Congressman Tony Coelho tells us that people with disabilities must have the right to fail. Without failure you can’t learn from the mistake. Without failure there’s no growth. Without a right to fail, your growth is stunted.
Thanks to Gatsby for being a sponsor of the show. Gatsby is a modern website framework that builds performance into every website by leveraging the latest web technologies. Create blazing fast, compelling apps and websites without needing to become a performance expert.
Make sure you have a look at their site: https://www.gatsbyjs.org
Transcript
Nic:
Welcome to the accessibility rules podcast. This is episode 93. I’m Nic Steenhout and I talk with people involved in one way or another with web accessibility. If you’re interested in accessibility, hey, this show’s for you. To get today’s transcript head out to the podcast website, https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Gatsby for sponsoring this episode. Gatsby is a modern website framework that builds performance into every website by leveraging the latest web technologies, create blazing fast compelling apps and websites without needing to become a performance expert.
Nic:
In this episode, I’m continuing my conversation with Tony Coelho. Last show was really awesome, fantastic conversation with Tony who tells us how he got to author the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act. And spoke about all kinds of stuff from trips to the Vatican to getting stuff done for the rights of people with disabilities. We finished last week on the note that while we have rights, we also have responsibilities and I could not agree more. Anyway Tony, welcome back and thanks to you for being a guest on the show.
Tony:
Thank you, Nic. Enjoy it.
Nic:
Let me ask you this. What kind of barriers are you facing in terms of disability and accessibility, if any, at this point? Are you still struggling once in a while or are things all good and peachy?
Tony
Well, I still have seizures. I’ve had seizures for 60 years. I have medication that helps me control them, the severity of them, the amount of them. But I still have seizures. I’m very open about it, as you can tell. And I think it gives me an opportunity to educate people as to not only epilepsy but what you can do and attitude in regards to your disability. I think all of us with a disability have ability and the issue is for we ourselves to stress our ability and convince others of our ability. And so, as I go out to businesses and trying to get them to hire people with disabilities, I’m always addressing the fact that each and every one of us have abilities, no matter if we have a disability or not. And so it’s important for people to look for our ability and give us an opportunity to fail. And I say that very directly. If I don’t have the right to fail than I can never succeed. So I want a right to fail and if I get that right, I’ll take advantage of it and I will succeed.
Nic:
That is actually, yeah, that’s wonderful. I never really had heard that phrase that way, but I think it’s super important here. If you’re not going to fail, you can’t learn from your mistake. You can’t grow. And if you don’t have the right to fail, then you’re being stunted in your growth. That’s really great.
Tony
Well, what goes on Nic, as you know, is that our loved ones have a tendency to protect us out of love, but protect us. You can’t do that. You shouldn’t do this. You shouldn’t do that. And I tell parents all the time, give your child an opportunity to fail. You can’t protect them. You’ve got to let them try to do what they want to do. And if they can’t do it, that’s fine. Kids without disabilities can’t do everything, either. And also it’s the same thing for you as a person with a disability.
Tony
Try to do something, find out what it is that you like that you can do. For example, with my epilepsy, I can’t drive a fire engine. I can’t drive a police car. I can’t carry a gun. So all those things, I know I can’t do it. But boy, I can do some things better than a lot of other people. And that’s what it’s all about is finding out what you can do. And that’s true with everybody. It’s not just those of us with disabilities. And so it’s no different. And that’s the thing I keep trying to impress. For those of us with disabilities, a lot of people without disabilities struggle as to what they can do or what they want to do and so forth. So it’s the same struggle, but we can’t let the disability hamper us.
Nic:
Yeah. Are there any problems you encounter using the web that is directly related to your epilepsy?
Tony
Well the first problem is at 77, I’m not acclimated to the web like somebody who’s younger like you or others. You’re not afraid to make a mistake. And I always worry that I’m going to make a mistake and screw everything up. And so that’s the problem with those of us a little older. But I love the Internet and I use it a lot because it provides me opportunities that I’ve never had before. And the same thing is true as a result of Audioeye and other companies. But Audioeye, that I’m on the board of, it provides access to the Internet for any disability and there’s all kinds of options and so forth. They have a marketplace at different costs and so forth. But for me, the Internet gives me an opportunity to participate just like anybody else. And I carry on my businesses and so forth through the Internet just like anybody else. And I don’t have difficulty.
Tony
I know that some of my guests, people who are blind or people that can’t use a mouse or people who are colorblind, even though we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, we have Section 508 we have the web content accessibility guidelines, we have all that there. They’re still experiencing barriers on the web. So that’s where my curiosity came from is if you had a direct barrier that was related to having epilepsy for you, is good to hear that you’re able to function and actually benefit from this communication highway as you raised it earlier.
