ANCOR Links: Season 1, Episode 5
André Floyd
Hello, and welcome to another episode of ANCOR Links. I am your host André Floyd, and I am extremely excited about this episode. First, we have a conversation between Alli Strong-Martin, who is one of my colleagues here at ANCOR, and Carli Friedman, who is the director of research at CQL, which is the Council on Quality and Leadership. Carli is here to talk to us all about ableism. But in particular ableism within the disability community. It is a very interesting conversation and an important conversation. It is some work that doesn’t have a whole lot of precedent. So, we’re extremely thankful to have Carli here to talk to us about it. Throughout the course of their conversation, Carli mentioned an assessment where you can kind of check your own levels of bias through a tool. And the second part of this conversation, I returned with another colleague, Tricia DePalatis. And we took the assessment, and we share our results. And we also try to model something else that Carli mentioned is not being defensive about your results, but finding ways to better yourself, you know, using it as a tool for understanding. So Tricia and I get a little vulnerable, but we come out to a good place. And I think you’re going to want to stick around for that conversation. Now, a quick note, in Carli and Alli’s conversation you will hear switching between person-first language and identity-first language person first would be “person with a disability,” identity-first would be “disabled person.” There’s a lot of discussion about each in the disability community. Person-first is kind of just that you’re acknowledging the person before the disability, whereas identity-first puts the disability up front to help normalize disability, but also to note its importance as a factor in one’s identity. And so you will hear them switch between both because there are valid reasons to use both. And they both do. And you may hear Tricia and I do that as well in our portion of the conversation. Okay, let’s get to it. Carli and Alli are going to talk to you all about ableism. It’s going to be great.
Alli Strong-Martin
Hi, everyone, I am Alli Strong-Martin, I am ANCOR’s Communications Coordinator. And I’m really looking forward to this important conversation that we’re going to be having today. We will be discussing ableism among disability professionals. And I am so thrilled to be joined today by Carli Friedman, the Director of Research at the Council on Quality and Leadership, also known as CQL. Carli, thank you so much for being here. And welcome to ANCOR Links.
Carli Friedman
Thanks so much for having me, Alli.
Alli Strong-Martin
Could you start out by telling us just a little bit about yourself, the work you do, and how you got into the field of disability studies?
Carli Friedman
Absolutely. So my work at CQL, if you’re not familiar with us, we have a few different arms. We do accreditation of human service providers, we do certification and training a lot about personal outcomes. And then we have the research arm, which is essentially me. And I do research using our quality measures and tools like the personal outcome measures about improving the quality of life of people with disabilities, and also provider quality and how that can improve people’s outcomes. And then also an area of interest of mine is ableism. Of course, we’ll be talking about today. I began this work back in grad school, and when I got my degree in disability studies, I found that I kept coming back to this idea. Of course, we know that ableism was really prevalent, which we’ll talk about today. But I kept coming back to this idea that it was, of course really subtle, but also well-meaning people that are often perpetrating ableism. And my idea was that it was that was probably the most common form of what we’re seeing today. So that’s actually what my doctoral dissertation was establishing that concept which I borrowed from useful lessons in aversive racism research to kind of evolve the field because I will say that ableism research, unfortunately, is decades behind racism research. So we’re still kind of learning and growing and developing new ideas about how it operates. And that’s definitely a passion of mine to kind of map all the ways that it infiltrates our systems and our relationships and the impact it can have on disabled people and their quality of life.
Alli Strong-Martin
Thank you for sharing how you got into this field. I think the work that you are doing I’ve said many times is so important and really, really critical. And like you said ableism kind of impacts all of those other things that you said CQL and other organizations, like ANCOR, too, is focusing on quality services, social determinants of health. And then yeah, like you said, overall quality of life and community integration ableism really impacts all of those areas and really, you know, diminishes our ability to provide those quality services and supports that we all, might be well-intentioned and trying to provide those, but when we don’t consider what we’re going to be talking about today, it just kind of negates or diminishes the impact of all of that.
Carli Friedman
Definitely, it kind of leaks out in ways that we don’t realize, and we don’t intend.
Alli Strong-Martin
For sure. So, for anyone listening, who might be unaware, or might have heard of ableism before, but doesn’t really know exactly what that means, could you explain for us a little bit more about what ableism is, and maybe provide some common examples of ableist language, attitudes or beliefs?
