Weekly Wrap-Up
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Last week’s blog posts …
Sunday, March 6
Monday, March 7
#CripTheVote Disability Issues Survey … Preliminary Results
Tuesday, March 8
Thursday, March 10
Friday, March 11
Disability Blogger Link-Up: Disability 101
Saturday, March 12
Top Disability Issues
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Here is another look at preliminary results of the #CripTheVote Disability Issues Survey, with data updated for today, March 12, 2016. I’ll go through each question, show the chart of results, and add some notes to think about.
So far, the survey has 306 respondents. It will stay open until April 30, 2016, so if you haven’t voted yet, you still can, and I, along with my #CripTheVote partners Alice Wong and Gregg Beratan, will post updates as more votes come in.
Click here to go to the survey
Click here for a text-only version of the survey
It’s probably also important to note that this is not a scientific, professionally designed or administered survey, so the results are at least somewhat skewed towards disabled people already fairly tuned in to disability issues and advocacy … and of course, limited to people using the Internet.
Click here if you prefer to see the survey results in text-only format
We will continue to refer to these survey results in future #CripTheVote chats and events.
Question 1: Please rank the following disability policy areas in priority order, from 1 = highest priority, to 10 = lowest priority. You can only assign one unique priority number to each topic.
I’m not sure now how useful this question is. We wanted to divide the universe of disability issues into 10 broad categories and get some idea of which ones are most to least important. One thing to remember is that they all matter, even the ones with the lowest priority. And every category was ranked “most important” by someone.
One reason why Health Care and Civil Rights / Discrimination sit at the top of the priority list may be that both are factors that relate to all other disability issues, while the others are just a bit more specialized.
Question 2: The following area disability policy ideas that emerged out of the first two #CripTheVote Twitter chats. Please choose 5 out of the following 15 disability policy ideas you feel are most important.
For this question, we got more specific, asking respondents to choose just 5 out of 15 real or hypothetical ideas for policy change. Again, we aren’t suggesting that ideas with fewer votes are no good or unnecessary. The survey results simply suggest which specific initiatives we would most like to see candidates embrace … and ideas we think have a fair chance of being approved and implemented.
There are two big surprises for me in these results. First, I am surprised and impressed that hiring and appointing more disabled people to policy making positions got the most votes, and by a fairly large margin. One could argue that improvement in just this one measure can result in improvements to all areas of disability policy. Second, I am sort of astonished that getting rid of sub-minimum wage got so many votes, while getting rid of sheltered workshops got so few. Not that these are contradictory results, just that these two advocacy goals are usually talked about together. Does this reflect a true difference in priority, or rather some confusion over what each of the two issues mean.
Question 3: If you have any specific disability policy ideas you don't see on this survey, write them here!
We will do another post soon summarizing and discussing the over 100 unique comments and ideas respondents added.
Question 4: What best describes your interest in disability?
We wanted to make sure we could keep track of whose opinions we are seeing. What you see here is that a hefty majority of respondents have disabilities themselves, while we also have some perspective from families and professionals.
The best result of all is that these results suggest some meaningful and feasible directions that candidates could take in developing their own disability agendas. There’s nothing “official” about this survey, and several other disability organizations have their own agendas that are great and probably better researched than ours. But I think our survey offers some valuable insights and specifics, both for disabled voters to think about and candidates for office to embrace.
After our initial posting of the survey, we added a text-only version, thanks to some requests to make the survey more accessible. It’s a lesson we will act on going forward. And we welcome feedback of all kinds on this project. Please share any thoughts you have on the survey and its results. You can leave them in the comments section below.
Disability Blogger Link-Up: Disability 101
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This weekend’s linkup we’re doing something a little different. Please post your favorite pieces of writing, graphics, or video that describe or explain fundamentals of disability rights or disability culture.
