A few days ago, a colleague, Tisha Sherdan-Korf - Founding Director and Diversity Coach at Collaborating Inclusion, in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area – posted a question to members of an on-line diversity and inclusion chat group to which we both belong. She asked:
Why is it that when we sometimes discuss diversity, disability is not included?
The disability community is such an under-served community with so much talent
that has not been tapped into.
A thoughtful question, that I automatically assumed would attract numerous responses. Unfortunately, my assumption was incorrect because yours truly was the lone respondent.
Nevertheless, I let Tisha know that disability is a topic that I insist on including in my discussions and trainings because it impacts all of us - regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, etc. Of the more than 40,000,000 known disabled persons in this country, only 13% were born disabled. The rest became disabled as a result of accident, illness or just age. Additionally, the 40,000,000 doesn't even include the mentally and learning disabled. So when we leave disability out of our conversations, we're excluding a significantly large segment of the population.
While we’ve considered ourselves having been engaged in serious discussions about diversity and inclusion for the past three decades, we continue to think about and discuss diversity in a segmented fashion. If you want to know about race and ethnicity, you are directed to “diversity” forums and groups. If you want to know about sexuality, you are directed to “LBGT” forums and groups. If you want to know about ageism you are directed to “age” forums and groups. And if you want to know about disability you are directed to “disability” forums and groups. It’s disturbing that even the majority of us practitioners continue to see diversity in segments, rather than view “diversity” as a comprehensive packaging that simultaneously encompasses numerous dimensions.
Unfortunately, the word "diversity" still means race, ethnicity and (sometimes) gender to most corporations and even to most diversity practitioners. Think not? Type in the phrase "diversity jobs" in your browser and see what pops up. You may see a few jobs that actually have something to do with managing diversity. But 99% of the things that pop up will be job announcements that contain a statement about the company's commitment to respect and hire "diversity" candidates. "Diversity" continues to be viewed and used as the politically correct word for "minority" which is why so many companies and recruiters talk about "diversity hires" and "diversity candidates." This misconception will not change until we as practitioners change our languaging and help those we are educating understand that "diversity" encompasses everyone - including white people and, yes including the disabled.
As we move forward in our thinking and discussions about diversity and inclusion, I encourage all of us to expand our viewpoints and our language about the subject itself. A more inclusive understanding will end a lot of unnecessary confusion and discord, and may actually help us gain much needed momentum to advance our efforts!
Inclusively yours,
Di Versity
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1 comment:
I think that disability is not the "hot topic" in diversity. I also think that there is fear and misconception about disability. People with disabilities in the workforce require minimal accommodations which is $500 or less. The disability community is very loyal, low turnover rate, and less absenteeism than people without disabilities. Just think if we as adults do not want to discuss the topic of disabilities just imagine how children feel who have disabilities. Is our society really inclusive?
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