Education
Getting to work means more than jumping the “A” train for persons with disabilities. Often, persons with disabilities cannot even get into buildings to apply for work. The idea of inclusive building design points out that there are some problems with designing a truly accessible building, and that you can’t make “special” access – it creates social divisions.
•Design, Systems and Persons with Disabilities
Understanding how design, systems and persons with disabilities might have something to do with each other is a challenge. I went to Bela Banathy for some understanding of what design is, and to Draper Kauffman Jr. for an understanding of what a system is.
•Leaders in Disability Culture
Disability culture has several transformational leaders who can be inspirational, charismatic and intellectual. In this part of my paper I present three disability culture leaders; Ed Roberts, Justin Dart, and Laura Hershey. All three of these leaders are highly respected in the disability community.
There are many kinds of leaders in the world today, including leaders who are transformational, inspirational and charismatic. Leadership is vital for disability culture, and for the well-being of persons with disabilities who might otherwise be left out of society.
•Language, Exclusion, and Patterns involving Persons with Disabilities
In criticizing the social model of persons with disabilities, it is important to remember that the issues related to the obstacles faced by white men who use wheelchairs are not the only issues to be examined. Persons with disabilities come from every race, class, gender and cultural background. Work aimed at understanding the diversity within the population of people who have a disability is not being done at the pace needed to ensure inclusion of these people in society.
•Social Inclusion, Is it a Right?
The statement, ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us,’ is now a familiar one to people with disabilities. Is this statement as familiar throughout society as a whole? A look at American society might give you the impression that people with disabilities do not participate at equal levels.
“How many times can we say, request, insist, proclaim, scream that we do not want pity; that we do not like the paternalistic attitudes of others; that we are disabled people whose physical disabilities do not make us lesser people…”[1] Disability myths may change or stagnate over time.
Disability Culture is a continuously changing, wonderfully entrancing part of understanding who persons with disabilities are. To understand Disability Culture, I reached for some understanding of the subject from the likes of Barbara McKee, Stephen Brown and Cheryl Marie Wade. In this section, I respond to each of these people and their statements on Disability Culture, I also present my own writings on Disability Culture.
•Nondisabled Persons, and the Medical View of Disability
Part of understanding persons with disabilities is knowing who is not to be considered disabled. Marta Russell has something to say about the word, “normal,” and the term, “nondisabled,” and I have a greater understanding of those words because of her. The struggle between nondisabled persons and persons with disabilities, for understanding of disability, is partly reflected through events like the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon.
Defining disability can be difficult, and I have chosen to pursue the views of people like Marta Russell and Paul Longmore in an attempt to better understand a definition of disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act has also provided one take on what disability is, and I have used it to aid me in my own understanding of disability.
•Shared Knowledge and Information
One person cannot possibly know everything, there is too much to experience in life. We are all individuals, and collective knowledge must be experienced through a sharing process. The sharing process itself is expressed through such things as writing, speaking, the arts, and other forms of communication.
•The Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University
The goal of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) is to build the premier organization for the advancement of economic, civic, and social participation of persons with disabilities in a global society through the creation of a collaborative environment. The institute is doing this with both entrepreneurial innovation and best business practices in order to foster dialogue between public and private sectors while creating the capacity to transform systems, policy, as well as people through the workforce, education that is inclusive, and communities.
•Rating Disability – Questioning Systems
The determination of a rating in regards to a person’s level of disability on the parts of organizations in America is something that can be considered necessary, or it can be considered discriminatory; depending upon your particular perspective. One of the most noticeable rating systems in relation to disability in our nation is the Veterans Administration, which regularly rates veterans with disabilities according to an antiquated model from decades past.
•Rating Disability – Questioning Systems
The determination of a rating in regards to a person’s level of disability on the parts of organizations in America is something that can be considered necessary, or it can be considered discriminatory; depending upon your particular perspective. One of the most noticeable rating systems in relation to disability in our nation is the Veterans Administration, which regularly rates veterans with disabilities according to an antiquated model from decades past.
