Welcome to
Attracting the Stakeholder Support
We Need
Through Positive Language:
A Do-It-Now Session
(E-Mail: eperlow@hotmail.com ; Web: http://www.a4access.org/)
Manager of Information Services, Texas Woman's University School of Library and Information Studies
AHEAD in Texas Conference 2000
bringing Down the Walls... Focusing on Interagency Relationships
Thursday, November 16, 2000 - Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
This document is available in alternative formats upon request.
This document meets the World Wide Web Consortium Guidelines for accessible web design.
URL: http://www.a4access.org/tahead2000.html
| 1. Welcome | 2. Is This How We Advocate for Our Cause? |
| 3. Is This How We Really are Perceived? [Yes!] |
| 4. Guess What? We're Not Going Away! |
| 5. Societal Mindshift to Positive-Think |
| 6. Let's Look to Positive-Think Central: Madison Avenue |
| 7. Positive Language Can Work for Us |
| 8. Top Ten To-Do List | 9. Let's Get Busy! |
| 10. Some Positive Language Examples |
| Ellen Perlow-Biographical Information |
1. Welcome!
Good Afternoon! Thank you all for inviting me. My name is Ellen Perlow. Right now, my name and persona are Alma Advocacy, Disabled Persons Coordinator at Hospitality State University of Texas. I appear before you, Hospitality State University's Committee to Fund Student Services, to appeal to you to provide the requested funding of $10,000 - a fifth of our original request - for our University's Disabled Student Services Office.
We have over 500 disabled persons registered for our service: blind, deaf, developmentally-disabled, learning-disabled, feeble-minded, retarded persons and invalids with cognitive, learning, motor, and other damage and disorders, defects, deficiencies, deformities, disruptive behavior disorders, disturbances, handicaps, impairments, problems, syndromes, and disabilities. Our disabled, handicapped, impaired, ADA students most likely cannot achieve, cannot do the same work, will not graduate, will not find employment, as do all of the other fine capable students on this fine campus. After all, they are disabled. We also apologize for setting them up for failure with false expectations. Their impairments, problems, and needs are numerous, and some, if not most of their equipment, such as hearing-impaired equipment, and other needs are costly. Of course we understand your concerns about the great financial burden that we are asking to place on the university, especially at this time of fiscal cutbacks and uncertainty. That is why we have cut our request to a fifth of our original request, and are willing to accept even much less. So our appeal for this most minimal of funding is directed to the moral sense that we hold dear in this great State of Texas to provide limited as it may be charitable support for the non-functioning, disadvantaged, unfortunate least and lowest common denominators among us.
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Back to being myself, Ellen Perlow ...
2. Is THIS (i.e. the above paragraph) How We Advocate for Our Cause? [I certainly hope not!]
As you noticed, ________________, one of our audience volunteers wrote down the keywords in my above - hopefully fictitious - appeal for funding for an Accessibility Office.
How many of us expect Hospitality State University's Accessibility Office described above to receive a dime of funding, let alone a cent?
I personally would not even give a passing thought to giving ANYTHING - my time, energy, OR money - to such a losing, desperate, failure of a cause. Would you?
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3. Reality Check: Is THIS How We Really Are Perceived? [Yes!]
We all know what we know through experience and through assuming. We tend to assume a great deal, especially that everyone else believes and thinks and feels and understands what we do.
They don't. After all, diversity of thought, opinions, beliefs, priorities, likes, dislikes, etc. is diversity in action.
As professionals in the field of accessibility, our everyday reality, what we know to be vitally important to everyone on this planet: accessibility and equity of access for all, we may assume to be common knowledge, a "no-brainer." Right?
