Talking Drupal #355 - Disability Pride Month

Transcript are generated with AI and lightly edited, therefore will not be 100% accurate.

John P  
This is talking Drupal weekly chat about web design development from people with one thing in common. We love. This is episode 355 Disability Pride. welcome to Talking dribble. Today we're talking about disability pride month with Donna Bungard.   Donna is the Senior Marketing accessibility program [email protected]. She is a frequent public speaker on topics of accessibility, people management, and work life balance along with being a mom, a foodie, a book worm and a nerd. Donna, welcome to the show. And thank you for joining us.

Donna B  
Thanks for having me again.

John P  
That was quite the quite the intro, a lot of a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff in there. So I appreciate you finding time for us. I'm John Picozzi. And today my co host is Nic Laflin. Hello, sir.

Nic L  
Good morning. Good morning, how you doing?

John P  
I'm doing all right. It is morning here in the eastern eastern time zone at least for another 15 minutes. Moving into our module of the week, so this module we've done a few shows on we've even had the maintainer, one of the maintainers on, we're going to talk about Project Browser for a minute here. Project browser makes it easy for site builders to find modules. Once selected instructions are provided on how to install the modules on your site, the browser, the Project Browser lives inside the inside Drupal itself, which means you don't need to leave your site in order to look for modules. So yeah, this is actually kind of like an enhancement to the module screen. Or the module addition process, I guess I shouldn't say within Drupal. And the reason we're calling it out for as a module, the week this week is, at the end of June, they actually released a alpha version. So this is getting pretty close to being a full blown release, and maybe even being ready for Drupal. 10. Has anybody here played with Project Browser?

Nic L  
I have. But it's been a very long time, I think it's been more than six months since I looked at it. So now that it's an alpha off to take a look. I also want to call out that one of the really ambitious things about this project is it actually goes beyond just kind of being a module. Chris and the team that are in Lesley and the team that are working on kind of the Project Browser initiative are also doing a lot of work with categorization of modules on drupal.org. It's funny now that I know that they're working on this I see in like the Drupal infrastructure and support channels all the time people like hey, what about this module? And then other people are saying like, Oh, there's this other module that's related to it that you can use. And then, you know, more often than not one of them pops in and says, Hey, we're working on the categorization. What do you think about this? So it's going to enhance, other than just the experience on the Drupal and software side, it's also going to enhance the experience on drupal.org as well. And hopefully discoverability.

John P  
Yeah, and we're actually going to get an update from the project browser team in in about a month's time. So we will have a coming up show to talk more in depth about about that initiative and how things are going. But in the meantime, take the module for a test run and you might find that you want to add it to your to your site and use it all the time. All right, let's move on to our primary topic. And again, as we usually do on the show, we're going to start off with a rather rather softball of a question. Or at least I think it might be a softball question. I think Donna can probably answer this pretty easily for us, we'll let her be the judge. But Donna, what is Disability Pride Month

Donna B  
is a month to really celebrate our differences. There, there's a good you know, the US in candidates about 26% of the population self identify as disabled, most of us will, you know, experience temporary disabilities or additional disabilities as we age. It's it's very normal part of the human existence of the of being alive. And this is a time to try to break through those statements and take pride in all of the different ways we we are who we Are and contribute because of our differences.

Nic L  
So why was the month of July chosen?

Donna B  
Well, back in the 90s, that's when the American with Disability Act happened. But it's also in the Capitol Crawl happened. Now, I truth be told it's big in July, because that's when the ADA was signed into law and the American with Disabilities Act was put in place to protect or ensure that people with disabilities had a more equal experience. However, I also want to bring up the Capitol Crawl because there was a saying nothing about us. Without us at that time, individuals, frankly, literally had to leave their, you know, wheelchairs or other assistive technologies behind and crawl up the stairs to the Capitol building, to make their stand to be heard. Because it wasn't accessible at the time. So it was a really, really monumental movement for the ADA, to come into action and to later trigger the 508 bill that so many of us online are familiar with.

Nic L  
I mean, for me, one of them, this is one of those mind blowing things for me, because, I mean, I'm older than the Disability Act, but I don't have any awareness before the ADA was signed, you know, I'm, I'm 37. The, the ADA was signed in 1990. So my, my whole, like memory, the ADA was something that had to be enforced. But it's mind blowing to me that, what, like 30 years ago, people couldn't get into the Capitol building. 

Donna B  
well, there may have been ramps or something, but there was nothing saying they legally had to be how's that? You know, I don't think there were because of that Capital Crawl. I've done research on it. Truth be told, I'm not the historian, I typically deal with a different piece of this all, but there's just so much and there's so much history, and there's so much. There's so much movement, and there's there's a lot of history of ableism throughout all of our worlds. You know, there's everything from, you know, horrifying things that happened back then to forced sterilizations to just other just atrocities, based on the fact that, you know, there have been the understanding or the assumptions that people who are disabled are less, and therefore have less rights, and are given less throughout. So this was, this was a big step for us to make sure that people were singing as being whole, because they are their whole people with whole lives, whole families. And it was just a stuff that way, and I'm a bit older than you. But nonetheless, I feel you because I was a teenager when all this was going on. And yeah, I was barely aware, I was in a small town, New Hampshire girl, I was barely aware of more interested in the farm across the street. But still, it was all this big history was happening, right, in our lifetimes.

