#dawnie talks disability

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Access Denied

January 29, 2023

By: Dawn_of_the_silver_age

Have you ever wondered why some things are digitized while others are not?

Not me, until I was annoyed when I wanted to access a resource only to find out that it was only available in a museum or a library far, far away.

Recently, I read an article that made me think about who does and does not have access to resources. Kamposiori, Warwick and Mohanty explained the stages of the research process, the difficulties that researchers encounter when digitizing resources like art and texts, what can be done to solve them. The author's style was very scientific and thorough and identified the following issues:

Lack of access to materials in private or smaller public collections as many remain undigitized

Access to locations (cost, language, accessibility, reliability of information, and availability to the public)

I have thought quite a bit about access as I am a Disabled student. I have found it a challenge to access textbooks and other resources, forcing me to adapt my learning and research processes.

Digitization on its own does not give full access to Disabled people. For digitization to be accessible, we must think beyond what is needed for neurotypical people and centre Disabled folk. Often what is stylistically pleasing to the eye makes it less accessible to Disabled folk.

Changing fonts are a straightforward way to give meaningful access. When creating texts, we need to think about improving access.

It’s much easier to read San-Serif fonts like Arial and Calibri.

Instead of fancy fonts.

When sharing images, we need to provide image descriptions and Alt Text. Digital resources must be available with OCR, font size options, colour overlays, audio recordings or text-to-speech. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, allowing screen readers to read the text. In Online Disabled community forums, you can easily see that the lack of OCR is a significant issue because of the volume of discussion. I rely on OCR to use my text-to-speech software, and blind students need OCR to access texts using text-to-speech or use a braille interface. Rarely are the needs of Disabled people even considered when we create digital sources. Texts must be digitized using formats that Disabled folk can access.

Digitizing text and artifacts gives everyone with internet — access. Imagine a world where everyone with the internet could access all texts and artifacts, even rare ones! When you think about it, access to sources democratizes learning. Access to the internet is another issue!

The cost and physical accessibility of visiting collections mean that some folk will never have access. Rarely do non-disabled people consider wheelchair accessibility, that stairs prevent access to artifacts and texts, signs without braille and large print and a lack of audio guides deny people entry. This needs to change.

There has been a lot of talk about intersectionalities lately. Let’s be clear, accessibility is not only about Disabled folk. It's also about race. Watching the documentary, The Recorder: Marion Stokes, I found myself as a white settler questioning who is left out of data-finding stories and that the process of searching, collecting, writing, collaborating and researching in the digital sphere (chaining, browsing, verifying) means that marginalized people, their way of knowing and how they experience the world are excluded. There is a whole database of Black women in physics and astronomy whose research and methods are rarely taught. We need to digitize and welcome everyone by providing access for everyone so we can all develop, analyse, reflect, evaluate, learn and communicate with one another.

It’s 2023, and it’s time to consider real inclusion. It’s time to showcase those who have been excluded. We need to see the brilliance of Black women in the arts, and Disabled people in the sciences. We need to digitize databases, artifacts and texts so that everyone can access them, learn and analyze them, be part of the dialogue and contribute to research.

[currently-namelesss]

God he was nervous. If people talked about butterflies in their stomach whenever they thought about their significant other, then they have never stood dressed in a white suit, five minutes before getting married to the love of their life. Hui, however, was in that exact moment, he was getting married to Kim Hyojong. “Oh my god, I’m going to puke!” Hui screamed. Wooseok was there in a second, rubbing his back, telling him everything would be alright, they would have an awesome dinner and the sex tonight would leave Hui sore for a week. “Wooseok! You’re a child!!!” Hui screamed, and then laughed. “You’re right. I should be calm, everything will be fine.” He hugged his bestman and thanked him. “It’s nothing, hyung, you’d do the same for me.” Wooseok said and hugged him back. Right at that moment a lady walked in and told Hui he had to go to the alter and wait for his spouse. “Yes okay, thank you,” Hui said. The moment the lady was gone and the door closed Hui screamed and ran six laps around the room. He then stood in front of the door and was just about to go out when Wooseok stopped him. “Hyung, one last dab as an unmarried man!” Hui couldn’t do anything but laugh and dab with the taller man. After the dab they walked out and down the aisle. Hui smiled, seeing his family and close friends sitting there, looking proud and– was that his mom crying?? He saw Yanan giving him a thumbs up, Shinwon and Yeoone did some sexual reference while Kino tried to stop them. All Hui could do was laugh slightly and keep walking.

