THE FUTURE OF SPECIALIZED SERVICES FOR THE BLIND
An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
At the Josephine L. Taylor
Leadership Institute
Washington, D.C., March 3, 1994

     When Mr. Augusto asked me to appear on this panel, he told
me that almost all of the people in the audience would be
professionals, rehabilitators and educators; so my remarks are
principally aimed at those of you who are professionals. Today we
are talking about how to save specialized services for the blind
and what kind of partnership can or should exist between the
blind and service providers. The fact that we are considering
this topic and that the discussion is being led by the consumer
organizations and the agencies in the field implies that we think
specialized services are in danger, that they are worth saving,
and that the organizations of the blind and the professionals can
work in partnership, and that the partnership can make a
difference. There is no question that programs for the blind are
in danger, but whether the professionals and the consumers can
effectively cooperate to save the situation is still being
determined.
     Partners must be equals. You who are professionals need, in
the modern lingo, to internalize that. You need to internalize
something else, too. If an organization of the blind is not
strong enough and independent enough to cause you trouble and do
you damage (that is, jeopardize your budget, create political
problems for you, and hurt your public image), it is probably not
strong enough and independent enough to do you any good either.
Likewise, if you as a professional don't have enough authority to
damage the lives of the blind you are hired to help, you almost
certainly don't have enough authority to give them much
assistance.
     Fifteen or twenty years ago you heard very little talk in
our field about consumerism. Today that has all changed. The
organized blind movement has now developed enough strength and
presence that it must be taken into account in every decision of
any consequence. How you as professionals react to that new
reality may very well determine whether specialized services for
the blind will survive.
     Some time ago I was asked to speak to a group of agency
professionals on the topic "Blind Consumers: Chattels or
Choosers." It is not only a catchy title but a real issue, for we
can't meaningfully consider the relationship between the blind
and the agencies established to give them service without taking
into account current public attitudes about blindness--and even
more to the point, the truth or falsity of those attitudes. With
all of our efforts to educate the public, the average citizen's
notions about blindness are still predominantly negative; and
since all of us (whether blind individual or agency professional)
are part of the general public, we cannot help being influenced
by public opinion.
     Even so, we in this room (or at least most of us) profess to
know that the blind (given equal training and opportunity) can
compete on terms of equality with others--that the average blind
child can hold his or her own with the average sighted child;
that the average blind adult can do the average job in the
average place of business, and do it as well as a sighted person
similarly situated; and that the average blind grandmother of
eighty-four can do what the average sighted grandmother of that
age can do. Of course, the above average can compete with the
above average, and the below average will compete at that level.
Blindness does not mean lack of ability, nor does it mean lack of
capacity to perceive beauty or communicate with the world.
     The techniques may be different, but the overall performance
and the ability to experience pleasure are comparable. There are
blind mathematicians, blind factory workers, blind dishwashers,
and tens of thousands of just ordinary blind citizens to prove
it. This is what I as a blind person, representing the largest
organization of blind persons in the world, know--and it is what
you, knowledgeable professionals in the field, also know. Or, at
least, this is probably what we would say we know if asked. But
do we know it? Down at the gut level, where we live and feel, do
we really believe it? As the poet Tennyson said, "I am part of
all that I have met"--and he was right. Whether we are blind
person or agency professional, it is very hard for us to
contradict what our culture has taught us and what it reinforces
every day. As the German scientist Max Planck said, "A new truth
usually does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making
them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually
die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
     On this critical issue we cannot afford to engage in
sophistry or deceive ourselves. If blindness is as limiting as
most people think it is, and as many professionals have
traditionally said it is, then we should not deny it but face it.
On the other hand, if the real problem of blindness is not the
loss of eyesight but the misunderstandings and misconceptions
which exist, we should face that, too, and deal with it
accordingly. In either case the need for the professional in the
field will be equally great, but the services and the objectives
will be different.
     Let me give you an example from my own personal experience.