John P  
It's interesting to me, because I was I was, I think I was six, I'm doing math, right. When, when that was signed, and again, you know, I've had to kind of understand more and more about it, but as you were talking about it, you know, the two the two takeaways there, like, the fact that we can't, as as as, as a people figure out how to treat people as people and and not, you know, discriminate against them, for lack of better word is annoying to me. The other thing I was thinking and this is completely, maybe not important, but like, I wonder how like, architecture has changed and like the the idea of like being an architect from like, you know, before 1990 like, Were there a lot of architects that were thinking of accessibility and it was that like a shift in that industry to say like, well, now we have to figure out how to make these buildings accessible with ramps and elevators and you know, other, you know, types of, of devices and technologies to kind of make them you know, make them make them accessible for everybody. Right?

Donna B  
Well, if, though I don't specialize in the physical world, I do get to kind of moonlight there once in a while when I'm talking to, you know, vendors who help with events and such. And I there's a lot out there that people are still trying to improve upon. That, you know, move. You know, my T shirt here says progress over perfection with the accessibility symbol. It's a Scott Winkler t-shirt, and it's awesome. And because we're all making progress, and you're right, people have a hard time treating people like people sometimes, and I don't understand it. But it's just another. It's another way of difference. And, you know, there's a whole psychology behind the whole microaggressions and, and unconscious bias and all this. So, in my opinion, speaking us only myself, we just really need to be able to talk about things more. And that includes the sticky stuff. And we need to normalize it, because that's the only way to combat these misunderstandings and, and sort of conscious bias is through education and understanding. Because really otherwise, you know, people can't always be accountable for thinking but experience that they're not aware exist. So by talking about it and getting into it, we're really breaking down those barriers.

Nic L  
In back to your point, John, like, I'm sure that that law being signed and changed architecture and construction kind of across the country. But I'm also sure that the were  firms that specialized in in making things accessible and that there were buildings that were accessible. But one of the big things that this does, is it gives you infrastructure to kind of address these problems at every level. So for example, I remember I went out to lunch with my grandmother, once, when she was much older at the time, had trouble getting up steps, went to a small restaurant. And they didn't even have a railing to get the steps. You know, so it's a tiny little restaurant in a tiny town in Massachusetts. But with the ADA, she just called the town councillors that, hey, this church doesn't have even like nevermind to ramp they, because I'm sure there's some exceptions for certain size and stuff, but they don't even have a railing. And then the town has to have some sort of like enforcement arm to make sure that that's addressed. Whereas if you didn't have something like the ADA, and there's no pressure from kind of above, stuff like that can be addressed, or you don't feel safe addressing it or requesting it. Right.== So just just having this in place, and making that kind of baseline, you know, helps improve things at all levels.

Donna B  
And a lot of older buildings do have exceptions are such, if you go on to YouTube, a man I forget his name, is an awesome gentleman with cerebral palsy, who has done various videos on here I am and he went through and videotaped and shared a video of what it took to visit New York hotel to go get a bagel in the bagel was one block away. And it started with the handicap, accessible elevator, being down three stairs from where he was. There's a lot out there, there's still a lot of room for improvements. But as I said, it's it does it gives us the baseline to start from, it gives us the legal backing to start from to really advocate for these changes.

Nic L  
And I think I think that's definitely one of the primary. The that's one of the primary benefits of a numerating these things like making it, you know, that, like your shirt says it's not perfection, but it's a good starting point and a huge improvement over not having anything on the books.

John P  
So refocusing back on disability pride. Why is it disability pride and not disability awareness month?

Donna B  
Because there's different social models, right? There's different social models of accessibility. Or models, I shouldn't say social models, there's different models of accessibility. There's the medical one of oh, we should fix that. There's the charitable one of Oh, you poor thing. And there's a societal one of hey, as we as a society, it's our job to break down barriers. Typically, I fall under that one, but there's also this identity model, which means people want to stand up and say I am again, I am a whole person. I have these whole lives. And I am who I am. And I'm proud of who I am. Because this you know, this is part of being this is part of who I am. This is part of how I see the world. And I don't need to be saved. I need you to respect me enough to interact with me in a way I can. I can interact with you back.

