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@meganL@mas.to cover
@meganL@mas.to avatar

meganL

@[email protected]

Disabled Masters student @ UC Davis. Speaker on Accessibility in Higher Ed/Cycling/Plant Science. Speaker on carob.

#Accessibility #Botany #Cycling #SciComm #NoBot #NoBridge

Most of my posts are not asking for advice so please don't offer it unsolicited. When I'm asking for advice, I usually ask quite explicitly.

Banner = 2 UC Access Now buttons, with a seal that's a parody of the University of California's. It says "Let There Be Access > ADA" Profile = HG Peters drawing of Wonder Woman

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

meganL , to blackmastodon
@meganL@mas.to avatar

"The Federation cook book; a collection of tested recipes, contributed by the colored women of the State of California" 1910

https://archive.org/details/federationcookbo00turniala @blackmastodon

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

U.S. Justice Department finds Alaska discriminates against disabled voters

https://www.adn.com/politics/2024/06/18/us-justice-department-finds-alaska-discriminates-against-disabled-voters/ @disability

meganL , to random
@meganL@mas.to avatar

"And the Band Played On is a 1993 American television film docudrama directed by Roger Spottiswoode. The teleplay by Arnold Schulman is based on the best-selling 1987 non-fiction book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts, and is noteworthy for featuring both a vast historical scope, as well as an exceptionally sprawling cast."

Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Ian McKellen, Richard Gere, Lily Tomlin, Swoosie Kurtz, Steve Martin, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38zYpzqdZg

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

I was looking up the scientists involved and apparently Dr. Don Francis (Director of CDC's AIDS Laboratory Activities) is dyslexic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Francis#Early_life_and_education

According to Wikipedia, it was his dyslexia that led him to science, as subjects where reading was a central focus were difficult for him. (UC Berkeley undergrad, UCLA Med Center residency).

@disability

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Francis

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

I don't know if two articles qualify as a "PR blitz" yet, but this is the 2nd article I've seen in 2 weeks interviewing disability cops in higher ed about "what disabled students need", which is actually about what abled-led institutions choose to require.

Abled-led institutions frame this as a need to distract from the fact that 34 yrs post-ADA, our institutions still corral disabled students rather than make higher ed as accessible as possible by default. https://laist.com/news/education/learning-disabilities-community-college-special-needs-students-accommodations @disability

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

It is likely not just a coincidence that these articles are coming out in June...not just because of freshmen students preparing for Fall, but because the 34th Anniversary of ADA is coming on July 26.

Abled-led news media fails us all by not talking to disabled advocates & activists about in Higher Ed. @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Disabled Members’ Council of the National Union of Journalists calls for to the general election campaign

“Journalists with lived experience of disability play a vital role in analysing and communicating manifesto pledges and countering the dehumanising rhetoric about disabled people that has become all too common recently.”

https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/nuj-disabled-members-council-calls-for-inclusivepressaccess-to-the-general-election-campaign.html @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Just a reminder that organized religions are full of such good people that they successfully lobbied to get themselves exempted from the Americans with Disabilities Act. So as hard as it is getting secular ableist workplaces to obey the law, religions got themselves an exemption.

Don't work for them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/disability/comments/1d48vd3/i_got_fired_today/ @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

I hate when media does inspiration porn stories in general, but particularly when:

  • They let a newly disabled person with tons of internalized ableism become "the voice of disabled people"

and

  • When that "success story" clearly came from access to therapeutic supports the average person doesn't have, yet now everyone who doesn't meet their standard of recovery "must not be trying hard enough". @disability
meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

@disability I mean, "I've always taken the approach of, ‘I don't want to let this limit me. I'm still going to just live life and push through any struggle that this might be.’ So I never really saw myself as ‘disabled,’ so to speak. It never crossed my mind that I could potentially classify for the Paralympics.”" is a dead giveaway as the internalized ableism.

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

🧵 Even before I formed @ucaccessnow, I persisted through campus channels trying to get them to acknowledge that cycle racks ALSO have to be accessible, not car parking spaces. After months of brick walls with UC and my union, I got a meeting with the head of UC Davis TAPS, who

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

proposed that instead of making all cycle racks accessible, I give them a list of my classes & they'd install accessible racks with "blue badges" at each bldg I had a class in.

I told them this was not a sensible solution. Not only would my classes likely be in different bldgs each quarter, making an inefficient use of funds & labor doing bespoke installations, but abled ppl (often NCAA athletes!) 2/?

