Happy Anniversary ADA! Well, July 26 is here again! What does that mean to you? To me and the millions of other Americans with various disabilities, it means the anniversary of the signing into law of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by then President George H.W. Bush.
After 35 years of this monumental civil rights legislation, things in our country should be fantastic for all people with disabilities, but that is not really the case. Now don’t get me wrong here. Many things are better following the enactment of the ADA. Among those are better physical access to most places of public accommodation such as stores, businesses and medical offices. Audio description for those with blindness and low vision has been a great advancement for those of us with a visual impairment. Both open and closed captioning have advanced substantially to benefit those with hearing impairments. Sidewalks, curb cuts and audible pedestrian signals have made life easier for pedestrian travel. Many other things have come along to benefit people with disabilities that are too numerous to mention in detail here.
So, what has not made much progress? Well, let’s start with employment of people with disabilities. In 1990 prior to the ADA, the unemployment for blind and visually impaired adults of working age was approximately seventy percent (70%). Today that percentage is just about the same, in spite of all the great advances in technology. Laws can change, but that does not mean that attitudes change. Even though it is now illegal to ask an applicant about their disability, many times employers and their hiring personnel will focus on a disability and ignore an applicant’s abilities instead. As a person who has been legally blind or visually impaired since my young childhood, I certainly understand that people with vision impairments live in a sighted world and it will always be that way.
However, I also realize that our group is one that grows each day with folks who encounter blindness and severe vision loss in their latter years due to cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetes and other conditions. The fact is that anyone could wind up being part of the blind community. It is my experience and understanding that the thing most feared by most aging adults is losing their vision and the limitations that come with it. I do see how that can be scary for sighted folks who are accustomed to using their vision for most everything; however, losing your vision does not mean you can’t do anything anymore. It just becomes necessary to learn a different way to do some things. Of course, you can no longer drive your vehicle or most likely ride your bicycle, but there are alternate forms of transportation these days.
The population of Americans with disabilities is the only protected class that anyone could possibly find themselves entering if their circumstances change due to aging, accident or illness. Since our group is one that you could find yourself a member, wouldn’t it make sense to take some time to consider your attitudes toward people with vision loss? Those of us in the blindness community can be a valuable source of information for those entering into the darkness of vision loss. We are happy to answer questions of curiosity or needed information. Many folks with vision loss have simply given up on becoming employed because of their repeated failures to obtain employment after numerous applications and a few interviews. Many sighted folks think that if a blind person is getting social security disability payments, then why would they want to work? Most working-age blind folks I know would rather work than stay home and draw disability payments.
Many well-meaning, but misdirected folks, primarily greedy attorneys, early on filed some really misguided lawsuits under the provisions of the ADA and made very bad law by setting some really terrible precedents. This substantially weakened the ADA early in its life. Let’s move forward as a people and make the ADA better by improving the attitudes of the non-disability community toward the disability community. Afterall, you could move into our community as early as today. Happy 35th Anniversary ADA!