Carli Friedman
So ableism simply is discrimination, prejudice and oppression of disabled people. And including the idea that non-disabled people are superior to disabled people. Of course, that can look like a lot of different things, from people making assumptions about a disabled person’s abilities to make fun of them more systemic discrimination. So, I think a helpful way to think about this is the stereotypes and narratives that we have about disability, especially in media, like films and TV shows, and news media. So for example, there are almost conflicting stereotypes where sometimes, especially in children’s films, if you think about the villain, they almost always have some kind of physical marker of disability like a giant scar across their face. And that’s intended to tell you that this is the bad guy, right? But what does that mean, when all the villains have disabilities? What does that share about disability outside of the context of that film? So, there’s these stereotypes about disabled people. Well, first of all, that disability is bad and sad, that disabled people are kind of all miserable, and, you know, hate their lives. And that there’s a tragic narrative of all disabled people wanting to end their lives, that’s pretty common in films as well. But then you have, so those are kind of like negative narratives. But then on the flip side, we also have the positive Well, quote, unquote positive because they’re not actually positive, but the portrayal of disabled people as like childlike and warm and always happy and positive, and that we should pity them. So, we have these conflicting ideas that ultimately dehumanize people, they stigmatize them, and they don’t reflect the lived realities of disabled people, and all they do is really further perpetuate ableism. And sometimes are used to, like inspire non-disabled people, you know, I should feel good about my life, because look, that novice or that disabled person, you know, climbing a mountain or something, and I’m not like that. So, I should be able to do you know, I should be able to motivate myself, or my life isn’t that bad? Like, it doesn’t look that bad, but like, what does that what does that look like? If that is your life? I mean, not saying that reflects the true reality of your life. But what does that say to disabled people about the value of their lives?
Alli Strong-Martin
And I think you bring up a lot of examples, I’m sure people listening are thinking of many, many different examples of things that you just talked about. You mentioned earlier that ableism, like racism, and sexism, has really kind of changed shapes over time, yet still persisted. So I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit about the difference between historical ableism and the ways that modern ableism shows up today.
Carli Friedman
Traditionally, ableism has been a lot more overt today, even though it’s more subtle, it doesn’t mean it’s less widespread. But, you know, historically, we’ve had things like ugly laws where it was technically illegal for people with visible disabilities to be seen in public. Fortunately, we don’t have those kinds of laws anymore. It doesn’t mean ableism is necessarily better today. But it’s just shifted the way that it functions. So, it’s more subtle, kind of more microaggressions where it’s still happening in everyday interactions. But for some people, it can be harder to see what’s going on. But it’s still embedded within our systems and structures. But we’re no longer like making it illegal to be disabled in public in that specific way. You could argue perhaps that like, implicitly, maybe there are some laws like that, but not definitely less overt than it used to be.
Alli Strong-Martin
I saw in reading through some of your research and CQL’s research about that word you just said, implicit versus explicit ableism. And like what you’ve found, and I hope you can feel free to speak a little bit about that. Although people think that they aren’t acting in explicitly ableist ways, they often we often don’t think about those implicit or unconscious ways that we do still perpetuate prejudice and ableism.
Carli Friedman
Definitely. So I’ll just back up for people who are not familiar with what explicit and implicit means. Explicit means conscious attitudes. So if I were to ask you, “How do you feel about disabled people?” that’s consciously how you think you feel. Implicit is unconscious attitudes. So, that’s the attitudes you’re not necessarily aware of. And a lot of how implicit attitudes work is actually you internalize society’s ideas about disability or a range of different topics. But also, it’s about how our brains process information, we tend to categorize people into groups to make it easier and quicker to process information. So not-disabled, disabled. And we prefer people that are like ourselves, and, and also in a way that mirrors society’s attitudes. And the really interesting thing about explicit and implicit attitudes, or at least to me, because I’m kind of a nerd about this stuff, is that they don’t always relate. You can have low explicit attitudes, so not be biased explicitly, but unconsciously, or implicitly have high attitudes or have a lot of bias. And that actually is what we find related to disability. Most people are well-meaning—they have low, explicit levels of disability bias. But when we look under the surface, implicitly, they have high levels of disability bias and strongly prefer non-disabled people. And so, they’re going around truly believing that they’re not ablest and not meaning to be ableist. But it’s kind of like I said earlier leaking out in ways that they don’t intend, and, and they’re perpetuating ableist acts in ways that they perhaps don’t even realize.