How could ANYONE not believe accessibility to be a most relevant and worthy cause, a cause worthy of attention as well as funding?
a. The fact that we are here this week at this conference, trying to find ways to obtain better funding for services for our students, attests to the fact that our view concerning the worthiness of the cause of accessibility and our message are not registering as they should with our stakeholders.
b. The web accessibility guidelines enumerated in the Texas State Statute 1 TAC §201.12 State Web Sites (see: http://www.state.tx.us/Standards/S201-12.htm) have been referred to as being for "the LOWEST common denominator."
Sorry. Accessibility for All is the HIGHEST common denominator.
c. I recently attended two programs that focused on diversity. At the first, an invited nationally well-known speaker and trainer on diversity spoke about "Diversity in the Workplace." Not a word, not a syllable, not a reference, nor an allusion or illusion to the diversity of doing things differently, differability, was mentioned during the presentation.
The second program featured a panel of Ph.D. professors from institutions other than those with which I am affiliated speaking on "Providing Library Services to Diverse Communities." I previously had submitted to the program organizer my questions for the panel concerning what these professionals believed we should do to enhance awareness and library services to people with differabilities, accessibility, accessibility to the World Wide Web, and universal design.
If I had not attended the program or asked the questions myself during the program, my questions concerning the diversity of differability would not have been asked. At about 9 pm, at the end of the program, when I asked about services to quote unquote "people who do things differently," "people with differabilities" the panelists answered with the understanding that I was asking about the different customs of people of various ethnic backgrounds.
I then clarified my question, referring to one of the panelist's comments earlier in the session in which the professor had compared libraries' acquisition of keyboards for various alphabets other than Roman alphabets to the purchase of assistive devices (a comment that did not mention the PEOPLE who use the devices).
The panel only then understood my question. Stumbling over how to phrase her answer (since I reiterated the terms "people who do things differently, people with differabilities" in my clarification), another professor settled on describing people with "vision disabilities," "hearing disabilities" and a patron using "a device with a keyboard that had pins that produced braille output." "You are referring to a braille display," I offered, and referred to my November 3rd presentation http://twu.edu/~s_perlow/lita2000.html about accessibility, assistive technology, and universal design at the Library and Information Technology Association's [LITA] 3rd National Forum. LITA is a division of the American Library Association.
d. At this LITA Forum, I attended two presentations on what the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) at the Washington, D.C. Office of the American Library Association. As stated on its website (that does not validate as W3C-compliant for accessibility; in fact, with graphics turned off, the page lacks all identity): "The ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) promotes the development and utilization of electronic access to information as a means to ensure the public's right to a free and open information society." Equal access including access for people with differabilities, as well as creation of accessible webpages, is not to be found on the OITP website, even in its [inaccessible?] PDF-formatted brochure on the Digital Divide (see link on: http://www.ala.org/oitp/digitaldivide/policy.html. )
During the first presentation, which focused on OITP's initiatives and advocacy in the realm of Telecommunication Policy, there was no mention of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1998 as amended -- until I asked what the ALA Washington Office is doing to advocate for this Telecommunications Policy. The speaker's answer: "I don't know what we are doing," and referred me to a colleague in his office. I called his colleague last Friday who needed to investigate further what the office was doing, if anything.
In the second presentation, the following day, "People with Differabilities" (a/k/a in his terminology, the "dis" word - at least it was "People First") was mentioned under considerations, but was mentioned last. The speaker referred to the question I raised at his first presentation about Section 508.
These are just a few recent examples of the lack of awareness concerning the universality of differability.
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Yes. The world's perceptions of differability include:
1. We are problems that would just please just go away.
2. We are not even on people's radar screens. We don't exist. We are non-entities.
3. People with differabilities are not even considered ZERO people. We are not people at all. We are gender-less "persons," objects, things. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people with differabilities can be sterilized without consent (Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200; 47 S. Ct. 584; 1927 U.S. LEXIS 20; 71 L. Ed. 1000 (1927)). The case also is famous for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' commentary that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." See also: http://www.elder-law.com/1999/issue640.html.
