I could discuss this for ever. I won't here (there's a lot of this in my blog already), but I could.
Having said that, here I go anyway, LOL: I think a large part of the problem is the ADA itself. Or, if not the law, then the way we talk about it, the way we view it.
The ADA is set of instructions on how not to get sued. Which makes it about them, and not about us. The ADA is about access, which is an attempt to mitigate flaws in space design, it is not about people. And yet, we call the ADA a civil rights law.
The problem with calling a law dealing with issues of access a civil rights law is that it then encapsulates our idea of what civil right are for Disabled people. It makes access equal to rights. Civil rights are about our place in society, and not so much about our use of spaces (although that is a part of it, it's just not the whole thing). While we are rightly and justly fighting for access, we HAVE to remember that implicit within the word "access" itself is the idea that those who need access to something (a society, for example) are already starting from a place outside of it. My contention is that I am ALREADY a member of this community, this society, and the fact that they haven't recognized so far is the problem. I should never need to even consider needing to plan access to something I am already a part of.
I think the ADA is wonderful, but it's not an answer. The ADA attempts to make it possible to reach a minimum standard so that we may then put the issue of access behind us finally and move on to the REAL work of changing the underlying paradigms that caused the need to legislate common decency and sense in the first place.
My Soap Box Has a Ramp.
Having said that, here I go anyway, LOL: I think a large part of the problem is the ADA itself. Or, if not the law, then the way we talk about it, the way we view it.
The ADA is set of instructions on how not to get sued. Which makes it about them, and not about us. The ADA is about access, which is an attempt to mitigate flaws in space design, it is not about people. And yet, we call the ADA a civil rights law.
The problem with calling a law dealing with issues of access a civil rights law is that it then encapsulates our idea of what civil right are for Disabled people. It makes access equal to rights. Civil rights are about our place in society, and not so much about our use of spaces (although that is a part of it, it's just not the whole thing). While we are rightly and justly fighting for access, we HAVE to remember that implicit within the word "access" itself is the idea that those who need access to something (a society, for example) are already starting from a place outside of it. My contention is that I am ALREADY a member of this community, this society, and the fact that they haven't recognized so far is the problem. I should never need to even consider needing to plan access to something I am already a part of.
I think the ADA is wonderful, but it's not an answer. The ADA attempts to make it possible to reach a minimum standard so that we may then put the issue of access behind us finally and move on to the REAL work of changing the underlying paradigms that caused the need to legislate common decency and sense in the first place.