Transcript - IL Among Generations


hello
hi this is a sign language interpreter
for this
uh session hi my name is john
hello john i'm sarah ann in the tech
for today for this session okay hello
hello is it joan and cindy
hi i'm sid now i'm going to be your room
moderator awesome
i have i'm going to turn my video off
but i am going to be here the whole time
monitoring chat and listening to you
morning andrew good morning
[Music]
um
it looks like we actually have about 15
minutes before the session starts
is that right with everybody all right
so we have 15 minutes we can go away and
go do something
i mean if you would like to sure
just come back please
[Laughter]
catch up on so i'm just gonna shrink
this and i'll be back
all right do you think 15 minutes um
it's supposed to start at 1 15.
well my time okay so
thank you
joan isn't on yet is she i don't see her
no i haven't seen jen okay
for some reason her name is showing up
in my screen but i'm not exactly sure
why i saw that you don't look like joan
no i didn't you could rename yourself
if you click the uh three dots on the
top right i believe of your screen um
there should be an option to rename
yep thank you no problem
there we go i've regained my identity
you look better as a david thank you
it just kind of fits i remember years
ago i had my identity stolen
you know credit card identity stolen
oh my gosh why anybody would want to be
me
hey guys this is uh peter pike can you
hear me
yes hi peter hey just uh
we're trying to manage some
technical difficulties here so
uh-oh uh we're able to
see everybody and hear everybody but you
guys are
unable to see us and hear us and i
i logged in under my own uh
link that i received and i think david
you might have
logged in using jones that's why jones
name
came up and i don't know if that would
be a conflict or
if we all need to have
it i don't know i just
clicked i mean the email that i got that
gave me the instructions on how to join
i just
clicked on that so that's how i joined
don't worry david it's not something you
did wrong it's uh it's just a technical
thing that's happened in zoom for me
several times
either as like a panelist or that you
get like a proper invite that would have
given you your own name
so it was a zoom error not yours okay i
changed my name there so but yes thank
you
you're looking good thanks david so what
do you recommend to the folks in the
zoom room how to connect can we use the
link
that joan received yes
um that would make everyone's name be
heard but that shouldn't cause any other
technical problems
so you need to hold on okay so this is
brian with disabled resource services
um let me just turn video on real quick
so
we're in a zoom room and we can't click
the link through the zoom room
we can only enter the meeting id number
but it's not prompting us for our
passcode to enter as a panelist
okay so i don't know why it's not
prompting you but if i knew
that you have entered as an attendee but
we're a panelist i can just promote you
okay so let me log in with the panel and
then that
one that enters is gonna be us if you
raise your hand
then i'll know that that's you okay i'll
do
so you're kind of like in the waiting
room or something
probably
[Music]
i'm sure you'll fix it there's a little
bit of echo so you're probably logged in
twice
okay i think the conference room might
be trying to talk to us but we didn't
actually hear anything
can you hear us we we were talking
amongst ourselves can you hear us now
we can perfect perfect the camera's not
the same way it was
because we were closer patricia's going
to be able to see us
at least this one so we're just doing a
video check we want to make sure
that the people are close enough in the
zoom room
to ensure you need to
see people's faces that you can do that
look at the camera
that would be ideal in case anyone's
using uh
yes and you don't have everybody in that
one
and they work who was all set that's the
presetting we had
so unless the tables have moved then the
camera's not changed
but we are much closer
it's just because the picture is smaller
so we look smaller
patricia can you see us okay yeah
you're far away you you're pretty far
away i don't
i don't see your face
the table is close or is there a way to
zoom us in so i'm gonna
think we're gonna no pun intended
[Music]
zoom in so to speak if if we try and
change our camera settings now we're
going to
go into the panel time but leo is going
to be out of the panel
i just want to mention your box is extra
small right now because we have six
people's cameras on
but once you get started two cameras are
going to be removed
four so your box will get bigger okay
okay
can somebody say that again yes i can't
fix the camera's zoom
but the box itself that's showing the
picture it's going to get bigger at 11
15.