3. Disabled. What's "disabled?" Take a TapLight. With batteries it works, the light goes on. Without batteries, literally disabling the device, the thing, as we call it in common everyday terms, is "disabled." The TapLight won't work, won't function, is as good as dead. That is what the term "disabled" means by dictionary definition: inoperable, non-functioning, incapable, incapacitated, as good as dead.
How do I know these above perceptions and observations of mine to be true? Life Experience. Blessed with a mobility difference from birth, I have lived the depersonalization experience, and heard it and seen it and tasted and smelled and felt it every day of my life. The languages and religions of our various and diverse cultures and our media are ingrained with the "dis" and "non" and "not" and "won't" and "don't" and "can't" negative language that describe us.
For example, in an ABC News Good Morning America, October 18, 2000 interview, host Charles Gibson asked a mother why she did not secure her young child in a car seat (the reason for her subsequent arrest that prompted her appearance on the television program).
The mother answered: "My child has special needs."
Charles Gibson's follow-up question: "What's her problem?"
Yes. We are problems that would just please go away.
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4. Guess what? We're not going away! We aren't dead yet!
WE are going to have the last laugh because the beautiful diversity of differability, of doing things differently, is universal. Everyone in the human race, as well as every living thing, shares this diversity. We all do things differently. Every last one of us. Every day of our lives we do things differently: whether it be taking a side road to avoid a traffic jam on I-35 or I-30 in Texas or utilizing assistive technology by wearing a raincoat and using an umbrella on a rainy day. In any case, sooner or later, from birth, illness, accident, lifestyle choice, natural disaster, war, or just by aging, we ALL are PEOPLE with differabilities.
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5. Societal Mind-Shift to Positive-Think
Let us look at what negative-think provides for us: A headache, nausea, upset stomach, pain, emotional distress, worry, tension, stress, a bad attitude, depression, and worse. Where does negative thinking get us? Nowhere where we want to be!
Students at the university where I work sometimes come to me with their concerns about job interviews, and of course, not getting the job. My answer: Go in positive. Be positive with the attitude that you are the perfect match made in heaven for this job. Always. What do you have to lose? You don't have the job in the first place [yet]. And you cannot lose something you never ever had.
So what does positive think offer? In my surfing the web for positive language websites, some of the commonly perceived and reported great benefits of positive thinking are a positive outlook on life that relieves stress and tension and improves health, and prolongs life. Happiness.
As the advertising slogan proclaims: Positive Language: Try it, you'll like it!
A Taster's Test of Positive Language Sites via a Northern Lights Search Engine Search (Nov. 11, 2000)
Positive Language Quiz http://ec.hku.hk/epc/interviews/postive_language_quiz_timed.htm
Teacher Talk http://www.ci.swt.edu/courses/Blocks/NBHSBlock/TeacherTalk
Positive Language in Business Communication http://www.westwords.com/guffey/EBC5/ Slides/Chapter2/sld011.html
Using Positive Language in Adoption (law firm website) http://walden.mvp.net/~complaw/lang.htm
"Use child with special needs instead of handicapped child or disabled child."
Positive Adoption Language http://www.diobr.org/CCS/positive%20adoption%20language.htm
"Positive: Child with special needs Negative: Handicapped child; Hard to place"
"The way we talk -- and the words we choose -- say a lot about what we think and value. "
The Magic of a Positive Attitude: Eileen brownell - http://www.soho.org/Start_Up_Articles/Positive_Attitude.htm
Positive Reinforcement http://www.twerner.com/tools/reinforcement.htm
Positive Speaking http://www.speaking.com/articles_html/MaraDerHovanesian-TimesBusiness_521.html
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6. Let's Look to Positive-Think Central: Madison Avenue for How to Attract The Stakeholder Support We Need - and at Little or No Cost
Ask any advertiser or its advertising agency. How we say what we say is important, crucial. Listen to or read any commercial or advertisement. How do the advertisers sell us the products and services that they want us to buy, the products and services that we do buy, and those in which we invest our time, energy, and money?
a. Do the advertisers tell us that the products and services cause problems and are not worth buying?
b. Do the advertisers tell us that the products and services have defects, handicaps, are impaired, invalid, damaged and/or disfigured, and/or can only work with [costly] accommodations?
c. Do the advertisers tell us that the products and services are disabled, or are, as the "d" word means by dictionary definition, incapable, incapacitated and inoperable, so cannot work or function?
