Please. please. please can we stop acting like accommodations are disability justice?

They’re the bare minimum.

2/ A lot of disabled people understand this implicitly, but there seems to be a great deal of confusion from others.

Let's break it down with an analogy I usually don't like to use -- The Table

3/ When people talk about a seat at the table, I usually understand it to mean inclusion that actually values the voices of a minoritized group.

4/ There's differences, of course, between inviting someone to come to YOUR table where power dynamics already exist vs. breaking down and rebuilding the table from the ground up.

But what about even having ACCESS to the table?

5/ Accommodations mean that a wheelchair fits at this metaphorical table. How can you be inclusive to disabled identities if your meetings are healed on an upper floor without an elevator?

6/ Accommodations mean that the discussion at the table has closed captioning, alt-text, a sign language interpreter, graphics that are inclusive to color-blind individuals, etc, etc, etc. How can people participate in your community if they can't even communicate with you?

7/ So this is what I mean when I say that accommodations are a baseline. They allow people INTO the space. Understanding, amplifying, and listening to us comes after, but can't happen without access.

This is why we talk about things like closed-captioning or alt-text. Ableist ideas & decisions will always flourish in groups, meetings, twitter pages, institutions that are inaccessible to disabled individuals. @choo_ek @drjessigold @ChaseTMAnderson @jeremyfaust @meganranney