RE: QED & Marshall McLuhan & Brown v. Board of Education

I've been following this thread for a while now. I'm non-technical. I joined
this group looking for help for my blind mother. As a parent of 2 L.D.
children and having a blind parent, I have some comments. Mother used to
surf the Web before she lost her sight. Now she doesn't because she can't be
bothered to learn the new procedures and learn what key does what. The Web
is inaccessible for her, but only because she made that choice. My kids have
chosen not to accept the LD diagnosis and have refused help at school both
for access and coping skills. They both surf quite well but probably don't
pick up all the content they should or could.

Should you have to ensure the Web is accessible for all three? If mother had
speech recognition software that let her access the Web and read the pages
to her, she may bother. If the kids had learned better coping skills, they
might get more out of the Web. They can find information, they just can't
comprehend it properly. But they have the same problem in a conversation,
with the print media, television, radio and life in general. If they won't
look for ask for a clarification of what they don't understand, does the
world owe it to them to make sure everything is simple enough for them?

I guess this long rant simply says that if need help, ask for it or look for
it and it is probably there or will be given. An individual must make some
effort to help h/herself.

hans

-----Original Message-----
From:	w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Al Gilman
Sent:	June 8, 1999 2:17 PM
To:	w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject:	Re: QED & Marshall McLuhan & Brown v. Board of Education

Kynn Bartlett asked:

> Can you create a web page that explains Brown vs. Topeka in a
> way that someone who is illiterate could understand?  I would
> like to see such as an example of what you and others are talking
> about.

Here is a long description of a single image for this one.  I think you can
visualize this collage of cliches faster than I can draw it.

There is a picture of a stream of students coming to an officer at a
lectern the way that St. Peter is conventionally portrayed at the Pearly
Gates.  The single stream of arriving students is mixed race.  The two
streams coming out after this checkpoint are going to different
schoolhouses, and one stream is all white and the other stream is all
non-white.

Overprinted on this picture is the "not" symbol in the form of a red circle
with a diagonal bar through the center of the circle.

If you want, you can show this all in front of the U.S. Supreme Court with
the chief justice banging his gavel on the "not" circle, and holding the
constitution in his other hand.  But that's gravy.

Show this to people in Soweto.  In Djakarta, or anywhere; and ask them to
tell you the story in that picture.  Tell me, how many will give you the
same story?

Al

PS:  for my fellow left-brain-dependent suferers, one will do better
looking up this case if it is spelled "Brown v. Board of Education" even
'though it was the Topeka Board of Education.

Received on Tuesday, 8 June 1999 17:49:11 UTC