Not if the advertisers can avoid doing so! Why not?
Would we consumers personally spend or waste OUR precious, limited time and money buying, supporting, or investing in products that are damaged, defective, disfigured, dysfunctional, abnormal, impaired, problematic, difficult, handicapped, disabled, and/or have a disorder, products that will not and cannot function or work?
Not if WE can avoid doing so!
The above product descriptors certainly sound familiar. The negative, depersonalizing "dis" terminology is the very terminology we and the media use every day to describe our positive accessibility products and services, the worthiness of the people for whom we advocate, and the worthiness of the very people we are.
Is it any wonder that our positive accessibility programs, initiatives, and services receive so little, if any, support? If we want people to support our cause and to fund our programs, why do we describe and represent our products, our clientele, ourselves, in the most negative, unattractive way? Why do we utilize terminology that tends to motivate people to ignore or oppose our efforts?
Simply stated: Why would anyone support or promote ANYTHING that won't work, won't function, that is from the outset a failure and unworthy of support? By using the "d" words, and perpetuating the myth that we are "things" that won't work and cannot do, we are demeaning ourselves and our cause into a no-win situation.
How can we win? How can we convince others to want to join us in celebrating the diversity of doing things differently, in celebrating a new century that celebrates diversity?
Do what Madison Avenue does: Go Positive! Follow the Leaders!
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7. Positive Language Can Work for Us and Attract the Stakeholder Support We Need
How do I know that positive language can work for us? I was an active volunteer in the pro-health movement for about 15 years. I learned about the ultimate power of positive language from my mentor, Joe Cherner, Director of Smokefree Educational Services in New York City. I learned about the masters of positive language, the successful corporations who make the products - regardless of quality - that we consumers buy.
If a company's advertising can attract consumer's attention and through POSITIVE imagery make us consumers feel good about ourselves, the product will sell. It could be a catchy slogan, a memorable jingle, or wonderful graphics. Whatever it is: it makes us consumers feel good.
Positive Language works for advertisers. It works for politicians and their corporate supporters. It can work for us.
Why does positive language work? Positive language gives the listener, the receiver = our stakeholders what they want to hear. People want to feel good and positive language provides that feel-good feeling. It is human nature not to want to associate with the negative or negative labels that are simply a turnoff. Social causes like ___ control, anti-____, non-_____ , and _ against ___ have a difficult time succeeding because their labels create a negative perception of confrontation, control (no one likes to be controlled or told what to do about anything), conflict. Switch to positive labels such as pro- _____, _ safety, _-free ___, ___ for ____, one's cause automatically has the perception of success and being worthwhile.
Also: If our requests for support are for anything less than 100% of what we want, our stakeholders may be left with the perception that our cause might not be that important - to us either. Go for 50%, you may get 10% or less. Go for 100%, you may obtain 50%. Go for 150%, you may get 100%. There is nothing to lose in trying for even more than everything.
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8. Top Ten To Do List
1. Be Positive. Act Positively. Communicate Positively. PEOPLE First, Can-Do Language. Always.
Let us stop "dissing" ourselves. We need to match our already positive actions with positive words, thus establishing positive perceptions that will convince people to WANT to support our positive initiatives. We are PEOPLE first, PEOPLE who happen to do things differently, PEOPLE/ AN INDIVIDUAL who happen[s] to have "differabilities." Don't we all? Is there such a thing as a perfect person? Let us regard and describe others positively, with the same respect and dignity which we ourselves would like to be accorded.
