The Belonging Conversation - avoiding the Ableism Sin Bin.

In the seventh episode of LinkedIn Karma with #WonderingMo, I speak to That Blind Woman, Julie Woods and Phil Turner, Managing Director of Accessibility Tick in the Belonging Conversation - on how to avoid the Ableism Sin Bin. Here are the excerpts.

Introductions

Julie Woods: I'm That Blind Woman, married and mother of two. A professional speaker, a happiness coach and creator of the accessibility game of sending Ableism to The Sin Bin.

Phil Turner: A family man first. I run the New Zealand Disability Employers’ Network and Accessibility Tick, to help organizations to be better at disability and neurodiversity, inclusion and belonging.

Moumita Das Roy: I am a marketing professional, and a Diversity & Inclusion advocate.

The Belonging Conversation

Moumita: Disability is a part of human experience. It is natural. What is disgraceful is ableism. When it comes to including disability and being a part of it, in life, in workplaces and as much as on social media, what is meant by ableism and how to send it to the Sin Bin?

Julie: About a year ago I discovered this term - all the things that people had said to me, in my first 24 years as a blind. Things like “it must be terrible not to be able to see, how sad and I'm sorry”. Ableism begins with discrimination of disabled people, based on the belief that able bodied people are superior. Ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require fixing. Like sexism and racism, it marginalizes certain sectors of society. Ableism comes in many forms, but the two main ones are systemic ableism, which means things like creating or building inaccessible venues. And then we come along to the casual angle, which are the things that we may say or do to one another.

Moumita: Phil, what does ableism mean to you? To you as an individual? And, if you can share some examples in a workplace scenario?

Phil: As an individual ableism is around thinking what we do that causes people to feel like they aren't a part of us, that collective us, the whole of us. It's the decisions we make every day, how that's going to impact people. From a corporate point of view, in businesses, there's a lot of unintentional ableism. Organizations wanting to make a difference. Sometimes, they don't understand the consequences of their decisions. There's a responsibility from us to have these discussions to bring forward how people can avoid it. Our programme came into existence because disabled people wouldn't get any employment. And when we went and talked with employers, they said to us, they wanted to employ disabled people. They didn't know how to approach it.

Moumita: What role can Accessibility Tick play and how it works with other organisations to commit to disability or neurodiverse inclusion and accessibility?

Phil: We created a programme that makes it understandable, achievable, sustainable to employ people with disability. The employers were almost looking for a brand to rally behind, that their staff could connect to, a network of other employers as examples. And most of all, be treated like a partner in disability inclusion. We designed a program that is trying to achieve this. It's about giving the organisations an understanding of the current state, and then providing them with the tools and the recommendations on what they should do. Empowering them to create an action plan and walking alongside them to achieve that, whilst also making them feel a part of a collective and moving forward together with a lot of other organizations in New Zealand to create momentum.

Julie: I found that too, people wanting to come towards the world of disability, but they are afraid of disability. And they're not quite sure how to respond. Brand disability must excite people. That's part of my core values, approach disability in a fun, playful way.

Moumita: Julie, what is this fun accessibility game all about? How did you come up with?

The Accessibility Game developed by That Blind Woman, Julie Woods: Send Ableism To The Sin Bin, show ableism the red or yellow card

Julie: I responded to a newspaper article, that said 93% of employees did not have disability training and when I approached that organisation, they asked me what I could do about it. I had started saying “Why Not” to opportunities that came my way when I turned blind and thought why not adapt that to help people move towards the world of disability by saying, exactly that. Why Not, to questions like, “Do you want to read your organization's Disability Strategy”, so that people feel more comfortable around the world of disability. I also included Sending Ableism to the Sin Bin when I was referring nude touch rugby in 2004 with red and yellow cards around my neck. Coloured cards are used in sport, as a way of language neutral way of communicating decisions that are made by the referee in the game. And I thought, why don't we use those cards as a tool for the accessibility game. Yellow for things that people say, and the red card for things that they did.

Moumita: So, let's start the game. Let’s check with Julie for some statements or something that you would do in your everyday life. And let Julie tell us if that counts as ableism.

Phil: I'll be the one to start and give this as an example: stepping up onto this LinkedIn Audio Events stage is a bit like the blind leading the blind.

Julie: When you use blindness, and their inability to see to imply they don't know what's going on around, it is offensive. Because blind people can absolutely lead. I will give an example, of what people say to me, but you don't look blind, or you don't look disabled. I feel uncomfortable with that.

Moumita: Disclaimer - this is role play. A new colleague at work has two handicapped children. I said to her I will pray for them, to make her feel better.

Julie: Praying implies disabled people require fixing and that they're not okay the way they are. That isn't fair.

Moumita: I saw an ad last year. It said 15% of the world’s population has some disability, visible or invisible. It's nearly 1 billion people. In one of the shots, a blind woman is praying. She turns into the camera and says, “I’m not praying for a cure, but for a handbag”.

Julie: You can sure pray for a hot pink handbag for me too Moumita ??

Listeners joined on stage to ask questions or share their thoughts.        

Cyndilu Miller: What if I said this – let me get that door for you.

Julie: That’s okay if you’re asking. That’s better. And it helps if you're saying your name aloud to a blind person, so they know who is speaking. And asking is good, that is the heart of the conversation today. If you're not sure, ask someone.

Phil: If you're asking a disabled person because it looks like they need assistance, or you think they do, and you do it in a respectful way, it's up to them how they respond. But as an individual, you know that you've acted respectfully and done what you need to do.

Piyal Gupta: In my view, we should be kinder and more compassionate. Everyone may lack some skill or may be unable to do something.