Alli Strong-Martin
So, I’ve seen in your research, Carli, that you have, you’ve made this connection between ableism and the people and professionals who get to define what this field is all about. And so, I think that that, like you were just saying, is really at the root of why we haven’t previously, or up until this point, in the last few years studied that relationship between implicit and explicit ableism.
Carli Friedman
Historically, those in charge of research about disability or overseeing, you know, services for disabled people have operated under that medical model. And that’s still the most prominent model today. But that understanding of disability is that is the disabled people that need to be fixed in something wrong with them, and not as a society. So if that’s your understanding of disability, then you’re probably not really going to focus on ableism as much because it’s not a societal problem. It’s an individual person problem. When we know that’s actually not the case. I think one way, one of the strongest ways to conceptualize disability is to understand it as intimately linked with systemic oppression. Like in disability studies, my field, disabled people are considered to be disabled by the environment. So, it’s people with impairments who are disabled by the environment. So, it’s the environmental physical structures that are the barriers and not the person. And if you don’t have an understanding of disability, then you’re probably not going to put a lot of weight or focus on ableism research.
Alli Strong-Martin
I think that something else that’s really important to talk about is you mentioned that some of your research interests are not only ableism, but things that ableism impacts like quality of life and social determinants of health for disabled people. So could you speak to any connection between ableist beliefs and outcomes for people with disabilities in terms of maybe higher levels of institutionalization or less inclusion in the workforce and employment and different poverty rates for people with disabilities?
Carli Friedman
Ableism is just so impactful from interpersonal relationships to systems and structure. So I think a really good example is health as a result of ableism disabled people have worse health outcomes, in large part because of healthcare settings and professionals not considering their needs and a lack of access, but provider ableism also results in under referral and lower quality of health care. And when disabled people are discriminated against by their health care providers. They are more likely to participate in coping behavior, like smoking or substance abuse, which further impacts their health. They’re also more likely to delay or forego future health care because of these experiences, which also results in more likely to visit the emergency room. So it’s kind of this fulfilling cycle also, similarly ableism can impact quality of life. So, for example, stereotypes of disabled people as unproductive or incapable make it difficult for disabled people to get jobs or result in them being paid sub-minimum wage or being underemployed when they do get hired. As a result of this employment discrimination, disabled people are more likely to live in poverty, which then further negatively impacts their health and quality of life. We can also zoom out a bit more and look at policies and systems and how ableism embedded within them impacts disabled people immensely. So policies are informed by policymakers and constituents’ attitudes, and so are the funding decisions. For example, I found states with higher implicit disability bias, institutionalized more people with intellectual and developmental disabilities or I/DD, so they spend more on institutions and devote a smaller portion of their long-term services and supports (LTSS) funding to home and community-based services or HCBS. So, to devote more of the funding to institutions than they do to people living in their own homes and communities, despite the fact that we’ve known for decades that living in the community produces better outcomes, it’s more cost-effective and is preferred by people with disabilities. These are really just a few examples. But really, I think the takeaway is that ableism touches and informs almost everything we do, from how policies are implemented to the history of our field to how our field has evolved over time and still follows a medical model like we were talking about to inequities and health and quality of life outcomes.
Alli Strong-Martin
Wow, that is so powerful. And to know that, because I think what I’ve seen, in my own personal experience working in direct support roles in the past and in administrative staff roles at provider agencies, I think I’ve seen this phenomenon, that I know you’re very familiar with, that disability professionals assume that because we work in this field, or because we have good intentions, as you were talking about earlier, that means that we can’t possibly be ableist or hold those ableist attitudes. So other than those statistics and findings that you were just sharing, why do you think it’s so important for provider agencies and disability professionals to not make that assumption? That just because we work alongside disabled people, or do provide services in support of people with disabilities, we can’t be ableist.
Carli Friedman
Yes, This unfortunately is a pretty common one. And I think it actually goes back to the ablest stereotypes and tropes. So the reason why people who work with disabled people are assumed to be good people is because of stereotypes about disabled people being pitiful and needing help. So by virtue of these problematic assumptions, anyone who does help is considered a good person. Not to say there aren’t great people working in our field, but is problematic that we’re assumed to be good people simply by working with disabled people, or having our work be about disability. Because at its core, it devalues disabled people, and it reinforces oppression. And beyond that, the fact is, ableism is extremely prevalent in our society and nobody escapes receiving those messages. So most people, even well-meaning ones, are ableist. Just because you work in close proximity to disabled people, or have a family member, or have good intentions, doesn’t mean you’re not ableist. So it’s critically important to recognize because if we’re assuming ableism doesn’t exist in this way, we’re never going to be able to fix it. And if we don’t fix it, we do real harm to disabled people, which I imagine is the exact opposite reason most disability professionals got into the field.
