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In a world where every decision is often based on financial considerations, it’s crucial to examine how these tendencies influence our attitudes toward accessibility and accommodations for individuals with disabilities. This article will delve into the ableist mindset behind evaluating accessibility through a cost-benefit lens and explore the problematic practice of treating accessibility as a secondary concern.
When we assess the merits of providing accessibility and accommodations for people with disabilities by focusing solely on costs and benefits, we unconsciously adopt an ableist perspective. This approach implies that the rights and needs of disabled individuals are subject to negotiation, which perpetuates inequality and restricts opportunities for them.
The Price We Pay for Cost-Centric Thinking
Embracing disability rights and justice means recognizing the inherent value of each person, regardless of their disability. By making cost-benefit calculations a primary factor in accessibility decisions, we unintentionally reinforce ableist attitudes and hinder progress toward true equality.
The Consequence of Neglecting Accessibility
Another issue that arises from our current approach to accessibility is the habit of treating it as a secondary concern. This mindset marginalizes individuals with disabilities and fosters an exclusion culture, further entrenching ableist beliefs.
We must move away from this reactive stance and adopt a proactive approach that integrates accessibility into every planning and development stage. This shift in focus will not only benefit those with disabilities but also create a more inclusive and diverse environment that accommodates everyone’s needs, regardless of their abilities.
The Path Towards Inclusivity
To dismantle ableist assumptions and cultivate a more inclusive society, we must reconsider how we perceive the rights and needs of people with disabilities. Accessibility should never be a matter of cost-benefit analysis or an ancillary concern.
By integrating accessibility and accommodations as core components of our societal framework, we can nurture a more inclusive, equitable environment that values everyone’s contributions. This change in perspective will not only empower individuals with disabilities but also enrich our communities, fostering greater empathy and support.
Now is the time to reassess our attitudes towards accessibility and accommodations and confront the ableist beliefs that underlie our current approach. Let’s create a world where everyone’s needs are acknowledged and accessibility is regarded as a fundamental human right, not a luxury.
Puneet Singh Singhal is the neurodivergent founder of 123ssstart
moreTwenty-six percent is a non-trivial number. Most people would notice it if their salary increased by 26% or if their rent went up by 26%. But the 26% of Americans who have disabilities are difficult to find in classrooms to boardrooms. Despite diversity and inclusion efforts, people with disabilities continue to be marginalized.
Depending on the definition of disability and the age group, about 10% to more than 26% of Americans have some form of disability. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows, 61 million (26%) adults in the U.S. have a disability1. Difficulties with mobility (walking or climbing stairs) are the most common (14% of disabilities). Ten percent of working-age (21-64 years) Americans have a disability2. These data show clearly that disabilities impact many lives, yet we hardly see people with disabilities in stores, concerts, schools, and workplaces.
Contributed by Vivian G. Cheung, MD, you can follow her at @Vivian_Cheung2
Disabled people are invisible in our society
I am a doctor and a scientist with a rare disease that affects my balance and peripheral (side) vision. Opie, my service dog gets me around in crowded places. After an injury, for about a year, I used a wheelchair. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I traveled a lot for my work. It was rare to encounter another traveler in a wheelchair or one with a service dog. As a professor, I have met only a few students with disabilities. As a doctor, I have met even fewer colleagues with disabilities. And as a patient, I have never met nurses or doctors with disabilities.
People with disabilities are invisible in our society. Negative stereotypes, marginalization, and discrimination push people with disabilities to withdraw from society or hide their disabilities. The biomedical community contributed to this problem by framing disabilities as abnormalities that need to be cured. Physical and mental conditions are viewed as “problems”, so when they are permanent, the individuals who bear those disabilities feel deficient or even defective. The healthcare providers feel a sense of failure and instead of supporting their patients, they turn away.
Ableism hurts everyone
Besides the plain fact that any discrimination is wrong, discrimination against disabled people, ableism, costs our economy. Ableism increases medical costs and drains talents. People with disabilities are often given less aggressive medical therapies and fewer treatment options. I like to think that most doctors do not intentionally treat some patients differently. Instead, providers justify by thinking that they do not know how patients with rare diseases or other illnesses react to certain medications and particularly new therapeutics. As a result, people with disabilities are often advised to take a lesser option and told that it is somehow better for them (but not for those without disabilities). When these less aggressive treatments do not work as well, the net effect is a compounding of medical problems and expenses.
Prejudice against people with disabilities drains talent. We should remember that people with disabilities have many ways to contribute to societies – they are scientists, senators, and U.S. presidents. If disabled children do not feel welcome in the classroom, where will the next generation of Stephen Hawking, Tammy Duckworth, and Franklin D. Roosevelt come from?
How to reduce ableism
The path to an America where people with and without disabilities have equal opportunities will be arduous but there are steps that institutions and each of us can take.
What institutions and businesses can do?
