Building Inclusive Communities for Disabled Folks

We are always intentional about recognizing national days, weeks, and months because it provides us all an opportunity to be curious, ask questions, and examine whether we are being inclusive toward the group or culture or identity we are celebrating.?

Since the month of October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, it seemed a good idea to write a quick article with some of our thoughts on building inclusive communities for our disabled neighbors.?

There are three ways that we can help support disabled and differently abled members of our community:

1. Accomodation: This may seem rather obvious but it’s still something many communities struggle with to this day. Make sure your community (office, neighborhood, organization) is providing appropriate accommodations for disabled folks. Are the wheelchair ramps and pedestrian crossings updated? Are there lighting options for neuro-diverse visitors? Does your online event have captions or an ASL interpreter??
2. Visibility: While there are many disabilities that are physical, and therefore visible, you probably have members of your community who live with disabilities that are not visible. These can include hard of hearing folks, people with lupus, autism, and chronic pain disorders. It’s necessary that we are aware of the whole spectrum of disabilities and that we support those community members by ensuring that they are visible and accommodated.?
3. Representation: We talk a lot about representation on our YouTube channel and podcast. Representation for disabled folks is a constant problem in our media, lived and pop culture. You can help by making sure you use (appropriately sourced) stock photos with disabled folks, inviting disability advocates to speak at your events, and advocating for more disability representation in the places, spaces, and cultural events that you love.?

If you want to learn more about the disability rights movement in America, we highly recommend the Netflix documentary ‘Crip Camp.’ We covered this film for our Awards Season series last year, so you can check out our review here.?

We also have an Anti-Ableism Resource List that is a living Google Doc of resources we’ve used as we continue to expand our understanding of disability history, rights, and advocacy.