What reading, listening, or viewing would you recommend to a person newly disabled, a young disabled person just starting to sort through is or her thinking about their disability, or new parents of a disabled child? It can be something you made, or something you’ve seen elsewhere that you feel does a great job of explaining the basics.
As always, to make the links easier for visitors to browse, in the “Your name” blank, please type the title of the article you are posting. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the URL address of the item. Like this:
Name = Title of your article.
Your URL = Link to your article.
Then click the "Enter" button. That's it!
A note about multiple posts:
If you have more than one item you want to post, please feel free. However, keep in mind that these linkups open every other weekend. Plus, Two Thirds Of A Planet runs a Link-Up every other weekend. So there’s no need to post all of your best, favorite stuff all at once.
This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday. The nextDisability Blogger Link-Up will start Friday, March 25, 2016.
Blog Updates
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I didn't post anything yesterday and I'm not going to post anything original today, except for this notice. That's because there's a lot going on at the moment, especially around the #CripTheVote campaign I'm involved in with Alice Wong and Gregg Beratan. If you want to see what #CripTheVote chats are like, look through this summary of last night's event.
Tonight's #CripTheVote chat will start at 8 PM Eastern. We will again discuss the results of our issues survey. You can see the results here, or click here if you prefer a text-only report.
Tomorrow I will post a new Disability Blogger Link-Up. This time I am asking people to post items that would make good, basic introductions to disability activism and culture, for people new to the subject. What readings or videos would you recommend to a disabled person just starting to process what being disabled means, or parents of a disabled child who want to be good allies, or anyone who wants to gain a deeper, more progressive understanding of disability? Find a favorite or two, and get ready to post them tomorrow and over the weekend.
Unique Perspective
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I have been thinking a lot about what disabled people can bring to politics. A few examples:
We make good test cases for existing or proposed new systems. If an otherwise perfect government program or system is going to fail, chances are it’s going to fail for a disabled person first. The best-designed programs and procedures fall to pieces for us all the time. We can help spot problems before they happen.
We are nit picky. We have to be. Our lives, independence, and livelihoods regularly hang on differences of mere inches, a few dollars, or a couple of minor, preventable roadblocks.
We are skeptical of government’s effectiveness, but we don’t have the luxury of being simply anti-government. That ends up being a pretty sensible position somewhere between socialism and libertarianism.
#CripTheVote Disability Issues Survey … Preliminary Results
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In preparation for the next #CripTheVote Twitter Chats before the Presidential debates on March 9 and 10, we are releasing preliminary results of our issues survey:
Click here to view the results
I want to note a few highlights:
- The highest priority broad policy areas seem to come in pairs. The top two are: 1. Health Care and 2. Civil Rights / Discrimination. The next two are a good notch lower in priority and close to each other: 3. Employment and 4. Accessibility. And the next two are another very close pair, 5. Housing and 6. Education.
- It’s important to note that in asking everyone to prioritize the list of broad policy areas, we aren’t in any way implying that the lowest ranked topics are unimportant.
- The top rated disability policy idea, buy a fairly healthy margin, is to “Hire and appoint more disabled people to government and policy-making positions.” The next four are:
2. Ban or phase out payment of sub-minimum wage.
3. Require disability awareness training for law enforcement.
4. Pass the Disability Integration Act to promote independent living instead of nursing homes.
5. Change Social Security to reduce or eliminate work disincentives.
It’s interesting to note that banning sub-minimum wage got far more votes than banning sheltered workshops.
All of the 15 policy ideas we listed have respectable numbers of votes. None of them look to be substantially rejected.
If you add the two demographic categories: “I have a disability” and “I have a disability and disabled person(s) in my family,” then 76% of survey respondents have a disability.
Alice Wong, Gregg Beratan and I are overwhelmed with the response so far, and the survey will stay open until April 30, so if you haven’t completed the survey, there’s plenty of time left to do it.
