(In) Accessibility: Commentary on Disability Rights

Image by Fortune.com Now that we have been through five democratic debates, I have decided to update my previous 2020 disability rights election guide .  If you haven't read that yet, I have it linked.  Like last time, there will be a few candidates that will be excluded from this post as they have since dropped out of the race:  Beto O'Rourke, Bill De Blasio, Kristen Gillibrand, Mike Gravel, John Hickenlooper, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Joe Sestak, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, Wayne Messam, Steve Bullock, Mark Sanford, and Eric Swalwell.  For the most part, the candidates' positions on health care will be excluded from this post as I focused almost exclusively on that subject throughout the last guide, and many candidates have not changed their position.  That being said, I will mention healthcare when talking about the newer candidates that have entered the race recently. First, I am going to cover the Republican candidates.  As of December, there are three in the race.

Image owned by 30seconds.com I really debated about publishing this.  I wrote this as a way to process a really awful situation that I found myself in,  when a close friend recommended that I do so.  Many disability bloggers before me have talked about this topic and have even covered some of these themselves as some are really common, and thus, this will not be an exhaustive list of inappropriate comments. There are many more and this post could easily be almost an entire book in itself. For the purpose of this particular piece I will only be focusing on sharing some of the comments that I have received as a wheelchair user; however, I will be doing another piece at a later date that encompasses comments that people with any and all disabilities receive.  Therefore, if you are reading this and are comfortable sharing with me, feel free to direct message me if you are interested in contributing. Without further ado, here are some comments that I have received fairly recently-n

It's been a while since my last post.  Being in college takes up the majority of my time these days.  However, I realized that I cannot take long breaks without writing a post here.  This blog has really been therapeutic for me, and last week, it really hit me that I needed to bring these posts back to deal with my stress. I am currently in my Junior year at Penn State.  Things have been going well.  This summer, I participated in three track meets, including Junior Nationals.  At Nationals this last year, I got first in one event and second in the other two!  My former coach has since retired and the search for a new one was daunting, to say the least.  But after a few months of hearing nothing, we finally gained a new coach!  So far, he's great!  Right now we are focusing on building the team and dealing with logistics as we have four new members interested in joining.  Meets will start after the new year. Some of you already know this, but I have also decided to co

This is very similar to the bus that I was on I am posting this immediately after the ACLU trip blog, because I feel that it was too emotional to have in that one, but my story needs to be put out there.  I want to preface this by saying that this is just my experience with one company and I will be naming the company, so that people can decide for themselves if they want to give it business, and I do not mean any sort of ill-intent with this post. Throughout the week in Washington, D.C., the program that I was a part of used a company to take us places called DC Trails.  Prior to this particular incident, I had had issues on DC Trails with wheelchair ramps not working in the past, on an earlier trip with the ACLU.  Each day, the drivers would load me on and off, and strap me in so I wouldn't roll around.  Each bus had two Close Up leaders on board, and each time we would get off, my leader would wait for me. On this particular day, we were going to the Capitol Building a

This is a photo that I took, shortly after landing in D.C. From Sunday, July 28th to Friday, August 2nd, I traveled to Washington, D.C.  I was there as part of a weeklong program hosted by the  ACLU  and  Close Up Foundation  called the 2019 Advocacy Institute.  In short, this institute was directed towards college students who are interested in advocacy and law careers.  We learned many things about advocacy, lobbying, and even got a chance to network with other rights organizations in order to jumpstart our respective careers.  This post will give you a taste of what we were doing each day, as well as things that I learned.  Also, in lieu of explaining the activists and organizations that I met with and learned from throughout the week, I will be linking websites for your reference if you want to learn more, otherwise, this post would be way too long. Now onto the Advocacy Institute from last week. Sunday, July 28th:   The first day of the program was not nearly as packed fu

Image Courtesy of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Photo of Rep. Jimmy Anderson This was not the original post that I was planning to write this week.  I was going to talk about my recent trip to Washington, D.C.;  why I was there, what I did, etc.  However, when I first heard about this situation on Tuesday, I knew I had to comment on it.  You can expect to see a post about Washington, D.C. sometime between today and next Saturday. Most of this post will talk about an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel .  So let's get into it. Jimmy Anderson is a representative in the Wisconsin State Assembly for the 47th district.  He became a wheelchair user in 2010 when he was in a car accident that killed his parents and brother, which left him paralyzed from the chest down.  He was elected to the Assembly in 2016 as a Democrat, assuming office in 2017.  Robin Vos is a representative and current Speaker of the Assembly who represents the 63rd district, which includes my hometown

Image Owned by Netflix Disclaimer:  This post reflects my personal beliefs and opinions, and by no means reflects the show's intentions or others' opinions. There are major spoilers ahead, so if you have not watched the second episode of season four of Queer Eye, watch that first, then come back to this post. Queer Eye is a Netflix Original television show that premiered in 2018.  It is a reboot of an original of the same name that premiered in 2003.  The original followed five LGBT men (Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, and Jai Rodriguez).  The reboot follows Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, Antoni Porowski, and Jonathan Van Ness (fondly referred to as the Fab Five).  Each person has their own expertise and purpose on the show (fashion, culture, interior decoration, food and drink, and hair and skincare, respectively) as they provide physical and mental makeovers to men and women, from different backgrounds and sexual orientations.  The reb

Image Owned by Goodwill You may or may not have heard about the recent uproar that Goodwill has been facing.  If you haven't, then this is the post to read.  Goodwill is a non-profit organization through which people can donate clothing, accessories, housewares, etc. Once you donate such items, they will either be resold to customers or recycled.  The profits then go to benefit certain groups of people, including people with disabilities.  The money is supposed to fund job training and other programs to benefit this particular group (goodwill.org). In order to best explain the controversy, I must first explain a bit about subminimum wage in the United States. Recently, Goodwill came under fire for paying their employees with disabilities something called subminimum wage.  Subminimum wage is any wage provided by employers that is less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).  According to the Department of Labor's website, this is perfectly legal, stating that "Sect

Image Courtesy of JAMA Forum As a disabled voter, one of the issues that I have always cared about is disability rights.   For several election cycles, this issue was not very present.  This year, however, it seems to be an ever increasing big ticket item.  This post is going to be a comprehensive guide on every candidate in the race as of the beginning of July, and their viewpoints on Disability Rights.  My hope for this post is to inform those who also consider disability rights close to their hearts, who may not be aware that some 2020 candidates have plans in place to improve this rights issue. Because it is the shortest list of only two candidates, I am going to start with the Republican party. Donald Trump :  Donald Trump is the current president of the United States.  He is running for re-election in 2020.  A lot can be said about his presidency, however, this post will only focus on how he currently feels about disability rights issues.  According to www.issues2000.

I do not own this image!  Credit goes to Emory University It is no secret that I have a disability.  You may have noticed, I write a blog about having a disability.  However, what you may not know is that the disability that I have is called Spina Bifida.  Don't worry, I am not going to bore you with all of the crazy, complicated medical terminologies that come along with that.  No, instead, I am going to link a website, so that you may read about the disability in-depth if you so choose: Information about Spina Bifida Before delving into the content of this post, however, allow me to provide some basic information about Spina Bifida.  This by no means will be in detail, which again, you can find at the link above.  This disability occurs when parts of the spinal cord are protruding from the back.  It can also cause a condition called hydrocephalus, which literally translates to fluid on the brain.  Both of these are fixed with surgeries in the first few months of life.  M