~

Hyojong was giddy, he couldn’t stop doing silly dances, drinking water (he was sure he would pee himself) and do weird noises. “Hyojong, calm down…” Hongseok had tried to reason with him for the last hour. “Hongseok!? CALM DOWN!? I’M GETTING MARRIED TO THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!! THAT ASSHAT WANTS TO LIVE WITH ME FOR EVER!!!” Hyojong ranted and ran around the room. “Oh, Dawnie… He is waiting.” Hongseok said as he peeked out from behind the curtain, soon followed by Hyojong himself “God, he looks amazing.” The blond said and giggled, jumping back behind the curtain. “You ready to get married?” Hongseok smiled and got ready to walk down the aisle with his friend, instead of Hyojong’s dad.

~

The ceremony went well and soon enough it was dinner and party time. Hui and Hyojong never left the others side, always found whispering and giggling about small things. The party was loud and of course it’d be with their friend squad of ten people. Changgu and his Chinese boyfriend Yanan was challenging Shinwon and Hyunggu in who could make up most rhymes with a wedding theme. It didn’t go well after “I got a flower and the two husbands got power”. Yuto and Wooseok, the two youngest in their disabled family, were sitting in a corner going through a meme tumblr blog, laughing until they cried. Hongseok and his longtime boyfriend Jinho were slow dancing on the dance floor. One thing they all had in common was that they were drunk af, which you could tell. “HYUNG!!” A shout came from Yuto, who usually was very quiet, unless he was drunk. “Yes, Yuto?” Hyojong asked. “SQUAD PIC!!!!” He yelled back,  as if it was obvious what he meant. He dragged the two men up from their chairs to take a picture. “I SET THE TIMER ON FIVE SECONDS!!” Wooseok yelled. “Smile, but not too big because Hui’s eyes will disappear!” Kino said jokingly. “Yah, don’t be rude!” Jinho said and smacked the back of Kino’s head. “Focus! Say ‘Pentastic’!” Changgu said as the flash went off. “That was so cringe! We have to take another one!” Shinwon whined. “No one said it anyway.” “Another one! A serious one I can post everywhere!” Everyone groaned, but did as Shinwon wanted or he wouldn’t shut up about it. Unless someone knocked him out or something. “Gays we have to speed this up, I think Yuto has had too much to drink.” Yanan said and gestured towards Yuto , who struggled to keep both of his eyes open at the same time. “OKOK FIVE SECONDS AGAIN!!!” The flash went off and they gathered around the phone to look at the second picture. “Yo, is it a wedding or a funeral, I can’t tell…” “Hongseok shut up! It’s adorable!“ “Nah I’m with Hongseok on this one. It really looks like someone just died.” Jinho agreed. “Yeah, the mood! Because your comments killed it.” “Hey stop it! Yuto just passed out, who’s taking him home?” “Not me, I did it last time.” “Well he’s not staying here.” The bickering went on for a while until the newlyweds were finally left alone to um… “celebrate” the wedding on their own.

Requested by anon💕💕

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Access Denied ~ Decolonization as a Digital Activist

Hi! It’s Dawn-of-the-Silver-Age again. I’ve been thinking about how we must decolonize technology since reading a blog by Beatrice Martini.

When considering what decolonized technology is, I tend to think about computers, the internet, phones along with devices like braille readers, reading pens, otter.ai, etc. What about you? When I think about the act of colonizing I tend to think of residential schools, the stealing of Indigenous peoples’ lands, and lack of water/poor housing on reservations. We have certainly “othered” Indigenous people and their right to exist on the land that was once their home. When I put these ideas together, I think about “who gets to use a tool or service” (Martini). I think about who has and doesn’t have access to the internet. Language can be a barrier as can money. We need to look at the barriers to technology for Disabled people.

All of this is to ask “How can we use technology to decolonize?”

How-To Guide to becoming a Digital Activist focused on Decolonization:

1. Find a topic that you are passionate and want to learn about!!

2. Find resources on the topic from a variety of perspectives. Primary resources like diary entries, letters, official government documents, photographs; and, secondary sources including: statistics, historical texts, biographies, cartoons, newspaper articles are useful.

a) Consider the origin, purpose, content, and the values and limitations for each source. I.e.-- if a source was meant to be a private reflection, thoughts and feelings expressed are likely to be a person’s honest experiences as they don’t need to hide from themselves. In a public post people can say things to shock or hide things due to fear of retribution.

3. After reading the passages, consider who is included, whose stories are being told, why they are being told, and who’s stories aren’t there.