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

with upright bikes these racks were ostensibly made for, prefer the end spaces and take them first. They prefer the end spaces because these racks aren't even good for the bikes they prioritized: narrow upright bikes for typical-sized adults.

The inaccessibility of the cycle infrastructure at UC Davis was only one of many ableisms here & I went on to form UC Access Now, release the Demandifesto, and

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

launch a form so coalition members & supporters throughout UC could pressure the Governor, the Board of Regents, and every UC chancellor to finally make the University of California accessible to the public that built it - including disabled ppl.

UC has stonewalled every step of the way. It has cherrypicked ideas from the Demandifesto and from our activism, implemented them without working with us

4/? @fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Worse, non-activist disability groups within UC are pulled in to give it the veneer of being UC just happens to be doing for the disabled community at UC and some folks within the disability community have been happy to take credit for UC Access Now's work and put UC's approval on their CV.

This is UC strategy. Ableist power does not want student-led activism to get credit or it will beget more.


5/?
@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Cherrypicking from our work, not working with us, burying our name & work, and giving credit to moderate disability groups who gladly take the "charity" of UC instead of demanding their rights keeps power in UC hands and makes it harder for radical anti-ableists within UC to find one another & take REAL inspiration, not inspiration porn.

Anyway, tonight I saw more of the same on campus increased cycle accessibility, rationed out as "special needs".

6/? @fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Rationing out the space is both ableist and car-centrist. It says that disabled people's needs are "special" and must be rationed & policed by the university's Disabled Students Center & Disability Management Services and UC Davis TAPS...not that UC has multiple legal and moral obligations to make things accessible by default.

It also says that space must be maximized for drivers -

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

not only untold square yds of dedicated single story auto parking space, but UC Davis driving employees parking on sidewalks blocking egress to & from bldgs simply because the abled drivers of air-conditioned vehicles want to park them in the shade of trees or don't want to walk 15 feet further to legal safe parking.

But the cycle parking must be packed in like sardines and inaccessible!!

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite @parkingreform

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

This is the 3rd installation of more accessible (but still not the equitable solution) cycle racks at UC Davis that I know of.

IT IS DUE to work I & later UC Access Now did.

UC Davis TAPS has never notified me when these are installed nor credited my work as the impetus. They would not have installed these without a lot of hard work (including the damage to my health) from me.

But keep fighting.

9/?

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

UC fights you, drags its feet, buries credit for the enormously hard work you put into fighting them and working for justice...

BUT KEEP FIGHTING

This is not the equitable solution they should have adopted, but I guarantee you they would never have installed this had I not spent years fighting them in every venue I could think of.

They bury credit because they don't want you to know fighting gets results!

Unbury that credit. 10/?

https://bikinginla.com/2020/07/28/enough-a-fight-for-handicap-access-and-inclusive-bicycling-at-uc-davis-and-the-university-of-california-system/

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Make sure to keep @ucaccessnow 's name & work alive. Unbury the credit.

Make sure people know that fighting back works better than staying passive and silent. University of California does not want you to know that.

Ableists do not want you to know that. Car-centrists do not want you to know that. 11/?

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

This is why I & @ucaccessnow want all cycle racks to be accessible designs, accessibly sited. Here we have a twofer - for-profit micromobility that was given carte blanche on campus & in town without offering accessible vehicles nor a just plan for dealing with bad actors...like the people who parked at the new rationed "oversized cycle parking only" racks.

12/? @fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

On the same trip, saw SPIN cycles dumped in the middle of the mixed-use path, parked at the end spots which are the only spots on these inaccessible racks where trikes, quads, and bakfiets can fit, and parked blocking egress from disabled auto spaces.

Don't ration accessibility; it's nearly guaranteed selfish people & corporations will take it. Build everything as accessible as possible.

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Another bad aspect to how micromobility is done when it's by for-profit corporations is that they act...like for-profit corporations.

Not only did they not provide accessible cycle choices, not only did they not provide their own rack infrastructure on their own dime, they're annexing our labor. They expect the ppl who have to deal with this dumped corporate property to email them about it rather than pro-actively dealing with the results of their bad plan.

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

meganL , to random
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Someone doesn't know how if statements are supposed to work.

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

At the bottom in small print, it says "The owner of this form has not provided a privacy statement as to how they will use your response data. Do not provide personal or sensitive information."

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

I just replied to the same email they sent the survey link to me with. The one thing I wanted to give them as feedback in response to their questions about why I hadn't kept my membership.

"What has kept me from renewing with all plant science professional orgs has been the lack of accessibility & inclusion for disabled people. The ageism towards older students is also not helpful or welcoming."

