Mapathon Update

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Amber tinted glass sign with wheelchair symbol and the word "Accessibility"
September 26 - December 31, 2015

As posted before, I am participating in a team effort to post 200 new accessibility reviews of places throughout the United States, using AXS Map, between now and the end of the year. So far I have done four reviews of businesses in my hometown


So far I have only reviewed places I was going to anyway, and so far, the places are mostly accessible. That's one possible problem with this kind of accessibility mapping campaign. If you're disabled, and you only review places you frequent, you're likely to miss places that have accessibility problems. Also, I don't go to very many places as it is, not because of barriers, but because I'm kind of a stay-at-home sort of person.

Still, I am committed. In the next couple of weeks, I am going to try to visit and review at least one place each day. I'm also going to set aside at least an afternoon or two to visit my city's older downtown area, where I know there are shops and restaurants that have spotty accessibility.

I can't stress enough how important it is for those of us who care about accessibility to contribute to projects like this. Putting site reviews on Internet-based maps is the best way I can think of to cover a lot of places and make the information easily accessible to people with disabilities and their families. And once the majority of businesses in a town or city are rated, the business community will start to take notice and want to get better ratings. That's the idea anyway.

Please join me!

1. Go to AXS Map and set up a free account.

2. Download the free AXS Map App to your mobile device if you have one.

3. Review the places you visit regularly.

4. Link your reviews to the Celebrate Access Equality 2015 Mapathon.

5. Make a day of it and target key business districts where you live.

6. Post your reviews to your blogs and social media.

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Disability Blogger Link-Up

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The word Blog surrounded by word cloud

Welcome back to the Disability Blogger Link-Up! Share a disability-related blog post or article here, any time between Friday, October 9 and Midnight Sunday, October 11, 2015. And of course, read what others have posted. 

To make the links easier to browse, in the “Your name” blank, type the title of the article. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the address of the item you are posting. So: 

Name = Title of your article. 

Your URL = Link to your article. 

Then click the "Enter" button. That's it! 

Go ahead and post, read, and enjoy! This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday. The nextDisability Blogger Link-Up will start Friday, October 23, 2015.


Grace Period

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Two three-dimensional stick figures, one with an empty word balloon the other with a question mark
How much time do you allow for people to catch up with new developments in disability language and ideas?

When I started out working in Independent Living, "crippled" was inexcusably insulting, unless used in a joking, in-group way among disabled people. "Handicapped" was just barely out date, but still very common; our general approach was to correct it kindly and patiently. "Person with a disability" was the ideal, and using it marked you as someone with a strong, progressive disability consciousness.

Today, 25 or so years later, hearing "handicapped" hurts to hear, and marks a person as hopelessly out of date. "Person with a disability" is in rough parity with "disabled person," but terminology is evolving fast towards "disabled person." Person First Language is in roughly the same position today that "handicapped" was 25 years ago. Some people honestly see it as an improvement over what came before, while others have left it behind. Advocates for Identity First Language give strong, passionate arguments in its favor, but say that they respect disabled people who still prefer to call themselves "person with a disability."

I see the same kind thing in disability-related thinking and practices. 25 years ago, most everyone agreed that large institutions were terrible for disabled people, and all but a few forward-thinkers viewed group homes as a progressive alternative. Sheltered workshops were generally viewed positively in the wider community, and were only beginning to be seriously questioned.

Today, I would view anyone who thinks group homes and sheltered workshops are awesome as well behind the curve, though I'm not sure yet that we are at the place where belief in these models can be fairly called shameful. I guess it depends on who I am talking to ... a random person in the community or someone familiar with disability issues.

On the other hand, people still talk about accessibility standards and the ADA like they are new requirements, even though the ADA just turned 25 and the first accessibility standards were published in the late '60s. And "inclusion" in schools, or, as we used to call it, "mainstreaming," is still often debated as if we are still pondering a new approach, when it's been the standard goal for education since the early to mid '80s ... at least on paper. To me, it's long past time for literally everyone to be on board with these things.

I think 25 years makes a pretty good grace period. If your thinking and practices around disability are older than that, I don't have much sympathy. But if you're still a little behind by, say, 10 years, we can talk.

How long is your grace period for social change?

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The Way Of The Advocate Is Hard

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Green highlighter pen highlighting the word Advocacy
One of the reasons why strong, vocal disability advocates get more negative than positive response in social media ... such as when they criticize Inspiration Porn ... is that most people find strong, critical, negative opinions on any subject to be unattractive. Advocates can shape attitudes over time. They can bring about important policy change. A significant minority of people actually admire advocates and love what they do. But on just about any issue you can name, advocates and social critics who speak their minds are rarely liked.