Alli Strong-Martin
And so over the last few years, I know that you conducted a research study among a sample of over 400 disability professionals and their attitudes toward people with disabilities and ableist beliefs or prejudices that they might hold. Could you share a little bit with us about what you and CQL found in that research study?
Carli Friedman
So I was kind of driven to do this study because we have a lot of evidence showing that ableism is prevalent in society in the general population. There’s a bunch of evidence showing that it is prevalent among health care professionals, but less research focusing on specifically those people that work with disabled people, as well as people in human services that may overlap some with healthcare professionals, but it may not. So that’s kind of the reason I was driven to do this study, as well as like you mentioned earlier, the fact that this group of people often have power over disabled people and can affect their lives immensely. And so ran the study where we examine their explicit and implicit attitudes, and also the relationship between those implicit and explicit attitudes and found actually much higher levels of explicit attitudes than we find in the general population. And, frankly, higher than I was expecting, because usually, people think they don’t have negative explicit attitudes, or there might be a little hesitation to share those attitudes, like because you don’t want to come off as biased. So that was a little higher than I was expecting. And then implicit attitudes, most of the disability professionals had implicit bias against disabled people, a lot of people strongly so and as a result of having both explicit and implicit attitudes, most disability professionals fell into a category where they’re both consciously and unconsciously biased. Were talking about before, what’s actually most common in society, I ran this other study in the general population we’re about with about 250,000 people. And it was most common where people explicitly had low levels of bias against disability and implicitly high levels of bias. So this is called aversive ableism. And this is that well-meaning group of people that we’ve been talking about with disability professionals. That wasn’t that was common, but it wasn’t the most common group. Because of the high levels of explicit bias. It’s not to say they’re not well-meaning people, but they’re actually a little bit more cognizant of the fact that they have biases than the members of the general public, which is an interesting conclusion. It doesn’t make it better or worse. I mean, all ableism is problematic, regardless of if people are aware of it, or if it’s explicit or implicit. But I think, really, the takeaway is lots of work to be done.
Alli Strong-Martin
And I think, on that note of work to be done, what advice do you have for provider agencies or disability professionals who want to address ableism and take accountability to become anti-ableist?
Carli Friedman
So it can be really hard to change your attitudes doesn’t mean it’s impossible, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. But I think it’s important to think of it as more of a journey than that’s going to require a lot of work. First, you have to have an accurate assessment of where you’re at, you can’t assume you’re not able to see especially because of what we know between of the difference between explicit and implicit attitudes. So I would recommend starting by taking an implicit association test, which you can find free on mind, Project implicit.com, because of how prevalent ableism is in our society, odds are, you’re probably not going to get a great score, it’s really important that you not let this make you defensive. There’s actually some really promising research coming out that has found that when people are defensive, they’re significantly more likely to resist changing their attitudes, when they’re not defensive, it’s easier to change their implicit attitudes. So try not to let the bat score make you defensive. If you’re unhappy or you find it upsetting. Don’t let that become a barrier, take it as a learning opportunity. The know the more you know, the better prepared you are to do the work, then I’d recommend learning more about ableism. If we don’t understand all the ways ableism works, and what it looks like. We’re going to keep doing ablest things without realizing and say This also includes not just learning about ableism, but stereotypes of disability and also narratives and models of disability like we’ve been talking about. And then armed with this knowledge, you can start becoming more conscious of the assumptions that you’re making and make more efforts to change. Like for example, when you’re watching a movie or reading or reading a news story, think to yourself what role does this disabled person play in the story? Notice how the disabled villains have scars or question the fact that why is someone with a disability who becomes a prom king? Why is that a national news story? What stereotypes are at play? What ideas about disability are being reinforced? Why is this problematic? The more you critically interrogate these things, the less likely you are to internalize problematic ideas about disability. Another example is language. It can be really hard to change your language especially because disability words are really common in our society like crazy and stupid. First, you need to practice just being cognizant of the fact that you’re even using these words. And because you’re often doing it automatically without realizing, then you start to catch yourself, that’s kind of like the next phase, catch yourself using it, and then try to make replacement. And you’ll probably mess up a lot and have difficulty replacing that word. But eventually it does happen. And you’ll find that root word is removed from your vocabulary. And so your language is reinforcing stigma in that way anymore. It’s fantastic. Now, these are things individual people can do. And provider agencies can certainly encourage their ease activities among their employees. But there’s also a need to recognize that having a one-off training isn’t really going to fix these deep-seated attitudes. I recently heard it described as us all “marinating in ableism,” which I think is really perfectly vivid and metaphor. So we really need to fundamentally change how people understand and think about disability, like moving away from custodial models of care, where we focus on disabled people being incapable and needing protection towards a recognition that disabled people have rich lives. Disability is an identity, it’s a community, it’s a culture, while education is important, there’s so much more that we’ll need to be doing for Disability Justice.
