Hi, John. You wrote:
"Like
Kate Kaul implied in her post, I really think access isn't taken seriously
until those NOT affected speak up. We wheelchair-users are too few,
isolated, and disempowered to get far on our own."
I try to argue that there is no tidy distinction between those affected
and those not affected -- everyone is affected, although obviously, some
people are excluded entirely, and this is a severe effect. What
frustrates me is that so much of the effect goes unnoticed: the
wheelchair users who can't get in, aren't at the event; people with less
visible disabilities may not be there either, for related reasons (steps,
parking, distance from the subway, cigarette smoke, or fatigue when two or
three events are scheduled immediately following one another -- my own
program does this for the sake of 'convenience' and it means I can't go to
a lot of events.) Like you, I don't always protest, especially when I'm
not sure I'm going to want to go -- but I really believe events should be
casually accessible (e.g. outside of individual requests -- not that those
aren't important too) to as many people as possible. Indistinguishable
from the missing people is the missing topic -- people aren't talking
enough about disability politics, disability studies, disability, in
philosophy programs and social and political thought programs, at
university events in general. There's also a missing mode of critique; I
encounter work in many disciplines, like queer theory, women's studies as
well as philosophy, literature, etc., which needs to be informed by a
disability perspective but isn't; people don't know what they're missing,
as well as who they're missing. It's a vicious circle, of course. People
who can get in the room (and I am usually one of them) can choose to
protest, to stay away, to point out the absences, to present work that
won't get a useful response. I agree with you entirely; it's complicated.
regards,
Kate
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