Future Reflections Winter/Spring, Vol. 14 No. 1
Editor's Note: The following article is reprinted from the April 29, 1990, issue of the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine.
THE INTERVIEW
by D.C. Denison
William Raeder, 54, is the managing director of the National Braille Press. We spoke in his office on St. Stephen Street in Boston.
Out of 500,000 legally blind people, only 80,000 read Braille. Why so few?
There are a number of reasons. One is that a large percentage of people become blind in their elder years and may not want to learn how to read again. It takes a lot of motivation. Another reason is that in our society, we don't believe that blind people have the same right to literacy as sighted people do.
Why do you say that?
When a sighted child goes to school, they are automatically put on a literacy track. Reading and writing are a key part of their early curricula. When a blind child goes to school, many of those schools assume that tape recorders can do the job.
What's wrong with tape recorders?
Well, suppose your child is entering first grade, and the teacher gets up and says, "We have a wonderful announcement to make: We don't have to put your child through the rigors of learning how to read, because we've got everything on tape.' You wouldn't be very happy. Why? Because there are some very important differences between reading and listening.
What are some of them?
Reading is a very active process: You're in contact, either with your eyes or your fingers, with something that's totally static. It's entirely within your own control, to move from word to word. This is particularly important with reference materials and nonfiction. Tape recordings work pretty well for fiction; you can just sort of sit back and enjoy it, like a movie. But for the materials that we need in order to conduct our livesþcookbooks, or computer manuals, or the Harvard Business Reviewþyou don't just sit back and listen to them, you study. And that means that you want to go back to the last phrase, and so on. You just don't have that intimate control over a tape recorder.
You said that the teaching of Braille is also a privacy issue. Why?
Well, how do you have privacy over your financial matters when you have to have a bank statement read to you? Or how much privacy do you have when you have to ask someone to read you information about AIDS? A few years ago, when the government sent out AIDS literature, we sent out the same information in Braille. And many blind people were grateful. They never thought they would get the kind of material that would let them cut through that privacy barrier.
In the past, Braille publishers translated a lot of religious texts, didn't they?
Oh, yes. Braille has a number of abbreviations for words that occur frequently, and many of these abbreviations were established in the 19th century when Braille was developed. And if you look at the words that are abbreviated- "spirit," "lord," "behold"-þit tells you something. By contrast, "plow," "horse," and "tractor" aren't contracted. So Braille was basically the Bible and a lot of religious writings. The attitude was: What does a blind person need? Well, they need solace.
What kinds of books are you publishing today?
Books that give blind people the information they need to carry out responsible functions in life. Right now we're raising money to put Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care into Braille. Sighted people rush out to buy that book because they need the information. So do blind people. And it's not available. We've also been publishing more computer books. If you go to a bookstore, you'll see shelves and shelves of computer books. How is the blind person supposed to get that information?
Are there any technical breakthroughs that you think are imminent?
Well, there is a device called a paperless Braille display that uses little metal or plastic pins that stick up through a plate and allow you to read a line of Braille. Then you touch a button, and it puts up the next line of Braille. The only problem is that it can only display 22 characters, which is a very small window to a page of information. So I think the next breakthrough would be a full-page display that wasn't too expensive. Once you get that, you could also use diagrams and maps. So that would be a great breakthrough.
What was the response when you started publishing Dr. Ruth Westheimer in the Braille Syndicated Columnists Weekly?
I suspect most people were in favor it, because Braille readers are accustomed to having a very small amount of material. The selection is very narrow. So even if someone is on the fence about Dr. Ruth, they are in favor of having something different in Braille.
I read that you also publish the Red Sox schedule every year.
Yes, but that's sort of a vestige of a bygone age. The Red Sox are into the entertainment business. And the idea was: Blind people need to be amused. So let's give them materials that will keep them amused. I once heard someone use the term "companionative" to describe the books and other materials designed to be simply companions for blind peopleþto help them while away the time, to make their lives a little less boring. That's from the age of pity and charity. I'm not being critical of the Red Sox, or religious literature, but we're trying to move beyond that, to the next stage.
What's the next stage?
Support and responsibility. That's the attitude that we're trying to encourage. We assume that the blind person is mature, intelligent, and responsibleþequal in all three of those things to their sighted counterparts. We also assume that they're responsible for their own lives. We're talking about independence for blind people, and the right to take a risk.
What do you mean by the "right to take a risk"?
I mean that in American society, risk-taking is something that we admire. Except if you're disabled. We admire risk-taking by our athletes and our entrepreneurs, but we say to our disabled: þDon't take a risk. Be careful. Take charity. Take welfare.þ I'll give you an example. Just this morning I was attending a press conference on a dock in Charlestown. I had a portable cane, so I knew exactly where the edge of the dock was. But it was obviously a new experience for someone there to see a blind person functioning independently on a dock, because she literally put her arm around my back and informed me that she was going to prevent me from falling into the drink. My feeling was that I was responsible for myself, and if I wanted to risk falling in the water, that was my decision. I didn't want anyone to take that responsibility. It's a well-meaning prejudice, of course, but it's the kind of prejudice that prevents society from providing blind people with certain very important opportunities.