betrayal or basic lack of belief in blind people's abilities?

Subject: betrayal or basic lack of belief in blind people's abilities?

So, my marvelous genie, the computer repairman, came out on Sunday to install a new power control...or some such gizmo in my computer, and after three lonely days I am back.  

There are four or five of us who have "trained" this talented fellow in the care and love of adaptive equipment.  In all of Jefferson County he is it. 

 

Regarding the conversation about the many problems that have existed, and still exist in the VR programs for the blind, we often turn to the examples of uncaring, lazy or sloppy performance on the part of the VR staffs. 

While I have met some of those people, and even tried to motivate them, there is another aspect that is often over looked. 

Here it is.  Regardless of how VR Counselors strut behind their credentials, Master's degrees and CRC(certified rehabilitation counselor), they actually are living, breathing human beings, recruited right out of the employment pool of eager, hungry people looking for a job. 

"Well Mister or Miss Jones, I see you have all your credentials in place and scored very high in everything including community volunteering." 

Well my dear naive Human Resource person, you have fallen prey to the belief that Education conquers all.  But what you are really hiring is a highly trained, Parrot, a professional who knows beyond a doubt that he/she has what it takes to do this job.  And they really, really need this job.  They have student loans to repay.  Or they have family to support.  They have dreams of using this job as a stepping stone to bigger and fatter paychecks. 

In other words, they are human, just like you and me,

a regular person.  This regular person carries the "Blindness Stereotype Gene" that is common to all Human Beings. 

Deep down inside of them, buried beneath all of the Professional covering, they do not really believe that blind people are capable of obtaining equality with sighted folks. 

But they need the work...fat paycheck.   And they have been highly trained to say all the right things.  Like trained Parrots.  And they dig right in and become expert on such things as the State Administrative Code or the Federal Regs, or SSDI rules.  And they stride the halls spouting out all they know.  Meanwhile their job is supposed to be to move blind people through the VR system and into successful closures.  Meaning a job. 

It's not that they don't want to put blind folks into jobs.  The problem is that deep down under piles of education they still do not believe in blind people.  But their job is to "26" people.  And their future rise through the system depends upon doing just that. 

And so they find themselves in the position of trying to place a product that they actually do not believe in, but do not dare say so.  The very people they have hired on to "help", are now getting in the way of their career.  And so they eventually find themselves "counseling" blind people into jobs that blind people have worked in over the years.  Safe closures.  No risk.  Move  onto the next widget and shove it into its nich. 

 

Remember, I am not painting all VRC's with this broad brush, but these people do exist.  And any of us may have to place our future in their hands. 

 

Curious Carl