About This Episode
We talk with Theo Braddy, the Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) about the impact of ableism on disability employment. We have an in-depth discussion of what ableism is, how it works, why it is wrong and what people with disabilities, activists, and policy makers can do to combat ableism.
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Presenters
Donald Taylor has been with TASH since 2014, where he is the Manager of Membership & Communications, responsible for membership and chapters, data systems and communication, and collaborates closely with other staff to make sure TASH systems support their work. Donald comes from a background of data systems, operations and business analysis, going back to the 1990s. Donald came to the world of disability while pursuing a degree in history. The history profession is deeply interested in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century and fellow students studying biomedical systems of oppression inspired in him the desire to make a contribution to this aspect of social justice.
Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to the AoD [Administration on Disabilities] Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center Podcast, where we learn from people who are working to improve competitive integrated employment and economic outcomes for people with disabilities.
In today’s episode, we talk with Theo Braddy, the Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living [NCIL], about the impact of ableism on the employment of people with disabilities. We discussed the workings of ableism as well as ways to combat it through policies, individual self-advocacy and education.
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Donald Taylor: Theo Braddy, welcome to the DTAC Podcast. Please introduce yourself for listeners. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to the work you currently do.
Theo Braddy: Awesome. Thank you for having me here. Let me give you my visual description. My pronouns are he, him and his. My visual description: I’m a black man, bald head, full salt and pepper beard. I wear blue glasses. And I am a C4 quadriplegic who uses a complex motorized wheelchair. I’ve been a person with a disability since the age of 15 due to a football accident. I was CEO of the Center for Independent Living in Pennsylvania – Central PA – for 31 years until I retired early in 2019. After retiring, I started Theo Bradley Consultant focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and other disability related topics. I was nominated by Senator Casey and appointed by President Biden to the National Council on Disability. And I’m currently serving executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living.
Donald Taylor: And tell us a little bit about NCIL.
Theo Braddy: NCIL – the National Council of Independent Living – is the longest running national cross-disability grassroots organization run by and for people with diverse disabilities. We were founded in 1982 and our membership is made up of a bunch of different organizations, primarily Centers for Independent Living. That’s our mandate – to serve Centers for Independent Living and statewide independent living councils, as well as individuals with diverse disabilities across the nation in advancing the rights of people with disabilities.
Donald Taylor: So, the topic of today’s podcast is the impact of ableism on disability employment. So let’s start with: what is ableism, and would you give us some examples?
Theo Braddy: Great question. Before I get started, in regard to defining ableism, one thing I, I, I always like to say, one of the greatest challenges of this world is to know enough about a subject to think you are right, but not enough about that same subject, to know that you are wrong. And that deserves repeating. To know enough about a subject to think you are right, but not enough about that same subject to know that you’re wrong. That really plays into the definition of ableism, right? Which is discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. People without disabilities view themselves as superior to people with disabilities. That really gets to the crux of it. In other words, the worldview that people without disabilities are superior to people with disabilities. They believe they are superior. And ableism is based on ableist ideas. So, another way of saying it, they got it wrong from the start. People without disabilities, mainstream society, they got it wrong from the start because they view people with disabilities as being subhuman, evil, defective, deviant, animalistic or subhuman. Right?
Some good examples of it in the workplace, for example, is being judged as less intelligent because of my visible disability, right? Being judged like Rain Man — highly intelligent, right? Or another example is people with disabilities are more comfortable with their own kind. So you cluster us in the same places, same space, right? And you look at people disability as being inspiring, right? Inspirations, right? And then you can even have interviews where people are asked the wrong questions about their disability. And then that’s when those misconceptions and biases come into play. And there’s a bunch of other examples. But I think you get what I’m saying here. Bottom line is employers and people that we interact with on a day-to-day basis, have all of these misbeliefs and misconceptions and misinformation about the lives of people with disabilities.
And in talking about that, one of the things you gotta understand about ableism is we need to define our worldview. In other words, our world view – where did it come from? Our philosophy about people, of things – where did we develop our worldview that feeds into our ableist thinking, right? So let’s talk about that for a second. Where did our worldview come from? Who feeds our worldview? The way we think about a group of people. Obviously one of the big ones is literacy, right? What we read and what we write, right? A good example of that would be fake news, right? If you hear or read something enough, you’ll tend to believe it. Then we have misinformation and disinformation, all right? And what feeds into your source? You know, what is your source?
