Radical Accessibility

[Music]

so

i would like to start this discussion by

leveling with everyone for a minute

i am preparing to talk about disability

and accessibility

and for many of you in the audience you

are likely thinking to yourself

well this conversation doesn’t include

me but there is a saying that goes that

we are

all one accident and or one

major medical event away from acquiring

a disability

and also the large-scale traumatic

events that have happened within our

society

may exacerbate the disabling impact of

mental health disorders

so when we are talking about disability

we are all in this together

more than you now i would like to rewind

for a second and introduce myself

my name is syria chatters and i am

legally blind and i have albinism

now i i know it’s likely that some of

you out there in the audience may have

immediately thought to yourself

i would have never guessed she is

legally blind trust me

i am and for some of you you may have

also thought well

what does a person who’s legally blind

really look like

me individuals with invisible

disabilities are out there more

than you know up to 34.3

million individuals have invisible

disabilities

from autism to adhd to learning

disorders

to chronic fatigue syndrome arthritis

and diabetes

when my parents found out about my

disability

and genetic condition they were wholly

left alone

to guide not one but two children

through the world with albinism and who

were legally blind

our culture and our culture’s perception

of individuals with disabilities

and accessibility has led us to a world

in which i believe that parents and

caregivers

and eventually the individual who is

differently able themselves

strive to make their disability

invisible

and or strive toward normal rather than

focusing

on how their disability may change their

experience

and in my case help me literally see the

world in a different way

as i indicated earlier when it comes to

being an individual who is differently

able

i am not alone per the cdc

one in four individuals will have a

disability

and or acquire a disability in their

lifetime

disability can impact an individual’s

access to educational

and occupational spaces when it comes to

work

per the bureau of labor statistics only

19 percent of individuals with

disabilities are gainfully employed

and when it comes to african americans

their numbers are even lower at

15 percent compared to 66 percent of

individuals without disabilities

the difference in those numbers are

staggering

but what if i was to tell you that when

it comes to issues of access to

educational

occupational spaces that the issue does

not lie

with the individual with disabilities

but with our culture’s perception

of disability so how do we as a culture

get to a place in which disability

truly means differently abled

so um let’s start with the definition of

disability

the definition of disability wholly

places

individuals with disabilities in the

category

of not as good as less than and

or abnormal this is not only outlined in

countless articles and journals on

disability identity

this is also defined my life

as a young child my father was in the

military and we moved from place to

place

during my k-12 education i would attend

over a dozen schools

every move was marked by that monumental

individualized education plan meeting

better known as an iep an iep is a plan

in which schools

work with students to ensure that

students with disabilities have

accommodations

to ensure that they have a fair and

equal access to education

some of my teachers were amazing and

they worked through accommodations to

a place to which i felt that i did not

have a disability at all

one such teacher was mr plattis my ninth

and tenth grade art teacher

mr plattus wholly believe that any

student can be an artist

he believed it so much that i started to

believe in myself

any barrier that came between me and art

mr plattus was there

to creatively removed i ended up

placing in an international art

competition

and then i moved

to a place an art teacher who shall not

be named

this new art teacher believed that all

of the accommodations that i was

receiving

from the school that i was in before was

cheating

this teacher refused to provide me

accommodations no matter how hard

my mother and father fought they were

only able

to ensure that this teacher was unable

to fail me

my love of art withered and died

i tell you this story not to garner pity

but to emphasize the importance of

centering the needs

of individuals who are differently able

to allow them to thrive

this is the concept behind radical

accessibility

radical accessibility based on mia

mingus’s concept of liberatory

accessibility

centers the voices of individuals who

are differently able

in a radically accessible space we can

change from spaces

that look like this to a culture and

climate

that centers the needs of everyone

centering

the voices and needs of individuals who

may have the least access

can open up our spaces to everyone

because when we consider

the needs of individuals who are

differently abled we are

in a way making places accessible to all

now some of you out there may be

thinking to yourself

radical accessibility yeah that’s great

in theory

but that is going to be pretty difficult

to do and to that i will say

you are absolutely right but

really what things that are worth doing

are actually easy i am going to

challenge you to think about

the reward on the other side with only

15 to 19 percent of individuals with

disabilities

gainfully employed imagine all of the

untapped potential

our society is missing out on simply

because

we are not making all places and spaces

accessible

now let me be clear there is

large scale change that needs to happen

to make our world

radically accessible because the needs

of individuals who are differently abled

cannot wait

but the exciting part about it all is

that we are already on our way

some large-scale traumatic events that

have happened in our society over time

have caused us to make some changes out

of necessity

that we may have previously thought to

be radical

if we work to integrate these

quote-unquote radical changes into our

new normal

we can continue to move forward to make

our spaces

more accessible for all i would like to

offer you some ways large and small

that we can keep integrating these

radical new

thoughts and ways of looking at our

workplaces

and keep moving forward let’s start with

video conferencing i know

i know many of us may be extremely tired

of video conferencing

but for businesses who have been forced

to log on

imagine the millions of individuals who

have access to the workplace

who did not have access before if we

work to maintain some of the courtesies

of video conferencing

we can change the climate of our

workplaces for the better

for those of us who may be tired of

video conferencing i will tell you

personally i love it

being legally blind i am unable to drive

from one place to the next

video conferencing allows me to be able

to access places from the comfort of my

office

and it can also help individuals who may

be differently abled in regards to

mobility

to be able to access workplaces across

the country

from the comfort of their own home next

i would like to encourage you to

say your name the interesting and

awesome part about video conferencing

is your name is in the corner box of

your screen

no matter how many meetings we have been

in together

whether it’s the first second or third

meaning we often try to replicate this

courtesy

by using name tags and name placards

but that courtesy does not work for

everyone trust me i would probably need

to get my face about two inches away

from your

chest to see your name tag too

often we assume that our faces are

memorable

and we forget that not every individual

has the ability to see our face

by saying your name you can help

individuals who may have visual

impairments

or may be blind or may have or be

differently abled due to memory concerns

to be able to focus on the conversation

rather than focusing on trying to

remember

your name one additional thing i’d like

us to think about is to normalize the

use

of shared digital spaces doing this

allows individuals to be able to access

agendas

and powerpoints for meetings by using

the accessibility of their own

technology

using technology can be burdensome but

in this way it’s another way for us to

make

our workplaces accessible for all i am

going to challenge us however

as a society to think even bigger

i challenge us to restructure with the

least

access in mind by designing and thinking

about individuals who may have the least

access in the forefront we could design

spaces and access ways that allow

everyone to be able to equally access

workplaces and educational spaces across

the country

my final challenge is for us to think

about

what is most important and necessary in

educational spaces what that would look

like

is our teachers boiling down the number

of assignments

to those assignments that will help

students to achieve

the key performance indicators and in

organizations

what that would look like is to break

job descriptions down to

the key competencies needed to actually

perform the job

an example of that is as a director of

equity my job is district wide

and it requires me to move from building

to building across

town my job could have easily thrown in

my job description

must have driver’s license but what is

more important

how i get from one place to the next or

the knowledge

and support i’m going to provide when i

get there

drilling down to what is most important

and necessary

has the potential of being able to open

up our educational occupational space

spaces to millions more individuals

i would like you to imagine a world

in which accessibility concerns are a

thing of the past

imagine individuals being able to have

access to all places

and spaces imagine the untapped

potential

our society can benefit from

and now i’d like you to stop imagining

and let’s get to work

thank you