Tony
Yeah, yeah. Communication highway is very important for us to think of it that way. And that’s the reason that I say with the Supreme Court Decision, it basically said the whole communication network is like a highway. It’s a highway for information, highway for commerce. It’s everything about us today. A highway for news, it’s a highway for, no matter what it is. And so it’s important for us to be able to connect and that’s why it is important for technology to come into place to provide an opportunity for each of us that are different in some way, so that we can connect.
Tony
And so that’s why I got on the board of AudioEye because I felt that this was really an important vehicle to make the Internet accessible to all of us and that’s the key. And then now what we have to do is, we have to convince businesses of that if they want to participate in the Internet highway, they have to make it accessible to everybody. And that’s I think what is now taking place and some lawsuits are being filed against people who don’t. And they should and so compliance becomes necessary.
Nic:
I would assume your greatest achievement in terms of accessibility and disability discrimination is getting the ADA passed and having that amendment who you suggest those, as well. The flip side to that is, what would be your greatest frustration related to accessibility to disability, to discrimination?
Tony
Yeah. My biggest concern is what I call stigma. There is a stigma that attaches those of us with disabilities. And that is that people, businesses, think that we can’t do something. They look at those of us with a disability, if they can see it. My disability, they can’t unless I have a seizure and then they can. But if they see our disability, they immediately discriminate. Or there’s a stigma. They have a certain impression is that you can’t do something, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. And also there’s a paternalistic feeling if they see a person with a disability, Oh I’m sorry or I feel sorry. I’m not sorry that I have epilepsy. As a matter of fact, I thank God for my disability because it’s made me a stronger, better person. It may force me to know myself and I think that’s really important.
Tony
So those of us with disabilities, we have to play harder than others. We have to struggle harder harder than others to get done what we want to get done. And I think that makes us stronger people. And so, I thank God for my disability. And so the stigma that is attached to us is something that really bugs me. And how do we get rid of it? And I think the way to get rid of it is by movies and by TV and by ads and newspapers and so forth. Showing those of us with different disabilities doing what everybody else does. It’s what’s happened in regards to women who were discriminated against just because they were women. People of color are discriminated against because they’re a person of color.
Tony
And the stigma that was attached to both of those and the gay community because they’re gay and so forth. So we’re facing the same thing these other communities have faced. And the most important thing about it is for us to address it, to speak up. Now don’t be afraid of your disability, be proud of it. You know, I am. And if we show positiveness about our disabilities that will connect with other people and eventually we can get rid of the stigma. And the stigma is a thing that, as you can tell, really bugs me. But it is something that people immediately have an impression about our disability.
Nic:
I’m sharing your opinion that we need the exposure out there and probably one of the best way to get the positive exposure is through the media, whether it’s movies or the papers, literature, whichever. But it seems that when we’re looking at how people with disabilities are portrayed, especially in the movies and on TV, we tend to have one of two mischaracterization. One is either people with disabilities are superheroes. If someone is blind, they have super accurate hearing. And then the flip side to that is we have villains. You look at all those old movies and the villain was always either deformed or using a wheelchair and that kind of stuff. How can we get past that? How can we get the people that are producing these shows to actually portray disability accurately?
Tony
I think the issue on that Nic, is that I started the Coelho Disability Center out in Los Angeles at my Alma Mater, Loyola Marymount University. And one of the things that we’re working on is the movie industry and so forth. And there’s one of the concerns we have is that a lot of these disabled characters are not really disabled people. They are people who pretend to be disabled. And one of the things we’re working on is to get disabled actors, and there are disabled actors, into these roles and to be projected in a positive way. And we’ve made some progress, but you’ve got to get to the writers of the scripts so that they then put somebody in a position that can project a positive, in regards to a disability. So that you’re playing a role and you just happen to be disabled as opposed to a disabled character people feel sorry for.
Tony
And so I think what it does is, it takes an effort to go after that industry, TV and the movie industry. But it’s the writers and producers and the directors that are important to engage. And I’m involved in that with the Center and also involved in that with some other, like the Ruderman Family Foundation in New York, they are very involved in this, as well, and I’m on their board. So it’s a question of going at it, not accepting it. Going at it, trying to make some changes and adjustments and we’re making some progress. You now see on TV, people with disabilities in minor roles and also in TV ads now and so forth. So it’s starting to happen. But I go back Nic, that we’re no different as a community than what women, people of color, gays and others have gone through over the decades. And it’s our turn at the bat to try to make a change. But you’ve got to fight for it, you can’t just accept it. You got to fight for it in order to get it. And that’s what we’re doing.