Alli Strong-Martin
I love all of what you just said. And I think two things that are really connected to me are the first point you were one of the first points you made about not getting defensive when you realize how biased all of us are. And then, like you said earlier, not letting that stop you doing more than that one off training, because I think that’s really, really important that you said it’s not, it’s not just going to be a training on anti bias that we can check off of our list and that that’s going to enable us to, like you said, get the the marinade of ableism, kind of kind of off of all of us, it’s going to take much more than that. So thank you for all of those ways that we can, that we can take greater accountability for ourselves. And like you said, on that, that journey towards recognizing our own ableism and then combating that ableism. So as we wrap up this conversation, where can listeners find more of your work more of CQL’s work? And what resources or research would you recommend, one of those starting points for those who want to learn more?
Carli Friedman
So all of my work and CQL’s work is available for free on our website, which is c-q-l.org. We have tons of academic journal articles. But I always try to also do a more approachable research summary for every study that I published, which are available on there. We have some infographics and webinars. And then also that I think that’s a great starting point because there are links to other resources as well. So you can kind of go on a little, little journey starting in one place, and maybe ending up in another. So that’s what I would recommend, perhaps starting with.
Alli Strong-Martin
Well, thank you so much. And again, that is www.c-q-l.org. And Carli, just I cannot thank you enough for joining us today and sharing your expertise and your deep passion for this work. And just thank you again for all the work that you’ve done over the years and that you’ve contributed a lot to this field. So, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Carli Friedman
Thank you. And thank you for giving us a platform to continue to conversation about ableism in our field.
André Floyd
Hello, and welcome back. It is André Floyd again. I am back and I am here as promised with Tricia DePalatis. Tricia, how are you?
Tricia DePalatis
I’m doing well. Thank you. How are you?
André Floyd
I’m good. So we wanted to have a conversation about what Alli and Carli just talked about ableism. And Carli gave a great resource which was a test to be able to decipher bias for physically abled versus physically disabled. And Tricia and I took that test and in the, you know, following their advice, to take the test, sit with the results and not get defensive. That is what Tricia and I are going to discuss in this because we both took it. And it was it was an experience to take it we didn’t really know what to expect. But Tricia, what was your kind of experience, I guess before and after taking the test?
Tricia DePalatis
Such a good question. Yeah, it was I had never taken any implicit association tests. And I honestly went into it in the middle of a workday, which I think in retrospect, I would not recommend. There are seven rounds. And I think I was a little bit distracted, but I was trying my best I focused on it. And then at the end, when I got the results, I really understood why Carli told us to not get defensive because I was very defensive. Maybe I don’t need to say now what my result was. But I will say that I got the most common results for any of the respondents who take the test. And so for those of you that do take it, I encourage you to do so you will know what that means. I was not super pleased. But how about you? André?
André Floyd
Yeah, it was, I have taken tests similar to this before, but I didn’t exactly know that until we got underway. And then the way my brain works is it almost felt like a game. And so I was like, you know, because reactions, you know, I was into it. But yeah, there were still moments where I got, you know, after I took the test, I realized that yes, I allow I’ll give my results, I have this I, the implicit associates association test told me that I have a slight preference for physically abled versus physically disabled. And I kind of sat with that and was like, interesting. I wonder why that is. And I was trying to think in my mind, oh, that’s just me being like, unsure of how to like, you know, maybe approach a conversation with somebody just, you know, I don’t want to say the wrong thing. And I was just thinking, you know, as a full disclosure, I’m a black man. I’ve heard that before. And I was like, oh, no, I said the thing.