because people like uh the room monitor
she's her box will go away
and so yours will get bigger
and you know we have captioning so it's
not going to be such
a request but
i can't find them easily
and we're all to turn off our cameras
unless we're talking right
yes you can just tell it we're trying to
find
in you so joan
um do you want to do questions and
answers
as we go or do you want to wait till the
end
so how we planned this one that's why we
did a run through with sierra so i
thought
maybe you would had heard this but so i
know you're going to
introduce the session and it's gonna
then you're gonna
kind of segue it to me and then you
disappeared
we disappeared i did camera changes here
what's that back to what you were saying
you're the voice cut out it just stopped
with audio okay so you're gonna
introduce the session as i understand it
and then send it over to me i'm gonna
give a really brief overview of what
we're hoping to accomplish
okay and then peter is going to
introduce the panelists and then
um we're going to go into the four
questions
and then at the end of the whole
questions there's four questions
that's when we're going to open it up to
participants to
say their own generation and answer any
of the questions they wanted
of the four questions so
and that's how we're gonna go and then
you'll give the five minute warning and
we'll go into the five minute warning
and then let you take over all righty
well i show that we've got five minutes
until the session starts
and we're going to have a great day and
join us too
[Music]
did you find it because i have a backup
plan
oh there's all this stuff about food
food
we're very close passwords
oh oh okay okay
we got a german shepherd here in this
room
hey mary that's
okay right of an outline a presentation
[Music]
april copper's presentation
you couldn't think of this again i was
thinking
perfect
we focus more on the food here then no i
can't
find anything except food
oh here they are i just sent them yeah
what's the date
of the email that you got i got it
september 30th
yeah he just sent him to you peter
i know but i've also learned that
sometimes it takes an
email a long time
titled sort of an outline of
presentation
perfect got it
do you see where the camera is so that's
where you have to be in front of it
that top part not the little where the
green button is
there you go but i don't know yeah oh
wait is this the camera or this
how does that look two fingers
that's a signal one of them
don't be
they're not impressed so leah you didn't
get to participate in the practice last
week
but you'll have 90 seconds for your
response to any question
what's that okay the interpreter is
interpreting him
and it's good practice is that bad
there's i've already talked to him
we're prepared
andrew how are you doing get a 22nd
morning andrew are you doing good
i i'm doing good i'm ready
feeling all right are you ready for the
panel
uh hopefully hopefully
hopefully i don't stumble i got my notes
and i got my bio and i got
basically all i need the answers to the
questions
yeah you're looking sharp man you're
looking sharp and confident to me
it's just shut i found myself kind of
not confident on the inside
i'm holding i tried to play the part but
i
i'm hoping i please the audience oh
you're going to do great it's pretty
casual you got a lot of support over
here
and across the nation we're all pretty
good about that
hey andrew we're all faking it so no
worries
sorry two minutes until the session
starts
don't mean
didn't you see what they were doing
before some of the debates yes
he was like before the debate they
started early or something
and they had him like he was doing
and he was doing different exercises i
don't think you guys
i'm glad he didn't see that well 80
people here nice
andrew um
yeah proud of you andrew for doing this
i know it's just kind of stepping out of
your comfort zone from your
normal job and this is what it's all
about so it's good
that you're stepping up i i don't really
have a
a normal job as of now because of
coverage but
i but yeah i guess this is a
little bit outside of my comfort zone
so let's hope it all goes good and i
don't
you know i don't faint on camera
that's not that's not cute but you'll do
great
we're live we want might want to stop
yeah
all righty so we are going to go ahead
and
kick this off um i've got a few things
to say and a little bit of housekeeping
i want to say welcome to everybody my
name is cydna madden
i am currently the treasurer for april
serving on the april board and i'm going
to be your facilitator for today
thank you for joining us for the il
among the generations workshop
i want to mention a few housekeeping
items before we get started today
first when you scroll over the screen a
menu bar will pop
up and depending on what device you are
on you can find that menu bar either at
the top of your screen or it'll appear
at the bottom of your screen
but this is where you're going to find
the closed captioning for today's
session
you can view the captioning by selecting
the cc tab on that menu bar
for sign language interpreting you can
find the interpreter on the main screen
if you do not see the interpreter make
sure that you are in gallery view
that will allow you to see more than one
person at a time
to join into the chat please find the
word bubble on that same menu bar again
either at the top or the bottom of your
screen
once that is selected it will allow you
to follow along with the chat or you can
add your own comments
for question and answer times please
note the question and answer boxes on
the menu bar
please only submit your questions there
as they will get lost in chat
to ask a question or make a comment you
can also select the hand
option on the menu that allows us to
know that you have a question
and for those of you on the phone today
we ask that you press star
9 on your keypad to raise your hand then
you'll be unmuted to talk
and remember if you join into the
conversation please keep all background
noise down as much as possible that will
allow us to hear you clearly
so at this time i am going to turn it
over to my longtime friend joan labelle
hi everyone thank you for joining us
we're very excited about this particular
session we think it's
going to be a lot of fun to really see
the kind of get a visual
of the ielts history through the ages
and through the generations
so i'm just going to take a quick moment
to introduce the panelists
we have our baby boomers and i'll have
you guys wave and you can say
where you're from um david
is one of our baby boomers david you
want to stay where you're from
good morning uh i'm in minneapolis
minnesota
and the other baby boomer is patricia
patricia you want to say hello and
say where you're from good morning good
afternoon depending on where you are
i'm patricia yeager and i'm in colorado
springs colorado at the
i'm the ceo of the independence center
and then we have our gen xers first one
is ian
hi ian engel from here in the mountains
of colorado northwest colorado
and again i'm joan and i am executive
director of disabled resource services