When I was getting ready to graduate from high school, I was
interviewed by a rehabilitation counselor. He asked me what I
wanted to do, and I told him I wanted to be a lawyer. After
changing the subject and talking about other things, he returned
to the question and asked me to tell him three or four careers I
might like to consider. With the brashness of youth I told him I
didn't need to do that, that I knew what I wanted to be--I wanted
to be a lawyer.
     He trotted out rehab jargon and told me that, while he
wouldn't say it was impossible for a blind person to be a lawyer,
he would say it wasn't feasible. A blind man, he said, couldn't
see the faces of the jury, couldn't handle the paperwork,
couldn't do the traveling. I argued--but I was a teenager; and he
was the counselor, who controlled the funds. He finally said
(gently and with big words, but very clearly) that I could either
go to college and be a lawyer, and pay for it myself--or I could
go and be something else, and the agency would help with the
bills. I didn't have any money, and I was only a teenager--so I
went and was something else.
     I know now that he was wrong. I am personally acquainted
with at least a hundred successfully practicing blind lawyers,
and many of them are no better suited for the profession than I
was. But I would not want you to misunderstand my point. That
rehabilitation counselor was not being vicious or deliberately
arbitrary. He was acting in what he believed to be my best
interest. He was well disposed toward me and generously inclined.
He simply believed (as his culture had taught him to believe)
that a blind person couldn't be a lawyer.
     What, then, should be the relationship between the blind and
the agencies, the consumers and the professionals? As I see it,
the answer must be given at two levels--the individual, and the
institutional. The issue is easier to deal with at the individual
level; for the choices are more personal, the alternatives more
clear-cut, and the short-term consequences more obvious. If, for
instance, a blind youngster should come to one of you today and
say that he or she wanted to be a lawyer, I seriously doubt that
you would resist or discourage. Law is now generally accepted as
a suitable profession for the blind.
     This does not mean that each of you in this room who is an
educator or an agency employee will always make the right
decision concerning careers and other life situations involving
the blind persons with whom you deal. But make no mistake: You
will and must make decisions. Money is not unlimited, and by
funding one project you necessarily choose not to fund another.
You have the responsibility for making decisions and for being
knowledgeable enough to give correct information and advice to
the blind persons who need your help. I have no doubt that, in
most instances, your motives will be good, but your decisions
will be wise only to the extent that you have a correct
understanding of what blind people can reasonably hope to do and
be, and what blindness is really like--what the limitations of
blindness are and, perhaps even more important, what they are
not.
     Obviously this kind of decision making concerning
individuals is not easy, but as I have said, it is far less
difficult than the other sort, the institutional. Moreover,
despite the fact that the decision making concerning individuals
leads to successful lives or blighted dreams, it is not as
important (even to those personally involved) as your
institutional decisions. In the long run every blind person in
this country will be far more affected (more helped or hurt) by
your institutional than your individual decisions. For purposes
of today's discussion I want to talk about your institutional
decision making concerning the kinds of consumer organizations
you will encourage or inhibit. And I urge you to resist the
temptations of sophistry, for you cannot avoid making decisions
in this area. You will make them whether you want to or not--and,
for that matter, whether you know it or not. If in no other way,
you will make such decisions by your daily attitudes and your
subconscious behavior. Therefore, it is better to make them
consciously and deliberately.
     Of course, you cannot create an independent organization of
blind consumers, for if the organization depends upon your
permission and financing, it is by definition not independent.
Freedom cannot be given by one group to another. It must either
be affirmatively taken by the individual or group alleging to
want it, or it cannot be had. It must be self-achieved, and the
process must be ongoing and constant. But if you cannot create an
independent organization of the blind, you can and will establish
the climate that will encourage or inhibit it. And the stake you
have is not solely altruistic or professional. It is also a
matter of self-interest, and possibly survival.
     In today's climate of changing values and hard-fought
issues, the best possible insurance policy for an agency for the
blind is a strong, independent organization of blind consumers.
