Ally, Advocate, and Support – Ideas, perspectives, tips, and tools to help differentiate when to, and when not to speak up on behalf of people living with or experiencing disability.
Understanding & Empathizing with the Disability Experience
“Nondisabled Americans do not understand disabled ones.” This opening sentence from Joseph P. Shapiro’s book, No Pity – People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement, pretty much sums up the experience many people living with disability express.
“They just don’t understand,” is something I often hear from people living with disability.
In truth, each of us will only know what happens to ourselves. We may witness what other people experience, either through direct observation, or indirectly through storytelling. Either way, we bring our own biases and personal point of view. The challenges many people living with disability face on a daily basis are not something non-disabled individuals experience. We are all unique, so are the challenges we face.
Significant progress has been made in terms of accessibility and opportunities for people living with disability. In the United States, the passage of the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 1975, and culminating in the passage of the American’s with Disabilities Act in 1990, all play significant roles in advancing the rights of disabled Americans. Many people living with disability can remember when discrimination against people with disabilities was legal and common.
Well intentioned, non-disabled people often are unsure what they can do to ally with the disability community. I experience this quite often when engaging in advocacy work with groups and people who are non-disabled. “What can I do?” is something I am often asked. Unfortunately, there is no single, “silver bullet” type solution.
The Importance of Letting People with Disabilities Take the Lead
What I usually advise people who are sincere in their desire to be an ally, is to step aside and let people with disabilities take the lead. What that means is not to tell people with disabilities what they need, let the people who live with disability express what their needs are, and then support them in helping to obtain it. I cannot know what it is like to be hard of hearing or deaf because I have not lived it. Just as someone who has not experienced severe low vision or blindness can fully understand it. Let the people who have firsthand experience take the lead.
Being an ally or an advocate requires empathy and compassion. Pity, sympathy, and patronizations are not what people living with disabilities need. True allyship means voicing the needs and concerns of people with disabilities when they are not in the room. It’s speaking up and saying something when witnessing discrimination or something improper. But first and foremost, it is letting people with disabilities voice their needs first and foremost.
The Role of Parents, Friends, & Family in Advocacy
Parents of children with disabilities play a significant role in making the world more accessible and ensuring opportunities exist for their children. They can do this by knowing what protections and rights are protected and ensure their children have equal access to education and the resources needed. Parents of children with disability can teach how to effectively advocate by being a good example.
Friends and family of people with disabilities are important allies as well. This is especially true for adults living with disability. Voicing your needs to friends and family can be a challenge. Striking a balance between voicing genuine frustrations at a world that is not built for people with disabilities, and expressing needs is not easy. It is sometimes why people living with disabilities can sometimes only feel heard by other people with disability. This is one reason expressions of empathy and compassion, not pity, are so important.
What I want is a more accessible world. To be able to navigate my neighborhood without the constant worry of some obstacle in the sidewalk blocking my path. Sometimes it’s bigger things, like wanting to know my disability will not lead to discrimination in employment. What isn’t helpful is for a non-disabled person to advise to go a different route, or to say that the ADA protects me against discrimination.
People living with disabilities want the same thing non-disabled people want. Access, equal opportunities, and to be able to freely live our lives as independently as possible. What we need are allies that understand this and work with us, not for us, to help achieve these reasonable objectives.
By: Ken Meeker CPC, ADAC
About The Author
Ken Meeker CPC is the owner of Vitality Career Coaching LLC, a boutique leadership coaching company. His work includes creating inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible opportunities for employment through consulting and training workshops.
He is Inclusive Behaviors Inventory Certified, a Certified ADA Coordinator, graduate of the AFB Blind Leaders Program. Ken is a recognized leader for disability and blind/low vision advocacy as the recipient of the 2023 AFB Llura Gund Leadership Award. Additionally, Ken is enrolled in the 2023 NCDA Leadership Academy. He has been a featured speaker in numerous seminars, summits, a featured guest on multiple podcasts, and is the creator and host of the “Dissing My Ability’ Podcast. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/kenmeekeraz, kenmeekeraz@gmail.com or visit https://vitalitycareercoaching.com
Connecting With Bold Blind Beauty
Like what you’ve read and want to chat about it? Join us in the Bold Blind Beauty Facebook group.
Image Descriptions:
- The header contains a small group of diverse protesters with fists raised in the air and one with a bullhorn. Text overlay says: “Ally, Advocate & Support | Ideas, perspectives, tips & tools.”
- Human rights disability equality scale comparison.
- Man with a prosthetic leg free mountain climbing.
- Two women, one with limb difference, are working together at a table.
- Author photo: A professional waist shot of Ken a white man with arms folded across his chest. He has short dark hair and eyeglasses.