in fort collins and the room we're in
right now is called our zoom room in our
loveland office
then we have our millenniums we have leo
hi everybody i'm leo i'm from summit
county and evan
hello i'm evan and i'm from fort collins
colorado
and representing the whole entire gen
y is andrew z
sorry no andrew connect corrected us
before
so he'll correct us again
i'm um i'm from steamout spain's
colorado
okay i am currently filming in my own
lives
in my own little zoom room nice
nice and so i'm going to turn it over to
peter he can
say hi um he is as they said in the
program
the voice he's not on screen he's just
going to be
our host he's in asking us questions
peter hi everybody this is uh
peter pike i work for the office of
independent living here in colorado
and thank you all for joining
independent living
through the generations we're very
excited to have this panel of
generations
from generation z gen z
all the way up through the boomers so
thank you for participating
prior to us uh getting started here i
just wanted to remind
folks that we had a meeting last week
and you all agreed to the rules
and how to respond to each of these
questions
you'll have 90 seconds
and we will cut you off after 90 seconds
so we're looking forward to hearing
uh what you have to say and sharing your
experiences
so we do have four questions
we're going to pose to the panelists
today
and we're going to start with the first
question
and so i'm going to read it and then i'm
going to call on the generation
to respond to the question the first
question is
what were the significant independent
living accomplishments in your
generation and we're going to go ahead
and start with the boomers and david i
would appreciate it if you would start
us off
thank you peter i would say that some of
the significant
accomplishments included
deinstitutionalization
certainly the rise of the self-advocacy
movement with
organizations like people first the
civil rights movement
ed roberts introduced himself to the
university of california berkeley and
that
started a whole new journey for him as
well so those are the highlights that
come to my mind
i hope that was within 90 seconds
very good thank you david next we're
going to go to patricia
patricia you're muted yeah there we go i
think the most important um
thing that happened in that in during
the
boomers in the early days was the
signing and the
implementation of the rules for section
504 of the rehabilitation act
that really laid the groundwork for
everything that came forward
i was a new disabled student services
coordinator in pittsburgh
and um and we didn't see anybody with a
disability
until that that section was signed and
people started to attend and be out on
the streets for that matter so that to
me is the most
critical thing that happened in the
early
early boomer years
excellent thank you patricia we're going
to go next to our
generation xers and
we're going to go to joan i think we
should work as a team
i think of course some of the earliest
recollections
for that generation i think is the
a lot of the senator independent living
were being born across the country
and so it wasn't just suddenly people
with disabilities on the street
we had a lot of great leaders that were
out there
paving the way for us and i think
centers for independent living is what
really comes to mind for me is some of
the greatest things that
started i would i we talked about this
in our preparation that a lot of these
um accomplishments
are shared across the generations and
that's part of the continuity
that independent living uh and the
consistency
across generations that we wanted this
this whole panel discussion
to capture so i'm going to go ahead and
mention the ada because it was signed
when i was right in the middle of my
activity and as well as that um
the signing of the ada prior to that uh
we had a lot of work with the gang of 19
here in denver
chaining themselves to buses and
shutting down
the regional transportation department
for a day
and there's a monument to the gang of 19
which for those who don't know was
uh 19 of the folks at wave blank helped
escape from nursing homes
that most of whom had power chairs
chained themselves to the full-size
buses right in front of this denver
state capitol to this day there's a
monument on this
state capitol lawn to that also the
olmstead decision
was huge and again this is something we
share that it means different things
across the different generations
the olmstead the signing of the supreme
court rule
uh upholding the most integrated setting
mandate of title ii of the ada that says
we all have a right to live in our own
home
um if it's if it doesn't
cost more which we've proven over and
over again
and then i would say uh to build on the
deinstitutionalization that was
mentioned by
my my boomer forbearers
uh the deinstitutionalization um and
during
during my time in michigan
a bunch of people were let loose from
the intermediate care facilities for the
mentally and the mental
institutions and
in the nursing homes and there wasn't
enough groundwork laid for home and
community-based services long-term
services and support so long
a lot of people ended up in uh homeless
shelters jails
and on the street and i'm getting the
time so
excellent thank you ian thank you
exercise
next we're going to hear from the
millennials and we'll get started we'll
have uh evan kick us off and then we'll
go to leo
uh so uh thinking about some of the
biggest independent living
accomplishments in my generation
um tagging off of what ian had said
about a continent
continuity and it kind of transitioning
through all of the generations
is the signing of the ada in the early
90s
and also more recently and along that
certain time
was the implementation of the youth
leadership forum
that has started to sweep the nation and
just about every state has one of those
so i would say that was uh so two of the
biggest ones that uh stood out
in my mind excellent leo
uh the biggest one that stands out for
me would be the capitol car
i saw a whole bunch of people in
wheelchairs
walkers everything crawling up some
stairs and
personally having to do that before it's
very
nice to know that somebody before me has
done that so that
i could still do it
excellent thanks leo next we're gonna go
to
gen z i think andrew that means you
okay so again
um what i found
i may not understand this question but
some of
the significant independent living and
compliment
uh confirmation accomplishments
so i can't talk today in my generation
uh allowing this disabled people
to be in general education classes the
start
of well stars which gives kids and
adults
the ability to enjoy activities such as
cycling skiing and even
wakeboarding which i've done all of them
um
and the start of the nwcci organization
that helps
people with disabilities find jobs and
housing
and helps them begin the steps towards
being completely independent
i did not pay him to say that
andrew that was terrific we appreciate
your response to the question
and we're gonna move on to our second
question
and we're not gonna go in the same order
