When I say “Equity” You Think…?

Accessibility and equity are intrinsically connected.

Equity = because we started a different places, and have different needs, we need (and deserve) access to resources that fit who we are & where we came from. This is particularly true when our starting point was negatively impacted as a result of oppression…

Equality = everyone receives the same thing, irrelevant of differences…

Let me be clear - Different is not bad or good. Different is different.

Joanna Shoffner Scott, Ph.D says, “Racial equity results when you cannot predict an outcome by race. It is quantifiable and measurable.”

This is an incredibly apt way of tangibly defining the term equity. So when you consider equity across issues/people/capacities - various ethnicities, neuordiversity, mental health realities, and so on and so forth - can we predict an outcome by the differences in representation? If we are truly working towards being more equitable, how can we be intentional about the spaces, programs, and futures we are creating?

Equity is about race.

Equity is also about all the ways in which society has traditionally “normalized” a very select group. At some point, white, straight, able-bodied, English speaking, Christian, slim/lean, right-handed, non-glasses wearing, trauma suppressed, (usually) men became the standard. Society was then built around this idea.

To deviate (by deviate I simply mean to be born not this), meant that your life in this world would be more challenging. For some, significantly more than others.

Accessibility: when a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally integrated and equally effective manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use.” -The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education

Let us also remember that disabilities are BOTH visible & invisible. Whether of not you can see someone’s disability is completely irrelevant - seeing a disability does not make someone experience more or less valid (though invisible disabilities often carry more privilege & their own struggles - more on this later).

One of my main hopes for the future is for the definition of accessibility to expand beyond the traditional view of wheelchair ramps & automatic doors. I am in no way minimizing wheelchair ramps & automatic doors - which frankly should be a norm. (Deviation - ramps are universal. Why do we use stairs? Maybe an architect can get back to me here.)

I am saying that when all we consider are these (what should be) basics, we are missing out on the reality of - ALL the other people.

The fact of the matter is, without access there is no equity. Without equity, we will never be truly accessible. Yet we continue to isolate these conversations.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing (or ranting?) about the intersection of equity & accessibility, and hope it will prompt you to think about it too…