John P  
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. Steven actually added to the shownotes a quote from specially gifted.org And we'll have a link to the article that he pulled this from in the show notes, but I thought it was it was great in kind of describing that, similarly to the way that you just did You know, if the quote is "I often think of the term awareness as something that we use when we're talking about something that we want to solve a problem to be fixed. Disability is not a problem to be fixed. It's a culture, it's an identity. It's something that so many of us celebrate." You know, I think that, you know, is exactly what you just said, Donna, but I think it's, you know, it's important to, to focus on that, you know, I mean, as you said, like, awareness is like, something where, like, we're, it's not a problem that we're gonna, that needs to be solved. It's something that we need to work towards. And we need to, you know, in many cases, you know, we need to celebrate. And, you know, it's something that you actually mentioned at the beginning of the show, at some point in our lives, if we're not currently or we don't, you know, we don't associate currently with with being disabled, like at some point in our lives, we're going to, we're going to age into disability, maybe if that's a appropriate way of saying that, and it's something that, you know, I think we all need to be a little bit more cognizant of, and a little bit more accepting of, right.

Donna B  
Yeah, the same amongst many of us is for all temporarily abled. And that's, that's a really good way of putting that into perspective. Another thing out there, I know, at the beginning of the show, we're talking a little bit about podcasts and audiobooks, if you like audiobooks. A while back, the New York Times had done a collection of essays called about us. It was all disabled voices speaking, you know about their lives, and sharing their perspective. And it is on Audible, and I've listened to it myself. And this one woman describing this beautiful dance, and it's that she does, and she and her partner, you know, would be going around with their, in their wheelchairs, and then at one point, they would unstrap, and it would be like this floating thing, and it's just was gorgeous. And they were celebrating it. It wasn't, it wasn't a technology they were tied to it was part of this dance with them. And I just love that. And I think that, again, speaks to the idea that it's some we don't need to be aware, we be proud of everybody's differences.

Nic L  
Yeah. Yeah, it's a change of perspective. I also think, with a lot of things like this to that it's a spectrum, like you said, there's kind of three or four modes that you think about it, and not all of them are 100% and valid at any given point, right. So, you know, there's some, you know, there's something to be said for, for example, you know, I have blurry vision, I wear glasses, that's a medical intervention. But it's also not really something I think that people socially see as a disability, either, until it gets to, you know, more extreme.

Donna B  
Well, I wear a rather large leg brace right now. It goes from mid thigh to to mid shin. I'm not wearing it right now, because I'm in my home. But when I'm out and about walking on uneven field, or for a long period of time, or what have you, I have it on. It both straightens up very damaged leg, and it supports me so I don't fall over. I've called it Gilbert. It's frankly a lot less intimidating to tell my children to Hey, can you go grab Gilbert for me, then, you know, give you a more employed bruise, so she doesn't take over. Eventually, I will be old enough for a knee replacement. There will be a medical intervention for that. I will eventually get you know, to new robotic knees. But my point is, yes, medicine will play a part. But that does not change the fact that right now. I'm pretty happy that I get to have Gilbert to help me keep going. And you know what, I think my kids are having a more inclusive mindset because they see that, you know, they know they saw me you know the last time if this has been years of injuries, but the last time I did hurt it badly. I was dragging my leg for over a week. They've seen it and they still saw mom to be Christmas. Christmas dinner. Yeah. Everybody had normal lives.

John P  
That's such an interesting perspective to me because I feel like a lot of people like your your point of view is like this device helps me to to, you know, live my life and you know, carry on in the way that I want to where I need to Right. And like a lot of people, I think, take the opposite of like, you know, I'm disabled, or there's, you know, there's something something, you know, wrong with me. And that prevents them from living their life. Right. But I think that that ration that that perspective, right, may not necessarily be theirs, it may be one that sometimes is thrust upon them by society, would you? Would you agree or?

Donna B  
Well, let me let me switch gears a little bit. Um, but let me clarify one thing now, because there's a medical such thing to help my leg. It does not mean I agree with the medical model that all disability needs to be fixed. Yeah, a joint that is damaged, I will go into detail damage. But that will eventually need to be replaced. But that does not believe I believe me, I believe in that model. Not all disability needs to be fixed. Sure, absolutely a different ability. So that's the first clarifier. The second is growing up, I've talked a lot about how growing up I was the only one in my family without a disability. And for me, that kind of always set the stage of I was never out to be this great person. I was the if I didn't make it. So my sister who's hard of hearing could hear me guess who was stuck doing more chores again by herself. And I was having them part of that I'm a princess, I don't want to, she could help. Right. So being accessible was always that perspective. But I also did see that, you know, I, if you look around, look around your world. It's a candy half only entrances, at least used to be in older buildings all around the back. The seating was off to the side. People were not seen people who to this day are neurodivergent or hard of hearing, people assume they're stupid or arrogant. If it's an invisible disability, if it's a visible disability or something obvious, they assume the person's not going to be able to keep up people make assumptions, based on how they would probably react in that situation. So for somebody to see themselves as you would describe John as, as being, I can't because they're made be some legitimate, I can't do X me, I cannot run anymore. I used to be a runner, I cannot run. Even when I get a new knee, there's a good chance because of other things with it. I cannot run. That's me. But that does not mean that I cannot do. And for people who have brought their mindset to the point I can't do, I can understand because the world doesn't want to see them the world is going to make assumptions to them. And how on earth are you supposed to not only survive, but thrive? In a world that doesn't even want to see you or get to know you? I mean, it's heartbreaking to hear the emotion of my boys. It's heartbreaking.