we're gonna start with
gen z andrew and here's the question
what who are the independent
leaders of your generation
and you know you can share your favorite
if you want
um sure in my
generation um one of my favorites
independent living labels that i look up
to the most
is mr craig kennedy um
mary kennedy was the um
was the ex-director of stars which is
the steamboat adaptive recreational
sports program
who a few years ago
i i don't know exactly when i want to
say like 10 or 15 years ago
um he heard his dark skin he went skiing
and he and i guess he hit the ground too
hard and he
focused fine so
and i've looked up and i've looked up to
him because
he he honestly helped me
kind of he honestly at the very
beginning when i first walked into stars
he helped me
um like get on my feet and
make kind of make me feel important like
i had a voice in a
disabled community
excellent thank you for sharing andrew
next we're going to go
come back to the millennials and we're
going to go ahead and start with leo
this time
do you want me to repeat the question
yes please
so the question are who are the
independent
living leaders of your generation and if
you want to share your favorite
we'd love to hear it so i'm not so
well aware of the leaders from my
generation
but at least for my favorite
organization would
have to be boec which stands for
breckenridge outdoor education center
and those guys help everybody get back
out to whatever they love
hiking biking sports whatever it is
they got the tools to help you as long
as you're willing to go
excellent thank you leo evan you want to
go
yeah uh so uh my leader
um kind of tags off a little bit of what
andrew had said and
a little bit with leo has mentioned but
uh mine comes from
the youth independent living specialist
who um
taught me um everything i know i would
say or at least
um you know re let me rediscover that i
had empowerment inside of me to change
and everything like that so i would say
that it would have to be the youth
specialist at my local center she was
just a couple of years older than me and
it made a big impact on me
i second that because she was my leader
as well
excellent that's great thank you so next
we're going to go to the
exers and we're going to go ahead and
get started with uh
ian leaders uh of our generation so
one of my favorites is wade blank um
i just like his style presbyterian
minister that marched with martin luther
king
got a job working as the youth
coordinator on nursing home
thought this is not right started taking
the kids out to the parks and
and the playgrounds started taking the
adults out to the
bars and the strips clubs got fired
started getting people out into their
own homes
um but the true leaders of my generation
and what really sticks with me
were your people who were stuck in the
nursing homes who were those soldiers at
those adapt actions i remember a guy
named ray jalamar
i remember a woman named sherry ferris
first time ever coming out of a
institution where they
looked at it so helpless and pitiful and
now they were the vanguard of freedom
driving through the bigotry of low
expectations and
and a part of this powerful movement for
change and it was those
folks with the big 700 pound power
chairs
that were the most powerful part of the
movement
so it was really kind of those unsung
heroes for me that stick out the most
thanks ian joan um i'm gonna
take mine from uh back in michigan there
was a gentleman by the name of dusty
hogue
ian knows and most people in michigan in
the disability rights movement knew
dusty and he was
he would describe his life before
disability thought it was going to be
the end of the world
once he got his disability but turned
into one of the greatest advocates
was part of the group that led many of
the movements
in michigan in terms of he was always
out front
and always doing things and so he is
probably one of my big leaders that i
really looked up to
thanks joan next we're going to go to
the boomer generation
patricia you want to start us off
let me get myself together here for me
the
i think it's judy heumann um she as a
woman
and as a leader you know marching in the
streets of manhattan and all of the
things that she did
i think she was truly um
a leader and a role model for all of us
following behind her i want to mention
one other person who's one of my
favorite
this is a shout out to california that's
paul longmore
paul longmore burned his book in front
of social security because they
he was a professor at sandy san
francisco state i believe yeah san
francisco state
and he wrote a book a history book and
social security
threatened to take his social security
away because of the um
the royalties or whatever but he staged
the conf
a press conference in front of social
security
and burned his book and he wrote a book
about that and and he really started i
think the whole movement
around being able to work and being on
benefits
and and bringing that together and what
a great story burning your book in front
of social security
so those are the kinds of personalities
i think we had in the
back in those days that were so so much
fun and laid the groundwork for all of
us
excellent thank you for patricia and uh
david
um i think that probably the leaders
that i think of most readily
in my generation the most obvious being
ed roberts
if it wasn't for ed um he gave me my
introduction to independent living
and you know i had the pleasure of
working with ed for several years
directly and
he became a mentor and a friend and he
taught me
one very very important thing and that
is that disability can make you very
powerful
and you know he lived by that credo and
i can't imagine an instance
where anyone had the audacity to attempt
to make a decision
for ed he was very much uh in control of
his life and made his decisions and
lived
those decisions as well um so he had a
major major influence on me again i he
introduced me to independent living he
encouraged me to join the board of
directors
of my first center for independent
living and where i eventually became
executive director for almost 18 years
so he had a huge influence on me and i
think on the movement as a whole
i think there are other folks like
patrick worth and nancy ward who's
you know worked with people first uh had
a significant
parallel uh contribution to independent
living
as did many of the leaders in the parent
movement they didn't care
that you know used their experience as
parents to encourage their sons and
daughters with disabilities
to be more independent and to to make
those kind of choices and live those
kind of lives
you know folks like gunnar jibwad and
betty pendler and dolores norley
and folks like that but i think the most
influential for me
and my favorite from that era if i
should dare to pick a favorite would be
ed
he just had an incredible influence
excellent thank you david you know it
really is
it really is fascinating to hear the
leaders of each generation
and thank you all for taking the time to
share that
that was great so we're going to move on
with the third question
and the third question asks