Nic:
Wonderful. What do you think? What would be the main reason why companies fail to get this thing about, you can’t discriminate against people with disabilities? Why don’t they get it?
Tony
I think it goes back history wise and that a lot of religions felt sorry for people with disabilities. And it was sort of a pity thing and a lot of religions, as I pointed out with the Catholic Church. But a lot of religions have this paternalistic attitude towards those of us with disabilities. It’s a pity, it [inaudible 00:16:35] misdirected and it’s a question of trying to get that change, but that takes time, too. But that change, again, I go back to others, you know, women, people of color, gay, so forth. That’s all the same problem there, too. And that’s changed dramatically with the women now are involved in everything, right? Which is great.
Tony
And now trying to get women elected President or Vice President, but they’re in the Senate, they’re in the House of Representatives. And people of color now are in lots of different places doing things and a lot of TV and movies are based with women stars and people of color and stars and so forth. And the gay community has now gotten marriage among gays approved in most states and so forth. So progress in all those, some progress on ours, but we got to fight for it. All these different groups fought for it. We have to fight for it, too. It’s not going to be handed to us. We’ve got to change that perception of love misdirected. That it’s nice to feel sorry us, but what you got to do is, you got to give us an opportunity to fail, not feel sorry for us.
Nic:
Thank you for that. What would you say the greatest challenges for people with disabilities are? We have to fight for it, but apart from having to standing up for ourselves, what are our challenges moving forward?
Tony
Well, I think the one big challenge is for us to believe in ourselves. Not only to fight for it, but to believe for ourselves as a person to believe that we can do things. To not let people convince us otherwise. And for us, I’m a realist as I pointed out to you earlier, I realized I can’t be a cop. I can’t be a fireman. To realize there are things you can’t do, period. And then to realize, now there are things I can do and that’s true with everybody. But those of us with disabilities, because of our disability, there are things that we can’t do. And so there’s a lot of things also that people say that we can’t do, that if they gave us a chance, we could do. So it’s whether or not you believe you can do it or not.
Tony
If you believe you can do something, regardless of what people think, if you believe you can do it, you ought to strive and do it. But don’t become negative just because of the attitude of people and so forth. A lot of people who end up with a prosthesis, a limb missing and so forth. They do amazing things today with a prosthesis. And so it’s us making sure that we know what we can do, what we can try to get done and what we want to get done. It all comes back to us. And as opposed to letting other people dictate what we can and should do.
Nic:
That’s very much the, nothing about us without us, motto, isn’t it?
Tony
That’s exactly right, that’s exactly right. It’s believing, it’s believing. That’s one of my favorite words, is belief. Believing. You’ve got to believe in yourself. You’ve got to believe that it’s us, you’ve got to believe that things will change. You can’t sit back and be negative and say, it’ll never happen. We’ll it’ll never happen if we don’t push. It’ll never happen if we don’t believe that we can change.
Nic:
Thank you. Tony, one last question before we wrap it up. What’s the one thing people should know about accessibility?
Tony
Well, the one thing about accessibility is that you want to permit everybody to have access to the Internet, but access to anything and everything that anybody else has. Because what that means is that you’re not wasting a human life. And that if you give me access to the Internet, if you give me access to a job, I can work and I can eventually get a home or rent or have a car or whatever, or use Uber or whatever, to get to a job and do things like everybody else.
Tony
I think it’s so important with Uber and Lyft now is that, I don’t have to drive anymore. You can use public transit or you can get a car that’ll take you to church or take you to a shopping center and take you back home or take you to a doctor’s and so forth. So accessibility in all different ways is critical. Accessibility to the Internet is important because that’s how we get an Uber. That’s how we can buy things on the Internet. So those of us with disabilities have the same right to be able to do that as anybody else. So accessibility gives us the opportunity to be just like everybody else and that’s what I want and believe in so strongly.
Nic:
Tony Coelho, thank you so much for sharing this time and your wisdom with us. I thank you on behalf of everyone who’s listened to this episode for all your hard work to make society a little bit more friendly for people with disabilities. It’s an honor, pleasure and a privilege to have spoken with you. Thank you.
Tony
Thank you, Nic. I enjoyed it very much. Appreciate it.
Nic:
That’s it. Thanks for listening. And a quick reminder the transcript for this and all other shows are available on the show’s website at a11yrules.com. Big shout out to my patrons and my sponsors. Without your support, I could not continue to do the show. Do visit patreon.com4/Steenhout. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com4/S-T-E-E-N-H-O-U-T. If you want to support the Accessibility Rules Podcast.