88. Disability Allyship with Jennifer Sarrett
Summary
In the marathon that is allyship, disability awareness can feel like miles added on mid-race. But there’s no finish line for allies - only growth. Anti-ableism expert Jennifer Sarrett, PhD., joins Erica and India in challenging the conventions that keep disability advocacy on the outskirts of DEI discussion and provides helpful tools for advancing the cause.
The discussion includes:
Definitions of common terms
A look at the disabled community
Practicing vs perfecting allyship
Ally vs co-conspirator
After The Episode
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Episode Notes
Meet Jennifer Sarrett
The path to better allyship crosses many intersections. Popular DEI conversations have failed to fully address discrimination beyond what’s easily identifiable as black and white. Jennifer Sarrett, PhD joins Erica and India to discuss disability awareness and allyship.
Jennifer’s work aims to broaden the reach of DEI practices to include people of different physical and cognitive abilities. Although not disabled herself, she came to this area of study because she felt uncomfortable with standards used to educate disabled students (specifically, autistic children).
Rather than focusing on the science of disability, she focuses on its culture, exploring topics like disability rights, history, and policy. At the core of her anti-ableism work is a series of simple asks:
consider ways of existing in the world that are unfamiliar to you
actively address your biases and confront stereotypes
apply whatever privilege you have (whenever and wherever appropriate) to support those with less
make mistakes, humbly accept correction and keep growing
Allies will immediately recognize the list from their ongoing practice. Anti-ableism awareness isn’t a supplement to “regular” DEI work; it is the work.
20% of the American population identifies as disabled, making them the country’s largest minority group. Within that group is a diverse range of differences and needs. Some sensory, physical, and intellectual disabilities are plainly identifiable. Others, such as chronic or mental health diagnoses, are often dismissed where policy is concerned because their effects are not visible. “So, you need to kind of be aware of access needs regardless of whether you're certain that there is somebody disabled in the room,” Jennifer says.
Words To Ally By
Erica and India often refer to DEI as practice, not perfection. Jennifer agrees.“It is a constant process of learning, and everybody is on a journey.”
Learning the language of disability advocacy deepens awareness and helps allies replace I know it when I see it with confidence. Jennifer provides a few starter terms to frame the conversation:
Disability acceptance - Awareness is a step toward the bigger goal of acceptance. “We're aware that there are people with disabilities,” Jennifer says. “Then what?” Disabled individuals want autonomy and a universal honoring of their needs. “It's acceptance and integration and inclusion.”
Ableism - Upholding the preference for non-disabled individuals, and discriminating against those who don’t conform to that standard.
Paternalism - Acting on behalf of somebody else in their best interest without the authority to do so. “It comes from this idea of being a parent. Obviously, we parent children,” Jennifer says. Paternalism further removes freedoms and inhibits choice.
Infantilism - Treating an individual as less than a fully human adult, dismissing their experiences and opinions. As Jennifer points out, “It's diminishing, and a lot of people with disabilities experience this.”
Language is powerful. Jennifer recommends swapping deficit-heavy words for terms that support difference. She does acknowledge that words alone aren’t enough to tackle long-term issues surrounding ableism. Normalizing the vocabulary of diversity to include disabled individuals does help.
Rewriting Familiar Tropes
“A lot of the time, disability-related stuff is seen as one more thing, but it really is interconnected with all of the other social identity work,” Jennifer says. She can’t discuss that intersectionality without also acknowledging points where disability rights advocates have failed disabled BIPOC.
“I think one of the most interesting overlaps between disability and other social identities that are disempowered and disenfranchised is, historically and contemporarily, we use disability labels to denigrate other groups.”
Transgressions against people with disabilities—from paternalistic government policies to everyday infantilization—are often overlaid with the American bootstrap myth. Belief in a system that holds disabled people down while also uplifting them is a tired trope, and a dangerous perspective born of privilege.