Leaders in business, academic, and other institutions must include disability in their diversity effort. It is estimated that about 1 to 2% of doctors have disabilities, well below the 26% national average. Likely this is a result of under-reporting and discrimination. The lack of disabled people in the workforce is not just a problem in medicine, it crosses all industries. It will go a long way if institutions take practical steps in welcoming people with disabilities such as making sure that websites and buildings are accessible, granting accommodation requests, and appreciating the work of disabled employees. Institutions must lead society to overcome its prejudice and not ask disabled people to overcome our disabilities.
A medical resident with a treatment-resistant migraine told me that she had not taken time off despite severe headaches because she is conditioned to feel guilty for not pulling her weight. Disabled people are often made to feel that it is necessary to work harder to get the same recognition. The merit system is often ableist. For example, is in-person work more important than remote work? How institutions evaluate and judge success matters since the assessment criteria reflect its values and set societal goals.
Businesses, schools, hospitals, research institutions have campaigns to diversify the workforce. These efforts so far have paid little attention to bringing in people with disabilities, this must be remedied.
What each of us must do?
Each of us must have the resolve to do our part. I am a physician-scientist; I have received some of the highest honors, including membership to the National Academy of Medicine. I can hide behind my awards and not speak up against the many injustices. Given that I have a disability, I am more vulnerable. I have already experienced my share of discrimination. By speaking up, I put myself and those around me at risk of retaliation and more discrimination. However, with more than 800,000 COVID deaths, and most of the dead are people of color and people with disabilities, I cannot be quiet.
All of us can make a difference by speaking up against ableism and taking action. The saying goes “see something say something.” When we see ableism, we should point it out and take steps to resolve the situation. Everyone has the responsibility to create environments and cultures where disabled people feel valued.
People with disabilities must be represented in all walks of life, including as decision-makers, healthcare providers, teachers, and in the media so decisions are made and carried out with us at the table.
How to access progress
Leaders in business, education, research, and healthcare must be held accountable for the composition of our workforce. Institutions should publish the demographics of their workforce by rank. The failure and success will be clear by the absence or presence of people with disabilities in our classrooms and boardrooms.
References
1. CDC. Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic | CDC [Internet]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2019 [cited 2021 Feb 28];Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html
2. Disability Statistics [Internet]. [cited 2021 Feb 28];Available from: https://www.disabilitystatistics.org/reports/acs.cfm?statistic=1
morePrior to pandemic, we (the disabled community – ed.) were forced to exist on the very fringes already fully aware society excluded us. Historically our community has never been viewed as vital equals capable of greatness even when incredible contributions to humanity by Differently Abled innovators, scientists, artists, engineers, and jurists, such as Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Dorothy Hodgkin FRS, Frida Kahlo, Andrea Bocelli, Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, RBG and others throughout time, vehemently disproved the “dis-abled” hoax narrative.
Able-bodied authorities still build the systematic framework, controls, resources while systemically denying our relevance. How do we still not have equal rights, freedoms, and equal ethical protections? We are comprised of every ability, ethnic background, sexual identity, age, cultural heritage, etc. Yet, we still face overt discrimination are isolated and labeled as deviants by all ableist communities from similar backgrounds as ourselves.
Oh Yes, we have an innate understanding of what it means to be devalued and ostracized through cowardly explicit/implicit biases intended to harm us and subjective/objective oppressive ableist exclusion.
We have endured extensive exploitation from every societal sector while having the cultured perspective of unequal access. Daily experiences of inaccessible basic education, tech, jobs, finance, fair housing, and transport are exhausting.
We know ableist discrimination within the “unhealthy care system” as they’ve denied fellow Differently Abled neighbors and ourselves, equal access to health care treatment during this pandemic.
I am not speaking of the millions of incredible front-line responders, friends and neighbors who sacrificed to equally provide quality care; to them…total respect. I’m speaking of the millions of people, businesses, and agencies who intentionally place our Otherly Abled community at risk.
Many of us were turned away from hospitals across the country or denied quality care.
We will never know the truth about hundreds of thousands of unfortunate souls who perished. (-peace)
There is quite a bit of scientific data to suggest nearly 2/3 of the 800,000 + who perished, were Otherly Abled persons.
This total ongoing deadly discrimination, failure of accountability, along with, cultural and societal abuses by ableists must end.
I keep wondering how a world forever changed under COVID-19, Delta, Omicron, and other variants, can possibly continue legitimizing debilitating impacts of societal discriminatory abuses and oppression for Otherly Abled persons or whether we work together to stop it!!
As I quietly contemplate all that has happened, I visualize a more effective inclusive sustainable equitable global world for all of us. Get involved, get your friends, family and neighbors involved. Happy safe holidays, peace, and love! Please join in this discussion @IHonorADA #EndDisabilityDiscrimination
Contributed by: Ahyoka Atsadi Ama Oo-Law
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