Moumita: We should not mix lack of skill or not being able to do something with disability. Disability is not fixed. A skill can be learned. United Nations has a definition for disability.

Julie: Disabled people are those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

Phil: The social model of disability says you're not disabled by any impairment, you're disabled by the fact that society isn't set up to support you to participate. Julie Woods has a visual impairment, but she wouldn't be print disabled, if absolutely everything was available in Braille. Disability is something that society does. Every person has a strength or weakness, lack of a skill is not a disability, it's part of human experience

Matt Hall: People want to help or be nice but can be quite condescending, like telling a person in a wheelchair how great it is for them to join an outdoor event. I like being able to use my experiences to help others. I only know about my disability but there are others I need to learn about. If someone asks if I need help, and I say no, and they walk away. We are both happy. People should not feel compelled to over-help.

Phil: 70% of disabilities are not visible. They may not look like they need assistance from the outside, but the need is still there. We need to think about the neurodiverse people who may still have needs. There are people who hide it, and they're not being their whole self because they must fit into society in a way that society will accept. So, we should think of that sense of belonging working for them as well.

Moumita: Phil, what are the various things organizations are doing that will get them a nod from Accessibility Tick?

Phil: There is so much good work being done out there, with all the best intentions, trying to move forward. I'll give you an example of an organization that I think really needs to be celebrated. And that's Westpac, New Zealand. They've done some real good work about bringing up the profile of disability within their organization. They've been deliberate, brave, and committed to accessibility. They created a plan. They went on to implement that plan, and acknowledged there's going to be little hiccups, bumps on the road. They know that diverse workforce, that includes disability is a stronger workforce.

Moumita: I would like to quickly share some statistic, in New Zealand, small and medium sized businesses make up more than 95%. of business and employ more than 42% of the workforce? What can small and medium sized businesses do to follow suit and practice some of what larger organisations are doing?

Phil: Be deliberate, brave, and committed. I think the important thing here for small business is to hire someone, be proactive at finding a disabled person and bringing them to the workforce. Be prepared to be committed because they may have additional needs, some adjustments. The value of bringing them in adds to your culture, the strengths they bring in their life experience, in their personality, helps to enrich your organization.

Moumita: Absolutely, that's the pretext of this conversation, disability must be a part of the diversity spectrum in workplaces. Thanks for those examples. Let me quickly talk about what we should consider while creating content on social media. These are really simple.

- Adding Alt Text to images, so the blind can see

- Captioning all videos, for the deaf to hear

- Camel Case-ing all hashtags, for the screen reader to comprehend

- Not using Unicode fonts, the screen reader makes it sound gibberish

- And not overusing emojis, the screen reader describes each one and ruins the reading experience

Julie: I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, when it comes to emojis - less is more, these are great for sighted people. But for the blind people, it just adds extraneous information that makes it difficult to wade through. The use of the red and yellow cards has been created as a teaching tool for the accessibility game. But also, they are a great way to be used on social media. I issued a red card to a company because they continued to send me a letter in print for 4 years, even though I had announced my blindness. I posted that on LinkedIn. And within 24 hours, I had a phone call from one of their managers at work. That is the power of these cards, and how they can be used to educate people on ableism. If anyone would like to do the same thing, they can email me, [email protected]

Moumita: Thank you, Julie. I might just borrow your cards and this concept of the game and try to send Racism to the Sin Bin too. Because why not?

Julie: Why not? Absolutely.

Moumita: Phil how does an organization get an Accessibility Tick?

Phil: We don't do a certification. What we love to do is celebrate what organizations are doing. So that we bring forward, reinforce it, and we move forward with it. What we do is help an organization understand, provide them with recommendations, help them put an action plan together and help implement it. To receive the Accessibility Tick, you need to have done a full 360 assessment of your organization, understand your current state, write your report, develop an action plan. And you need to start making meaningful progress on your action plan to show that your commitment is truly there. Your senior leader, your chief executive, or equivalent to stand up and say this is a journey we're on, this is a journey we're taking, this is a journey we're committed to. If you're interested in going through the program, you can email to [email protected] and we can talk through.

Moumita: Julie, any word of caution, when to use the cards and when not to?

Julie: Nobody likes to be called out, that is why the cards are designed to be fun, in an insightful way. Disability can be terrifying. But if you say WHY NOT and move towards it, the more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes and more inclusive. And if you don't know, please just ask.

Moumita: I said WHY NOT to hosting this conversation too and thanks to you and Phil for joining me. Thank you to everyone who listened and joined us on stage.

Phil: A big thank you to you Moumita, for organizing this and for creating the platform for us to have this conversation. The more we can discuss it, the more we can go ahead. As Julie was saying, in a fun and creative and supportive way. Get to know people, connect with, that's the way to go. And in your workplace, bring people into the room. And then you'll see the rest will take care of itself. Cultural change, your attitude change, you'll just start to see disabled people as part of that collective us.

Julie: Thanks, Moumita, for saying WHY NOT in having the conversation about sending Ableism to the Sin Bin. Let me leave you with a quote from Louis Braille. “Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded that we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals — and communication is the way we can bring this about.”

Moumita: Thank you so much.

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Disability must be a part of the diversity and inclusion conversation alongside race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Starting inclusive conversations is our responsibility and small things matter. LinkedIn has recently introduced two new features, auto captions on all video and audio events. And adding alt text to images from mobile as well, not only on desktop to enable creators to create inclusive content.

This is a conversation on belonging. Belonging starts with them becoming one of us. Let's keep the discussion going, stay tuned.

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