On Accessibility
How often do you live your life without noticing the systems that impact accessibility?
Dear Reader, Hello.
Y’all it has been A DAY. I haven’t had time to write this until right now, 8:47 p.m. my time. Do you ever have those days where you just can’t stop?
The big thing that I’ve been working on is making the poetry reading series that I work for, Open Mouth Readings, more accessible. Why now?
At the beginning of the pandemic we noticed all these poets posting videos of themselves reading poems to try to comfort each other (and themselves). There was a whole giant Twitter thread with hundreds videos of people reading poems out loud. And a Deaf poet tweeted in response: “If your poetry videos aren’t captioned, we don’t want them.” (I can’t actually find the tweet right now, but it happened.)
This got us thinking about how Deaf poets should be able to attend poetry readings, but often aren’t able to because there is nothing there for them. Though they may have a range of hearing impairments, they can’t fully hear the poems, and aren’t provided with other ways to access the poems. There are really famous Deaf poets who go to readings and then can’t enjoy them at all. (By the way, have you read Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky? So good!)
Also, there are lots of other barriers at readings that make it harder for people with all kinds of disabilities to attend. Stairs, uncomfortable chairs, area rugs, distant locations, bad times of day, cost of attendance. Many of those things don’t matter during a pandemic though, when readings aren’t in person and are digital instead, so we thought, if readings are getting more accessible right now, why not really try to go all the way?
But, here’s the thing: Making a reading series that is accessible for all kinds of people is actually really hard. There are a lot of different barriers. We had to hire a disability consultant, and that person had to hire a few other people to help her out in areas that she’s less of an expert in, and we spent weeks meeting with our consultant and learning about how to do better.
In America, our world is set up to accommodate a white able-bodied heterosexual cisgender male pretty well, but anyone else less so. This is because those people have had power for such a long time, and they built the world for themselves. Crash-test dummies were modeled after them, CPR dummies were modeled after them, doorways were made to fit their height, crayons were made in their skin-tone, steps were made that fit their ideal step, announcements were made in their language, etc.
I mean, think about it.
All kinds of systems are making it hard for accessibility all the time, and many of us don’t even know because those systems are working for us. I don’t need braille to be on every sign, so I don’t notice whether or not it’s there. I don’t need a ramp to enter a building, so I don’t notice whether or not it’s there. So much of this all goes totally unnoticed.
So, all day I was figuring out captioning and American Sign Language interpreters and getting poems from readers ahead of time so the interpreter can read them and not have to interpret on the fly—adapting all the things I would normally do to prepare for a reading so that I could better accommodate a range of different needs. Everything involves a lot more steps.
But it just made me think—if this is hard for me, how much harder must it be for a person who actually has a disability? How can we make a different world that isn’t just built for one kind of body? What if we actually spent the money to have ASL interpreters everywhere? What if all buildings were built so they had ADA accessible ramps going right up to the front door, not a back exit (this is called universal design)? And what’s in the way of all this? (money, power) Is this like whiteness in that there is one way of being that is considered “default” and every other way of being is considered “other?”
Prompt: When have you needed any type of accomodation? Have you broken your leg and had a cast on and needed an elevator, but there were only stairs? How often do you live your life without noticing the systems that impact accessibility? How is this similar to being white, and not being aware of your own skin color?
Action: Learn how to sign your name in ASL here, so you can introduce yourself.
I’m going to be learning how to sign my name in ASL before our reading on Sunday. Wish me luck!
Until tomorrow,
Gwen