Tricia DePalatis
So and I think that’s important to kind of acknowledge that, that is part of the defensive nature of it, you want to, again, it focused on the word implicit, right? It’s, it’s not something that you’re actively doing. But we also have to understand that society and the way it’s been built, the way we’ve been raised, a lot of the messages that we’ve gotten, which Carli talks about, in her conversation with Alli, kind of reinforce or enforce this idea of this is normal, this is not. And so when you face something that’s not quote, unquote, normal, sometimes you can come to feel a little bit uncomfortable around it. And that in turn drives a preference in your mind. And so a note knowing that, and addressing that is kind of the important thing. And that’s why I’m kind of glad we did this, and are going through this kind of vulnerable aspect with one another and on the podcast. It’s not what I had envisioned for this episode, but I’m glad we are here. Because it is important to recognize these things. And because that recognition can lead to change. And so I’m glad we did it. And and yeah, I was not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed in myself, which is, which is a thing, it’s okay to be disappointed in yourself. I think you’re really right. It’s it’s not about what you hope you get. And that’s, that’s the entire purpose of explicit bias versus implicit bias, right? Like, you and I work at an association where we have every learning opportunity at our fingertips, and we can do these studies about biases against people with disabilities, and we discuss these things. And yet, when you take the test and you realize, Wait, what’s going on with my brain? Why is it harder for me to associate this word with good or bad? And then at the end, you get the results? I’ll also be honest, André, I got “strong automatic preference for physically abled versus physically disabled people.” And I was like, upset. So yes, it’s, it’s strange. I completely understand, though, how the test works. And I did a little bit of digging over the weekend about all of the ways in which this test really is valid. And there are examples like, you know, millions of people who have taken this test, that you see that 76% of respondents showed an implicit preference for people without disabilities, and how in some cases, the biases against people with disabilities were stronger than almost every other type of implicit association test. So it’s clear that your individual results may not feel great, but when you look at the aggregate data for different regions and see that there are states where people score more poorly with their implicit associations, and those same states have higher rates of rates of institutionalization. So, yeah, it’s very worthwhile to do the work of seeing where you’re starting and recognizing that that is not the most important part of it. This exercise by far, that is just the beginning point. And it’s what you do next. That really matters.
André Floyd
Yeah, and I think it’s important to be vulnerable. And to talk about this because this is this is right at the intersection of Carli’s work, you know, people who work in the disability space can still be able is to many different degrees, sometimes it’s implicit. And sometimes it’s still having the idea that you’re doing something good. Therefore, you are a good person, that’s a charitable attitude, instead of, you know, actually advocating on behalf but also, but also in support of people with disabilities, elevating centering them first. And I think that there can be a lot of that in so many small conversations that pop up that cover, you know, in terms of the topics that cover the broad arena of disability and what to do, how to make things better. And I think that you have to be aware of these things. And that’s why I’m, I’m glad that this kind of thing exists. Now, obviously, we at ANCOR, we don’t want to leave out the fact that it only talked about physically disabled, we also work with intellectually and developmentally disabled people. And so that is one thing that it doesn’t cover, but I feel like, whenever you do a test like this, you can always look at what’s not covered, or what it doesn’t include, and kind of use that as like, uh, well, you know, it didn’t talk about that. So it’s fine. And it’s more so it’d be like, okay, except the results are, what they are. And then what’s next. And for me, this is where I think I went ahead with this is just a conversation of what to do next, you know, we have these, you and I both took this, we had our reactions, our initial reaction, what and they didn’t feel great, which is okay, you know, it’s all right. But it’s what you do after that. And so for me, it was really about using that. I’m a naturally curious person, but I think curiosity is informed by empathy, once you have information, then you, you know that the whole cliche, no better do better thing, right? And so now that we have this information, it’s about, okay, where are places that I lack that I can strengthen. And that’s tremendously for me, at least, that’s an empowering place to be because you’re bettering yourself, which is an important thing, not only for the space that we work in, but overall just to be a better person to, in to marginalized people, marginalized groups, vulnerable groups, which is, you know, where we work and what we do, it just helps us be able to do that job that much better when we look at it that way.
