But each group has an experience that is specific to them. How each group
experiences discrimination, is influenced by the history and culture of that
group. You can point out what all of the groups have in common. However, when
you tell people that their experiences are like those of other groups, it feels
to them like you are trivializing their specific experience. The organizers on
the Left had better learn this if they are to be successful. Being a Muslim is
different from being a Latino. As for being blind, well, I'm at a point where I
just recognize and accept my rage at how blindness has affected my life both in
real terms, and in terms of social ingteractions with sighted people. But I
also recognize that the sighted people's actions toward me or lack thereof, are
motivated by ignorance and a real terror of blindness. It really has nothing to
do with me as a person. They don't even know me. I'm invisible. And I'm tired
of putting forth the effort to attempt to remove their fear.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2017 10:45 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Palestinian Center for Human Rights: Gaza
True. We Blind Folk aren't shoved out of the way by angry White Folk, or
hunted down and burned out of our homes, or awakened in the Midnight Hour by a
bomb hurtling into our home. We don't have our farms seized, or made so unsafe
that we dare not tend our crops. We don't have to travel out of our way in
order to wait in long lines at check points, where we are examined like vermin,
by coldly indifferent armed soldiers. Still, exclusion is exclusion. Being
cast into the Outer World, whether violently or indifferently still has the
same dehumanizing effect.
No, I have no real sense of what walking out my door wearing a Black Skin every
day, and seeing the faces of the mostly White folk as I go about my daily
activities...if I have any daily activities to go about.
And especially, I have no way of relating to an elderly grandmother tending her
garden and seeing, as the last sight she will ever see, an object hurtling
toward her.
Still, many of my friends in the Washington Council of the Blind(WCB) have
learned to compartmentalize the discrimination they feel as a blind person, and
their view of the discrimination and oppression being experienced by other
minorities.
I used to consider these people as being self serving or self centered. But at
this moment I see them as victims, no different than those people around them
whom they curse and condemn.
Years back, when I worked on Seattle's waterfront in the Sweat Shop named
Bartmann and Bixer of the Northwest, Incorporated, I would wander the streets
of that area known as Skidrow, or Skid Road. The bars along First Avenue were
segregated to some degree or other. The Indians had several bars they hung out
in, often making a circuit walking from one bar to another during a Friday or
Saturday night.
The Negroes hung out in a couple of bars further down at the South end of First
Avenue, and no Indian had better put his/her head in the door. The two groups
hated one another. Both Blacks and Indians believed that they were better than
the other. "But," I would say to any who would listen to me, "can't you see
that you are both being treated the same?" But it was as if each minority did
all it could to not be the one at the bottom of the pile. Blacks, by being
"better"
than Indians felt they had a measure of dignity. And Indians felt that by
being "better" than Blacks gave them more stature in the eyes of the White
Masters.
This need to feel superior is turned against us by the Ruling Class.
And so it is around the Globe. One People create a superior image of
themselves, and create an inferior stereotype of those they oppose.
Perhaps it is so much a part of our Nature that we'll continue until the last
two humans die in a life and death struggle. I watched a program the other
night about the Silver back Gorillas. As the 35 year old dominate male was
finally bested by the younger, stronger male, I could see how these animals had
survived because of their "survival of the fittest" that kept them a strong
species. And yet, this strong instinct forced the old leader into fighting to
the death, even though he might have fled into the forest and lived out his
life in peace.
Humans are no different, except in one important way. Driven by our "survival
of the fittest" instinct, we have set in place an artificial standard of what
we consider to be the Standard for a Strong Species.
Possession is put in place of Strength. I could wax long and loud about this
wrong turn in the Survival Road, but suffice it to say that we now see at the
top of our People, a weak blubbery, self focused creature. Or maybe we see
something even worse. Donald Trump.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/19/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I used to think that being blind was what allowed me to identify with
members of other minority groups. Perhaps it did. But the differences
between being blind and being a Palestinian in Israel/Palestine or
being Black in America, are just too great. We, the blind, aren't
hated and reviled. Cops don't feel endangered by blind men and shoot
them. We're not incarcerated. I am, here in my apartment building,
socially isolated. But if anyone chooses to relate to me when they see
me in the lobby or the elevator, it is to offer help. It's a very different
dynamic.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2017 11:42 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Palestinian Center for Human Rights:
Gaza
There are no words for such heartless, cruel, cold behavior.
It's hard to wrap my head around what life is...or in the case of the
mother, was, like under this constant surveillance.