2. They ARE Us. Care. [Positively] Encourage everyone to communicate positively and say it right: positively. Make accessibility, assistive technology, and universal design relevant to everyone, because they are.
We need to make our cause PERSONALLY relevant and important to others and inclusive of everyone, because our call for equity of access IS relevant for everyone. Forget the 'theys,' 'thems," and 'those people.' Differability is all about "We," "Us.""They" ARE Us. Everyone is diverse. Doing things differently is universal. Aging is a fact of human life, as are accidents, illnesses, lifestyle choices, natural disasters, and war. So sooner or later, if not already, every one of us in the human race will have to do things differently and use assistive technology. In fact, all of us do things differently and utilize assistive technology every day of our lives. Has anyone not traveled a different route to avoid an obstructed path or traffic jam or not recently utilized an umbrella, elevator, cell phone, hand-held computer, or remote control device?
3. Don't assume anything. Tomorrow it could be you who needs that accessible parking space or needs to ride public transportation. Never say "never, "cannot, won't, don't..." Perhaps we do "it" differently, but "it" can be accomplished superbly.
4. Advocate for changing names of services, programs to positive terminology: i.e.: "Disability Support"/"Disabled Student Services" = "Accessibility Office[r]" Examples of websites with positive language:
- Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation http://www.hellofriend.org/
- San Francisco Public Library Access Services http://206.14.7.53/access_services/
- University of Southern Maine. GENASYS: Generating Assistive Technology Systematically http://genasys.usm.maine.edu/
5. Differability is a beautiful type of diversity that is UNIVERSAL, a type a of diversity that all of us in the human race, all living things share. We all do things differently. Every last one of us. Every day of our lives we do things differently: whether it be taking a side road to avoid a traffic jam on I-35 or I-30 in Texas or wearing a raincoat or using an umbrella on a rainy day. In any case, sooner or later, from birth, illness, accident, lifestyle choice, natural disaster, war, or just by aging, we ALL are PEOPLE with differabilities.
6. Celebrate Diversity, All Diversity, including differability: the beautiful diversity of doing things differently.
7. Go for 150%. If you ask for 50%, you may get nothing. If you ask for 100%, you may get 50%. If you ask for 150%, you may even get 100%. 8. PEOPLE First. 'They' ARE Us. Positive Language. Always. 9. Positive Language Sells. Positive Language Wins. Every Time.
10. We Need to "Toot Our Own Horn." If WE don't say it right, POSITIVELY, Who Will???
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9. Let's Get Busy!
Now we will meet in four small groups around the flip charts and work on doing it now: transforming our statements, policies, procedures, and thoughts into positive think, into positive language. If you wish, as an example, please use a document that you have with you.
In the alternative, pretend you are an advertising agency given a multimillion dollar contract to successfully market the worst product ever manufactured. Create an advertisement or commercial that will successfully sell it to people worldwide. Make it sound like the best, most practical, appealing product in the world.
If we can successfully sell the worst product ever, think what we can do with our world class Accessibility services and personnel, and for the best people in the world: people with differabilities (a/k/a all of us!).
Please break into small groups and utilize the flip charts to list keywords, for instance, the negative on the left side, and the positive substitutes on the right. We'll meet back together in 15-20 minutes to share our results.
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10. Positive Language Examples
a. Selling the Idea of Assistive Technology (Ellen Perlow handout at LITA National Forum )
1. Assistive Technology IS today's high technology with the highest human touch: exciting, "cool," "high tech," "the latest."
2. Assistive Technology is universal. We all use it, we all enjoy it, sooner or later, if not already, we all need it. We sll need the accessibility that universal design enables.
3. Accessibility, Assistive Technology, and Universal Design improve everyone's quality of life and make everyone's life easier.
