From: shawn keen 
Subject: Mister Magoo And The NFB 1 of 2
	>D		ate:         Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:54:49 -0700
>Reply-To: Blind-x Blind Exchange & Discussion
>              
>Sender: Blind-x Blind Exchange & Discussion
>              
>From: Philip Scovell 
>Subject:      Mister Magoo And The NFB 1 of 2
>To: BLIND-X@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>
>This is about the longest post I have ever written in my whole
>life but here goes.  What I have to say about the Magoo and NFB
>discussion won't add to, or differ much, from what has already
>been said, but I might as well dump my opinion into the discussion
>anyhow.  I lost my sight due to detached retinas when I was 12
>years young in 1964 when Mister Magoo was really popular.  I
>watched him all the time, too.  I was extremely near sighted at
>the time and though my glasses were not coke bottle thick, they
>were ugly looking things.  I started wearing glasses at the age of
>4 because I couldn't hardly see a thing in the distance without
>them.  I remember watching Mister Magoo a lot and thought, as a
>kid, he was funny.  Of course I still think porky pig is funny and
>my favorite is Daffy Duck.  I remember very clearly the first
>blind person I ever saw in Des Moines Iowa before I went blind.
>He was using a cane and I believe, if my memory serves me, he was
>wearing sun glasses.  I remember thinking as we drove by him on
>the street, oh, there's a blind person.  I never in my wildest
>dreams associated Mister Magoo with that, or any other, blind
>person nor did I ever associate myself, as a severely near sighted
>person, with Mister Magoo.  I am one of those who believe we are
>taking this politically correct idea far beyond reason.  For
>example, in Denver, one of the local high schools had a football
>team with an indian name.  I forget now what it was.  An indian
>group in Denver made such a big stink about this, the school
>finally changed the name of their team, which they had used for
>many years, to something which made the indians happy.  Of course
>there are dozens of colorado and Nebraska and Kansas towns with
>indian names but I have never once heard of an indian political
>group complain about them.  They have complained about the Kansas
>City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves, and the Washington Red Skins but
>these multi million dollar sports organizations have ignored their
>out cries, God bless them, and just kept right on using indian
>names to identify their ball teams.  I could, of course, sight a
>number of other such examples but you get the picture.  Now, with
>this in mind, how should we view, in my humble opinion, this NFB
>and Mister Magoo situation.  Does the NFB have a point?  Of
>course.  Did they make their point?  Only time will tell but I
>have a hunch they only called attention to the blind being a bunch
>of people more concerned about their feelings and being
>politically correct than the blind being productive members of
>society.  I'm not running the NFB but if I were, I would not have
>gone national with the resolution but would have quietly, behind
>the scenes, written the concerns to Disney.  Will a private, or
>public, out cry by 3,000 blind delegates, representing a
>membership of 50,000, have any effect on what Disney does?  Not in
>a pigs eye.  Money is what counts.  Just ask Mike tyson.  I also
>find it extremely difficult to bring myself to believe that all
>3,000 delegates, that's what was reported on the local news here,
>voted 100 percent for this resolution.  Man, not even the Southern
>Baptist all agreed on their gay rights position concerning Disney.
>If the nfb got all 3,000 delegates to agree on this one, they
>indeed have achieved blind solidarity.  Did the NFB go overboard
>on this one?  Very likely.  Why?  Mister Magoo does not depict the
>blind community directly.  You have to stretch your imagination
>some to make the comparison to blind people when watching Mister
>Magoo.  If I stuttered, I might certainly take offence to Porky
>Pig as an individual but I would not vote with an organization to
>take Porky Pig away from literally millions of children, including
>adults, who have enjoyed his humor for literally decades.  Now,
>let's back up a step and reconsider.  If the NFB would have said,
>we object to you depicting blind people as those who are totally
>blind, wearing sun glasses, and stumbling and bumbling around like
>an idiot, they would have had a more, note the word more, valid
>complaint.  by the way, Mister Magoo always came out on top at the
>end of every cartoon.  No matter how much trouble he got into, no
>matter how many mistakes he made, and no matter how much carnage
>he caused, he always came out the winner in the end.  As a child,
>I got the impression that Mister Magoo was a person, regardless
>of his, quote handicapped unquote, who was going to succeed by
>overcoming his circumstances no matter what.  I do not believe,
>on the other hand, by the way it was handled, the NFB will come
>out as the winner on this deal, at least not based upon all I
>heard on the local talk shows here in Denver.  Let me clarify how
>I feel by comparing this to something totally unrelated to
>blindness.  For years I have had a friend who is a trial lawyer.
