Not every body can do every thing. Read that again. Why does our infrastructure have to be so limited, so that it can’t pick up the gaps?
Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that would be Rail~volution! Now, back to the main part of the email.
I take for granted that I’m a glasses wearer. Why? Because in this day and time no one seems to care. In fact, it seems like everyone I know has a pair (or two). Some would blame it on the fact that we all look at electronic screens. However, slurs like four-eyes (and for the Black kids of a certain age on the list) Urkel, seem like things of the past.
However, If I didn’t wear my glasses, I would quickly get headaches and I would struggle to drive or even take transit because I need to read the signs. I am typing this sentence from memory and I’m leaving in the errors deliberately because I have to type from memory because I cannot tell what words I’m actually typing because I took off my glasses. (I did put them back on to add the italics and I put the italics in since there were no errors).
Do I want to type from memory all the time? No. Is it possible? Yes. And because of adaptive devices like my keyboard and my glasses, my severe myopia, and mild astigmatism is masked as a disability.
Oh and ” everyone’s anxious”, so that also gets brushed off, even though I periodically take medication for generalized anxiety and I find that I’m more introverted than I used to be.
However, as we end this year’s Disability Pride & Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (now becoming more known as BIPOC Mental Health Month) and honor the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, those of us who spend more time drawing up construction documents, as well as determining who gets to be legally disabled and who has “actual” mental health issues should pause for reflection.
If we haven’t learned anything over these past two years of having global pandemics, then we should reassess what we are actually doing when it comes to accessibility.
Accessibility is a necessity, not a luxury and accessibility goes beyond what’s visible.
I’ve harped on this before and I’ll do it again, that we were able to reconfigure large swaths of society to get to a point where we had COVID-19 treatment options that were reasonable. However, we failed at maintaining a good equilibrium so that everyone had a fair shot at not having debilitating effects.
This is not me saying no one should be sick, ill, or disabled and that those conditions are solely the person’s fault. This is me saying that we need to offer everyone all options for their healthcare.
In the early pandemic days, we learned that COVID-19 was an airborne virus, hence the recommendation, after realizing that we needed to rectify our shortage of personal protective equipment, that we use said equipment, adapted to the intersections of other chronic health conditions and disabilities.
Then many of us realized that the intersections of chronic health conditions, known disabilities, and even race and class, and gender were insufficient prior to being faced with this common enemy.
Hence, why you still see me masked, until I know for sure that the air in a room is being purified or I’ve learned that a person has been testing negative consistently. I would love to stop masking, especially in the heat and especially at restaurants and concerts, but I don’t want to be that asymptomatic carrier that causes huge problems for someone else.
I also have the privilege of wearing that mask and working from home and cooking more and all the things those of us with those privileges were supposed to do, as mutual support for those who didn’t have the opportunity to stay home. I have the privilege of knowing about other (re)emerging illnesses like monkeypox and dealing with other personal medical issues by going to my closest Kaiser Permanente medical center.
But, as builders and makers — we are the ones tasked with enacting the accessibility plans and creating the infrastructures so that we don’t have to blink when someone needs accommodations. We are the ones that make virus mitigation and space access a given, not a privilege.
We make it so folks don’t have to add extra time to call your restaurant. We make it so folks can visit their family and friends even if they live on the top floor. We can all breathe the air because it’s ventilated and purified and make the social connections we all need to survive. We don’t have to choose between medication or assistive technology and paying rent.
I’ll end this part by challenging all of my colleagues, no matter where you sit, stand, or lay on this topic — our bodies aren’t perfect and they aren’t be apologies. Plan accordingly — whether that’s an event, building, educational opportunity, bus shelter, or for your own wellbeing and safety.
By the Way
If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section.
Why I’m one of a handful of people you’re hearing from about Disability Pride Month and how that can change.
What do the symbols of Disability Pride mean and why pride over awareness?
And more on why some mental health organizations are shifting to calling July BIPOC Mental Health Month. My preferred title would be Bebe Moore Campbell BIPOC Mental Health Month, to continue to honor the Black woman who insisted on creating this awareness month and to continue to move away from seeing people of color as a minority when that’s not true globally.
This year’s proclamation by the City and County of San Francisco for Disability Pride Month.
The US Government Accountability Office highlights a few ways they are raising awareness on the lack of compliance to ADA seen in schools, polling places, and in tax filing.
I really don’t know how I’m still managing to not test positive, just like these folks in this Post article. I’m also accepting that posting this particular article may change my fate, but so far, updating y’all on my status hasn’t changed things. And as we talked about above, it’s nothing wrong with having health challenges, but it’s all wrong when everyone doesn’t have the tools they need to thrive.
And likewise, more folks with thoughts on if those of us who are glasses wearers, especially with higher prescriptions are actually disabled or inconvenienced.
Finally, a cute cartoon on the intersections of being Black and feminine with ADHD.
Before You Go
This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially. And this week, we have a sponsor, Rail~volution!
Rail~Volution 2022
The always lively Rail~Volution conference is coming to Miami, Florida, this fall, October 30 to November 2. The goal of the conference is to look at the whole community built around transit and connected mobility options, from planning & implementing different modes to station area design to housing. Come to the conference to find out how peers are getting projects done with an eye to the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity, and overall quality of life.
Registration is now open. And until the end of July scholarship applications also are open. The conference organizers want to create a welcoming atmosphere, where people from diverse backgrounds and positions are able to learn, network, and belong. Recognizing that attending a conference involves a financial commitment that cannot always be supported by an individual or their organization, Rail~Volution provides a limited number of scholarships to reduce or eliminate these financial barriers. The link to the main scholarship application is here:
bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarship.
There is a different link for local scholarships – for those who live in Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward, or Palm Beach Counties:
bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarshipLocal
Find out more about the conference here:
There is a virtual option for those unable to attend in-person. It will be a program of 3-5 sessions from the in-person conference, on Tuesday, November 1, only.
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Meanwhile, as promised, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees —the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.
Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday (here are the ones I wrote from start to finish last Thursday and Friday), as well as editing a few other pieces.
You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community.
If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my Bookshop.org shop at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers,(including the full link as I’ve been noting several of your issues with the original link) and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.
Until next time,
Kristen
Lead Photo by Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash