October 15, 2016 - 16:54
I found the section about accessability and its relation to legislation with the ADA particularly interesting especially because of the upcoming election and its emphasis on disability rights. In the chapter "Opening Doors, Unlocking Hearts", Mairs discusses the shortfalls of the ADA primarily due to the public's distaste for regulations. As a result, employers and businesses tend to carry out the bare minimum the the ADA will allow rather than making workplaces more accomodating to begin with. This leads to vast unemployment in the disabled community with a shocking 82 percent of unemployed Americans with disabilities wanting to work, as Mairs points out. This represents a largely untapped demographic of people who could lower the overall unemployment rate and generally contribute to the economy. The failure to recognize people with disabilities as potential employees goes hand in hand with the typical failure to recognize them as voters. Hillary Clinton is making an effort to include disability rights as part of her campaign and hopefully her interest in this voter demographic will also translate to an interest after the election in raising employment in the disabled population.
Another aspect of accessibility that Mairs highlighted was that fact that people typically prefer to make changes as the need presents itself rather than in advance. Logically, this mind set does not make sense because it is typically cheaper to build ammenities in the first place rather than going through large scale renovations once a structure has already been completed. Futhermore, it makes more sense to prepare for accessability need than to need to wait for something to be built or changed when the need is present and even urgent. This suggests a sense of denial. We do not want to believe in the possibility that we will need any kind of ammenities or be disabled in any way. This feeling prevades throughout much of Mairs's book with the recurring idea of "us and them" in relation to the disabled and the fully abled. Mairs writes about how nondisabled people seem to pitty her and fail to see beyond her disability and (with the surprising exception of the British) often see her as a burden.