>He now is running for the u s senate. For years he kidded me about
>being over weight.  I have gained and lost, gained and lost, and
>gained and lost for years and am, once again, on another stupid
>boring diet and exercise program.  I've lost ten pounds the first
>two weeks, thank you very much, but like anyone over weight, I'm a
>little self conscious about it.  I'm more self conscious about it,
>as a matter of fact, than being blind.  Well, anyhow, this friend,
>nearly every time he saw me, would kid me about needing to eat
>less and exercise more.  The funny thing is, of course, he was in
>the same boat.  However, his suggestions eventually became really
>old and he was finally told so.  Guess, what.  He apologized and
>for the last two years has never mentioned it again.  He never
>honestly realized it bothered me.  I have had similar things
>happen to me concerning my blindness where people make the jokes
>about the three blind mice and being blind as a bat and everything
>else.  Some of this we bring on ourselves.  How so?  We try and
>use humor to put people at ease around us and, yes, humor works.
>Some people get the idea we think everything blind related is
>funny and they get carried away and start singing three blind mice
>when we walk into a room.  This is when your blindness really
>kicks into high gear.  You either control yourself and deal with
>it as a mature person and explain to this knuckle head he needs to
>cool it, or you get mad and hurt someone's feelings, or you get
>hurt yourself and cry at night when you go to bed and wish you
>were dead.  I once had a friend who, every blessed time he was
>around my children when they were small, kept correcting them and
>telling them what they could and could not do.  This was a blind
>thing he had, you see, and he honestly thought he was just
>helping us out.  After all, we could not see what our sighted
>children were doing.  He meant well but it eventually had to come
>to a stop.  As blind parents, my wife and I instituted a policy
>many years ago.  We do not allow people to correct our children if
>we are present.  If our children are in immediate danger, that's
>different.  I finally said one day, Hey, Ben, my kids have only
>one dad.  As long as you keep trying to be there dad when I am,
>they are going to have a hard time figuring out whom to obey.  He
>apologized and said he never realized what he was doing and he
>never did it again nor was he offended when I mentioned this to
>him.  Of course, some likely think, once our children became
>teenagers, this no longer happened.  Wrong.  I had to call a woman
>running a dental office where we were going in the last few months
>and explain to her, I may be blind, and I may have a bald spot on
>my head at the young age of forty-five, but I am still my son's
>father and if she was not going to speak to me about my son and
>things going on in their office, then we were about to have a
>problem.  This is, my hand on the Bible, the first time in all my
>years of being blind and functioning as a blind parent to boot,
>that I in no way was able to get this woman to understand what in
>the sam hill I was talking about.  I wish I would have recorded
>our conversation.  I never raised my voice but I explained myself
>three times over and over again but she still couldn't see it.
>Guess what though?  No body in that office does anything any more
>without talking to me first.  Did I make a friend?  Of course not.
>Does she think all blind people are touchy, over sensitive,
>uppity, and cantankerous?  I'm sure she does but at least she
>doesn't deal with my son any longer; she talks directly to me and
>so does everybody else in that office.  Actually, after paying
>them 4,000 dollars for my son's braces, I figured they owed me.
>I have, however, lost one friend over this very issue but such is
>the price of being a parent.  Now back to Mister Magoo.  I love
>Porky Pig.  I can see where Porky Pig cartoons would offend
>someone who is fat and those who might stutter.  If I were
>offended, I would write and voice my feelings and would also not
>watch that cartoon.  Would I try to change those who produced it?
>Only in the way I described.  What we as blind people are trying
>to do is make society aware of us and who we are.  We are not
>blacks who are refused jobs and a seat on the bus.  Do blind
>people have similar problems?  Yes, but we are not a race or a
>religion.  Not yet anyway.  In fact, I do not believe blind
>people, unless they are also black, have any idea what racism is
>really like.  We may sympathize and empathize but based upon my
>conversations with black friends, one being blind by the way,
>there is no comparison.  Do we have rights?  Of course.  Should we
>fight for those rights?  Yes.  Even if it means we make some
>people mad because we are fighting for our rights?  Yes.  We
>should never, on the other hand, confuse what we are doing with
>what a minority race is trying to do.  We are trying to make
>society, I'm repeating myself, aware of who we are.  Blacks, on
>the other hand, should never simply try and make society aware of
>who they are because they are human beings with inalienable
>rights as human beings.  We, as blind people, have rights, too,
>but not as a race or, as I said already, a religion.
>Concluded in next message.
>
>
Shawn Keen
orange@texas.net	
www.eden.com/~orange
"love isn't blind, but the braille sure is fun."
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