Click here to complete the survey
Weekly Wrap-Up
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Here's your recap of last week's additions to Disability Thinking:
Sunday, February 28
Disability.TV Episode 30 - The Cage / Menagerie Conundrum
Weekly Wrap-Up
Monday, February 29
Rare Disease Day
Weekly Reading List
Tuesday, March 1
Wednesday, March 2
Thursday, March 3
Friday, March 4
Saturday, March 5
Next Week In #CripTheVote
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#CripTheVote will be back next week with Twitter Chats in the hour before the March 9 Democratic Debate, and before the Republican Debate on March 10.
On March 9th, we will discuss the top 5 disability policy areas as indicated in preliminary results of our Disability Issues Survey. On March 10th, we will discuss the top 5 disability policy ideas shown in those results. If you haven’t completed the survey yet, click here. It’s anonymous, and fairly brief. If you are unable to complete the online version of the survey, you can follow this link to a text-only version, or request a Word document by email from apulrang@icloud.com.
Based on user feedback, we will be posting the discussion questions for both chats in advance, so people can have time to prepare.
Here are the dates again:
Democratic Debate March 9, 2016, 8:00 PM, (one hour before the 9:00 PM debate).
Republican Debate March 10, 2016, 7:00 or 8:00 PM (one hour before the debate time, to be announced).
Please join us as we discuss the issues that matter to people with disabilities, and how we can get them addressed in this year’s election campaigns.
How to Participate
Follow @AndrewPulrang, @DisVisibility, @GreggBeratan, on Twitter.
When the debate begins, check out the live-stream: http://twubs.com/CripTheVote or set your Twitter application to sort for the hashtag #CripTheVote.
Use the hashtags #CripTheVote and #DemDebate or #GOPdebate when you tweet, so all participants can read all comments and responses.
We will post Storify summaries of these chats a day or so after each one. [Storify Of 2/11/16 Chat] [Storify Of 2/13/16 Chat]
Additional information on voting and people with disabilities:
http://disabilitythinking.com/election-2016-cripthevote
#CripTheVote Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/CripTheVote/
Frequently Asked Questions about #CripTheVote:
http://disabilitythinking.com/faqs
A note on language and why we use the term ‘crip’:
https://www.wright.edu/event/sex-disability-conference/crip-theory
#CripTheVote Disability Issues Survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QLWH79V
Disability 101
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I have decided to make next weekend’s Disability Blogger Link-Up more specialized than usual. I am going to ask people to submit only articles, blog posts, videos, or other linkable content that can serve as effective introductions to disability culture and activism.
This video is a good example:
I first saw this video explaining the "Social Model of Disability" in a blog post that happens to provide an excellent introduction to why we use and embrace the word “disabled” instead of the many euphemisms that pass … mistakenly I think … for “politically correct.” It’s another example of this Disability 101 idea.
#SayTheWord, Not “Special Needs”
eisforerin.com - February 16. 2016
So please do think about and collect pieces you think are good, plain-language introductions to the key concepts we deal with in the disability community. It might be stuff you processed years ago, things that are incredibly obvious to you, but that are real mysteries to others, including to many disabled people who are only just starting to realize they are part of a community.
Collect your favorite pieces, and get ready to post them to next weekend’s Disability Blogger Linkup. I can’t wait to see what kind of amazing reading list we can build!
Throwback Thursday
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Two years ago in Disability Thinking: “Disability Dialogs: Accessibility”
I should try doing more of these hypothetical "Disability Dialogs" ... maybe on voting accessibility, or the disability culture aspects of "political correctness." I'm sure I could map out a pretty typical exchange over something like sheltered workshops. It risks creating a straw man argument, but it can also help spot the weaknesses in the usual attacks on disability rights ideas, and come up with good comebacks.
Three years ago in Disability Thinking: “Smart Ass Cripple Sez”
I should also do a piece on what motivates people who "work with" disabled people ... especially my own kind of odd preference for people who are in it for a paycheck.