To a greater or lesser degree I can "feel" what it must be like to be
a racial or religious minority in America. Despite the "Free Pass" of
Whiteness, I am still a member of a small, ignored minority. While
being blind has some distinct advantages over being Black, Brown or a
Muslim, we blind people are faced with misunderstanding and ignorance,
and often mean spiritness. At least enough for us to "understand"
some of what other minorities face. But to live under constant threat
of death from a distance? To go about doing what must be done to
survive? To never know, when going to bed at night, if morning will
find your house and family still "safe"? To be bullied with no one to
turn to? And worst of all, to have no way out! Even this old blind man can
dream of better days.
But to have absolutely no Light at the End of the Tunnel? To not even
have a Tunnel.
We Humans are such a contradiction. We can sore, like angels, to the
heights of compassion, and turn right around and become more cruel
than all of the Demons waiting to embrace us in Hell.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/19/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Life under Siege: Indiscriminate killing of farmers
Date: 18/06/2017
"Our life has turned upside down since my mother's death. With her
passing, we lost the backbone of the house." Hani Salem Elomor is a
married father of
3 children and resident of El Elfokhari neighborhood, Khan Younis,
whose mother Zeina was killed by the Israeli occupation forces in
2016 when she was working on the family's farmland.
The tree was planted by Zeina's family where she was killed by the
Israeli occupation forces Zeina was solely responsible for Hani and
his six siblings and the family's income is based on the 2 dunums of
land they own and where they plant wheat, which is located in
Elfokhari neighborhood, about 350 meters from the borderline line
with Israel. Supposedly, the farmland is outside of the buffer zone
implemented by the Israeli occupation forces, stretching from the
Israeli border 300 meters into the Gaza Strip. The buffer zone is an
area prohibited to Palestinians, which is illegal under both Israeli
and international law. According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA), the buffer zone takes up 17
percent of Gaza's total land, making up to 35 percent of available
farmland unsafe for Palestinians to use, with the areas nearest the
border fence being the most restricted. It is harshly affecting the
livelihood of tens of thousands of Gaza farmers, who rely heavily on
agriculture to provide for their families.
In addition, the Israeli occupation forces regularly enforce the
buffer zone and nearby areas with live fire, which is what Zeina
became a victim of.
In the evening of 05 May 2016, Hani received a phone call from his
brother Monzer, who informed him that their mother got wounded from a
shell by the occupation forces and that she was on her way to the
Gaza European hospital.
"I immediately rushed to the hospital and when I arrived there, I
could see my family members getting into the emergency room. I
followed them and saw my mother's dead body lying on one of the beds
with her face covered.
Unconsciously, I uncovered her face and saw the blood covering her
neck, shoulder, and right hand. The doctors informed me that she was
killed on the spot by the Israelis", Hani tells in vain.
Zeina was collecting hay on her farmland and filling it into bags to
move it to the house, when the occupation forces fired a rocket at
her, as her relatives that accompanied her tell. In the place of the
incident there were a number of other farmers working on their
farmlands. The area is very flat, the sight is obvious, and the
attack happened during day time, which is a clear evidence for the
arbitrariness of the killing. "There is an Israeli military tower
east of the land, about 350 meters away, so the occupation forces
could see with their bare eyes that my mother was a civilian, working
on her land to provide her family with an income. They shot her for
no reason", Hani emphasizes. "Ever since the end of the latest war on
Gaza, Israel allowed farmers to cultivate this zone using short crops
that do not grow higher than 80 centimeters, such as wheat and
barley, as it forbids them from establishing greenhouses or buildings
there", Hani highlights.
Enforcing the buffer zone by means of live fire constitutes a war
crime, as codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome
Statute, prohibiting the targeting and severe injuring or killing of
a civilian or protected person. However, Israeli troops typically
enforce the buffer zone with live fire which often results in, inter
alia, the direct targeting of civilians and/or indiscriminate attacks.
Furthermore, preventing Palestinians from access to their land is a
violation of numerous provisions of international human rights law,
including the right to work, the right to the highest attainable
standard of living, and the right to the highest attainable standard
of health. Accordingly, the PCHR has filed a letter requesting the
military advocate general to open an investigation into the incident
on 30 May, 2016. A reminder was sent on 26 April, 2017 regarding the
complaint and PCHR received a response that the incident is under
treatment by the Israeli military prosecution for operational affairs.
"A year later, day by day we still go to our land and work the same
way as if our mother was still among us. The occupation forces tried
to frighten us several times, but they will not succeed and we will
never give up our land.
It belongs to us and we will not lose our sole source of income",
Hani emphasizes. "Until today, we don't know the reason why she was
killed; my mother was killed for nothing. We hope for accountability,
even though it has been a year since the incident happened and no
progress has been made in the case."
Public Document
**************************************
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