relationships/be they personal or professional), but I know it’s a nerve racking thing when you think you’d be good at a certain position and you don’t wish to be pitied for the rest of your life, wishing to carry your weight and support yourself, but fearing the injustices of the real world.

This writer is including people with disabilities as “the deceivers” of those poor employers. Aren’t we just so incredibly evil, pulling the wool over innocent eyes and those eyes must be warned that we’re coming?

Maniacal, aren’t we?

Inaccessibility is everywhere you look. I couldn’t and wouldn’t include everything it is here because I would be writing for days. Let’s just say that even the comment section for the article, when I went to share my thoughts, was no simple thing to tackle.

So if it sounds as though I’m complaining too much, you’re right because I do get tired of having to bring these things up all the time. Really, I do. I wish I didn’t have to and I could go back to staying quiet and saying nothing, just so I don’t rock the boat, but that doesn’t get us to a better place.

If you are on Twitter and you feel like helping this writer and career coach learn why what he said was so harmful, he can be found @MartyNemko and you can also try @PsychToday.

Thank you for listening/reading/considering.

Signed,

KKHerheadache/Kerry