describe accessibility
in your generation
and this time we're going to go back to
the boomers
and i'm going to go ahead and ask uh
david if you wouldn't mind to kick us
off on the accessibility question
sure thank you very much peter um in
terms of accessibility i think i got to
go back to ed
because you know ed gets the credit for
the first curb cut in the united states
uh being installed near his home in in
oakland
in berkeley california so we give him
credit for the first curb cut and that
you know obviously doesn't sound like
much but that's a huge
element of accessibility so i i've got
to go back to him
on that one we uh we also with
in the result of the
de-institutionalization movement in the
late 60s and through the 70s
you know we also saw the creation of a
lot of community-based services that did
not previously exist
to support those individuals who are
coming out of institutional and nursing
home type settings
so i that kind of that created a lot of
access to community life
and support services that really enabled
individuals with disabilities to more
fully realize
a complete participation or at least a
fuller participation
in the their communities so
accessibility
was in its early stages i think and i
think one of the things that we learned
in the de-institutionalization movement
also
was that one of the biggest barriers to
accessibility was not the physical
barriers it was the attitudinal barriers
and we really really had to begin to
fight and
spend a lot of time addressing those
attitudinal barriers
um that pity that too many people with
disabilities had to endure
and i think that was a big part of the
challenge to accessibility in my
generation
excellent thank you david next
uh patricia you know
building i i would have to agree that
the curb cuts are the way
that started when we had curb cuts and
doors that we could get out of
and buses that we could get on and get
across town
we started leaving our homes and going
out into the community
which then forced people to start
getting to know us
as real people and not as these scary
people that you know
it might be contagious and you'd look
different
you're sound different they had to get
used to it so
when i started my career in 1979
there were no curb cuts in pittsburgh or
anywhere that i knew of
we didn't see people in wheelchairs in
college
at the unit at the
community college we didn't see deaf
people we didn't see blind people
we might see a paraplegic we sure didn't
see a quad
and um and it was just it was imp i mean
we didn't see anybody and it was a
matter of
getting those curb cuts and getting
those buses accessible
and fighting for building codes that
mandated that buildings be built
accessibly because once we could get out
when you build it they will come and i
tell you the next generations are going
to talk about
how they came out of that out into the
world
and made a difference so that's what i
see
great thank you for patricia and uh
next we're going to go to the generation
next
and i'm gonna ask the question one more
time
and the question is disrupt describe
accessibility uh
in your generation so joan
go ahead so it's it's interesting even
to listen to some of the answers of the
question
especially with andrew and the
recreation because that's
one of my i acquired my disability back
when i was age 5 as a very active
one to four year old and then my disease
started happening
and thinking back to my neighborhood the
kids just kind of rallied
around you as a natural kind of conduit
there wasn't
carb cuts so they'd have to help me take
that one step if i didn't if they didn't
help me i'd be down on the ground
and so from there even to the point of
you know i remember in first grade
playing in the back and you know we
played red rover the young
generation might not know what red rover
is but we played that
and half the fun if you know what it is
is you link arms and you call someone
over from the other team
and they pull you across well the kids
would just drop
their hands so that i could still play
both ways they naturally
figured out how to do that the kicker
came in
as an adult saw it and freaked out and
joan never played in the playground
again because they were afraid of
falling they're afraid of the
vulnerability
they're afraid of everything like that
but the kids
knew what to do and the accessibility
sorry david access i'm saying it wrong
the way that um they they um viewed us
was very different than now where
i know that ian does bellyacking which
you know is terrifying if you think
about going down rapids on a bellyache
but
it's involved in that kind of respect
that we actually
want kids to participate in recreation
whereas back
when i was growing up that really wasn't
the case they wanted to protect us
thanks joan ian peter peter before you
jump over
to uh ian i've been asked to interrupt
just briefly
to let you know that the um folks that
are managing this session
are aware that some uh viewers are
having some technical problems and
they wanted us to acknowledge that
they're aware that there are technical
problems
and that they are in fact working on it
so pardon my interruption
and ian thank you yeah thank you david
uh i would like to build on
accessibility in our gener in
in our our generation my generation
um building on this thing going from the
physical accessibility
you know curb cuts being sort of the
example
there was some um there was some
inadvertent consequences where
there's like this hierarchy that was
created right so patricia mentioned
you might see a paraplegic out once in a
while we're talking about getting out
new sports and stuff and uh
david mentioned people first i'm glad he
brings that up because
for me it's it is those attitudinal
barriers that really started to show
their ugly face as
um the barriers to access to life
liberty and the pursuit of happiness for
people with disabilities
within my generation and that was my big
aha
through the moment or through the
movement so things like
learned helplessness um the right to
fail
and disability pride why try to fit in
when we were
made to stand out right um
these concepts of if you find yourself
sitting at a table with a bunch of
clinical professionals talking about
your friend
and the third person right in front of
them you might want to let them know
that's rude
and let's practice some common courtesy
here and let's respect our each other's
humanity
so accessibility and that disability
pride thing
um is really kind of what accessibility
started to look like as i went through
the movement with my generation
thank you ian great points excellent so
next we're going to go to the
millennials and by the way when i look
in the chat there's a lot of millennials
out there rooting for you so it's good
to see how you're resonating with the
audience
so we'll go to evan
and let me know if you want me to repeat
the question or if you're good to go
no i'm fine to go so uh when i think
about uh
accessibility or accessibility
um in my generation um
it does uh as you've seen the theme it
plays off of what you've heard from
