Access-Ability

“People in wheelchairs are so inconsiderate – they really should have thought of all of this before they decided to be paralysed…”

I begin this post in fear and trembling – as one ought to when writing about something which privilege has always blinded one to, but is the daily, lived experience of another. In sharing that which crescendoed into my consciousness late in my 30’s, while others have had to struggle with the personal and structural experience of it as long as their memory serves, I run the risk of secondary-victimisation: of having my “enlightenment” further traumatise those who have experienced the daily consequences of the continued blindness of those of us not consciously affected by this. So, I write this in humility, in recognising that I have only just begun navigating this space and with an invitation to others who are more acquainted with this terrain to coach me, and an invitation to others who might only be accessing this for the first time, to join me.

Yhew! I had actually meant this to be a pretty practical post, but that was important to say upfront. I have a feeling I will be writing that in a few different ways each time I tackle aspects of my privilege which I am only now beginning to deconstruct…

The topic at hand, which has occupied my being with a sense of deep urgency for the last while, is access for people of varied levels of physical ability – and, in this case, the very concrete ways in which we can cultivate welcome and belonging in all our spaces, or turn someone away before we have even realised it. The (paraphrased) quote above actually came from my husband with whom I had booked a date night a few weeks ago – arriving armed with a notepad, calculator and a set agenda so that I could set out all my plans and details and hopefully move forward with them. That was his way of matching my raw passion as I spoke, but in his wonderfully calm, tongue-in-cheek way. I think I could have just left this post as that quote alone, but the things I wanted to share were the simple, yet so important, practical considerations I have learned on the journey so far, because I didn’t find this information terribly easily (perhaps I need to work on my “google search” skills, but perhaps it isn’t too available?).

SO – I shall begin with one moment which completely blew my mind, and then I’ll write a list from there. About 7 months ago, I had a friend of a friend, who works in the “access” field, come around to help look at our house to see how I could make it more accessible to people in wheelchairs or with walking aids. I was feeling a little proud of myself for already having looked at ways of installing ramps and realising that I would need to move my door knobs lower. I was also experiencing relief as she walked through our house and found that our doorways were wide enough, and the space just beyond them clear enough for good mobility. As we walked into the bathroom, she said, “It’s great that your toilet is a contrasting colour to your floortiles.”……………………… I blinked blankly. She gently explained that people who are certified blind are rarely 100% without sight, that they can still see shadows and shapes, and so it helps for the toilet to have a contrasting colour to the tiles………I don’t think I can adequately explain what happened to my brain and then heart in that moment, but I know the moment moved me beyond the “place of no return” in terms of exploding more of my able-bodied privilege…

So, here are a few more things which completely make sense…when your brain is actually invited into THINKING about them!

• Those lovely bathroom floor patterns with black and white tiles: can be very confusing to people who are partially sighted – they can look like stairs or other obstacles. Best to choose welcome which, in this case, is a single-coloured tile.
• Door knobs require a certain amount of dexterity – some people in wheelchairs may still have strength in their hands, but some may not, and people without arms would find them virtually impossible. It is a good idea to change door knobs to lever handles which one just needs to put gravitational weight on in order to open.
• Door handles should be no higher than 1.2m
• Make sure you are looking at which way the door swings and whether this will make it difficult for a person surrounded by a walker, or in a wheelchair to manoeuvre around. If the door swings towards the person, make sure there is space to move backwards, etc, etc (some more detailed measurements to follow).
• This one: make sure that a door which is open can be secured flush against the wall! If someone who cannot see is using a stick and is tracking with the wall, they need to be able to detect the presence of the door easily, otherwise they might mistake the gap between the wall and the door for an opening, walk forward trusting the space in front of them, and could walk straight into the thin edge of the door.
• It is also helpful to people whose sight is limited if your skirting boards, or any change between floor and wall or levels, are somehow differentiated – put reflective tape on steps, on handrails, run a darker skirting along the bottom of the walls of your bathroom.
• Microwaves with dials can be adjusted with some tipex/3D stickers to become sensible to people with limited or no sight. I would imagine (though I didn’t check this), that ones with buttons would be better for people with limited dexterity.
• Doorways need to be no narrower than 760mm
• Handrails should be 900mm high and in parallel with any gradient of the floor
• If you are making changes to your kitchen, make at least one work surface with legroom under the counter, and low enough to work at while sitting. Accessibility to all appliances and utensils etc should be taken into account too.
• If you are making changes to your bathroom, you seriously need to get a professional in! But if you can’t, get hold of me and I am sure the friend of the friend won’t mind if I sent you some really detailed diagrams! In the meantime, watch out for enough space to manoeuvre, legroom under the washbasin, or ability to lean over to the washbasin while still seated on to the toilet. Lower your towel rails. Think about your taps: their height and how manageable they are. Put handrails on the bath, but rather have a shower (with no lip at the entrance…nowadays this is often done to look modern, so really: insist on it!) and some handrails around.
• Ramps! Somehow we have all been taught that you are looking to have a gradient of 1:3…as in, for each 1 measurement you want to elevate, you need a ramp length of 3 measurements. This appears to be from the age when disability was something to be minimally “managed”. We are now in an age where we would love to see people of all variations of “bodiedness” enabled to enjoy independent mobility, decision making and navigation of their own context. SO: here is where our school maths really comes in to play.
  • When there is a level change of 15mm (millimetres, not centimetres!), you can use a gradient of 1:3
  • When the level change is less than 400mm (but more than 15mm), the gradient needs to be 1:10. It needs to be 1:12 when the level change is between 400mm and 500mm.
  • From there, you need to start thinking about landings! For an elevation with a maximum of 500mm, you are allowed a maximum length of 6m between landings. Between 500mm-665mmm, you need a gradient of 1:15 and a maximum of 10m length of the ramp between landings. Between 665mm-750mm, gradient becomes 1:20 and the maximum length is 15m.
  • Landings need to be 1.2m in length for every 1.5 m of vertical rise. Landings must also be provided on straight sections of the ramps (not corners).
• Ramps need to be at least 1.1m wide and a cross gradient (camber) of no more than 1:40.
• DO remember to make your ramps slip-resistant!

