Why do we even have to fight for accessibility?
We shouldn't have to fight for something as basic as being able to access the things we need.
Which (if you think about it) is pretty much everything. For the blind (like myself) we have to fight for digital accessibility. We continue to fight for accessible websites. Accessible games. Accessible streets. Accessible houses. To simply have accessible lives.
Wheel chair users have constantly to fight also.
They (you) have to fight just to have ramps in places you need to be able to access. So that you don't have to wheel yourselves up flights of stairs. You constantly have to ask the question "Is where I am going accessible?"
"Can a wheel chair user navigate through my destination?"
"Will I be able to get my dream job despite not having eye sight?"
And the thing that all disabled people have to put up with, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, is the undignifying patronising debilitating thing we know of as, Ableism.
And we have grown use to this.
We rave about it. Rant about it. Vent, rage and denounce it. But far too often, our actions extend only to writing a skaving tweet on Twitter.
An angry Facebook post.
Composing a frustrated thread on Threads.
It is not typing that will stop this.
The pressing of keys on a keyboard does get your thoughts out there, but beyond that does very little.
After seeing dozens of posts like yours, the people in charge simply tune out.
They seas to listen. They close their ears. And Nothing my disabled friends, changes for us at all.
The wheel chair user still has to worry about whether they will be able to wheel themselves into their workplace.
The blind person still has to plead with major companies, to make their apps accessible.
So that all can use them. Regardless of our ability to see. Our ability to move. Our ability to hear. Nothing changes. And still, we remain silent. Silent. Submissive. Subservient to the ways which we all in one way or another regardless of our disability hate, find undignifying or damn right debilitating.
We live this (all of us) every day. Or at least, every week.
We are told we can't climb stairs. That we can't be as independent as the rest of society. That we will always need help. That we will always need assistance.
Some of us might. And indeed some of us will, but let us be the ones to ask for it. Not have another person decide for us.
Act on our behalf, simply because our sight, our mobility, our focus our minds are not as functional, easy or able as the sight, minds movement and focus of the rest of society.
We the disabled need to remember, that we don't need to lean on our non-disabled peers like crutches.
We the disabled need to remember, that we are (when it comes down to it) just as capable as everyone else.
We may have to do things differently.
The blind among our number may need to read things in braille or listen to them.
Our wheel chair bound fellow disabled people may need to wheel themselves around or perhaps may not be able to walk as far as the non-disabled people in our society. But that does not make us less able. That does not make us less useful. That does not make us worthless.
No human being is worthless. Every human being is equal.
But my friends, we are only able when we choose to be.
Things will only change if we decide to make them do so. And things will most certainly not change, if we whisper our grievances.
Let us shout them to the world.
Let us announce them to the globe.
Let us denounce the barriers that stand in our way.
And in the name of god, let us not write our frustrations, but act on them.
There is no reason on Earth, why your workplace couldn't have a ramp for your wheel chair.
There is no reason in the universe, that canes are not accessible to all blind people.
There is absolutely no reason in the cosmos, that this world of ours cannot accommodate the millions of us disabled people who live within it.
We may be labeled difficult for refusing to tolerate this.
We may be called unreasonable, for supposedly expecting "to much" from the people in charge.
But if accessibility. If equality. If basic human decency is too much to ask, then this world needs to take a long hard look at itself.
We the disabled may be a minority, but we are not going away.
There may be more non-disabled people on this planet than disabled people, but that does not mean that we do not deserve to be accommodated, included and valued just like the rest of our fellow human beings.
Let we the disabled be no longer an after thought, but instead a before thought.
Let accessibility not be a rarity, but instead normality.
And let inclusion not be unusual, but as normal as the presence of people.
As the presence of water.
As the presence, of the very Earth we stand on.
Accessibility isn't just generosity, it is basic decency. Because if we the disabled cannot access our world, then how in god's name can we live and flourish within it? The lives of our non-disabled friends are also hard, but at least they are able to access pretty much the whole of this world.
So should they be able to access and so enjoy our world, so too should we. Blind or immobile. Partially sighted or autistic or less able to walk, this is our world too. And so we too, deserve to be able to access it.
#Accessibility #Disabled #Inclusion #Blind #Disability #Equality #DisabledAccess #Accessibilityforall #Accessforall #Accessnow #Decency #Ableism
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