Tricia DePalatis
Exactly. And it’s important to note that Carli’s research is based on this implicit association test. And as she mentioned, the correlation between people’s biases, their implicit biases, and systemic changes for people with disabilities, there’s, there’s a really big connection there. So even if you take the test, and you think, Oh, my gosh, how is that possible? I don’t like that. What’s really important is taking that opportunity sitting in those feelings, but then saying, Well, what can I do about it? Where do I go from here? Something that, in a lot of ways, I think is similar to other types of biases. Like, if you’re working on becoming more anti-racist, you have to recognize that it’s not just something that you’re going to fix instantly, right? Like, when you are in a society that is not built with people with disabilities in mind, or where there are systems of oppression that affect marginalized communities, there’s a lot of unlearning to do. And there just needs to be that moment of day by day, not just a moment, it needs to be a continuous process of trying to look at your own split-second reactions. And those feelings you have sometimes or the way you’re talking to somebody and questioning those things and saying, Wait, why am I doing that? And I think that this test helps us become a little bit more aware of the, the issues that we have right now. And what we can do to challenge some of our beliefs, the ones that we don’t normally like to look at.
André Floyd
Yeah, yeah, introspection is a great thing. I kind of like it. I’m, probably to a fault, I’m self aware, maybe far too self-aware because I do question myself. Not that, you know, to a level of insecurity, but just like why did I say that? Why don’t I think that I’m kind of familiar with doing those things. So for me, this was a really great process, but I think also for you and for everyone is you did a little some research as well. If there’s one thing I have found out about Tricia, it’s that she is super thorough. So, her reaction to this was to like, dive right in and find out what can I do? And I really appreciate her for that. So, Tricia did some research to find some things about, okay, you have this information about yourself that you do not like, how can you change these things? And you came up with some pretty fun ones?
Tricia DePalatis
Yes, so I found an article that I really enjoyed, we can link it in the show notes. It’s called implicit bias and people with disabilities, from the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights. So it’s ways that you can reduce your implicit bias, this is very much what Carli talked about. First, begin by evaluating yourself using something like the IAT, you need that awareness, you need a bit of a pretest. And honestly, it makes it personal, right? If you’re only reading about disability, or ableism, you kind of separate yourself from some of the concepts. And I think by doing this, it made it much more real. Like wow, I also have these biases, what? So you mean that awareness to begin with? The second thing is, stay motivated in your efforts to reduce these biases. So no matter what, this is what Carli said, Don’t let yourself sit in your defensiveness, don’t brush it off and think, well, that must have been a fluke. Just try to figure out what you can do and stay motivated. And then there are some ideas for rewiring your brain. And I think it’s super important for us to talk about the idea of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Think this is a really popular thing right now, a lot of you might have heard of it. But there’s a big difference between those of us that have a fixed mindset, might accept these results and say, Wow, I’m either a good person, and I’m anti-ableist and anti-racist. And that’s great, and pat myself on the back, or I’m a bad person. And I’m an ableist. And there’s really nothing I can do about it. That’s bad, don’t have a fixed mindset. A growth mindset means you look at these results. And you say, Wow, that’s not great. But I know I can change it, there are things that we can do. And I’m going to challenge myself, and I’m going to do better. And I know that I can, it’s going to take time, it’s going to take a lot of relearning rewiring my brain, but there are things that we can do so that my implicit biases are decreased. And that’s going to make a measurable difference for how I relate to and support people with disabilities. So some ideas for rewiring your brain are things like educating yourself participating in trainings, reading books, focusing on your use of language, are you still using some ableist language is words that are rooted in negative stereotypes of people with disabilities. So I think Carli and Alli talked a little bit about that. Words like, crazy, that’s been one that I’ve been noticing a lot. I think one of the ways that you can stop using those words, is to begin just trying to pay attention more often to how frequently they’re used. And when you recognize that you’re using it, you’re just going to start becoming a lot more aware. Oh, wow. I was trying not to use that word. I just said it. Oh, wow, somebody just used that word, like you just you start picking up on it a lot more. And then you try to find alternatives to those words. So for crazy, some of the ones that I like to use instead are wild. absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous. It really just depends. We use the word crazy for so many things.
André Floyd
The thesaurus is your friend.
Tricia DePalatis
The thesaurus is your friend, the internet is your friend. There’s so many things. So that’s part of the education process. Another way that we can rewire our brain is just perspective taking. So try to understand the perspective of a person with a disability. What do they encounter? What adaptive techniques do they use? And how often is it the society may not consider their needs? So I think those are a couple of ways that you can try to rewire your brain. Do you have any other ideas, André?