4. Accessibility, Assistive Technology, and Universal Design promote universal social principles and principles of librarianship: equity of access and the celebration of diversity: especially the diversity of doing things differently (don't we all?).
5. Accessibility, Assistive Technology, and Universal Design are the right thing to do, they are great for marketing our services, and besides, accessibility and assistive technology are the law.
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Example 2: Let's Celebrate Our Diversity Handout (Ellen Perlow handout at LITA National Forum )
Let's Celebrate Our Diversity!
We All Are Diverse: in Who we Are, What We Do,
How Do It, and How We Feel, Even As Individuals
Can you add to these lists?
Who We Are: gender, orientation, cultural background,
religion, language, dialects, accents, environment (city, rural,
etc.), family structure
How we move about: walk, run, drive, passenger in
vehicle, bus, taxi, car, airplane, train, horse, balloon,
bicycle. wheelchair, skiing, snowshoes, at the conference: Gale
bus?, alternate routes because of traffic, weather
How we feel: moods, wellness, likes, dislikes,
our senses of taste and smell, colors we wear ... .
What we do: our careers: librarian, information
scientist, engineer, architect, doctor, lawyer,
entrepreneur/businessman, writer, mountain climber, ice cream
taster ...
Our librarian/information science careers: cataloging,
acquisitions, collection development, public services, reference,
storyteller, public relations, circulation, children's, library
media specialist, young adults, adults, special libraries,
public, school, archives, government documents, rare books,
graphic artist, web designer, systems librarian, corporate
intelligence/database searching, administrator/director ...
What we enjoy doing for recreation: reading, writing,
swimming, ice skating, tap dancing, parachute jumping, [water]
skiing,
mountain climbing, shopping ...
How we do it: handedness, various forms of
communication, language, with assistive
technology?
Reading
Audrey Gorman. "Diversity Isn't Just About Race, Language, or
Culture." American Libraries, v. 31, no. 2, February
2000, p. 32.
Ellen Perlow. "ASCLA's Century Scholarship on ALISE Agenda."
Interface [ASCLA Newsletter],
v. 22, no. 2, Summer 2000, p. 6.
Ellen Perlow. "Say It Right! People First!" [Letter to
Editor]. Cognotes [2000
American Library Association Annual Meeting-Chicago
Newspaper], issue 4, Tuesday, July 11, 2000, p. 8. Also online
at:
http://www.ala.org/events/ac2000/cognotes/tuesday12.html.
Ellen Perlow. "Celebrating a New Century that Celebrates
Diversity." Interface [ASCLA Newsletter], v. 22, no. 3,
Fall 2000, p. 3-4.
Ellen Perlow. "Scholars and Differabilities." [Letter].
American Libraries, v. 31, no. 10, November 2000, p.
30.
This document is available in alternative formats upon request.
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Example 3: Century Scholarship Handout for Texas AHEAD Conference
Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies Division
ALA/ASCLA
The Century Scholarship Diversity
Initiative
http://www.ala.org/ascla/centuryscholarship.html
The ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship, first awarded in July 2000, is an independently-funded diversity scholarship, currently up to $2500 per year, to help enable students with differabilities successfully complete American Library Association-accredited school of library and information science programs and become active library and information science professionals. The annual deadline to apply for the Century Scholarship is March 1st.
The Century Scholarship Homepage:
http://www.ala.org/ascla/centuryscholarship.html
ALA/Century Scholarship Application:
http://www.ala.org/work/awards/scholars.html#ASCLA
ALA/Century Scholarship Entry Form:
https://cs.ala.org/scholarships/scholars_Entryform.cfm
Have YOU recruited/applied to be a Century Scholarship applicant today?
For more information, please contact: Ellen Perlow, ASCLA Century Scholarship Committee, E-Mail: eperlow@hotmail.com, Web: http://www.ala.org/ascla/
ep6/8/2005
This page last updated Wednesday, June 8, 2005, 5 pm CDT