Given that 20% of the population’s normal includes living with a disability, their concerns are closer to the mainstream than current able-bodied policies let on. That makes it easier for allies to integrate disability advocacy into the work they’re already doing. “Being an anti-ableist is like being an anti-racist,” says Jennifer. “Just being, actively seeking out ableism in our community, recognizing it, calling it out, and then taking steps to alleviate it.” Easy, right? Well…
Practice, Not Perfection
Jennifer concedes that correcting generations of ableist policy and design presents some unique challenges. Competing needs create perpetually imperfect environments. The push-pull between someone with vision challenges requiring additional light sharing space with an individual who’s hyper-sensitivity to light is debilitating is a real-life obstacle with no easy solution.
Jennifer steers allies away from perfection. “It’s an ongoing idiosyncratic process, and it is aspirational,” a mantra she credits to Rosemary Garland Thompson, a pioneer of disability studies.
Erica and India agree that best practices already used to support BIPOC seamlessly apply to anti-ableism work. For example, when allies decenter themselves from both the situation and the outcome, greater agency is afforded to those best equipped to address ableism: the disabled themselves.
Sometimes, even the desires of the most accomplished ally override their DEI education. Erica sees this playing out in situations related to personal space, where a non-disabled person may rush to the aid of someone in a wheelchair when not expressly asked to do so. “You have taken their autonomy and decided that you have access to their form whenever you see fit, and they're supposed to be okay [with that].”
For allies navigating new situations, the simplest solution is best: When in doubt, ask. “It’s not for you to fix,” Erica says, “but you also don’t want to just be like, oh well, this doesn’t apply to me today so…”
From Ally To Co-Conspirator
DEI principles “stick” when participants educate themselves. Disabled individuals are not teachers to the masses. “I'm always learning and improving and growing in my allyship,” Jennifer says.
Resources are everywhere. She urges allies to seek reputable information, investigate new concepts like universal design, and consider areas in their own environments where access is and isn’t.
In spaces where DEI decisions take place but issues of anti-ableism go unaddressed, speak up! Jennifer echoes Dr. Bettina Love’s call to action, a shift from passive, often performative allyship to co-conspirator. Leverage privilege in ways that empowers people who don’t have the same access; leverage it without striving for recognition.
Then, keep growing. “Sometimes it is the smallest actions that lead to the biggest results,” India says, “If you just take one at a time and one at a time and one at a time--and keep building on it.”
Guest Bio & Contact
Jennifer Sarret, PhD, has 12 years experience in higher education teaching and training about concepts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and is bringing this expertise to the private sector. In addition to focusing on the foundational concepts behind discrimination, privilege, and inequity, she and her subject area experts also specialize in specific areas of DE&I, such as disability and anti-ableism.
www.disruptiveinclusion.com
Quoted
Jennifer Sarrett
“Most accommodations and access needs are not that complicated.”
“I recommend taking the attitude that we take towards anti-racism and all of the other work: be humble. Be open to feedback and suggestions on how to improve. Recognize your own biases, recognize your own limitations, and be excited to continue to learn about disability, anti-ableism, and access needs.”
“When we think about intersectionality, and how our various unique social identities lead to experiences of oppression and power and privilege, thinking about disability and able-bodiedness is central to that, or should be included as one of those intersecting identities.”
“If you don't have a visible disability, one that somebody can read on your body as you enter the room, then you have the right to disclose your disability when that feels most comfortable and right for you.”
“We learn about disability, mental illness, all of this stuff, mainly through the media and the media gets it wrong a lot of the time.”
ERICA COURDAE
“I think being able to see that like, well, this is a need and this is a need but how can you address it without feeling like you're taking from one thing to fix another?”
“This is very much the spirit of what we talk about when we mentioned imperfect allyship because it is about action.”
INDIA JACKSON
“I feel like I’m hearing quantifying and qualifying things based on what you disclose as well, which just feels really unfair.”
“One of the things I also hear coming up from my perspective is stereotypes and labels that we are attaching to people who are disclosing of certain things.”