From: Al and Masha Sten-Clanton 
Subject: Re: Why the NFB
I want to  comment here on only one aspect of this complex topic.  
On Mon, 13 Apr 1998, Bill Reif wrote:
>  I can assure you that during leadership seminars, the
> mistakes we have made in dealing with situations or with people are
> discussed and that we, whether making decisions on the chapter, state
> affiliate, or national level, take such things into account.  Do we
> loudly proclaim our failures to the public?  Of course not.  What good
> would that do?  Anyone involved more than perifferally, though, knows
> about our past problems in Alaska, the combination of factors that beat
> us on the airlines issue, some of the disastrous fund-raising items
> we've attempted such as the Talking Elevator box that didn't work, the
> court cases in which we weren't successful, etc.  
I think it would do considerable good for us to proclaim our mistakes as
candidly as we do our victories or our intended actions.  I think this
would make us more careful than we sometimes are, and it would let the
public--especially the blind folks who see us as cultic, self-righteous,
and inflexible to some degree or other know that we can be as good at
self-correction as anybody.  
In the 1995 presidential report, one topic was tactile warnings along
subway platform edges.  Marc reiterated our long-standing opposition to
their installation, and I think he mentioned the Washington D.C. subways
in particular, where the battle raged bigtime.  As far as I know, we have
continued to oppose it, although the matter hasn't been a hot topic
lately.  I happen to agree with that position, and I think many who have
castigated us for taking it have willfully and immorally distorted our
views.
Yet, after reading in that presidential report that we continued to oppose
the installation of tactile warning strips along subway platform edges, I
then read how we were working or about to work with the Johns Hopkins
Institute of Applied Physics (think I got the name right) to develop an
electronic warning system for blind people to use along those same
platform edges.  As I considered this (after the shock wore off a little),
I thought this an abysmal disregard for one of our best traditions, our
opposition to high-tech gismos designed to give us so-called help we
didn't need at a price (in image, and perhaps in real safety as well) we
couldn't afford.  As I understood it, the blind user of the "electronic
fence" would have to carry a device around in the subway system, along
with cane or dog, and make sure it was aimed so that it would have contact
with a device built into the platform.  With contact presumably came a
warning signal.  The gismo one carried around would have to be maintained
in good working order, as would the gismo that was in or part of the
platform.  If either of those conditions was false, the blind user of the
system would almost certainly be a lot worse off than if he or she had
never used it:  no signal from it might lead to tumbling, getting zapped
by the third rail, and serious injury or a quick trip to the void or
whatever beyond.  Generally, I think, high-tech devices screw up more
often than low-tech ones, especially if they get a lot of handling, as
would the carry-around part of the "electronic fence" system.  Whatever
else one may say about truncated domes, they work a lot like Braille and
they wear out gradually and, I suspect, more or less predictably.
Now, in 1984, one a presidential release, we were asked to oppose a grant
application by one Wolfgang Preiser, who apparently intended to design a
system of wires to put under floor of malls and other places to guide the
blind.  I did it gladly, and I appreciated and still appreciate that I
might not have understood the potential harm in that project without the
NFB.
Why have I gone on at such length about our "electronic fence" project?
Well, I understand that the test of the system proved it a failure.  We
were attacked harshly thereafter for opposing a simple system like
truncated domes, asserting that blind folks need proper training instead,
while supporting a high-tech failure.  Now, our own history should have
warned us against that misadventure; it sure warned me!  The failure was
predictable, and probably anybody who knew much about our history knew
that we should have predicted and avoided it.  
What does this have to do with more public acknowledgement of mistakes?
Well, what I've heard about the testing of the "electronic fence" has been
general, mostly bathed in anti-NFB rhetoric, and mostly from ACB.  What I
have not seen is a detailed, "objective" description of those tests from
our own people--what weht right, what went wrong, whether we abandoned the
project (as I suspect), or, perhaps most important in the long run, what,
if anything, justified an endeavor that seemed on its face to violate one
of our long-standing good judgments.  The last thing distributed to the
membership about this was a commentary included in a presidential release
in the early fall of 1995, before the tests, I believe.  By not being more
public, we have left it to our impassioned adversaries to describe that
endeavor--and they sure have described it.  
Nor do such things help with recruitment.  It's one thing to have a debate
with somebody about whether any warning system is necessary for blind
folks on subway platforms.  It's quite another to try to defend your
organization when it proclaims that we don't need one before, during, and
after it has proclaimed its support for something a lot more troublesome
than the expensive but easy-to-use truncated domes.  I can't do it except
to say we sometimes screw up royally:  I may be wrong, but that's the best
I know.  By not dealing with the matter full force in "The Brille Monitor"
with logic, caring, and unflinching candor, we look pathetic and lose
credibility in a big way.  (Why in the "Monitor?  That's where I saw the
presidential report.) 
I also happen to think that we'd never have begun that misadventure if we
had a tradition of being as public about our screw-ups as we are about
what we do right.  I think our people would have thought more about what a
departure this was from our usual stance on fancy gismos intended for the
blind, noted that others--especially members with memories--would spot
this in a second, and concluded that our typical caution in such matters
made more sense than getting into the untested "electronic fence"
business.  (Now, there are traditions I'd love to wipe out.  When logic
and tradition are on the same side, though, it's time to stay the course.)
Maybe I'd better note the following.  When I say "mistakes," I don't mean
lost court battles or other proceedings about which the "Monitor" often
reports candidly and in considerable detail.  I mean things that we just
do wrong and probably should have know much better in the first place.
(Even if we couldn't have known better, saying straight-out when and how
we screwed up makes us look good in the long run, keeps the general
membership more informed, and probably can put the brakes on from time to
time.
In closing, I regard NFB as a mix of good and bad.  Any human organization
is!  The big mistake is not to be forthright about the problems while we
proclaim the virtues.  It's fine to blast our critics at times:  there's a
lot of garbage out there.  I think we must always be willing to find every
pearl of wisdom that may be retrieved from that garbage, though.  That's
hard when you're under attack, but if we don't try, we'll come to deserve
attacks.  At least, that's a part of my perspective.  Thanks for enduring!
Al
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