Tag Archives: discrimination

The UBC Back to School Edition: Looking back

02 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in Ultimate Blog Challenge, Part 3, Uncategorized

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If I am being honest, I’m surprised I’ve gone back to school. I never in a million years thought I would have the time, funds, or inclination to do so. Truthfully, I’m not sure I really have the funds and time – school can be expensive, and I work, train for races, and volunteer in my community, so time is at a premium – but I have the willingness to learn and finally found something I wanted to study, so… why not?

What Took you So Long?

When I graduated from high school, I thought I wanted to be a translator. I had taken several languages in high school, including French immersion, and thought I would excel interpreting for people or translating documents. I looked at the university courses required, and thought “no thanks!” I was interested in the history of language, and all of the practical courses, but I remember looking at most of the other required courses and getting a headache thinking about them. How in the world could I manage four years of school when more than two thirds of the classes were either impractical or uninteresting to me – why would I need three science courses for a languages degree? Even looking at other areas of study for a degree, I could not find anything that could hold my interest and that I thought would be worth the financial investment and time commitment required. An Arts degree had a bunch of tangential and irrelevant requirements, I did not want to pursue sciences, I’d burned out on math classes and concepts in high school, social work or similar disciplines would be too emotionally taxing for me. The idea of a degree felt both daunting and out of reach, so I walked away from that life path.

I also had practical concerns. Many blind young adults I had known as a teenager had degrees from Bachelor to Masters to Doctorates, and still struggled to find employment. I did not want to slog through four or six or eight years of school, get into massive amounts of debt, and still not be able to afford to keep a roof over my head. In addition, even if I had wanted to walk the path of a four-year degree, in the early ’00s, accessibility of course materials was a real concern. Electronic materials were not always guaranteed to be accessible, braille books were big and clunky and took up a ton of space, and audio records of course materials might not always be appropriate for the course at hand. Both the journey and the destination were not going to be uncomplicated, and could not offer a great return on investment. So, I thought, what was the point in a degree?

Choosing a Different Path

I decided to grab an opportunity for a one-year certificate program in emergency communications. I was trained to answer emergency calls and dispatch emergency vehicles, such as police, fire departments, or ambulances. The course was all practical and useful, and would in some ways tie in to what we would be doing on the job. I faced an unrealistic and discriminatory requirement – put into place by the disability services office, no less – that if I could not find a practicum placement before starting the course, I could not start in September. My classmates could wait until January to find a placement, but I could not; the rationale was that it would be hard to find a placement for me, as it would be to find work, so if I couldn’t find a practicum, there was no point in starting. Thankfully, I had connections in the industry and had written commitments from all over Canada and the United States for emergency services agencies who said they would be willing to accept me for my practicum. So I started that course and (found out later) had the most hands-on practicum of any of my classmates.

I never did get my foot in the door, working full- or part-time with any emergency service. Many fire departments and ambulance services still used paper cue cards at the time, and technology was not yet at the point to be fully integrated to come up with accessible alternatives. One police agency, on multiple occasions, had no qualms about telling me that my vision impairment meant that I could not interpret my colleague’s body language, so could not identify an emerging situation non-visually, and I would not even be granted an opportunity to test for a position I had trained for, was good at, and for which they were regularly advertising. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized I would have burned out on the emotional toll the job would demand of me. It took me over a decade to feel gratitude that my life went in another different direction, but I am grateful every day that I took that emergency communications course, and also grateful that I never did work in that field – even if the reasons I never did were flat-out discriminatory. The fact that the disability services office at the school was right – that finding employment would be difficult or impossible – that was hardly the point; I should never have had to face that barrier by a department that was supposed to decrease barriers to my education.

Then what Happened?

Over the next few years, I worked in multiple industries. I’ve worked for non-profits, governments, and private sector businesses. Even when I was laid off by a company in the oil and gas industry during the downturn in 2015, the idea of expanding my education never had any appeal. I didn’t have the inclination, I certainly didn’t have the funds, and – even if I had both of those things going for me – I had no idea what I would study that would both hold my interest and enhance my skill set. I saw no point in going to school just because… reasons – even though I’ve had many conversations over the years with people who’ve been surprised at my lack of formal education.

Then, I had a conversation that created a bit of a monster, and sent me back to the classroom.

Join me tomorrow. I won’t promise I’ll name names, but I will tell you what I’m studying, and why.

The Intrepid Journey 2018: Preparing by the Seat of My Pants

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in The Intrepid Journey 2018

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A dream of a solo journey through Montana was born while driving down a highway in the summer of 2017, passing cities I thought might be fun. I hadn’t even unpacked my bag from that trip before I started looking up bus routes to make this next trip happen.
Four months later, I’ve waffled almost constantly between excitement, ambivalence, and apprehension. The first thing I booked was my train ticket from Seattle to Whitefish, Montana, splurging on a sleeper car; it seemed like an appropriate celebratory purchase when my work position went from a term contract to a permanent position. Any time I had some extra spending money, I put it into bus tickets – as of this writing, five of them had been booked. My wonderful husband gave me an Alaska Airlines gift card for Christmas, so I’m just waiting for my flight from Edmonton to Seattle to possibly decrease in price; and I’d have no money at all if I booked my flight right now from Denver back home. But that will come.
As for accommodation, my goal is to meet people, which pretty much rules out the segregation and sterility of hotels. An accommodating AirBNB host in Cheyenne put up no resistance regarding Jenny, though he did express concern regarding me navigating his basement steps (and lest anyone think it’s a blind thing, he posted about it in his listing itself, so I doubt it). A friend in Denver has offered to put me up for a weekend (though I won’t identify them at this point). I snapped up pet-friendly accommodations within my (admittedly cheap) budget in Seattle, Helena and Great Falls, with hosts who appear to be more than welcoming. Just this morning, I booked my one night in a hostel in Whitefish – who can go wrong staying in a spot with storage for bags and a vegetarian restaurant and smoothie bar?
And then there’s Missoula.
I’ve had service dog refusals before, but I’ve had two notable AirBNB hosts in Missoula who have been incredibly unwelcoming and rude (not to mention discriminatory and in violation of AirBNB’s inclusion policy regarding assistance animals). Correspondence with AirBNB on this issue has given me little more than reiterations of the policies I already know.

So I promised myself – both as a way to save my pennies for now and a way to preserve my own mental well-being – to put my 25-AirBNB-listing Missoula wish list (and my smaller ones for Bozeman and Billings) on hold temporarily.

And it’s a darn good thing I did!

I got a call from Greyhound this afternoon, telling me that my scheduled trip from Missoula to Great Falls had been canceled outright, and my revised trips from Helena to Bozeman and Bozeman to Billings (thanks to cancellations of my purchased daytime routes) would involve arriving at the bus station in Bozeman in the middle of the night. I had hoped to avoid overnight travel altogether as much as possible, and I found myself standing in my bedroom, laughing uproariously at the absurdity of all this; if I didn’t laugh, I guarantee I would’ve been crying. The Greyhound representative refunded those tickets that had been impacted by the route cancelations, and I’m in contact with Jefferson Lines (the partner company) to see if there are plans for revised daytime schedules in the near future.

My sister-in-law, Sarah – who many readers got to know through my Epic Road Trip of Awesome series – recently described me (and this journey) as “intrepid”. I am resolute and dauntless about this trip, even though I have no idea how it’s all going to pan out. Never has it felt more true – or more freeing or more scary – at this moment.

So, I’ll be putting bookings on hold for the time being, just to wait and see how the stars align in the next few months.

But, hey, I’ve got some extra cash thanks to those refunds, and can start saving more. Maybe I should book those flights!

A Burger with a Side of Discrimination, Please

05 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in blindness

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Not long ago, I was visiting British Columbia, a province with a very well-publicized and shiny new Service Dogs Act. My trip was generally a positive one, until I attempted to enter one particular bar/restaurant that I had previously frequented. I’m not unfamiliar with being asked for ID to verify my age in such places, and even my (thankfully relatively) few access challenges with my guide dog have primarily been handled discretely and/or quickly. What I did not expect was to be demanded, loudly and publicly, for my guide dog’s paperwork… from across the bar. My dog was doing nothing inappropriate, was guiding me into the restaurant, her nails slightly struggling to gain purchase on the slippery floor. So… I was demanded – loudly and publicly – for paperwork that no one else in the restaurant was required to produce. Long story short, I realized that I didn’t have current ID with me (I had mistakenly packed an expired school-issued ID card), and I was asked to leave. When I told the employee she should consider discretion if she had to request paperwork from paying patrons, she acted so surprised that such a thing would be requested of her.
Without getting into the nitty-gritties, I contacted the BC government on this issue. They ended up responding to my complaint with an inaccessible PDF (one that was scanned as a picture, so no readable text for a screen reader), which said – basically – that since I didn’t have a piece of plastic (whether issued by the government or a guide/service dog program), a business was within their rights to refuse service. They did not address the humiliating and embarrassing experience of being demanded publicly for such information and then publicly being told to leave.
Where is the outrage outside of the service dog and/or blind community? Would anyone else be expected to accept this treatment?
Last week, a news story made the rounds about a teenager with a disability who was purposefully excluded from a relative’s wedding because of her disability. The support on sites like Reddit came in fast and furious, which is awesome… but it got me to thinking: Where is the support from the public when people with disabilities are turned down for jobs (whether stated or implied) because of their disability, forced to alter their academic pursuits or undergo additional testing, find it easier to obtain resources to assist in their death than aids to live life, are killed for simply being disabled?