Is it social media, hearsay, friends, family? A chunk of our worldview come from what we are taught from generation to generation by our parents. If they get it wrong, they’re gonna feed us with wrong information. We get it from our schools, right? And what we – and this is a good one, Donald, this is a good one – what we experience once or twice in our life, that often sealed our worldview. And not only that, we then look for information that support what we already think or believe. And when we get that, our worldview is intact. And this is the thing: we rarely reflect on our worldview. Once it is defined, we rarely reflect on it. But the important thing to know about our worldview, of things, of people, is it can be wrong or flawed. And I really want you to understand that. When it comes to employers, their worldview could be wrong. They could believe wrongly about their employees with disabilities. That make sense?
Donald Taylor: Yeah. So, tell us, how does ableism impact disability employment?
Theo Braddy: Well since ableist ideas are based on misconceptions, misinformation, falsehood, myth, stereotypes and bias, it produces a social construct of discrimination and oppression, right? It becomes a way of life and plays out in employment practices, which lead to discriminatory policies and procedures and customs and traditions in the workplace. . And all of this is based on ableist ideas.
Donald Taylor: How can we address systematic ableism in disability employment?
Theo Braddy: Well, first of all, you know, employees with all types of disabilities are really treated unfairly and unjustly when ableist thinking comes into place, right? And so the workplace is full of discrimination. But not only that lack of accessibility, right? Often you see the workplace is not accommodating for people with different types of disabilities. And when you try to make requests of reasonable accommodations, it becomes a thing of – it’s a financial burden on the organization, right? And then it hits into other places, you know. Then a person with disability, you know, don’t feel included, right? They don’t – you can’t feel comfortable in a place that doesn’t address your accessibility needs. But not only that, you have limited job opportunities based on these ableist ideas and ableism that infects a person’s thinking that we already talked about. It leads to social stigma, right?
You become left out. You become not included in a lot of activities. And again, we get back to accommodations, right? When you bring up what you need in order to do your job, the misconception or the misinformation that your employer – who doesn’t have a disability – might have, is that it’s gonna be very expensive to accommodate you particular disability or limitation. And not only that, we have these pay gaps, right? Where people with disabilities get paid less than people without disabilities. Now, again, that becomes a norm, right? And that becomes oppression, when people are not paid fairly for the same amount of work. Right? That make sense?
Donald Taylor: Yeah. What strategies can advocates in the disability community use to improve access and equity for people with disabilities?
Theo Braddy: Well, know your rights. There are laws on the books that really lead to protection. And so it becomes important for employers who have disabilities to understand those rights, the ADA, and so forth. Andit becomes important for the employers when, you know, they have a requirement to post these your rights in regard to EEOC and so forth. So if they’re not doing that, again, that’s a violation, right? So it’s important for you to become awareand ensure that even things like reasonable accommodationsare put into place, right? In regard to even flexible work hours, right? But if you don’t know that you are protected as a person with disabilities who is employed, then you’re not sure when your rights are being violated.
So again, I can’t say enough for a person with disabilities to really research and understand their rights. And if you don’t know, you can reach out to NCIL and we can provide you with that information. There’s a bunch of places out there that protect employees rights and protect the rights of people with disabilities, right?
And there’s a thing they are calling now – a lot of corporations are doing it – calling it support employee resource groups, where they create these groups where people with disabilities feel comfortable in discussing everyday work surprises that occurred that might be discriminatory or oppressive in the work environment. And so if your employer is not doing something like that, then start it yourself, right? Campaign to start it yourself, because it’s very important for like-minded folks, people with and without disabilities that believe in equal protection of the law, to really define things when they occur, so they don’t occur again. So if one thing happened and no one addresses it, it just produces much more of it. So always be willing to check these things, right? You got particular rights, right? Physical, digital, accessibility, all of those things: now, there’s laws that says these things must be accessible and available to people with disabilities in the workplace, right? And so the best thing I can say is to educate yourself and be your own best advocate.
Donald Taylor: How could people with disabilities advocate for themselves when they experience ableism?
Theo Braddy: Self-Advocacy, right? There’s places you can go. There’s like I said, the EEOC, Department of Justice, right? Don’t be afraid to speak up. Again, I’m saying this because it is very important. Educate yourself. You are not alone. There are ways to fight ableism, right? You understandwhere it comes from. You know, already, that people without disabilities, like we said, have a lot of ableist ideas and thinking – that sometimes they have really good intentions, but they still discriminate. And in order for youto change that, you got to be willing to speak up and challenge people’s thinking. So again, educate yourself, right? Become aware of the different laws and rights. Contact the National Council of Independent Living. We are here to give you the information that you need.