John P  
Absolutely. Not to not to change the topic or or make light. But do you like to run?

Donna B  
I used to, I used to run a good 15 plus miles a week,

John P  
man. Good on you. Because I literally do not know how anybody would run anywhere. I prefer I prefer pedaling myself, but hey, you know, that was what makes us great. We're all different.

Donna B  
No, I used to run early in the morning before my kids would wake up. It was just me and the birds in the sun coming up over the trees and the sound of my feet hitting the pavement was very poetic in a very quiet bit of time to myself every day. So I absolutely loved that.

Nic L  
So is there a symbol or that people can kind of get behind to display you know, they're taking part in disability pride.

Donna B  
There is a disability pride flag, it is a field of black, then the black represents frankly mourning for all the ableist violence, people who are disabled are more likely to target for other, it's a morning color. Then there are I think five lightning bolts of different colors. And the lightning bolt represents getting over all those obstacles society has in our way. And whether it be people's assumptions or physical barriers or just social barriers. It's getting past that so that's why the lightning bolt and then the different colors are the fact that my gosh we talk about disability like it's one thing. There are like six off the top of my head types of disabilities I can rattle off and each of those can be broken down into a million other things and then if you take into people's personal experiences are cool mobilities which are when more than one thing comes together, or intersectionality, and the play that the place that things like how being disabled and bipoc, or being disabled, and being LGBTQ plus all of these things, all combined in this intersectionality, it's huge. So all those colors represent all the differences out there, and just really supporting the fact that this is one month for a huge gambit of people. I mean, we're talking a huge, you know, they say 15%, globally. But I have reason to believe there's certain cultural places where people are less likely to publicly say they're disabled. It's just for my readings, I'm not accusing cultures anywhere, it's just for my readings that it seems that there are cultures where people are less open to talk about it then here in the United States. So I don't know if that 15% really fully covers or not, firstly, for 26% in North America here, it makes me question it. So yeah, this is Donna speaking only Donna.

Nic L  
And even that is relatively recent, in the history of the US. And it's pretty dependent on you know, family and you know, state and you know, that there's, there's a lot of

Donna B  
two ages big one, when I was a teenager, I was officially coded learning disabled at 16. But truth be told, they didn't know which one they'd know, there was something different. With the way I was learning. They couldn't figure out which one they gave me a, what was called an R3 classification back then, that was similar to what we call dysgraphia. Now, but truth be told, there's, I don't fit into that category either. So at some point, I want to get retested. I just haven't gotten around to it. But there's, there's reason to believe that I'm neurodivergent, too, though, again, when I was 16, back in the 90s. Nobody knew what to call me. They just were like, Yeah, that's weird. And I of course, I was like Gee thanks.

John P  
One thing as in the description of the disability pride flag that stuck out to me and this was kind of my own, like, checking my own my own thinking, right was the the morning for those who have suffered ablest violence, right. And, you know, in my head, I was like, at first I was like, Well, surely nobody's been physically injured by like, people, and then I'm like, well, that's silly, of course. And then it kind of like trailed into, you know, even even, like, mental, like mental harm. And then, you know, the US Capitol not being accessible to somebody is like, is harmful and in some, you know, in some cases can be can be considered a type of violence, right.

Nic L  
One of the things that really stuck out to me when we had Rane on last year, was it one of the things that she said that I don't know that I'll ever forget is that just because somebody has access to something doesn't mean that it's equal or fair like you said Donna earlier like yeah, there might have been a ramp but usually they're in the back you know, or you know, the seating is on the side like you don't get you can't get center up front and center like if it's not equitable, you're still kind of as a society saying, like, you have to come through the back door, you're you're not allowed through the front door. Which has

Donna B  
that's that's part of it, guys. But I just quickly pulled up the the Bureau of Justice website because I get this stuff in my history. The rate of violence victimized against persons with disabilities. 46.2 per 1000, aged 12 or older was almost four times the rate of persons without disabilities. One in three robbery victims had at least one disability. People have come visibility's have the highest rate of violence victimized at 83.3 per 1000. Among disabilities measured 90% of rapes or sexual assaults against persons with disabilities are  reported.

John P  
Those stats those stats almost made me lose our clean tag because, there's there's some there's some bleepy bleepy people out there taking advantage of folks, and yeah, that's

Donna B  
awful. Yeah, that so just to be clear, what you're saying speaks wonders to the wonderful people you are. But the black actually probably means morning in a much much more awful sense.

Nic L  
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things with a lot of these movements is that a lot of it gets laundered by the time we started to learn, but I mean, you know, labor rights, women's rights, like, you know, every right is fought for with blood, you know, and that's unfortunate, but, but it makes sense why that would be part of the symbol as well.

Donna B  
But to kind of, kind of bring us a little hope from those dismal things, though is people are standing up more, they are talking about their their different abilities, people are talking about the strengths associated with neuro divergence. There are strengths of everybody, and they're talking about the strengths of other differences, that that categorizes disabilities. There are things out there that are awesome. There's a book The Power of different that that talks about challenges, but also talks about some of the beautiful things. There, there's a lot out there. And frankly, we're making pretty big strides, we have a long way to go. But if we think about it, how many fairy tales had the villain being a disfigured, or disabled, ugly person. There's another book out there, by the way. We are dealing working against hundreds of years of culture.

John P  
So let's dig into that a little bit more and talk about some of the barriers people are still facing both physically and digitally. What what are some of those? And and how are we if we are working to overcome them?

Donna B  
Well, there's a lot to be done for accessible websites. So I mean, a lot of places are really starting to get the hang of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, otherwise we can, they're getting the hang of those. And that's great. But, you know, newer versions of that are still being worked on to better handle and appreciate people who are neurodivergent, for example, that's 20% of the population are divergent. And that's not that wasn't fully covered before, you know, and, or, or there's opportunity to improve. Or that, you know, there's other opportunities where you can have one that checks every box, but it might not make sense when you're listening to it for a non visual user. Or maybe you've checked every box, but when you're zoomed up to 200%, reading something, you know, it's a really uncomfortable experience for many individuals who have that visual barriers for someone who prefers to maybe listen to their content, which could be visual, but could also be a cognitive barrier, you know, does that reading order make sense? These are things that we're still thinking about, you know, people still love parallax a little bit, and movement and carousels, and those could really be distracting and in really throw somebody off their game. And so we still have opportunities there. And then in the physical world is just asking yourself questions, like, when talking to somebody about events, all I say is okay, cool. Where does the 70 pound ball or 60 pounds golden sit? Because somebody might not have an assistive animal, but if what if they do? Where do they sit? Alright, are we gonna sit here and have a conversation it but I have no place to put a 70 pound dog that's going to be problematic, you know, ask the dumb questions. It's like, it's like being in Colombo, if you ever used to watch that old TV show, you sometimes have to ask really, really silly sounding questions. I apologize. I just use ableist language. I said that, um, questions available. Let's see. Um, so what progress not perfection. But you have to ask really silly or fuller sounding questions. But, but we're working our way there.

John P  
Here's a here's a potentially silly or foolish sounding question, but you brought up parallax and some some other like animated web technologies, right? Is it inclusive, equal fair, appropriate to have a button on your website that shuts that stuff off? Or is that or is the idea that we should just stop using those things?

Donna B  
I am not opposed to Perth. Again, this is Donna. I am not opposed to the button. But if you use them, use them meaningfully. meaning use any motion with great intent parallax in general is going to throw people who are motion sick, sensitivity to light. People with vestibular issues meaning balance challenges, and that's a lot of individuals who are profoundly had a hard of hearing or deaf also have that challenges in that area. You're building barriers there. If you're going to do a motion, make sure you need it, it has to be able to be stopped. That's an absolute. So if you need that pop button at the top, so be it. But if you but still only have that there if, if it's really important to what you're doing. And keep in mind, like with carousels, a screen reader is going to just read the code of how it's written, right. So they might read things that aren't on the screen. Keeping in mind that not there are a lot of screenreader users who are also perfectly capable of perceiving visually the way you or I do. And I say that because I know you will be they are able to perceive the same way visually, but they still use a screen reader because it's maybe they're dyslexic, maybe they're ADHD, maybe there's just some other barrier there. They could just have low literate below literate. None of this means less intelligent. And that, you know, none of this means less anything. You can even have an intellectual disability and be absolutely brilliant at some other areas that, you know, I could possibly I could be falling down. And there's so you know, I use intelligence with kind of air quotes, because there's all sorts of gifts we have. That didn't use your question. I feel like I kind of went off and

John P  
yeah, I mean, I guess my question is, is more like if we're building a separate experience for folks, is that, is that really like? Is that really solving the problem or but or just like,

Donna B  
don't do separate.

John P  
And that's kind of what I equate the button or the button to write is like if I'm shutting off the animation, and maybe I'm maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong in this thinking. But like, if I'm shutting off the animation, or changing the way the site functions? Like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't maybe I'm maybe I'm overanalyzing that,

Donna B  
from my perspective. Having them button is a choice in the front of a building of stairs or a ramp, you can choose what you want to do. However, if you are being repeatedly hit with a ramp, or three stairs every six feet, maybe that's something about your experience you need to think through.

Nic L  
And that's something I've always wondered about, too, with things like this, because, you know, sometimes there is something Central and you have to have a way to pause it or stop it or, you know, but how do you? How do you call attention to it or raise awareness to that feature on your site? Because one of the issues too, is that, I mean, like you said, sites are starting to really come along and be more accessible across the board. So people know to look for but even two years ago, the percentage of sites that even hit AA compatibility is very low. So people don't the people that need these features, or need these enhancements don't even look for them on sites, because so many people don't have them, like you're not going to burn the energy looking for something that only one out of 1000 sites has. So how do you how do you

Donna B  
I've seen successful implementations are just a banner at the top or something like you have an alert banner, but this is a banner. Would you know, do you choose a stop motion or something like that?

