#disability discrimination
Because of the shitty state of the welfare system in this country, I have run out of money five days before I get paid because I have to live on disability. Boris Johnson can spend 10 million redecorating his pad but I get to live below the poverty line and act grateful for it. Urgh.
Autistic adulting is when, after working at a job for TWO YEARS, and fighting for accommodations for TWO YEARS, you are…still fighting.
I am so exhausted. Of course, Auditory Processing Disorder isn’t a “simple” disability to understand. Being entirely Deaf is “simple”. You can’t hear. Anything, at all, ever. Okay, they understand that.
But APD? When I can hear, but only sometimes and under certain conditions, and not under other conditions? Suddenly, everyone’s too stupid to understand. Nobody “believes” me, even though I have FUCKING MEDICAL DOCUMENTATION. Even though I have GOVERNMENT APPROVED REASONALBE ACCOMODATIONS for it. Even though I’ve gone to the UNION over it, gotten some extremely high-up people involved to tell my manager “you have to do these accommodations for this employee”.
Even then, when she’s told she MUST do my accomodations, she still doesn’t care to learn what those accommodations ARE. Or when I might need them. Or why I need them.
And frankly, she doesn’t really have to? Just treat me the same as a Deaf person, then! Then just ALWAYS communicate with me in non-auditory ways! You don’t HAVE to understand the nuances of APD- just be like “Snazzy can’t hear” in your head, and act accordingly! That would be FINE!
But instead, they schecule Skype voice meetings, no matter how many times I’ve explained that sound over a computer is SHIT and I can’t hear over Skype meetings, PERIOD. “But you can hear over the phone”. YES! That’s a DIFFERENT LEVEL OF SOUND QUALITY! Phones are very good at carrying sound, so yes, I can hear over the phone, but not over the Skype, that is NOT THAT HARD TO COMPREHEND.
It also doesn’t MATTER, because I can get captions over the phone, but NOT over Skype, because the captioners don’t have access to our internal Skype so they can’t log in. So I can’t get captions, so you can’t do Skype meetings when I need to attend! Period!
I’VE BEEN SCREAMING THIS FOR TWO YEARS.
I’m exhausted. I’m crying. All I want is to be able to attend the meeting about the PROGRAM THAT I WROTE. You can’t have the meeting without me, because I’m the person with all the information on this particular subject! It’s useless to you to have a meeting where I can’t participate!
*SCREAMS*
Black History Month 2017: Johnnie Lacy, Defiantly Black & Disabled
Image of Johnnie shown smiling directly into the camera. She is sitting in her wheelchair wearing a buttoned shirt, with an office desk to her left.
In continuing with my Black History Month focus on Black disabled leaders, I am proudly sharing the story of Johnnie Lacy, a woman who directed the Community Resources for Independent Living (CRIL) in Hayward, California for over a decade. The…