But if you don’t speak up, rarely will anybody else speak up. Because you understand this: it is a way of life for a lot of peopleto overlook the concerns of people with disabilities. Because this world was not designed or built for people with disabilities, especially in the workforce, because most of the time they assume you cannot work.
And this is the thing about people with disabilities: they have lived a life where they have figured out stuff already, right? And often employers do not know this, right? And they make these big assumptions, but people with disabilities already figured it out because they had to navigate a world that wasn’t built for them. And so they’re very ingenious in what kinds of things that they can do. And now with artificial intelligence and assistive technology and all the things that have been created, not necessarily for people with disabilities, but for people without disabilities. These technologies have become, all of a sudden, very useful for people with disabilities. And then now there are corporations and big businesses who recognize, oh, well, there’s an untapped resource out there. So now they are creating these things that specifically benefit people with disabilities in their workplace.
Donald Taylor: Is there anything I’m not asking about that we should address?
Theo Braddy: I like to always say this because it’s very important: Ableism is our greatest challenge in America, that we fight, that people with disabilities fight, right? Because, you know, we can create laws and different things that protect the rights of people with disabilities. But there’s always been laws on the books. That doesn’t mean that they’re going to be enforced. It’s up to us to ensure that they get enforced. But more than anything else, when it comes to ableism, it’s a deeper thing, right? I always say that in my lifetime, that I will be able to see where physical barriers are removed. That’s gonna be ramps. They’re gonna be curb cuts. There’s gonna be all these, you know, automatic doors. All of those things in the American landscape can be made accessible. But what I won’t see is societal attitudes about people disabilities changing to the point where it does not exist anymore.
Covert ableism is a real thing. And people have been conditioned to believe a certain way of thinking about people with disabilities over a long period of time. And so it’s gonna take a lot of work to change customs and traditions and worldviews that people rarely believe – they don’t think they have a problem. They don’t think their worldview is a problem, so they don’t wanna change the way they think. They think people with disabilities are charity cases. They think people with disabilities take more than they give. Because they have been conditioned to believe that over many years. So I won’t see that. I won’t see societal attitude. That’s why ableism is now the greatest challenge. We can put Band-Aids on a bunch of stuff, but until we change people, the way people think about us, and that’s gonna mean a lot of work in regard to being visible and challenging people’s thinking, right?
And understanding that one of the main reasons why people – and the workplace even – don’t fully understand people with disabilities, because they’re uncomfortable around them. And so they never interact. And you will never know me if you don’t interact with me. Because in interacting with me, we develop a relationship. And when we have a relationship, you are gonna see that I’m just like you. I’m another human being that has maybe some issues, but don’t all of us have issues that we overcome? And so we gotta change that mindset. We gotta change the way people think about a group of people, and that means challenging our worldview.
Donald Taylor: Where can people find out more?
Theo Braddy: Yeah. Yeah. The National Council of Independent Living, NCIL, that’s one of our primary jobs, is to get people the right information. So contact us at ncil.org. That’s the best place. That should be the first start, nci.org. Or get me directly theo@nci.org.
Donald Taylor: Theo Braddy, thank you for talking to us today about the impact of ableism on disability employment.
Theo Braddy: Most enjoyable I enjoy these conversations, so I appreciate you asking me to be a part of this. Again, I think the, the best thing that anyone can do is to interact, have conversations, and get to know people instead of the assumptions of people.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to the AoD Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center podcast.
Today, we spoke with Theo Braddy, the Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living or NCIL. You can learn more about NCIL at ncil.org.
The AoD Disability, Employment Technical Assistance Center, or DETAC, is a project of the Lewin Group and TASH, created by a grant from the Administration for Community Living to provide evidence based training and technical assistance to Administration on Disabilities grantees aimed at improving competitive integrated employment and economic outcomes for individuals with disabilities across the nation. To learn more about DETAC, visit AoDDisabilityEmploymentTACenter.com. For news and alerts about upcoming webinars and podcasts, you can follow us on Facebook, Threads and X.
Music for the DETAC Podcast is an original composition and performance by Sunny Cefaratti, the co-director and autistic self-advocacy mentor at the Musical Autist. You can learn more about the Musical Autist at www.themusicalautist.org.
We’ll have another episode on competitive integrated employment for you in the near future.
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This discussion was originally recorded on August 16, 2024.
This audio recording and transcript has been lightly edited for content and clarity.