4. Depending on what stories and perspectives are left out, learn more. Seek people out, read, watch documentaries (they aren’t all boring), learn from them, and pay for their labour.

5. What do you think about what you have read? If the topic relates to your own life and experiences, how do these differ from the source?

6. Start writing and building a presence online to find others like you interested in the topic and start conversations with them to build community.

When starting a digital activism journey, consider who you are, your experiences, access, and where you live.

When I started my journey of becoming an activist and an advocate, I confronted my perspective as a white settler and the differences between my experiences being Disabled and those with intersectionalities, for example, Disabled/male/Indigenous, or Disabled/Black. Our experiences are unequal. We have different views on what is right or wrong in the Disability circle.

For example, for years, I was very anti-ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) therapy and voiced this opinion through digital activism. In my posts, I said that ABA indoctrinates, pushes Autistic youth to act in Neurotypical ways, and is abusive.

This changed after I read Tiffany Hammond’s piece. Hammond is a Black Autistic adult with two Autistic sons. She revealed to me the perspective of those who require ABA so that they are not harmed walking down the street, in the classroom, or in other spaces because of racism and ableism. Hammond’s view on ABA is neither pro- nor anti- – it’s one view, and her experience within the community and her lived experience spoke to me far more than I could have imagined. She saw ABA as necessary because it reduced the possibility of harm to her kids who couldn’t mask their Autism.

I wish we lived in a world where Autistics do not need to worry about it, but we don’t. And, until we do, I appreciate Hammond using ABA to keep her family safe. What do you think?

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Who am I? For you? For me?

Hey, long time no see; it’s @dawn-of-the-silver-age here with a new post! I recently read two interesting articles which discussed the shaping of our identities. The first was “Descartes was wrong,” written by Adeba Birhane and the second was “ ‘What’s on your mind?’ Writing on Facebook as a tool for self-formation”. These were super fascinating for me to unpack as, unlike most young adults my age, I used Facebook fanatically during my teen years and still adore it! I may be a bit nerdy as I deeply enjoy reading Descartes—go ahead and judge me.

Abeba Birhane discusses how we rely on our interactions with others to create our own identities and share different aspects of our identities with various people, for example, presenting one way to your mom, a different way to your boss and another way to your new love interest—at least for the first month! The second article discusses how adults use Facebook posts to present themselves to share with their loved ones and everyone who invites them to see their posts. Have you stretched the truth on Facebook?

I came up with two exciting case studies to consider.

Firstly, superheroes such as the Green Arrow. Feel free to geek out alongside me; Oliver Queen would not have been able to create the identities he could conform to during his time on Lian Yu (Pergatory) without his trusty (or not so trusty) companions Slade Wilson, Shado and Sara. When he thought of himself as alone on the island, he was left with the shell of the rich party boy and began his journey towards self-formation with Sara where he was forced to toughen up, get over his playboy days, and become a leader, as he was able to figure out who he needed to be and transitioned into his new-found identity in Starling City.

His new self depended on the mask he used to protect those around him including his sister Thea, the public, his friends Diggle and Felicity, and his persona of the Green Arrow.

These segments of his identity depended on his relationship with each person, as he relied on “others in order to evaluate… [his] existence” (Birhane).

Secondly, from the perspective of being a Disabled young adult, I’ve found that we need relationships with others to be able to “evaluate our own existence and construct it” (Birhane). When we consider masking, a term which can mean putting on different attitudes and behaviors to ‘mask’ our difficulties, masking allows Disabled people to portray different versions of themselves to varied audiences, from our classmates to our parents, to other Disabled people.

Interestingly, we can only be a “person through the other persons” as we depend on others to figure out our own identity (Birhane). Some Disabled people, like me, mask to figure out who we really are and when we unravel our masks and consider why we put them on in the first place, whom we mask for and with, and why we are afraid of sharing parts of ourselves with others, do we really form and share our identities authentically?

Spending time in Facebook groups like a Dyspraxia Awareness group has shaped my identity and self-formation. I shared different things depending on the community. For example, when I joined groups where parents discussed their kids and disabilities, I identified myself as a teenager and shared my perspective because I thought it changed the conversation. This influenced my behaviours as I internalized their messages, especially their criticism, and made me feel less than. I formed a self around these comments and labels, which I first portrayed openly on Facebook and then to friends, colleagues and more in-person relationships.

Overall, self-formation is formed due to our interactions with the people we spend time with and the way we present ourselves to the world.