Changing Disability Culture: Liberty and justice for all

Lynne Wichmann

Happy birthday to the ADA. Twenty years ago, the American with Disabilities Act became law. This law guarantees social, professional, personal access and equity for people living with disabilities. This major civil rights legislation promotes a core value of the U.S. Constitution and a universal desire. Liberty and justice.

Liberty and justice. A basic tenet of democracy and a universal desire. Liberty and justice suggest equity, opportunity, and inclusion for all people. They promote human dignity, civil rights, and independence, and exemplify the ability of people to live and work in the settings they choose and create self-defined avenues for professional excellence and personal empowerment. During these 20 years, we have experienced positive change and powerful advances around disability culture. We celebrate those advancements. And we have, still, much work to do.

Too often cultural oppression and social regression create the transgression of limited choice, unfair treatment, and absence of opportunity. Inequity and exclusion exist. Unemployment and underemployment of people living with disabilities is well above the national norm. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 18.6 million people living with disabilities employed aged 16-64, 60.1% of men and 51.4% of women are employed. This is due, in part, to a skill deficit and a difficult job market. This is also a consequence of negative stereotypes from employers, from cultural norms, and from self-imposed limitations. As a result, poverty, despair, and a cascade of related barriers are evident. Ironically, studies also report a lower-than-average turnover rate and an average or higher-than-average level of performance from employees living with disabilities.

Ironic, too, is the fact that direct care workers experience similar barriers to excellence and empowerment, though the workload burden is converse. Direct care professionals often work in excess of 40 hours weekly and often have more than one employer in an effort to earn a wage that provides for the barest of necessities. Overtime pay is not mandated; health care and benefits are not common. Again, cultural oppression and social regression create the transgression of limited choice, unfair treatment, and absence of opportunity. Inequity and exclusion exist.

Deeply embedded social and cultural fears of difference toward people living with disabilities, and the foes of indifference for direct care workers, are unacceptable, unethical, and – in some cases – illegal. We have common goals, you and I. There is strength in our diversity, solidarity in our distinctiveness, and strategy in our shared direction. Unity promotes liberty and justice, and liberty and justice require thoughtful, thorough action.

We have the right and the responsibility to create change and to build capacity. Together we must demonstrate an uncompromised stand against separation, we must assertively advance human rights, we must insist on inclusive communities. Together, we will embrace our individual and our collective call to action. We will seize opportunities to provide leadership, to influence public policy issues, to increase visibility, to create advocacy with personal contact and through public policy forums.