@academicchatter

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Again, I state:

Compare the speed with which businesses & institutions are adopting AI (despite its inaccuracy and lack of ethical provenance) to the footdragging that makes businesses & institutions inaccessible even 34 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law.

I don't want to hear a fucking word about accessibility being an "undue hardship" ever again.

@disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

"(Stella) Young coined the term “inspiration porn” to describe how describing disabled people as 'inspirational' can be objectifying."

https://19thnews.org/2024/05/jennifer-wexton-speech-congress-voice-app-disability-conversation/ @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Wow. This is abled fragility at its finest.

"Presentation on disability council gets legislators riled up against presenter"

https://archive.is/CDiY5 @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Does anyone know of disabled reviewers who've written or recorded reviews of "Sitting Pretty" by Rebekah Taussig? @disability

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

@disability Ah! Found one. https://therumpus.net/2020/12/02/sitting-pretty-by-rebekah-taussig/

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

I took a ride later today than usual. At least part of it was in the dark. I wish I'd known we were this close to the Coffee Center on campus opening. I'd love to have brought some UC Access Now labels to helpfully point out the ways this new building's infrastructure is still inaccessible. @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Showering in my van as a wheelchair user + public shower horror stories | VANLIFE |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmEhpVhvoGc @disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition (Pasadena, California) wants to let folks who live/work/go to school/shop in Pasadena know about their recommendations for the Short Range Transit Plan. https://www.pasadenacsc.org/blog/our-recommendations-for-the-2024-short-range-transit-plan

Please boost esp to help disabled people and/or folks interested in sustainable transport find out about these meetings. @disability

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Read the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition recommendations. They're very thoughtful.

https://www.pasadenacsc.org/blog/our-recommendations-for-the-2024-short-range-transit-plan

@disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Are there places in the Fediverse where folks who are longtime disabled (i.e. having done some of the work of dismantling their internalized ableism) who are into pan-disability activism are hanging out exchanging ideas and tactics?

Most of what I see is discussion within silos of one's own disability group (ME, blindness, autism, etc.) and or COVID discussion [all of which is great, but I'm looking for more pan-disability stuff to supplement]

@disability

meganL , to disability
@meganL@mas.to avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzrvVFdK38 @disability

meganL , to disabilityjustice
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Question (with set-up) for disabled folks only:

My disability thought has been molded by the late, great DIsability Twitter. I didn't have time aside from grad school reading to read up on disability history and analysis. What are the best books/articles to read to introduce someone to disability history, ableism, and internalized ableism? Something not too dry or academic. I'm trying to make a recommendation to a newly disabled person with lots of I. A.

@disability @disabilityjustice

meganL OP ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

@schomj @disability @disabilityjustice My impression of that is that it was geared more towards abled folks - in this case it's someone who's disabled, diagnosed within a couple years, experiencing ableism, but also internalized ableism. So I'm hoping to find something that helps with explaining what ableism is, that it's systemic, that it's possible to be disabled and still be ableist (or experience internalized ableism)....

meganL , to blackmastodon
@meganL@mas.to avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JB-Nf-x1zM @blackmastodon

ascentale , to random
@ascentale@sfba.social avatar

@WelshAdventurer asks about cycles that may help somebody with a mobility disability get exercise and get around:

Q6. My partner is disabled and can’t walk far due to problems with her foot and back. She is getting frustrated with not being able to exercise and get out of the house. She is looking at getting an electric bike. Does anyone have experience of them? Particularly of using them with a mobility disability? We are in the UK.

meganL ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

@ascentale @WelshAdventurer A6. I'm a disabled cyclist who has ridden 3 different cycles with e-assist. The first two were bikes I already owned that I added e-assist to and the cargo quadricycle came with it.

I would very much recommend them to someone with a mobility disability as they not only extend the range you can go, but as long as you make sure your battery is charged when you embark on a ride, you feel more secure that you can get home safely even if you're completely knackered.

meganL ,
@meganL@mas.to avatar

@ascentale @WelshAdventurer Disabled cyclists in the UK should definitely hook up with Wheels for Wellbeing, a kind of group I wish we had in the US. https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/

Basically, I cannot recommend e-cycles enough. But not all mobility disabilities are the same so if you have specific questions, I can try to answer. @bikenite @disability

meganL , to blackmastodon
@meganL@mas.to avatar

Posting good links I find while searching for something else... https://southernstudies.olemiss.edu/study-the-south/how-to-eat-to-live/ @blackmastodon

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