Remarkable World Commentary Episode #109: Ask Advocate Donna

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In this practical episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA presents her September Ask Advocate Donna feature, opening with a favourite quotation, speak in such a way that others love to listen to you, listen in such a way that others love to speak to you, before turning to her recurring word game. She contrasts two pairs of advocacy words: commitment versus compliance, where committing is proactive and complying is merely following the leader, and afterthought versus forethought, illustrated with website developers who bolt on accessibility features at the end and managers who only remember employees with disabilities once the plan is already written.

She then works through three listener-submitted stories, running each one through the same four questions, what advocacy is here, who gets involved, why it is necessary, and when you step in. A listener reports drivers occupying wheelchair parking spaces they do not need, and Donna argues the response belongs to everyone, built from the ground up through awareness and escalation to community members and elected representatives. Marissa asks her condo management for a talking elevator and gets a proactive yes, which Donna celebrates as a success story of two parties working together. Chris, who is vision impaired, is refused entry to a restaurant with his guide dog; his friends rise in unison to back him, police are eventually called, and the owners comply, a case Donna frames as standing on rights that Canadian law already guarantees. She closes by inviting listeners to send their own stories.

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Greetings everyone. And I am Donna J. Jodhan, welcoming you to my September, or the month of September, Ask Advocate Donna, my Remarkable World Commentary podcast for the month of September. Ask Advocate Donna. Hope everybody is doing well, and let’s get started for this particular episode of mine. Okay, so let’s start off with my favorite quote, or one of my favorite quotes. Okay. Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. Try this quote. It is very, very effective if you sit down and think about it. It’s all about using this, or the words of this quote, to engage in meaningful communication. Give it a whirl. Okay, now I’m going to move on to my word game. In every segment, my word game consists of presenting you with two pairs of words as they pertain to advocacy. Okay. And more often than not, these words come up in the landscape of advocacy. And I think it’s a good way for us to really sit down and think about these words. Give it a think for just a few minutes. Okay, let’s start off with commitments or compliance. What does commitment mean? Commitment means, in the world of an advocate or the world of anybody who is serious about what they do, you commit to doing something. You commit to carrying out something. You commit to saying, I’m going to do this, and you do it. It is a proactive word.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: On the other hand, compliance means, well, you just comply. You just follow the leader. You’re the sheep following the shepherd. You prefer to just simply react, not proact. So again, commitment means proactive. Compliance means reacting. And as an advocate, you’re often being called upon to decide whether you’re going to commit to something or you’re going to comply with something. Now, does commitment necessarily mean complying? And I don’t think so. Commit is, again, proactive. Comply is reactive. You comply without really thinking about it. You comply with saying, oh, I’m just going to do as I’m asked to do. Commit is going a step further and saying, I’m not just going to comply, I’m going to go out there and I am going to commit to a specific action. So here we go. Complete commitment or compliance. That is my interpretation of these two words. Okay. Here it comes for the second pair of words, an afterthought or a forethought. In my humble opinion, an afterthought is this: if you only do something after everything else has been done. And this can apply to anything in our lives. An afterthought could be, well, I’m invited to this birthday party and I’m going to go and I’m going to have a good time. That is your first mindset. But then you think, oh heck, I should probably take a gift along with me. That is an afterthought. That, or an afterthought would probably apply to website developers and designers when they develop a website.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And then they say, oh, maybe I should put in some accessibility features. Maybe I should deal with accessibility. That is an afterthought. Same for management. They develop these wonderful accessibility — not accessibility plans, but these plans to move forward for the next year or two. And then they say, oh, we have employees who are employees with a disability. So maybe I should be putting in some thought into how they would fit into the plan. Right? That is an afterthought because it was not thought of while the main plan was being developed. That is an afterthought. That is sort of a delayed, late reaction, or just simply saying, oh yeah, I should put this in, or I should do this after the main body of the plan has been developed. Whereas on the other hand, a forethought is including what should be done or what must be done, or what ought to be done during the main planning of your project. Okay. An afterthought is a delayed thought. A forethought, again, is being proactive. This is my humble opinion. Okay. A delayed reaction is an afterthought. A proactive action is a forethought. And this applies to almost anything in our daily lives. Okay. So there you go. Not just as an advocate, but as a person yourself. Okay. Now, I want to go on to the stories that were submitted to us this month, and they’re interesting stories. Here is the first story. Wheelchair parking being abused. Okay, so what does that really mean? In my books, wheelchair parking being abused is when someone who really, really is not using a wheelchair, or who does not need a wheelchair, just simply motoring into the parking space designated for wheelchairs, and they don’t care.