the two previous generations is that um
we took
all of the work that they did
and uh now it is almost to a mandatory
type of situation where we um things
have to be accessible
and restaurants you see that more no
more that there is accessibility and if
not
they have some sort of portable ramp
that they can bring in
and to get the person in and make it
accessible
so i just think that the um level at
which all of that has been taken
and how adamant we are about getting
that accessibility has just
grown even more in our generation
thanks evan leo i think
accessibility has grown in our
generation by
leaps and bounds my wheelchair can go
somewhere so many places that other
people's wheelchairs wouldn't be able to
my prosthetic leg is a thousand times
better than somebody
back in their day so ours is going by
leaps and bounds
thank you leo good point and then of
course we want to
hear from generation z andrew are you
ready for this question
um yeah this question it was a little
difficult
for me so i hope i don't get like i hope
i don't get blasted on the internet for
this but
for answers for my answer to this
question
um accessibility for me
the problems that my generation have
towards
accessibility might be the same as the
other generations but
we have improved on those problems
regarding accessibility and acceptance
in the disabled community because like
um evan i think said
about the ramps and being in restaurants
i mean we do have those but
i mean i go to restaurants all the time
and i see
they're all rants but they're usually in
the back of the restaurant
so i mean yes it is mandatory but
it's not much like
it's like good helping with our
community but
in the same in the same sense they're
like going
going back to like where being
disabled was illegal and not allowed in
society so it's kind of like
in the middle
good point andrew thanks very much for
that perspective
cripples the backdoor
so we're gonna go ahead to question
number four
and uh i i will make the note that uh
in the chat people were commenting about
technology
as part of accessibility accessibility
so thanks for that comment and feedback
so question number four and i'm gonna
start again
with uh generation z andrew
question four is describe how
people with disabilities
are described in your generation
so andrew you want to start us off um
sure i'll i'll start off no no problem
people in my generation view disabled
people as
just people not people with mental
problems being out like down syndrome or
autism
or people with physical problems such as
cerebral palsy
just sweet lovable people
um and today most people
look for the passion in a disabled
person not for the problems in a
disabled person i mean we do still have
people um calling the disabled sea wood
and broad daylight but
you know we're making progress and
people looking for
passion and not problems right now
thank you andrew you're welcome we're
going to move on to the millennial
generation peter you have more andrew
um nope i'm i'm all good
um okay nice job all good we're talking
right now
so andrew just so you know there are
people in chat
that are echoing what you say and
appreciate
your point of view so thank you for that
andrew and so
next uh we're gonna go to generation y
i know people are like what generation y
that's the millennials right you guys
get two names
exactly that's pretty awesome so
who wants to go i'll go all right
so i would consider my generation to be
lucky and i would assume that most of
other generations would consider us
lucky as well like i said and some of
you even you said
we got great technology that helps us
out if it weren't for my wheelchair
i wouldn't be here i wouldn't be able to
push myself around just like ian does
you know the room for my prosthetic i
wouldn't be able to get
up from my chair or anything and
transfer as easily as i could
so i consider us very lucky and still
pushing to keep on fighting
excellent thank you leo evan yeah so i
definitely agree that we
are um definitely lucky in the
generation that we grew up
in um to have all the work um to from
the previous generations before us
um but i feel also that because we
have dealt with all of the you know um
aspects that come with being disabled
that we
are also just as progressive and trying
to
create change and keep it going and keep
the disability pride alive and
everything like that
so i think of our progressiveness and
some people may mention that we're a
little stubborn but i think that
stubbornness brings change as well
excellent thank you evan and i know some
folks are
uh writing in comments and questions and
we're going to get to questions in a
little bit but we want to
complete the discussion with the panel
and then we'll
hopefully have some time for some
questions from the audience
and so next is generation x and i'm
gonna ask ian
to go ahead and respond to this question
uh how people with disabilities are
described in generation
x now peter was saying we're like the
lost generation
so i think we have a bit of a chip on
our shoulder because we're like hey here
we are
i feel like in some ways we're kind of
in a part part of it is just through
this discussion
has really helped me realize at least
for my own part in my journey
a bit of an aha a generation
um where you know we came i
i came into think into it thinking it
was all about curb cuts and physical
accessibility
and i'm coming out the other end
learning a lot about attitudinal
barriers
and disability pride so um
yeah i'm going to call it the aha
generation
thanks sam joan well i think when i
think in terms of how we were described
it it had kind of a uh we're still
on the cusp of being that you know being
that paternalistic kind of thing taking
care of
putting you know pet hairs pat them on
the hide um handicap was the new
word that was supposed to be the up and
coming word
from what it was before so that's kind
of what i
recall then but you know i didn't get a
lot of that when i was growing
more so in college ironically and when i
was growing up
i didn't get a lot of that in rural
america but
it was more so when you go to college
all of a sudden you realize
how you're actually described and how
you're talk
like you're not even in the room and
when you're in the room
so those are a lot of the things that
started happening
when we talked about nothing about us
without us there was a lot of
that in our generation because we
started refusing to be talked about
when we're right there in front of them
and not
um be relegated to the back anymore
thanks joan next we're gonna go to the
boomer generation
uh david do you want to respond first
sure thank you peter um i want to go
back to andrew for a moment as well
because i really
want to applaud um his response about
uh passion not problems i that's a
wonderful
little catch phrase there andrew and i i
appreciate the attitude behind it i
think it's fantastic
and i think a lot of that what
we saw in my generation was not
particularly great
i think originally there was a lot of
disparagement in terms of addressing or
describing people with disabilities
i think there was uh it was pretty