André Floyd
No, I love the education standpoint of it because I do think that it’s twofold. You work on yourself before you potentially put yourself in a situation where you could harm others because if you don’t know something, you might do something. Maybe not intentionally, but you might do something that would cause them harm. So I love that. So many of these are, how you work on yourself first. How you handle things, how you educate yourself, how you ask yourself questions, because there’s a growth thing that you can do in and of yourself to get yourself to a better space. Because I think ultimately, then, once you get more around people with disabilities, and you’re able to talk things become normal, yeah, then it’s, it’s easy, then, you know, we are just by nature of most of us and the way the society is built, we have plenty of experience being around, non-disabled people, but we haven’t had that around people with disabilities. And I think that getting in those spaces, having those friends, making those connections is super important. But you have to make sure that you’re prepared for that. And I think part of this test is important because it lets you know whether you are not in what you need to do to become okay to do that. And I think that’s the ultimate goal. With all of this, I mean, ANCOR talks about community inclusion, as a mission statement, I think a lot of things that we do, from public policy to a lot of advocacy to everything else is about just that. And I think this is how you do it on an individual basis on an interpersonal level, and I love it. So I’m just going to underscore the education, the self-monitoring aspect of it, making sure you’re asking yourself questions and making sure that you’re understanding yourself the roots of certain things, and putting in the work to take them out if they shouldn’t be there and replant them. I don’t know, I’m trying to go with this plant metaphor. I don’t know if I actually did it, because I’m not a gardener. Hopefully, people understood what I meant.
Tricia DePalatis
And I feel like part of what you said too, is at ANCOR, part of our mission is community inclusion, like helping our members who are generally providers, provider agencies for people with disabilities. We work on trying to increase community inclusion. But I think that part of what we’re recognizing through this test, but just through everything Carli was mentioning is, that there really is because there is a lack of community access for a lot of people with disabilities. Still, it’s kind of common for people to not really spend a lot of time with people with disabilities. And so I think that creates a little bit of fear. Represented in the media, or when you do see them, you are portrayed in a way that is tragic, or charitable, right? I mean, I think one of the things that we need to do is recognize when we’re seeing those problems, and also go out of our way to try to find people with disabilities that we can follow, who are challenging a lot of those stereotypes, I really like Emily Ladau, she has a book called Demystifying Disability that I’ve read, and I really enjoy that. And she has an amazing podcast that I listened to. But yeah, trying to find those models of people who challenge the stereotypes that are so prevalent in our world. And that’s another way that you can combat and reduce some of these biases and do a little bit of that unlearning.
André Floyd
No, I absolutely love that you brought that up. And because I think that’s, you know, that’s one of the things we’re working on trying to do with this podcast as well. So think social media has made it easier to be able to find those perspectives to understand and to get more like that work is done. And it’s not done in such an interpersonal way, it’s out there for public consumption. And I think if you approach it and engage it with this, you know, in the back of your mind or in the forefront of your mind as well to make change, then I think that’s great. And it really does help underscore the usefulness of that and and that and it gets something from the writers who are putting something out there that’s quite vulnerable. Maybe it’s frustrating for you for you, if don’t necessarily understand where it’s coming from. But now, you kind of take it and you listen, and you kind of understand more of where they’re coming from with their with their. So I think finding different people to follow and listened to. And of course, continue to listen to this podcast as we aim to do the same thing throughout multiple topics.
Tricia DePalatis
I think I just want to reiterate how, no matter what your results are, it is a starting point, not an ending point. And that this, this test-taking just taught me that we all have room to grow and when you think you’re done, you have failed. So just never let yourself believe that you’re a good person that of course you’re not able is that is kind of the worst thing that you can think. The thing that we all need to remember is that we do live in a world that does not treat people with disabilities the same as people who don’t have disabilities. And so we need to try to be a part of the solution. Instead of just saying, Wow, there, we’ve made a lot of progress. But there’s not a lot that still needs to be done people, they’re fine. Now we can have more we can do. And that’s not just as a society, but also on an individual level.
André Floyd
I love that. And that’s a great place for us to end. So again, thank you, Tricia, for your openness. And I hope that everyone got something from that. But we will continue on this internal process. And we’ll continue with this podcast to strive for just that. So thank you very much, Tricia, and to everyone. Thank you for listening and we will be back next time with another episode of ANCOR Links.