What does DEI really stand for? Disability Empowered Innovators

What does DEI really stand for? Disability Empowered Innovators??

It was last week that my partner called to tell me that she had witnessed one of the most appalling things she had ever heard.?It had to do with what had occurred the previous evening when the American Eagle commercial commuter flight had a mid-air collision with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National airport.?She told me that the President, as usual, stayed on task about thirty seconds and then started a rant that had nothing to do with the crash.?Most importantly, he basically got around to blaming the crash on everyone he could think of and finally, on people with disabilities.????

In the study of bias, it is pretty uniform to understand that all the “isms” (racism, sexism, ageism) stem from the same flawed heuristics that people use to make decisions.?Just like so many of the people that I discussed the crash with, most used flawed heuristics and a lack of understanding of what was supposed to be happening to form a conclusion that cannot be verified without the proper information, evaluation, and rigorous analysis of the entire situation that occurred.?My preliminary thoughts, along with many Human Factors practitioners, from our vantage point or lens, points to the “usual” culprit of “design” error and not to human error as the accident’s culprit.

Yep, in most cases, Human Factors practitioners will classify almost every “accident” as a design error. Rarely are there human errors.?There are flawed designs that lead to people encountering situations that could not be compensated for.?Given almost any situation, if we put a person under enough stress, they will make a “mistake”.?This is why when I listened to this rant devoid of context and critical thought, I immediately started to think about the lunacy that led us to this myth-based fallacy of an American meritocracy.

We don’t currently have and never have had a meritocracy in America.?If that was the case, all the mediocre and incompetent co-workers and managers most of us have worked with really were “good” workers!?We all know that is not the case!?If you also think that any “class” of people are not able to do any type of job, then your heuristics need to be updated to how work is defined and evaluated and how productivity is measured.??

If you don’t think that people with disabilities can do work, then you are a sad and mistaken individual.?Also, work standards in the Federal government are all the same for every person.?Any individual that identifies as having a disability that is evaluated for any job, has to meet the qualifications of the job before what are called “reasonable accommodations” can be applied to make the job “accessible” to the person when they are hired.?Normally, you can’t apply to be a mechanical engineer without an engineering degree, unless you have passed certain exams or have equivalent verifiable skills.?Attorneys have to have a law degree and pass the Bar exam.?Medical doctors have to have a medical degree from an accredited or equally recognized one from another country just to get into the training residency program.?No degree, no residency training license and you won’t be getting a license for any reason.??????

If you think that any air traffic controller, airline pilot, or Army helicopter pilot was not qualified to do their jobs, then you don’t understand how the complex system of aviation in the commercial and military spaces works.?In the Military, if you can’t reach all types of benchmarks for your particular job (MOS) you won’t be accommodated for, you will be honorably discharged.?Fortunately, you can develop a disability in the military and if you can still perform your job or transfer to another one that you actually can do, you may still get to stay in the military.?Very few accommodations are made for people actually working on actual flights.?We don’t have wheelchair using flight attendants, legally blind airline pilots, or Deaf air-traffic controllers folks.?There is no accommodation as of yet for blind airline pilots or air traffic controllers, much less one that would be remotely reasonable.?Given our current technology and the abilities and limitations of human beings, there are no “reasonable” accommodations that would allow my fellow blind peers to fly commercial jets in America.??????

I am a staunch advocate for people with disabilities, but much bigger believer in reality.?That is what had me presenting a presentation at the annual CSUN conference on Persons with Disabilities in 2008, where I presented the evidence that with our current technology and the limitations of the human brain and nervous system to perceive stimuli, it was not feasible to create an interface that would allow a blind person to “safely” drive a car in traffic.?At the same time, I was the named plaintiff in the landmark Martin v. MARTA lawsuit that required the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority to fully follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).?You don’t want the blind person “driving” the bus, but the blind person should be able to safely ride the bus.???

What I presented was the result of a very extensive literature review, which is what I would always do before I attempted to form a hypothesis and start any experiment.?I was working as a rehabilitation research scientist at the time and my work accommodations were my screen reading programs, my Braille display, my Braille Notetaker, and a Braille embosser.?What qualified me for the job was my past work experience and those two engineering degrees I had!

It was two years ago when a work colleague asked me what I was doing there.?I told them that question was normal, as it usually takes three to four years for anyone to ask me that question.?She told me that she had asked other people this question years before and had finally decided to ask me.?My answer was quite simple, I told her that I was there doing my job.?She did not let me off that easily and asked me why I wasn’t in charge of the whole place.?My answer was quite simple and the core of this post.?I said, “Do you think they are going to let some blind guy be in charge”?

I have worked tangentially, from 2006 to the mid-2010’s and directly in the Financial field since 2018, but have a long and varied work history.?It is not as varied as my education though.?Instead of biased and truly uninformed people trying to turn Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the racist trope of “didn’t earn it”, in many of our cases it stands for “Disability Empowers Innovation”.?That is exactly what we do to thrive in a world not designed for us, where we still have to compete.??

Darren Beattie, who was just appointed to the State Department in this Trump administration was quoted saying that, “We need competent white men in charge” to run organizations.?Why??I haven’t been able to realistically observe or even read in the published literature where any nebulous “race” group has an inherent advantage in doing anything that is not “learned” behavior after a person is born.

Especially since DNA says that there may be many ethnicities, but only one race,?which is the human race.?Unfortunately, that “ludicrous” mantra is indicative of what I have been telling one of mentees since 2017 and what she also was informed by one of her professors in her M.B.A. program.?Who will create the nebulous criteria to determine competency??We know the criteria in the past seemed to favor certain ethnicities and certain genders.?As my mentee’s professor informed them near the end of their Managerial class, most of the people you will encounter during your career will be “mediocre at best”.???