Regardless of how much blind individuals may like the agency and
support its policies, they cannot achieve and sustain the
momentum to nurture and defend it in time of crisis. That is the
negative way of saying this: If there is a powerful, independent
organization of the blind and if the members of that organization
feel that the agency is responsive to their needs and sympathetic
to their wants, they will go to the government and the public for
funding and support. They will be vigilant in the advancement of
the agency's interests. Its friends will be their friends. Its
enemies will be their enemies. If it is threatened, they will
feel that they have something to lose, and they will fight with
ingenuity and determination to protect it.
     Chattels, on the other hand, have very little to lose. They
are at best indifferent and at worst resentful, always waiting
for a chance to rebel in periods of crisis. In good times they
rarely criticize, but they also do not imaginatively and
effectively give support. In bad times they not only fail to
defend--they cannot defend. They have neither the strength nor
the know-how. Moreover, they lack the incentive. Having been
taught that agency policy is none of their business, they cannot
in time of danger suddenly become tough and resourceful. As many
an agency has learned (the same is true of nations), chattels do
not make good soldiers.
     The agencies cannot have it both ways. Those that encourage
independence, and help the blind achieve it, will prosper--and
those that defensively cling to yesterday's power base will
perish. If a sufficient number of agencies fail to recognize the
new realities, then the whole blindness system may well be
destroyed.
     And what are these new realities, these vital issues of
which I speak? There are at least three, interrelated and
inseparable: funding, generic as opposed to specialized programs,
and empowerment of clients.
     There was a time (and not long ago at that) when agencies
for the blind pretty much got all of the money they reasonably
wanted, and sometimes more than they reasonably needed. Today,
budgets are tightening; the environment is deteriorating;
population is rising; and resources are dwindling. In addition,
other disability groups (once disorganized and invisible) are
finding their voice and reaching for power. Some say they took
their lessons from the blind. Be that as it may, they are now a
growing force to be reckoned with, and there is no turning back.
The argument they make is deceptively alluring. Give us, they
say, a unified program for people with disabilities--no special
treatment for any segment of the group. We are one population.
Despite superficial differences, our needs are essentially the
same. Save money. Eliminate duplication.
     You and I know that the logic is shallow and the promise
false, but it will take more than rhetoric to save our programs.
In the general melting pot of the generic disability agency the
blind will have no useful training, no meaningful opportunity, no
real chance. If the special training and rehabilitation needs of
the blind are to continue to be met and if our programs are to
survive, there is only one way it can be done. The agencies for
the blind and strong, independent grassroots organizations of the
blind must work together to make it happen. And the partnership
cannot be a sham. It must be real. It must be a true partnership
of equals--each giving, each supporting, and each respecting the
other.
     This brings me to the empowerment of clients. By this I do
not mean that the clients should administer the agencies. This
would not work, and it is not desirable. Rather, I mean that
clients should be respected, that they should be given meaningful
choices, that they should have access to information, and that
they should be encouraged (not pressured but encouraged) to join
independent organizations of the blind--organizations which are
not company unions but which have both the power and the
inclination to serve as a check and balance to the agency, to act
in concert with it, to pursue reasonable complaints against it,
to refuse to pursue unreasonable complaints against it, and to
work in every way as a supporter and partner. Let these things be
done, and both the blind and the agencies will prosper. Let them
not be done, and I think the blindness system will perish.
     There is something else: Workers in the blindness system
must resist the growing tendency to hide behind the term
"professionalism" and must stop treating "professionalism" as if
it were a sacred mystery. There is a teachable body of knowledge
which can be learned about giving service to the blind; but much
of that knowledge is a matter of common sense, good judgment, and
experience. Most thinking blind persons (certainly those who have
been blind for any length of time and have had any degree of
success) know at least as much about what they and other blind
people want and need from the system as the professionals do, and
it must also be kept in mind that not every act of a
"professional" is necessarily a "professional" act or based on
"professionalism." Just as in other fields in America today, the
professionals in the blindness system must be judged on their
behavior and not merely their credentials.
     Whether you believe that the type of partnership and
cooperative effort I have outlined will work depends on whether
you believe in the basic tenets of democracy. It also depends on
whether you believe the blind are capable of real equality. I do
believe these things, and I hope you do, too. Otherwise, programs
for the blind are probably doomed.