PLEASE add to this list! I am under no misconception that it is exhaustive!

Another of my husband’s chirps that date night was, “Well…we’re just going to have to make sure none of our kids make friends with people with disabilities.” When we put it as blatantly as that, it really does sound absurd, doesn’t it? Even cruel. Over the last few months, I have become more and more confused as to why we are even allowed to plan and build houses which don’t take accessibility into account right from the beginning. Seriously. Each decision we now take to make these changes or not can expand or limit our own levels of ability: our ability to extend welcome, our ability to invest in rich friendships, our ability to live in a world which doesn’t just serve our privilege, our ability to care for pretty much any elderly person we know. Some decisions may take a little more intentionality and planning than others, but let’s be aware that, one way or another, we ARE deciding…

A Tale of two Kings – a reflection on Luke 19: 1-26

I have never really felt comfortable with the parable in Luke 19 – I think specifically because I was always taught that Jesus was speaking about Himself and, the more I got to know Him, the more and more certain I became that the king He was describing is in fact His complete opposite. I was relieved, therefore, to find that there is a growing number of arguments against the traditional teaching around this text. In November of last year, we read the Luke 19: 1-27 passage as part of a larger discernment process and some patterns fell very firmly into place for me. But, in case you have no idea of what I am talking about, or only vaguely: here is the passage in full. Do try, while reading it, to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal new things to you – whether you land on the same understanding of the text as I have is not as important to me as that we constantly allow the Holy Spirit to transform us through our engagement with the text.
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’ ”
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’ But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’
He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’
‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’ The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’ His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’
Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’
His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’ Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’
‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’
He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them–bring them here and kill them in front of me.’”
It is quite striking to me that these two stories are clearly told as a matching pair by Luke. “While they were listening to this”…while the crowd was still processing what Jesus had just said about Zacchaeus, while that news was spreading through the crowds…hot off the back of this, Jesus went on to tell them a parable…
A story of a particularly vicious, ruthless, power-grabbing man who goes off and, despite his own subjects’ hatred for him and their plea for him not to be made king, comes home in power over them. He institutes his reign in such a way that those who work for him and with him gain more and more privilege, wealth and power (from coins to entire cities!), while those who point out the injustice of his governance (“you take out what you have not put in, and reap what you have not sown”) or who have nothing, get the very little that they have taken away from them. The worst is left for those who oppose him outright – he is very expedient in calling for them to be killed, with a desire to be a direct witness to the deaths.
Jesus chooses to tell this story “while the crowds were listening to this…”. Straight after the crowds had heard Him say “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Straight after the crowds have heard Jesus talk about a chief tax collector, a servant of the occupying Roman Empire, who had cheated and stolen from the poorest of the poor, whose wealth and power had multiplied through the impoverishment of those around him; after they had seen Jesus push through the crowd to speak to Zacchaeus, invite Himself home with him and then declare that he had been sought after and saved, that salvation had come – Jesus chooses to tell this story.
We see, as readers with some deeper “post-fact” insight, in the story of Zacchaeus, a King who is so attractive that crowds press in to see Him, that men of great privilege and power abandon all dignity to run – and climb trees in order to see Him. A King who, being in very nature God, didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped, but poured Himself out, humbled Himself and became obedient even to death on the cross. We see this kindest of Kings address Zacchaeus by name, calling out his deeper identity: “pure and righteous one”, bestowing on him acceptance, grace and favour before he had even done anything to deserve it, demonstrating this to all around by inviting Himself to eat with Zacchaeus in his home. We see Zacchaeus responding to His invitation immediately and gladly. We see a man who has been corrupt and ostracised transformed through an encounter with this King – transformed to the point where he chooses to give half his wealth away and to pay back to anyone from whom he has stolen, four times the original amount. We see a public declaration by this kindest of Kings of salvation and restoration over Zacchaeus and his household.
A King who gives up power, who is attractive, who is intimate and loving, who invites others to give up their power and declares this to be a sign of salvation and sonship. Who we know laid down his life to save all that had been lost, “while we were yet sinners”, who offered salvation even to those who hated him, who pleaded forgiveness for those who killed him.