I imagine eventually, it'd be sort of like a light and dark mode switch that people will just, excuse me automatically go to it. I'm fighting off a little bug here. So excuse my voice just dying occasionally. You know, I imagine we'll get there. But for right now, I've seen that use I'm sure there's other ways of doing it. You know, if it's just a background video and the hero having a pause button there, people are pretty used to look into it there. It comes down to that and frankly get some user testing though. Just ask. Just don't just ask, you know your residents subject matter expert. There are organizations like faible out there. There's others I'm sorry, I can't think of the names I'm not affiliated with them either. But it organizations like people out there that have user testing by disabled users this comes back to that nothing about us without us. concept in involve the disabled. community in what you're trying to do, and definitely pay them for it. This is not charity. They don't they don't owe us anything. That's why organizations like PayPal exist. But get actual user testing.

Nic L  
So getting back to some of the barriers that we were talking about, you know, digitally is this societal, you know, physical barriers. What's the social impact of those barriers right now,

Donna B  
in the US, of the 26%, who identify as disabled, another 26% of them are living below the poverty level. If you go, if you look disabled to non disabled person in a position, yes, they make them out among about the same amount of money. But if you take an age into consideration, it took a lot longer for a disabled individual to get to that same place. So with that, they're making 87 cents on the dollar for non disabled people. That is, if they can work a whole year, there are some disabilities that prevent them from working at 365, at which point, they make about 66 cents on the dollar. So almost half. So that's part of what's dropping people below the poverty rate that and there's challenges getting hired, because of the stigma and those assumptions. And that, in that feeling, that they're not going to be able to or assumption that they're not going to be able to perform. If we take into the intersectionality, it could push those numbers even harder. It's, it's not only impacting individuals, either, because that person has children, that person has a partner, that person has a community that you know, is helping them out with a food bank, there is a huge, huge impact, not only in that one person in their emotional mental state, it's also their physical state in the vat of their family and that of their community. And it trickles back up and down. And it's it's a big, big thing,

John P  
Donald, can I just clarify one point there, and I may have missed misheard you or misunderstood you. But are you saying that folks that that have disabilities that are able to get employment are in some cases making less than peep, like the the a person that that doesn't identify as having a disability in the same role

Donna B  
in the same role, they will be making the same amount. But if we take into account that typically there are barriers to progressing, sure, it may be a whether it be a barrier education, or a barrier to progressing. And in some cases, they may be if at the same role, I certainly can't speak to all of that, statistically speaking, there's the days and I use, you saw me reference, the Bureau of Justice, I've used various official resources for my stats. But if we take the age into equation, they're making significantly less.

Nic L  
And there's also, you know, many times that has to go further to, like, we've talked about this on the show before, you know, assistive devices are expensive. And if you can't get insurance to cover it or something, then you're you're looking at significant significant expenses, just to be able to, you know, get that assistance. And so if you're making less, and it has to go further than Yeah, that's going to, that's going to push you below the poverty line, too.

Donna B  
Yeah, and medications, and all sorts of all sorts of things there are, there's so many barriers against individuals when the truth is, you know, there's no need for it. And I think we can do better. I may not have the answers on how yet, but I know how we can do it digitally. So you know, and I see people starting to make those changes. So the more again, I think the more we talk about it, it's going to be easier for people to see and help balance those skills. So let's,

John P  
let's talk about it a little bit here. What do you think the best ways for people to be more inclusive are?

Donna B  
Well, my go to is always ask questions and be willing to apologize for asking a silly question. In my experience, you know, and I'm not saying ask personal questions, please, please know, you know, the person I hadn't seen for 30 years who walked up to me and said, What's up with your knee? Really wasn't impressive to me that day. It's, you know, the gentleman at the He was telling me about every injury he's ever injured, because he saw me in a brace that maybe was a little too personal. But I'm saying ask questions about, hey, what are your accessibility needs? If you're talking to somebody who's a co worker, or who's on your team, or you know, whatever? What are your accessibility needs? Don't make them come asking for everything. What do you need? You know, we each have different needs anyway. So it's it's shouldn't be a weird question, just hey, what are your accessibility needs? What are we going to do to make this happen? Another important thing is to build a lot of this into your processes. Meaning, so, you know, John isn't asking Donna, what are your needs? This is John with his Ned camp, asking everybody, what are your needs. As part of the process, we do this now. And this is fine. And then just look around and read and talk to people, like any other underrepresented, underrepresented group is not necessarily everyone's responsibility to teach us. But luckily, there's a ton of resources out there. I'm a big audio book person, I love that. And I listened to those. There are other people out there talking about this. And just, you know, find them on LinkedIn, look at their articles, read things, and just keep involving, frankly, people from the disabled community, in the conversation that this isn't about, you know, what we can do for them, it's us respecting them enough to be like, Wow, I want this community involved in my community, and I respect their voices, and I want to hear it. Because you know, damn it, I'm proud to I'm proud that you know, we are different. And I don't want to think like you and I don't want you to think like me. And I don't want you to act like me or perceive the world because frankly, it's much more interesting. When we don't. Yeah,