After my last foray into one of my graduate school stints, I consulted and worked full-time in some contract positions.?Before I finally accepted a full-time position, I interviewed many times while the pandemic was raging.?Thankfully, I had enough previous knowledge about Twitter and Meta and decided not to even interview with them.?Yippee, it looks like my decision helped me dodge the “Twitter” bullet.?One department that was eliminated when it was sold was the entire Accessibility department.?If a company does that, they definitely have no respect for people with disabilities.

My knowledge in my field is so vast and so much more extensive than almost other practitioners, that there rarely is any comparison.?I’ve been working in my field for over thirty years now, have seven degrees, including four that are post-graduate, and academic publications and presentations as well.?So why am I not at a much higher position in some major corporation than I actually work at??There is no actual guaranteed, quantifiable answer, but there are some things that are used against me that I am quite aware of.?Since I am acquainted with a vast number of people in a variety of fields and industries, it is often that I have interviewed for a position where some of the people in the actual interviewing process have recused themselves.?In many other cases, I have had people that were and were not directly related in the interviewing and hiring process contact me later and tell me about the very obvious bias that was exhibited in the discussion of my candidacy.?There was nothing more rewarding than when I was contacted by a friend that I did not know was on a call when I was interviewing for a manager level position in Accessibility at a major Fortune 500 company.?He called to tell me he was on that second interview I was on, and also listened to the discussion.?His actual words to me were, “They are terrified of you”.?From the discussion he observed and then participated in, he determined that they felt that my ability made them look inferior and it would be very evident if I was working at the same level as they were.?Needless to say, I was not hired!?They wanted my expertise to fix the myriad of problems, but not at what they perceived to be a high cost of a spotlight on the knowledge, skills and abilities they did not possess.?

Another factor that I go out of my way to try and mitigate is my actual physical appearance.?Of course, I have a professional headshot photographed by an actual photographer a few years ago.?I want people to know that I’m actually an African American male at the beginning of any interaction.?If you have any preconceived notions or biases against me, I want you to exhibit them prior to contacting me.?If you are not interested, don’t want to talk to or interview me, then that is as much a benefit to me as it is to you.?I don’t want to work around or with anyone with those preconceived negative biases anyway.?While we’re feeling each other out or trying to determine if I “fit” with your “culture”, we could have been actually working!

One physical attribute I possess is also quite interesting.?Although one of my mentees, who knew I was a retired Paralympic athlete, was still taken aback when he and his girlfriend met me in person.?He told me this last month, but we met last September.?He said, “You are an imposing figure.?I knew you were a retired athlete, but I just did not think you would look like you actually do.?It was only when you actually spoke, did I realize that the very muscular man coming down the steps was actually you”!

I’m not as lean as I used to be, but I still lift weights four times a week and do cardio four to five times a week.?Twenty years later, I still hold a record for blind athletes in the United States in the discus throwing event.?I’m six-foot and one inches in height and weigh approximately two hundred and fifty pounds.?I also have been told that I look about twenty years younger than I actually am, which makes it difficult for them to reconcile my physical appearance with my resume, CV, or the conversations I sometimes engage in.?I’ve had a few friends tell me that interacting with me is like having your college professor also be a linebacker.??

I have Retinitis Pigmentosa, which is a genetically inherited disease.?I was born sighted and the disease slowly started to affect me in my early teens.?I decided to forego any attempt of playing football at the collegiate level, as I was keenly aware that I would have to try and play a position that I did not have the eyesight to achieve.?Not only did I learn to adjust to my visual imitations in high school, it was as a twenty-three year-old Senior in college that I finally self-diagnosed my own eye disease.??Although I did not gain a career as either a textile or industrial engineer, those skills I learned taught me to make workplace and Systems modifications.?That led directly to me becoming a rehabilitation engineer.?My DEI “disability empowered innovations” were motivated by my severe and acute allergy I had developed to poverty.?In homage to my now-deceased mother, “I had been working, surviving, and scrapping for so long on so little, that I became qualified to do the impossible with nothing”.

I actually am in a very unique situation with my present employer.?I actually like what I am doing, like the company, and like the people I work with.?I take that employment hat-trick with a grain of salt and happily log-in remotely at work five days a week.?My organization is becoming more and more accessible as the years go by and I actually do feel like I am respected as an equal amongst my peers.?When my retired Seeing-Eye dog was euthanized last year, a colleague sent me a red heart-shaped pillow that arrived the next day.?The pillow rests on top of the Mahogany box with my dog’s ashes on my desk during the workday and next to my pillow when I sleep at night.?My colleagues at work helped to raise over fifteen-hundred dollars in memory of my dog to send to his dog guide school as well.?Most of them had never seen me or the dog in-person!?My employer has had a very good DEI program the past few years.?The name has changed, but the purpose is similar to what the program was in the past.?Because of it, I have learned so much about the Afro-Caribbeans that work for us and also about the “work” friends that have been working for the company for many years.?It’s nice to log-in to any large meeting and know that I work with women whose ethnicities are of Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Irish, as well as White.?I work with men whose ethnicity and backgrounds are just as varied, including “White” people that were born and raised in America, but have lived and worked in other countries.?So, my fellow friends that diligently go to work and perform almost every type of job in America with their various disabilities are keenly aware that along the way our “disability empowered innovations” have helped us to perform and thrive.?Meanwhile, the traditional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs were quite beneficial in creating extremely comfortable and engaging environments that enlarged our workforce,?produced environments that made the work tasks get completed better, and led to the largest economy in the world.

#DEI?

#Disability

#Diversityequityinclusion

#Accessibility

#Blind

#Deaf

#Wheelchair

#Overqualified

#Underemployed

#Disrespected

#Blackhawk