dismissive in context
and it was meant to create separation
and it was very successful at creating
that separation
so a lot of work had to be done not just
in the il movement
but certainly in the self-advocacy
movement and in promoting
concepts like person-centeredness you
know we think about marcia force and
jack pearporn
pierpoint and miss snow and the work
that they did
in promoting that person-centered
approach
and it not only began to allow us to
address some of those attitudinal
barriers that ian and i have talked
about but it also allowed us to start
addressing some of the language
issues and how we discuss people with
disabilities
how we interact with people with
disabilities
how we describe individuals with
disabilities in a
in a more respectful and people first
fashion and so i think you know
it i think my generation was was
experienced something very pivotal in
that
in the mid to late 50s
you know as we began to move into the
destitutionalization movement in the 60s
it began to change our language it began
to begin to change how we described
people with disabilities because as ian
noted
we were seeing people with disabilities
differently
than we had seen them before in
locations
where we were not typical to seeing them
so i think there were a lot of
things that really contributed to those
descriptors
thank you david next we're going to go
to patricia
well i think the medical model was in
full bloom um
in the 60s 70s and 80s we um
called the handicap handicap spots um
handicap was a big word
the r word was prevalent no one thought
twice about
um using that that language
and and it was all about those people
those
people you know x y z those people
um and i can remember clearly when
somebody and i i do not know where it
started
said well the people first movement said
people we need to start saying people
then the disability you know people who
are hearing impaired people who are deaf
people who are
wheelchair users but how important it
was
and what a habit it was to break from
the disabled the handicapped
to people who live with disabilities
um it was quite a quite a change
in um in our behavior and we had to do
it first
all of us in the independent living
movement in the disability movement
we had to do this change ourself first
before we could get other people to do
it and i
i remember that was quite an effort and
worth it
very much worth it thank you patricia
and there are a number of folks in chat
that are
resonating with what you said including
comments about
jokes and things like that so
thank you thank you for that we do have
a question i wanted to get to in uh
that somebody posed and i don't know i'm
gonna
ask the for help
i'll read the question and i'm not sure
how they can respond but they said can i
comment on this question
how people view disabled people
so when you respond or comment we want
to know what generation you represent
and we'd love to
hear you uh hear your comment
is there a way to uh on new people
to unmute the the participants so they
can participate at this time for the
next for the remainder of the
workshop there absolutely is this is
sarah ann
so if a participant wants to be unmuted
they would have to raise their hand
and i can unmute them each individually
can you see who wrote the question
all right while we're waiting for that
to unfold i
do see that people in chat
talked about having to teach their
friends in fifth grade
not to say things person first makes a
big
and so i want to just pause here for a
moment to see if the person who
asked to make the comment is able to do
that now
and i'm not sure who made the comment
but we do have two people who are
raising their hands
and i needed the first one who is it
adriana
ariana ariana yep can you hear me okay
yes you can all right so hi my name is
ariana
i represent generation z and i kind of
wanted to respond on this so
i'm partially blind and partially deaf
and like although
people are mostly accepting about um
disabilities i do kind of
run into blind jokes sometimes and like
sometimes i also um
i i'm nervous
um thanks
but i mean for the most part i do agree
with andrew that like
people are really accepting and they
don't use like
the r word anymore or other nasty
comments like that but there still are
jokes that come around
thank you thank you ariana yeah andrew
needs a little support with you jen
sears he's the only one on the panel
trying to pull that whole generation so
thanks ariana peter this is cydna
i hate to interrupt peter this is sydney
there are two questions over in the q
and a not the chat but the q
a if you want to address those
yeah so one of the questions is from
marilyn
and she asks can the panel talk about
how the media contributed
to these stereotyped ways of describing
people with disabilities so i'm
i'm just gonna because i haven't done
this i'm gonna ask
for to start off with uh
generation x do you guys want to comment
to that question
just give him a time frame yeah so we're
gonna as we agreed upon
prior to this
to respond 30 seconds the media likes
things sensational
um so if you can cast people with
disabilities is pitiful and helpless and
sorry and needy
and uh and then it and then you i don't
know if anybody knows about billy
golfers when billy broke his head
and the do-gooder syndrome and then the
next thing you know you got people
helping folks because it makes me feel
good because i can help the poor
disabled or the immigrants or the
elderly or whatever and it separates us
from our own humanity in this really
ugly and twisted way so i feel like the
media doesn't
always do that and we've had and we've
had some good media coverage
there's solid media coverage in the past
so i don't want to cast it all as one or
all as the other
there is a danger there's a pitfall when
you get into that sensational area
where it starts to separate us from our
own humanity and play on that us and
them thing that's that's terrible
right thanks so
uh do the millennials want to respond to
that comment
but as a team sure so
yeah so i just lost the question
media how is the media play into the
stereotypes and stuff
i mean i feel like the media at least
for us is
kind of doing a good job but not really
i mean
for them to me the media just wants bad
news
they don't want to cover the good news
reason why i don't really watch the news
is because everything is always bad
but like ian said there is there is that
media where
they do show us at our highest and how
we continue to grow
by still using the technology that
somebody made up for some
reason and now we're using it to get our
word across
so in a way it is good but in a way it
is bad because then
they do describe us in a certain way
when we could be
describing ourselves as a different way
great thanks leo i'd like to just add on
to that the fact
generation seeing the implementation of
the internet
has really made it very hard
to discern what is true and what is not
and i think that is one of the hardest
things that our generation
has to deal with is making sure you do
your own research
and uh just uh not believing the first