John P  
I think the other part of me the other aspect there too, or in addition to all the great things you just said is like, there are no silly questions. I mean, just ask I mean, I guess the like, who would happen to your knee is, is I guess it's more of an unthoughtful question than a silly question. But like, I don't know, sometimes I feel like people are afraid to ask questions, because somebody's gonna turn around and be like, Why are you asking that? Or like, you know, make them make them feel bad for asking the question, and I just yeah.

Donna B  
What happened? Versus, hey, do you need a hand over here? Because this is kind of a weird, because we were on a old dirt parking lot. It was like, it could have been, you know, Oh, do you need hand for that? Or something like that? Or, you know, one is about the experience. One was about a dude, that's weird. You know, yeah.

Nic L  
Yeah. I mean, you still need to be tactful, and mindful. You also, you also don't want to make assumptions. Like one of the things that sometimes happens that I've ever experienced that my uncle, my uncle has MS who said, Ms. My whole life. He has a walker. And, you know, one of the things that he needs is He needs time to get places like it just takes some time and people time and time again be like, Oh, just get him a wheelchair or like what like, why? Like, why take us off? And the truth is, I mean, he has a wheelchair when he needs it. But he and his doctors want him to, it doesn't matter that it's gonna take him 10 minutes to get somewhere. They want Him and He wants to use his muscles and

John P  
and the activity of doing it. Right. Yeah. And

Donna B  
experience in the independence. Yeah, autonomy. Exactly. I mean, frankly, those are things that I'd spend 10 minutes more doing to make sure that I felt frankly, I'm, for my own sake, I'm a grown ass woman. And I like to do some things for myself. I again, I wrote jokes about being a princess. And you know, y'all buy me drink if the next time I hang out with you or something, but no, I am perfectly capable of doing and taking care of myself. And I'm sure your uncle is too. Even if he needs a hand once in a while.

Nic L  
Yeah, and so I guess I would say to is like be willing to ask the question, but also don't make an assumption that you that that the person actually needs something different or that they want something different. I mean, there's because everybody's different. Everybody reacts differently. So yeah, be willing to ask, be tactful about it. it. But if somebody says that they don't need something, you don't have to find a way to insist, either. Because some people are, you know, they know what they need.

John P  
I've also, I think I've said this on the show before, but I think, you know, as a, as a, as a country, we need to be more, more accepting that people are human, and that people make mistakes, right. And people may say things that are insensitive or inappropriate, right. And, you know, I think everybody should just relax and give give people the benefit of the doubt. Because there's a, there's a big difference between asking a question, because you're you're not, you're not clear, you're not you're not aware. And then asking a question that is malicious, malicious or harmful. So

Donna B  
and, and, you know, I was I mentioned before my sister started appearing. Here I am the accessibility professional. Yeah, when I was seven, and eight, I got behind her, and I played Jingle Bells and the feedback of her hearing aids back then they'd make a lot of feedback if you cut your hands. So you know, I was a little sister, I didn't care. It was my sister, she made sounds. And I've had pretty good reflexes now because of that, because I could move out of her way pretty quick. But, you know, my point is, we have to be respectful, but everyone is human. And if you say, or ask a question that you find out after, oh, my gosh, I've done this before, clearly. I mean, I'm not always the most sensitive person out there. I try to be the, you know, just say, I'm sorry. And, and yeah, give yourself grace, even if the other person might not be in the mood. I heard this amazing quote, about a month ago, it was when we do something wrong. We know, it's because we're having a bad day, when someone else does something wrong, we tend to assume it's because of who they are. If we can drop that last little bit, and assume that, you know, maybe, maybe that response has nothing to do with you. And just apologize, be sincere and and just keep going. Because it's all learning, we never stopped learning, we never stopped figuring it out. We're always not, we're always imperfect. And that's why I love this t shirt so much. Because it's not only accessibility, it's everything. Progress over perfection. You know, as long as we're always making progress, and we're always learning we're doing the right thing.

Nic L  
So what are the some of the processes and in some of the pathways that we can implement ourselves to become more involved with accessibility in our work?