And a king who grabs power, whose subjects hate him, who is ruthless, harsh and hard, who reaps what he does not sow, who governs a system which multiplies the power and wealth of those who agree to be subject to him, who takes even the little that others have and leaves them with nothing and who puts to death anyone who opposes him.
I believe Jesus, and then Luke in the telling, is showing us two opposing kingdoms – or a Kingdom and an Empire. I think His illustration pertains to the Empire of the day, yes – an Empire which occupied Israel at the time, which was cruel and ruthless, which rewarded those who “shook hands with it” (as Zacchaeus had done for years), robbed those who had very little to begin with, and put to death anyone who opposed it – but I think more than that, Jesus is illustrating for us the Empire of sin and darkness, ruled by satan, which had kept people and systems enslaved for millenia. That very Empire that Jesus came to overthrow – whose darkness He pushed back with every act, with every miracle and teaching; from whose clutches He had pulled the sick, the marginalised, the outcast, the lame, the demon-possessed, the lost, the shamed, the disowned and at least one chief tax collector; and to whose most manifest form He submitted when He chose to die on the cross – the most vicious and humiliating instrument of execution of the Roman Empire – in order that He might overthrow it for once and for all.
Jesus knew that opposing this Empire, as He had been doing, would result in death – He had been trying to warn His disciples of this for quite some time now, and especially as they approached Jerusalem – the centre of Roman power in Judea.
I understand that this might be quite a lot to digest, so I am going to leave it there. Except to say that I believe that we are faced daily with which of these kings we will choose – not just as “non-believers”, but as tried and tested Jesus-followers who live in a world which is still being redeemed: will we choose the Kingdom, or the Empire? Will we choose the King who calls us to lay down our power and our wealth, or will we serve the Empire which rewards our gain with multiplication of power, privilege and wealth? Will we spend ourselves on the poor, the downtrodden, the broken-hearted, or will we wipe our brows, say “Shew! But for the grace of god, there go I” and protect our own interests? Will we follow a King who preaches acceptance, grace, identity, invitation and restoration, or will we shake hands with an Empire that “otherises”, alienates, robs, kills and destroys. Daily, in our thoughts, words, deeds and in what we leave undone, we choose which of these K/kings we will follow.
[This piece appeared on The Warehouse’s blog this week and in our “news-e-zine” which had a very particular focus on Restitution. Have a read: there are a number of reflections and practical points which are seriously helpful given what God is doing in our country and world at the moment. I wanted to put it on this blog too as they are my personal thoughts and, as such, link to quite a bit of what I have written here already, and I would like to be able to follow up with things in here and refer back to this.]
[I started writing a short footnote, and it turned into a longer one, so thought I would publish it as a second post…I’ll link it as soon as it is finished!]

When Privilege and Privilege Intersect

I posted this on facebook a while ago, and realised that I wanted it to be in a more “permanent” storage and referral space….

“I’ve been thinking for a while now about the invisible doorways which some of us move through so freely, and others bang into, time and time again, or don’t actually bang into because they can see CLEARLY the door closed to them and so obviously open to me.

There is a helpful concept which has made me so much more aware of the world through which I move, called “intersectionality” – it draws attention to various dimensions and degrees of privilege, discrimination or oppression, and particularly how some forms of privilege or oppression become exponentially stronger as the “intersect” with each other, automatically giving some people huge power as they enter a room, and rendering others less powerful or powerless.

My privilege in South Africa doesn’t just come from the colour of my skin. Here are some other things which make those doorways SO much easier for me to navigate than others:

• I speak the dominant language of communication in our country – as my mother tongue and with a specific accent which people “respect”; I was also educated in my home language
• I am a citizen of the country in which I live;
• I am able-bodied;
• Although I am a woman (being born a male would have given me immediate unseen privileges), I also belong to culture which usually sees women as able to occupy the same positions and roles in the world as men;
• I am “cisgender” – which means that my biological sex matches my identity and expression of my gender;
• I am heterosexual and therefore am not questioned about my attraction to my partner;
• I was born into a class which immediately gave me better access to nutrition, health care, early childhood stimulation and schools

What else am I missing? Where else have you recognised doors and wide-open doorways?”

I really enjoyed the richness of the comment section:

And then I saw this this week, which I had actually written into a “how to facilitate” worksheet for a week in our staff time which we didn’t use, so I was very glad to have a way to share this exercise visually and how people experience it…(Although I would add that I think it was sad that this exercise only had people who were able bodied – or able to walk – and that the audio instructions weren’t backed up by visual aids – some more bits of where we are privileged! What else can you see that they have missed out?)