From: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Richards)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Nfb Bbs Censorship??
Date: 1 Sep 92 17:42:51 GMT
Reply-To: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:277/101 - House Of Pancakes, Morgantown WV
X-Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 24188

[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

In a message 08-11-92 (13:08) From: WALTER SIREN To: STEVE RICHARDS
WS>Steve, as far as I know, there have never been any expulssions from the ACB.

Hi Walter, I've never heard of any expulsions from ACB either, but I
thought maybe there had been and I didn't know about it.  Reading the
messages on this echo concerning NFB and ACB made me realize that over
the years, maybe always, I have been complacent about what I accept as
truth concerning both organizations.  I have experienced a growing
desire to become better informed, so that I might evaluate my own role
as a blind person, and what I can do and should do to be a part of the
solution to the problems blind people face rather than just a bystander.
I hope that doesn't sound pretentious, it isn't meant to be.

As a kid fresh out of high school I was a member of NFB, in part because
my school's Alumni Association was loosely affiliated with the
organization.  For instance the alumni convention dues included payment
of NFB membership.  How that originally came about I don't know.  A
couple years later I became actively involved in the fight to dissolve
the affiliation, for it seemed to me that the Alumni Association
shouldn't be, even semi-informally, part of either NFB or ACB.  The
fight was successful, but I never understood that there was more
involved in the battle until Durward McDaniel came from Washington D.C.
to observe the meeting where we voted to separate from NFB.  A few years
after that I became active in the fledgling West Virginia chapter of
ACB, serving on its board of directors and chairing its resolutions
committee, things like that.  But when it came to locking horns with the
state legislature over issues concerning the blind of West Virginia the
chapter did virtually nothing, never taking an aggressive stance on
anything.  In frustration I eventually became a member-at-large of the
national organization.  That was a cop-out, I reckon.  Looking back on
those times, I realize that I was, for a time, as blindly loyal to ACB
as those in NFB are accused of being, and all because of what I had
heard, not what I had checked out for myself.  Nowadays I belong to
neither organization, and for a while I've been contented with that, but
standing on the sidelines and pronouncing judgment on either group based
on my incomplete grasp of the facts serves only to perpetuate my
ignorance.  Fortunately ignorance is a curable condition.  What I'm
trying to do is dig up the truth.  I'm trying to get the facts behind
people's claims, to see if I can locate original Monitor or Forum
stories and such and read for myself what it's all about.  It's a tall
order, maybe even impossible.  But if I can succeed at all then I won't
be taking some stance or fighting some fight completely on hearsay.  Do
you have any ideas on tracking down stories and such, or do you think me
nuts?
Steve R.

 * SLMR 2.1a * Drop your carrier ... we have you surrounded!
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