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mogreen57 t1_jc0tsz3 wrote

She also promoted eugenics. Which was quite odd

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absolutelyshafted t1_jc0xifq wrote

In the 1900’s almost every single westernized country implemented eugenics to some extent

Interestingly, countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, etc actually sterilized a large % of their handicapped population without any real backlash or condemnation. They did a really good job of covering this part of their history up. Many of these countries didn’t even ban forced sterilization until the 1970s

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pagit t1_jc0zve4 wrote

When Helen Keller's parents caught her swearing, they washed her hands with soap.

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RipDove t1_jc1bnz9 wrote

She also only ever spoke with her handler and after they died never spoke again and no one else has ever recreated her system of communication as well as she happened to also share all the same opinions as her handler when it came to communism, eugenics, and feminism.

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ST616 t1_jc1gl33 wrote

She spoke with many people. Not just using sign language but she could also speak, she was deaf but not mute. She could also use write and use a typerwriter.

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marmorset t1_jc2j8uz wrote

Why was Helen Keller such a bad driver?

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She was a woman.

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Alphaplague t1_jc31up8 wrote

They were interbred with a couple American breeds to make the American Akita.

If the Japanese Akita is fox like, the American is a bear dog.

Their temperament varies. Mine loves other dogs, but doesn't like people. She's fine with children and the elderly, but she dislikes men. The only time I've seen her act truly aggressively is when someone invades my wife's personal space, or someone picks up my neices besides their grandmother or mother.

She's a nearly silent dog unless either of the two things I mentioned above, or a unidentified man shows up. Then she let's the world know she isn't having it.

They aren't like golden labs or retrivers. These are guard dogs that can be extremely dangerous if not socialized and trained. The fact that she considers my wife an VIP cannot safely be denied and that gives me great comfort when I'm away from home.

They're wonderful dogs, but require a competent and committed owner. (My wife in this case. I'm just the Akita's idiot best friend.)

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MeanGreanHare t1_jc3oa5k wrote

Helen Keller was either a fraud or essentially a puppet. Everything she believes has to have come from the exceptionally small number of people who knew how to communicate with her.

And now people are trying to credit her for a dog being brought to the US?

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zachzsg t1_jc3p6zb wrote

That isn’t why she was an advocate though. She literally didn’t view herself as somebody that would qualify for euthanasia lol she was completely hypocritical. She was the daughter of slave owning elites that were high ranking members of the confederate army, it’s not really that shocking she developed some controversial and tone deaf/hypocritical views.

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zachzsg t1_jc3q8ey wrote

She wasn’t a fraud, however she was born into a wealthy southern family (you can guess how they got wealthy) and she essentially had as much help as a person could have. go and read her Wikipedia and you’ll see she had staunch support from essentially the most famous, wealthy, and influential people in America, the likes of Mark Twain and Henry Huddleston Rogers.

She definitely had some great accomplishments, and was actually deaf and blind. but yeah if she wasn’t born and raised as privileged as a person could be, she would’ve gone the same way any other deaf and blind infant would’ve gone, which isn’t a very good way.

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arbutus1440 t1_jc4jqb3 wrote

I'm surprised more in this thread don't know about Akitas. They're mean af. One attacked my dog as well. Vets absolutely hate dealing with Akitas (which I learned from taking my dog to the vet for his stitches and antibiotics after the attack). They really shouldn't be kept as pets. Everybody who's experienced Akitas knows this.

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old_el_paso t1_jc64kxi wrote

fwiw she did become quite self-aware in that regard, and would go on to write quite a bit on the topic, in addition to joining the socialist party and later the IWW. For example, from The Hand of the World:

> I had felt in my life the touch only of hands that uphold the weak, hands that are all eye and ear, charged with helpful intelligence. I believed that people made their own conditions, and that, if the conditions were not always of the best, they were at least tolerable, just as my infirmity was tolerable.

> As the years went by and I read more widely, I learned that the miseries and failures of the poor are not always due to their own faults, that multitudes of men, for some strange reason, fail to share in the much-talked-of progress of the world. I shall never forget the pain and amazement which I felt when I came to examine the statistics of blindness, its causes, and its connection with other calamities that befall thousands of my fellow-men. I learned how workmen are stricken by the machine hands that they are operating. It became clear to me that the labour-saving machine does not save the labourer. It saves expense and makes profits for the owner of the machine. […]

> Step by step my investigation of blindness led me into the industrial world. And what a world it is! How different from the world of my beliefs! I must face unflinchingly a world of facts — a world of misery and degradation, of blindness, crookedness, and sin […] My darkness had been filled with the light of intelligence, and, behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and groping in social blindness!

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