That’s something I emphasize at work when reminding people about accessibility issues in their writing—if you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to have a disability.
Some of us are born with disabilities or become disabled at a young age. These include disabilities others can't see, but we do need accessibility. People have the wrong impression that youth equals being healthy. Industries make millions off this misconception.
Even if you don't mobility just changes with age. I'm not as flexible or filled with boundless energy as I was when I was in my teens and would just walk miles and miles for no good reason.
I don't want to steal disability valor here, but I think about how radically people's physical abilities change in pregnancy and when they have newborns, and how frequent of an experience that is. And how surprising it is for many who are realizing how inaccessible things are for the first time.
I don't think I'd ever seen the A before last week when someone on here mentioned it. I think it's a good addition, but it definitely hasn't penetrated all of corporate America yet! (And now it'll probably take a minute to do so, of course)
It seems redundant because we have to keep fucking reminding people all the time.
One would think DEI would automatically include disabled, until you see that nobody ever thinks of us ever, until our rights are on the chopping block...
So yeah, we have to do the double duty of both being disabled and reminding people we fucking exist constantly so we can live in this ableist fucking hellscape y'all created.
People gladly abandoned us all to covid "for the economy" and many of us are still socially isolating.
It’s become obvious that too many people outside DEI spaces are unaware of the reach and impact of this work, as well as the extensive programming designed to support a diverse range of communities.
Well, the man DID say “No blind people are going to live in Trump Tower" when he ordered the architect to “Get rid of the (expletive) Braille" in the Trump Tower elevator plans.
I did an “experiment” on this question with two identical job postings at the same company and they quickly rejected my application where I said I was disabled and are still considering my other one.
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One would think DEI would automatically include disabled, until you see that nobody ever thinks of us ever, until our rights are on the chopping block...
I go to meetings about inclusion & equity at my college and people always forget to include disabled folk in these discussions. Still!
It's constant.
People gladly abandoned us all to covid "for the economy" and many of us are still socially isolating.
We exist!!!
"But it's MY face! I grovelled!"