Clinical, charitable, and institutional channels serve to weed out isolated, multiply marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at… More, independent activists, scholars, and artists—those who may be suspicious of large-scale, centralized approaches to advocacy and the ways they tend to concentrate powerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important… More. By relying primarily on charities as recruitment channels, Unilever effectively ensured that politically and culturally engaged disabledThe label “disabled” means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself… More people were excluded from its research population.

Although Degree Inclusive’s tagline claims it was “built with a diverse disability community,” Unilever did not partner with disabled folks. They partnered with disability charities. It wasn’t until they arrived at a prototype that they invited disabled consumers to test it. The recruitment of disabled “users and testers” is routinely framedWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required… More as meaningful inclusion, when in fact it is just another way that corporations extract, commodify, and marginalize lived experience while positioning themselves as “doing good” and “leading the way.”

These problems are not unique to Degree Inclusive. In fact, we encounter them routinely within design and branding “for” disability. When companies decide to make something about disability, they typically reach out to whichever organizations have the largest public profile. These organizations are typically charities, rarely disabled-led, and never engaged in disability through a politically and culturally-informed lens. The corporations pursue representational politics and think they are doing identity politicsWe realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters… More. They are then shocked and dismayed to hear that they’re still doing disability wrong. Then they absolve themselves by saying, “We consulted with people with disabilities, so clearly there’s never any one right way to do things.”

Source: World’s First Adaptive Deodorant | #CriticalAxis: a community driven project from The Disabled List

Before I entered the disability and neurodiversityNeurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a… More communitiesWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/… More, I was a software developer with a “users and testers” notion of accessibility and inclusion. Community was an awakening. We must engage with politically and culturally-engaged collaborators from the communities we serve and hope to serve, not just users, testers, and spokespeople.

If companies seek to “inspire bold action across the industry,” as Unilever claims, they must begin with taking bold action themselves. That starts with two things: expanding the roles they envision for marginalized people beyond those of spokesperson and user-tester; and interrogating the recruitment channels through which they attempt to reach marginalized creators, collaborators, and communities, asking who exists beyond the reach of those channels and why.

Source: World’s First Adaptive Deodorant | #CriticalAxis: a community driven project from The Disabled List