There is open discrimination in the world – being told you won’t get a job because of your disability (yes, this happens). There is invisible discrimination where it’s implied by the subtext of a conversation or interaction that your presence, request, or concern is not wanted or valid (yes, this happens, too). There is violence against the disabled as can be evidenced by interactions with police, the murder in Japan last week, or by cultures who view disability as a curse on a family. While disability can have its own limitations (at this point, I won’t be driving a car anytime soon); but I believe that it’s not disability that holds us back as much as perceptions and demands of others. To some, not eating at that particular restaurant may be a “little thing”, and I suppose it’s true because we had other options. But what if we didn’t? Maybe that young girl loved her aunt and really wanted to be at her wedding for that special day, and she got slapped in the face because of a perception of what she could and couldn’t do. Judging by the amount of tense family gatherings I’ve witnessed and heard of, discrimination – even by a family member – is a pretty big deal. And how big a deal is open or invisible discrimination in the job hunt when it directly impacts one’s ability to make a living and contribute to a local, national or even global economy? And if we can’t access facilities like everyone else, attend family functions, obtain employment if we have the desired qualifications and skills, do we reach a tragic end because we just don’t belong? To quote a friend of mine, I’ve been gifted a double portion of stubborn. Maybe this will help me, maybe it will help others. It’s never “just about a restaurant” when you’re made to feel scrutinized for simply walking or rolling through the door. It’s never “just one day” when you get told that you, specifically, are not welcome at a celebration, but your whole family can come along now. It’s never “just one job” when you get told there’s no way you can do job tasks you’ve honed over years of practice and hard-won experience.

And it’s never “just one life” when you have to fight not only others’ perceptions, bureaucratic red tape, medical concerns, and discrimination… but yourself underneath it all. Sometimes being who we are is a radical act of defiance.

First They Denied Access…

09 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in blindness

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Earlier this week, my friend Meagan wrote a brilliant blog post about selective discrimination. If you haven’t read it yet, you should, because it’s important. I had full intentions of writing about a similar topic from another angle; thankfully she is gracious enough not to point out that SHE wrote about it first…

Over the past six months or so, since becoming more involved in the disability rights movement and meeting more people, I’ve come face-to-face with some of my own ideas about disability, access, and availability of information. People with a wide range of disabilities – those who are deaf or hard of hearing, who use wheelchairs, who are on the autism spectrum, who live with PTSD – have been far more patient than I deserve. I’ve had my own sense of privilege pointed out – just because I have access to something doesn’t mean that everyone does, and how dare I sit back and be content that I have access to facilities, employment, or information, when the fight for equality is far from over for everyone else? If you live with a disability, and even if you don’t, I hope you’ll consider the next few paragraphs carefully, make whatever necessary changes in yourself, and realize that it’s up to you and me to make things happen, even if it doesn’t directly benefit us.

Let’s start with a few examples. Several followers on twitter have recently opened up a huge discussion about a popular podcasting website that provides audio posts for their blind followers, but delays (if it publishes at all) the publication of transcripts so that deaf or deaf-blind followers can follow along. Many blind people are pushing for TV networks and video-on-demand services like Netflix to provide descriptive video, even as closed captioning has been part of TV networks for years now so that those who are deaf or hard of hearing can more fully enjoy movies and TV programming. In either example, many of those who have received access to the information or service are strangely silent on pushing for others with different accessibility needs to have that same access for themselves. What about physical access to buildings? Just because I have two strong feet and the ability to use them to propel myself forward, how dare I take for granted the ability to walk into any building I choose – a shop, a restaurant, a concert venue – and not even have to think twice about it? Many wheelchair users have to contact restaurants ahead of time to ensure there are ramps to the building, or make sure the seats they purchased for that blockbuster concert are truly accessible. Many are too gracious to point out that we all have our own struggles, but that’s hardly the point now, is it?

 

Among service dog users, the guide dog is the most commonly recognized. But many other service dogs exist. What gives guide dog users (myself included) the right to police what specific services another’s service dog provides so long as it mitigates a disability? How dare we sit smugly by when other legitimate service dog teams are denied access to public facilities just because we are the privileged and most recognizable? What gives other service dog users the right to tell guide dog handlers how much more training our dogs need than theirs? I’ve seen all of this and more… and it’s ugly. And I’m not even touching on the service dog fakers…

 

The blind community in and of itself is not exempt from such stances of privilege. There is an outspoken outrage when a guide dog user is denied access to a restaurant, movie theatre, or taxi. Yet, in moments of vulnerability and candor, some blind people who prefer to travel with canes acknowledge that there’s a teeny tiny part of themselves that is grateful that the battle for access isn’t directly related to them. Until this past week when two blind friends using canes were refused entry to a restaurant because the eating area was upstairs, modern instances of service denial to the blind traveling with canes are exceedingly rare. Several of my deaf-blind friends have had blind people question their dignity and right to access information, resources, and employment services. None of these things are right, and no one should ever indicate that discrimination in any form is OK… and yet…

 

I’m going to go out on a limb and borrow an oft-quoted and paraphrased poem by Martin Niemöller. Maybe this will help the disability community realize that we’re not so different after all, and denying access to some of us should be considered equally as horrible as doing so to all of us:

 

First they denied access to the service dog handler, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a service dog handler.

Then they denied access to buildings for the wheelchair user, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a wheelchair user.

Then they denied access to information for the deaf, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not deaf.

Then they denied access and accommodations for the autistic, and I did not speak out— Because I was not autistic.

 

Then they denied access and dignity to those with PTSD, and I did not speak out— Because I did not have PTSD.

 

Then they denied access to me—and there was no one left to speak for me.