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: They just get out of their cars and walk to their locations. That is wheelchair parking abuse. Okay, that’s what I think. And you see that all the time. You go to a mall and you see people going into these wheelchair parking spots. They get out of their car and they literally run to the building. They don’t even have a wheelchair. And in order for us to deal with this in a very meaningful manner. Okay. What is advocacy in this situation is when we start to speak up against those who are abusing wheelchair parking spots. And who gets involved? All of us do, not just the person using a wheelchair. It’s a matter of consciousness, or conscience, or doing the right thing of calling those out who are abusing wheelchair parking spots. Why is it necessary? Because we need to speak up. We need to [trip? 00:09:59] those who are abusing the wheelchair parking spots. How do you do that? It’s from the ground up. You start building awareness about what’s going on. You start attacking the consciences of those who are abusing it, and then you go further up by going to community members, by going to church members, by deciding if you go to your member of Parliament, you go to your member of Congress, who you go to.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s a long, drawn out thing, but starting from the ground up is the best way to go. Okay. And when do you get involved in advocacy? You get involved in advocacy, in this case, when you honestly feel that your conscience needs to be pacified because you see somebody abusing the wheelchair parking spot. Okay, so this is one of the stories that was sent in to me by a listener who says they’ve seen this going on. They want to know what to do. And that’s what my piece of advice would be. Okay, here’s a second story. Talking elevator not working correctly. And again, this happened to Marissa in her condo building. Marissa is a vision impaired person. And for many months and even a few years, she was advocating for an elevator to become a talking elevator so that she would know which floor she was on or going to. And she felt that it would make her life easier and safer if the elevator would talk, as it went from floor to floor. She approached her management office. And in this case, we had success. The management office agreed with her right away and decided to do something about it. They were proactive. And this is a success story that I really enjoy telling you about, because Marissa and her office management worked together to bring in talking elevators into her condo complex. All right. Good for you, Marissa, and congratulations to you.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What is advocacy in this case? Advocacy is identifying a need and then deciding to work with others to make this need a reality, or to address this need. And who gets involved? Marissa, to start with. And then she goes out there and she decides to talk to her management office about it. Okay. Why is advocacy necessary? Because there is a need to be addressed. Marissa’s need to want to have the elevator talk from floor to floor, or as it goes, from floor to floor. Okay. How does one get involved in advocacy again? It’s about Marissa and her management office working together to make this happen. And when do you get involved in advocacy? Again, it’s all about when you think a need needs to be addressed. You identify the need, you want the need to be addressed. You think it’s a legitimate need or requirement? Okay. Congratulations, Marissa. Here’s a third story that was sent in to us. All right. A person with a service dog denied at a restaurant. This, unfortunately, is a very, very common problem. And it may all boil down to the fact that owners of a restaurant may come from a culture where dogs are not dealt with in ways that they are in North America and Europe. And I’m not identifying any specific culture. I’m just saying that because of a culture difference. So in this case, Chris was denied access to a restaurant. He went to a restaurant to enjoy a meal with some friends.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The friends were waiting for him. But when he got to the restaurant, they would not let him in. When he asked why, he was told, well, you have a dog, and we don’t — dogs are not admitted to this restaurant. His friends were watching for him and saw what was going on, and they all got up in unison and came to the front to support Chris. It was a bit messy because the owners kept saying, we’re not letting him in. And the friend saying it is his right to be let in because this country has laws against not being let into a restaurant because of a service dog or a guide dog. Okay, so there was a bit of a shouting match, and eventually, thank goodness, the owners decided that they would comply with Chris’s request to have him and his dog enter into the restaurant. Okay. Unfortunately, the police had to be called because the owners would not back down, and Chris and his friends would also not back down. The police came and, using their… I wouldn’t say their tactics, but using the methods that they were trained to use, were able to get the owners to comply with the request to let Chris enter the restaurant with his dog. Okay, so what is advocacy here? Advocacy here is standing up for your rights. Chris standing up for his rights and his friends supporting him because it is his right, or was his right, to be able to enter that restaurant with his dog, his dog being a guide dog or a service dog? Okay, Chris was vision impaired, so him and his dog had to be — they were not to be denied entry into the restaurant.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: They had to be — their rights had to be adhered to. Okay, this is Canada and those are the laws and the rules. And who gets involved in advocacy? Chris, to start with, and then his friends. So it was a combined effort. Why is it necessary? Because Chris was being denied entry into this particular restaurant. This is why advocacy was necessary in this instance. How do you get involved in advocacy again? It’s a matter of combined efforts on the part of those involved and not backing down, if you know that your rights are being infringed upon. When do you do it? When it directly affects you. Okay. All right. This is it for me for this month. I am Donna J. Jodhan, with this particular feature, Ask Advocate Donna. Please write to me with your story, and I would be pleased to talk about it, discuss it, and share it with our listeners. We have hundreds of thousands of listeners worldwide. We post to over 45 media channels, and we have over 26 advocacy influencers on our team. Do not hesitate to reach out to us. Write to us at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Again, donnajodhan@gmail.com, and that’s spelled donnajodhan. Thank you very much for listening in. Take care and see you again soon.

Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.

Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.