- From: Charles F. Munat <chas@munat.com>
- Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 19:28:51 -0800
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
RUST Randal wrote: > You know, I'm really disappointed that people keep referring to me as, or > asking me if I am: > > a: a racist > b: someone who promotes discrimination I'm sorry that you are taking this as a personal attack. It was not meant as anything of the sort. In fact, if I thought that you were a racist, I wouldn't have bothered to reply. I replied because I believe that you do *not* wish to discriminate, and my analogy was intended to indicate that you may be discriminating unintentionally. That, really, is the whole point of analogies, isn't it? No-one called you a racist, and no-one accused you of intentionally promoting discrimination. Not in any post I read, anyway. This discussion is not about you, it is about whether a web site owner has a right to segregate audiences on the basis of disability, and to serve different content to those audiences. Note the subject: "background-image in CSS." Not "Is Randal Rust a racist?" But if you are getting the feeling that you are being tarred as a bigot, it might be worth looking at what you said and trying to figure out why several people misunderstood you (and all in the same manner). And you may want to ask yourself if you do have an unconscious bias or a control issue. It took me two years of hard work to rid myself of the desire for complete control over my sites. That was one attitude that died hard. When I joined this list four years ago, I believed that I was an open-minded and fair person. And I was. Nevertheless, over the years I have uncovered one misconception after another regarding the needs, desires, and rights of people with disabilities. My understanding is not nearly complete (and will probably never reach completion), but I know far more today than I did then, and I've changed my views considerably. People like David Poehlman, Charles McCathieNeville, Bruce Bailey, Al Gilman, Len Kasday, William Loughborough, David Woolley, and even -- gasp -- Kynn Bartlett, as well as others too numerous to mention, have all contributed greatly to my knowledge of web site accessibility and accessibility in general. And that is the real benefit of these sorts of discussions: people *do* learn from them -- even those who seem to be experts already. Even when a huge discussion erupts from what may have been nothing more than a misunderstanding, real progress can come of it. Charles F. Munat Seattle, Washington
Received on Friday, 18 January 2002 22:27:33 UTC