Employment: The Road Less Traveled by…

Friday, October 09, 2020

By Wendy Vance

I do not refer to employment as “the road less traveled” because I think that people with disabilities are intentionally not seeking employment. Nothing could be further from the truth, because people with disabilities want to work and seek work daily. Rather, it is the road less traveled due to low expectations, stigma, and systems that limit employment potential through arbitrary limits on income which can constitute a choice between working and literally living.

So, despite the hurdles that have been overcome by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 30 years ago, we find ourselves in 2020 with millions of people still cut off from the road to employment. With that being said, do not be discouraged. I want to share with you a message of inspiration and hope, where we are now, and where we need to be in the future. There is a way to remove the roadblocks which stand, at present, as beacons of despair, hopelessness and separation.

As a person with a disability, I have felt all of these emotions in relation to employment. In fact, I felt crushed, feeling the weight of existence in a world that seemingly had no use for me. After all, one can only be patted on the head so many times and asked hurtful questions before you just totally give up—questions and statements such as:

• “Are you sure you belong in this class, dear?”
• “Does your dog guide pee on the floor or does he know how to go outside?”
• “Oh, is it that that blind lady I interviewed? Tell her I’m not here.”
• “You aren’t qualified because you don’t drive.”

One of the many reasons that I sit here today as an individual with a severe visual impairment, a Master’s degree, and a career in which I find immense satisfaction is because of my mother, grandmother and a family friend (who was like a second mother), who expected a lot from me. They refused to allow me to settle for just getting by in life. When we discussed the future, it was always with the expectation that I would push my limits, finish high school, go to college, and have a career.

I was raised before the ADA was a twinkle in the eyes of lawmakers. Never was there a discussion with me in which my future did not include success or achieving my goals. If I tried to get down on myself, I was picked up, told to dust off, and keep going.

The women in my life believed in me and they conveyed the reality that I could be successful, I could be independent, and that I had value. To understand that you are valued—that you have a place in this world and that you are expected to fulfill the purpose for which you were created—has immense power to help you to leap over roadblocks that are set up by society. You have worth, you have value, and you can succeed. Do not allow yourself to believe the cloud of negative stigma that exists around disability.

Yes, in the world of 2020, stigma still exists and insidiously pollutes the way in which people with disabilities are viewed.  Don’t believe me? Close your eyes and evaluate your thoughts.

• Imagine you are told that someone had a baby with a disability. What is your first thought? Is it something like, “Aww, what a shame, that poor thing, isn’t that just awful?” Why is it awful? Why is it a shame? Do you perhaps think there is some mark of disgrace in having a disability?
• Or how about this: When you see someone in a wheelchair at a restaurant, do you think, “What an amazing person; they are able to buy coffee!” You know, something that everyone does. What are you are amazed about?
• Or you see someone bagging groceries and you think, “Aww, how sweet! They gave them a job. Wasn’t that kind?”

In each of these cases, there is stigma at work. It is a serious roadblock to be infantilized, pitied, or even viewed as less than human. I have been there many times as I walked away from an interview feeling lower than a bug.

So, in this moment, I ask you to do a hard thing, change your way of thinking. Adapted from the words of Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice: “Hath not human eyes? Hath not human hands, organs, dimensions, senses, afflictions, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a non-disabled person is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Yes, we are human and a person first; start seeing us that way. Understand that disability is a part of who we are but does not define who we can be. We are people with value, shared experiences, and the same rights to the community, school, and the workplace as everyone else.

To people with disabilities, I encourage you to keep striving, keep trying, keep knocking on every door and chase your dreams. Dreams are the substance of things yet to be realized, and once obtained are more precious than gold. This road of life is blocked and full of potholes, but it is so worth traveling.

Every day I get the privilege to work with a team that changes lives. I get to lay my head down in my own home. And when asked what I do, I can have pride in answering with my job title and get the precious security of knowing that my bills will be paid. Despite its many hardships “I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken).