Accessibility Is Not "A Nice Thing To Do"
A few years ago I
was in New York City with my mom and my sister and we were going to see the
ballet. I had just come back from my first Society For Disability Studies
conference and I was growing to be more aware of how the world perceived me as
a disabled person. As we were going to our seats, a lady in front of me turned
to me and said, "you know they have to take out two regular seats for one
accessible seat, it is such a nice thing for them to do. Something about that
conversation made me uncomfortable in the moment, and it is stuck with me all
of these years, but I could not quite put my finger on it until after the
recent blizzard.
Trying to get
around DC after the blizzard has been quite difficult as a wheelchair user
because even though most of the sidewalks are now shoveled, many of the curb
cuts are still covered. When I hear conversations around making sure the curb
cuts are free of snow, I often hear people encouraging others to shovel the
curb cuts because it is a nice thing to do. That is true I guess, it is a nice
thing to do, and I am eternally grateful for everyone who has ever shoveled a
curb cut and made my day a little easier, but there is another side to that
reality and it is something really important to talk about.
The truth is, accessibility
is not "a nice thing to do". Accessibility is a necessity. Even more
than that accessibility is a right. When we frame access and accessibility as
"a nice thing to do" it becomes an act of charity, and even an
afterthought. When we talk about accessibility as an act of kindness or a
nicety we eliminate its absolute necessity. It is absolutely nice for a
stranger to shovel a curb cut to help somebody out, but the actual act of
having a clear curb cut to use is so much more than a nice thing, it is an
absolute requirement for many disabled people to go about living their daily
lives. Without shoveled curb cuts I would not be able to get to work. Without
shoveled curb cuts I would not even be able to leave my apartment
complex.
Having an
accessible shower in a hotel room or an accessible bathroom in a public place
is not merely a nice bonus, it is the very thing that allows me to live my life
with the same dignity that everyone else naturally expects. Doorways that are
wide enough for my wheelchair to go through, elevators, and ramps are not nice
conveniences that make everyday life a little easier, not for me.
For me, they go so
far beyond that. They are the reason that I am able to exist in the world
outside of my home. They allow me to be a fuller part of our society, so in
that sense of course I am grateful for them, but I do not think of them as nice
things because I know the truth. I know that ramps, accessible bathrooms,
accessible buses, curb cuts, and many more things people today often take for
granted do not exist because of niceness.
Accessibility is
not kindness, and access is not charity. These things were hard-fought and won
by activists and advocates who chained themselves to buses and crawled up the
steps of the Capitol building. Access is not niceness, and it is not a gift, it
is a war with countless battles whose victory is still incomplete. Public
transportation is still not fully accessible. Accessible taxis are a dream
still left unrealized in most of the world. Accessible housing is difficult if
not impossible to find. There are still many buildings, even in this great
nation's capital that I cannot access as a disabled person. When we think of
accessibility as "a nice thing to do”, we ignore the reality of life for many
disabled people.
We do not think of
general snow removal, access to public transportation, or access to public
restrooms as nice things to have or nice things to do, we expect them. We do
not think of the ability to access sidewalks or enter buildings as a courtesy
or privilege, they are a right. Why
should that be any different for disabled people? My disability does not stop
me from having the as right to move about freely in the world. When we think of
access as nothing more than a nice thing to do we not only forget how much it
affects the daily lives of so many people, but we also degrade the value of
those lives.
Disabled people
have as much right to access the world as non-disabled people, and making sure
that this is possible should never be considered charity, or simply a nice
thing to do, it should be a priority. When it comes to blizzards , removing
snow from curb cuts should not be left to concerned citizens, or nothing more
than an after thought.