thing that comes out there because there
is so much out there that it is hard to
understand what is right and wrong great
thanks
evan andrew did you want to respond to
the question about the media and how it
portrays
people with disabilities um
sure i mean i i mean
the media sometimes does portray people
with disabilities
as um people who
are not mentally or physically well
and i'm i'm not exactly
i'm i'm having trouble kind of
understanding the question i'm not
for people you know bashing the disabled
communities
but i am here for that
i am here for the praise regarding
people like saying
that you know disability people are the
best when i see
memes on like instagram saying that you
know
and calling people just because
they don't understand a question i'm
sorry i just said that um
you said it in context i
wa um i'm sorry i just said the artwork
there
um it's all right you're in safe space
andrew
it's just when people say that in like a
meme on instagram it just
makes me really upset because i'm like
i don't i don't call people like that at
all so so i may not have understood the
question but
that's my piece one and i hope i don't
get i hope i don't become a meme on
instagram
now your passion comes through andrew
thank you thank you andrew that was
great and then i want to
just pose the question to david and
patricia if one of you want to respond
to your views on the media
that would be great well you know i
thank you peter i
i would start by saying that the media
like a lot of other professions
you know requires a constant tutorial
from us
um we're not well represented
people with disabilities are not well
represented in the media
so they have a very difficult time
describing people with disabilities or
talking about
people with disabilities or presenting
stories
about people with disabilities sometimes
in a proper light
and i think even when they do strive to
do it in the proper light it comes off
a lot of times as sounding
somewhat condescending or patronizing if
you will
and i think that's a real danger and i
think that
two things that that need to happen are
those constant tutorials
we have to reach out to those media
outlets whenever we see or hear
something that is inaccurate
inappropriate
um does not describe the community in a
in an
appropriate way and i think number two
we need to infiltrate
we need to see more people with
disabilities working in media outlets
so that that we could bring our
community to them
so that would be my top of mind
thoughts okay and andrew don't worry
about
you used you used the word in context
andrew so don't worry about it
you're doing great okay can i can i add
something
to that i'm sorry i am like the i am
like the
millennium part two i'm on my i'm on my
phone a lot
i portrayed um people in the media as
like people
are like memes on instagram which i
don't know why that came into my head
but um it was but also
regarding tv i really don't see a lot of
disabled characters on
tv and even though i see some people
like in wheelchairs
just like how my fellow
panelists david here have the pet peeve
on thing
accessibility buses accessibility
um my pet peeve for that
is seeing able-bodied actors and
actresses
play people who are disabled it just
makes
like it just it makes me turn into ghost
dryer basically it makes my head catch
on fire
bravo andrew bravo bravo bravo
thank you thank you yes
good point and thank you all i want to
take a moment
and just thank all the panelists all the
generations in front of you for coming
together
and having this discussion and before we
conclude i wanted to
to uh bring it back to joan
and see if there's anything you want to
do to sort of wrap up
well when uh this first came out i was i
i started joking a little bit with the
the april crews here and mary that
we'd love to do this again next year
live because we have a whole host
of ideas for an hour and a half because
an hour really
um i think that everybody wants to chime
in and i think
i'm having it for long for a longer
period of time but live
will give us a little bit of creativity
so i
i'm warning mary that this is already
going to be one of the sessions i'm
going to put in
for next year just giving you a heads up
but
i think it's really helpful for all of
us to see where we've come from
to where we are and we still need to
keep growing and going on from there
i i have family in canada and i
whenever i go i like to go to the cells
that are there and i went to the wine
in ottawa where my uncle is and this was
back
oh the ada had been around for about 10
15 years
and i was bemoaning it and talking about
oh
there's just been so little change and
we're still struggling and we're doing
this and
he was a very quiet and gentle man kind
of sitting just like you are right now
david
and he looks at me and he says very
quietly
but at least you've got it we can never
hope to have
all the places here come together to
something like this and
so really it really impacted me that we
really do
live in a place that we can make those
changes and we can be
loud and proud in any generation that we
are in
thanks joan you know i just will sort of
bring it
there was a chat that said clapping
emoji
so uh people have been very appreciative
of this topic
and i just wanted to bring it back over
to
uh cidna to see if there's any closing
logistics we need to look at i know we
weren't able to get to all the questions
in
chat but we are close on time here
said no yeah thank you peter um
you're right we have a lot of questions
in there that we weren't able to get to
i do want to apologize for the technical
issues that we were having but
it did get fixed and will be fixed for
all the sessions going forward
if you were having problems viewing the
asl portion of that it will be
in the recording on the website when
this goes up so you'll be able to go
back and capture the first half
that you missed and we do apologize for
that there will be an evaluation for the
session
that's going to be put in chat um
i believe sarah will be putting that in
chat for us i do want to remind you to
fill out that evaluation
and if you don't have time to do it
right now it'll also be on the website
but i want to remind you to do it not
only for this session but for all of the
sessions going forward because that does
help us with the conference
so i appreciate everybody on the panel
is there any parting words peter
yeah i said i just have a quick question
uh how many people were on
how many people participate i couldn't
tell on our end i show 135.
the highest number the highest number i
saw was
the highest number that i saw was 141.
nice excellent thank you all so much for
uh the time
and then can we get a copy of the chat
because i didn't get to see that from
here either is there some way we could
capture all i see them pop up and it's
such nice
things just uh and and said no i just
want you know we're all drooling over
your log cabin house over there
well thank you i appreciate it
all right thanks guys and i will work on
getting this chat saved for us
or maybe sarah wants to do that
thank you everybody stay safe
thanks everybody