This phenomenon is a bit more intense and hypocritical in the disability sphere because of the unique characteristics of ableism. But I don't think the backlash is much worse or all that different from the responses people get when they express challenging opinions on race, gender, politics, religion, economics, etc.

So what?

Well, it suggests that if you're going to be an advocate, especially in the realm of disability, don't be surprised if you catch a lot of crap for it. If you're very good at it, and articulate, you might gain a small but loyal fan base within the activist community. If you're smart about strategy and don't take things too personally, you can succeed in what you set out to do. But if you venture out into the wider public discourse, don't expect to be either liked or admired. Change is uncomfortable. Most people don't like to be uncomfortable. And people absolutely hate it when the people they think they are helping are the ones making them feel uncomfortable.

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Weekly Reading List

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Picture of a multicolored stack of books
For this week’s list, I picked 5 excellent pieces that I would describe as “Disability 101.” They don’t break any new ground or dig deep into disability culture, but together they would make a good introduction to modern disability life and thinking.

Elizabeth Cooney, The Boston Globe - October 5, 2015

This article covers just about all of the main concepts required to understand what “accessibility” is really about. It’s not just a bunch of obscure, nit-picky regulations. Each rule and each measurement standard relates directly to how disabled people live, and have a direct affect on whether or not we can get around in our own neighborhoods, towns, and cities.

Karin Hitselberger, Claiming Crip - October 1, 2015

There are lots of disability etiquette lists out there, covering pretty much the same things. What makes this one notable is that Karin offers “dos” for each one of her “don’ts.” I think that’s something we forget to do much too often.

Emily Ladau, The Disability Dialog - October 2, 2015

Emily does two very important things here. She raises the very difficult and extremely important issue of what happens to disabled people in personal and public emergencies. In doing so, she also underscores the fact that disabled people, ourselves, are equally responsible for planning emergency response, or failing to do so.

Andrew English, The Telegraph - October 2, 2015

At first I didn’t quite understand what this woman does, but when I finally got it, I was fascinated. It seems there’s a program in the UK that gives disabled people some kind of allowance specifically for transportation. You can use the money to pay bus fares, subway rides, or a driver. Or, you can use the funds to help buy or modify a car to make it drivable. Obviously, the amount of the allowance is crucial, and I wonder if you can choose to save up the allowance for a bigger purchase. But the model sounds great because each person can decide how to use the funds in a way that works best for them.

Alexander Presthus, CP Experience - September 30, 2015

Boy, did I nod my head a lot while reading this! Even though Alex focuses on Cerebral Palsy, what he says here I think is totally valid for youth with all kinds of disabilities. Parents of disabled kids should read this blog, too.

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Evolution

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Closeup photo of the word "evolution" in a dictionary
I’m working on a bunch of things to post about for the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here’s a terrific quote from Ari Ne’eman’s two-part article on the National Council on Disability’s research on Sheltered Workshops:
"Disability policy is full of examples of yesterday’s innovation becoming today’s indignation. As my friend Anne Donnellan once put it, “The mark of anyone good in disability service-provision is that they’re at least a little bit ashamed of what they were doing twenty years ago.” The opposite of this is also true – many of the worst disability services come from becoming too attached to program models that were considered state of the art in previous decades." -- Ari Ne’eman: (Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Sheltered Workshops: [Part 1] [Part 2]
I thought of this earlier this week during a great Twitter conversation I had about “Person First Language” and “Identity First Language” with @greggberatan, @erabrand, @mikeemort and a few others. I switched from PFL to IFL a couple of years ago. Until that time, my understanding was that Person First Language was THE progressive term to use, completely consistent with the Social Model of disability. Anything else, I assumed, was ableist, and any disabled person using IDL had to be misinformed.

As it turned out, I was the one who was misinformed. No, that’s not quite right. I was informed … 25 years ago. And while I am not “ashamed” of having used and encouraged Person First Language, I have no trouble now saying that my thinking has evolved, and so has the thinking of many smart, savvy, self-aware people in the disability community. People who prefer using Identity First Language know what they are doing.

Ideas about disability evolve. Cynical ableists aside, what we did before was the best we could figure out at that time. "People with disabilities" was a huge improvement over "handicapped," and we should have no regrets. However, we do need to take care not to be arrogant about our beliefs, or assume we are always the cuttting-edge thinkers, and remember that sometimes, people who disagree with us may have the better idea.