Donna B  
Well, in work, if you want to take the more official route, you can go ahead, the International Association of accessibility professionals IAAP, has some great certifications, some wonderful webinars, there, they're always putting out content. You can always study, get some certifications, get some understandings. That way, if you want to be involved, there's usually a group of subject matters at your work, who knows something and that that group might be a group of one. But in most of at least, the Drupal community, there's always at least a couple of people in every in every group that has a greater understanding. And start talking to them start talking to your leadership about how can I build this better into our processes? Or where can I post resources or I I'm been in past lives known to just start random Slack channels, because I think this is important. And I start inviting people, because I'm paying like that, and I don't mind saying, Hey, guys, look at this. But share information and just get in front of people and start talking and you know, if you're if you're not ready to be, you know, COVID still around and a lot of not COVID As you can hear from my voice is still around. You know, if you're not ready to be out and about physically with people, there's still a lot of online resources. There's a million meetups, maybe not a million, but there's a bunch of meetups, there's different groups within Drupal. Drupal has the accessibility channel in our slack. I mean, there's a bunch of different avenues just start knocking on doors. Don't be shy again, it's all good. If you're trying to learn no one's gonna stop you. So as we I should plug I should plug A11y Talks, a one one y talks. We do a monthly thing. I think not this month next month I'm hosting again. So I'm pretty excited about that. But I am so sorry A11y Talks. I forget what our July talk is about. But really check out the site because we've had a million really fantastic speakers and a really good diverse group of speakers. too, so it would be really wonderful for you guys to check them out.

John P  
So as we wrap up, our last question here is if you could share any other good resources or podcasts with us, specifically on disability, pride and maybe just overall awareness.

Donna B  
In truth, as I admitted the beginning of this, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts that I have a couple I've wanted to listen to, but I've been trying to type over here and I haven't really found them yet. Of course, I would say go to LinkedIn. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Kelly Cat-Wells, she is an advocate, she is a talent agent to get more representation, you know, basically, with a brilliant deaf actor, why are you hiring someone who's not deaf to play a deaf person? You know, she's in the room, right? That, you know, with Netflix or what have you. So there's, she's a great advocate and shares a lot of really wonderful resources. Man, I'm trying to think who else I follow, I follow a lot of people through LinkedIn, and I know there's a podcast and I'm forgetting what that is. But start looking around, find what find the voice, there's a lot of voices in different voices that are gonna resonate from me from you find a voice that resonates with you and just find it. In terms of books I mentioned, The Power of Different,  Disfigured, is that when I mentioned were talks about fairy tales ingraining from us from a young age, that disability is a bad thing. And that is to kind of stop. And personally, I love this shift in some of the children's movies lately, where I've, you know, we're coming away from a little of that a little bit. And I'm, that makes my my heart happy as both a professional and as a mom to see that. You know, I guess there's a new character coming out who will be a nonverbal character that'll be coming out soon. And I think that's fantastic. Because just because someone's nonverbal doesn't mean they don't have a whole lot to say, they're just not going to communicate it the way you were, I may.  So there's tha. About Us, that collection of essays was phenomenal, because that gave me insight into the lived experiences. And then again, just finding voices that resonate with you, and listening to them, because it's going to help you kind of get out of your perspective, the biggest challenge I found is that we have a community full, actually as technical industry full of people who are dedicated to being more accessible, who have the heart and have technical knowledge, but they may not have the context, to apply it in the best ways possible to create not only accessible sites, but great user experiences for these amazing individuals who are out there, and are standing up this month and saying, Hey, I'm disabled. And that's part of my identity. And this is just who I am. And I'm proud of myself, and I want my own voice. And you're taking these people and we're respecting them enough by starting to listen to those voices and getting the context to apply it.

John P  
That's awesome. And, you know, you can always follow Donna as well. We'll give you her information at the end of the show. Because I'm sure she's actually I know she's a good resource for those sorts of things as well. Donna, thank you for joining us. And thank you for actually joining us for the last four weeks in our guest host spot. It's been it's been a pleasure.

Donna B  
It has been so much fun to be here. Thank you. I really had a lot of fun and and I thank you both for people behind me the need behind the scenes. It's been awesome. Thank you guys.

Nic L  
Do you have questions or feedback you can reach out to talk in Drupal on Twitter with the handle talking Drupal or by email at [email protected] You can connect with our hosts and other listeners on the Drupal slack and the talking Drupal channel. If you're interested in show news upcoming Drupal camps local meetups in Chad's book corner, you can sign up for our newsletter at talkingdrupal.com/newsletter

John P  
Yes, you too can promote your Drupal community event on talking Drupal. Learn more about Learn more at talking drupal.com/TDpromo.

Nic L  
And thank you patrons for supporting talking Drupal, your support is greatly appreciated. You can learn more about becoming a patron at talkingdrupal.com and choosing the become a patron button.

John P  
Alright, we've gotten to that time of the show Donna as we had said, how can people get a hold of you or follow you on social media if they want to learn more about what you do?

Donna B  
I am on pretty much all of them as either dbungard or donnabungard so you can really easy to find. And I've always done the rounds on the Drupal slack too, so ping me. Let's get talking.

John P  
Awesome. Nic Laflin What about you?

Nic L  
You find me online pretty much everywhere at nicxvan.

John P  
And I'm John Picozzi. You can find me on all the major social networks and drupal.org @johnpicozzi and you can find out about epam at epam.com

Donna B  
And if you've enjoyed listening, you've enjoyed talking.

John P  
Have a good one, everyone.