Note:

I won't try to explain the pros and cons of the two "identification models." I am not very good at parsing out the different justifications for each one. I will say that once I bought into Identity First Language, I did so enthusiastically, mainly because it's easier to say and write. "I'm disabled" just sounds smoother and less cumbersome than "I am a person with a disability."

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Some Things Should Be Easy To Fix

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Photo of a disability parking space, focused on the painted wheelchair symbol and lines
Amy Packman, Huffington Post UK - October 2, 2015

So much stupid ...

If we take this Geoff Pearson at his word, his whole objective is to get his council government to stop being sloppy with local codes, like how to mark a disability parking space properly. Now, he may be using this technicality as an excuse, but have a hunch that he isn’t. There’s someone like him buzzing around every municipality ... obsessively concerned with procedure, and sort of oblivious to practical outcomes and how they affect actual people.

Of course, none of this would be an issue at all if the local council would get its act together and repaint the parking space the proper way. Public officials don't like admitting mistakes though.

There’s not much you can say about the Wallaces. Not being able to park in that space clearly causes a problem for them. At first I didn’t understand how a school could have so little parking, but I live in a small US town where schools sit on extensive grounds and have dedicated parking lots. Edinburgh is a centuries-old city, where I guess at least some schools have only street parking.

I usually advocate dealing with these kinds of disability issues systematically, through official channels, formal complaints, and policy analysis. In this case, though, it seems like what’s missing is some basic human decency and one-on-one communication:
Mr. Wallace: “I know you have a beef with the council over that parking space, and I sort of agree with you. But could you just not park there? I really need the space so its easier to take my son to school."
Mr. Pearson: “Sure, okay. Sorry."
Or how about this:
Council Executive: "We won’t be taking up new parking issues until January …"
Mr. Wallace: “It’s just a mistake in how it was laid out and painted. Can’t you just fix it now?"
Council Executive: “Well, okay, I guess we can.”
Mr. Wallace: Ta!
Kind of a Kumbiaya scenario, but is it really all that unrealistic? We get so caught up in processes and making points that I think we sometimes pass up opportunities to just solve stuff like human beings.

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Questions About Inspiration Porn

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Kelly May, Fox 45 - September 29, 2015

I am working on a definition of Inspiration Porn to beef up what's in Wikipedia, and maybe add to the Urban Dictionary. It's taking longer than I thought, so until I finish, here are a few questions:

1. How much of the problem with Inspiration Porn is its tone and message, and how much is about how the disabled subjects are included or excluded? Which is more of an issue, the content or the method?

I think we tend to assume that when disabled people are more fully involved in news stories and other media projects about disability, then the messages will be better because of their involvement. I'm not sure that's true. For instance, this article about a college student with Cerebral Palsy joining a sorority seems to have her full cooperation, yet it still feels like Inspiration Porn. If, as everyone in the story says, Lauren's inclusion isn't unusual or subject to any special circumstances, then why is it a news story?

2. Would this story be more newsworthy if the reporter had asked some more probing questions?

For instance, is Ms. Reder's admission to a sorority a first? Is it rare? Or, is it fairly routine at this university? If it's a first or very rare, why is that? If it's quite common, how does that compare with similar houses at other universities? How many disabled students participate in rush, compared with the non-disabled student population? Are certain kinds of houses more or less likely to include disabled students? How do these patterns and practices compare with other kinds of diversity?

Or, if they really wanted to make this a personal story, how about asking why Lauren wanted to join a sorority? Why this one and not another? Did she plan to rush, was she invited, or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing? Will she live in the house, and if so, is it accessible enough?

3. How did this actually become a news story? Did a reporter hear about it and decide it would make a great human interest story? Did the sorority's leadership initiate reach out to the TV station? Was Lauren an enthusiastic or reluctant participant? Does she have any concerns about how her story is being told and interpreted?

4. I am a bit confused about the role of news worthiness in identifying Inspiration Porn. We criticize stories and memes that suggest something a disabled person does is remarkable, because we rightly say that should be unremarkable. At what point do we stop noting a thing that is rarer than it should be, because calling attention to it somehow reinforces that rareness? Or, is this actually part of a different argument over whether to focus on individual moral qualities or on just and unjust policies and practices?

Basically, I'm trying to figure out whether Inspiration Porn ... which let's admit, we are all defining on the fly ... is a binary thing, or is it a blurry continuum? There seem to be a lot of borderline cases that may or may not be fairly termed Inspiration Porn, and since it's a pretty harsh criticism, I feel like maybe we should firm up our definition a little.

More to come ...

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