Debra Ruh is the CEO of Ruh Global IMPACT and the Executive Chair of Billion Strong. Joining for Episode 8, Debra explores her personal relationships to disability, thoughts on workplace representation, and more.

References

Transcript:

[00:00:05] Nikki Nolan: Welcome to Season One of Disability Bandwidth.

[00:00:11] Sam Proulx: A show where we talk with disability leaders each week about career, life and technology.

[00:00:17] I’m Sam Proulx.

[00:00:17] Nikki Nolan: And I’m Nikki Nolan.

[00:00:19] Sam Proulx: Let’s get started.

[00:00:20] Nikki Nolan: Can you introduce yourself?

[00:00:21] Debra Ruh: My name is Debra Ruh and my pronouns are she/her/hers. I’m the CEO of Ruh Global Impact and the Executive Chair of Billion Strong. I am a white woman with gray hair and purple streaks in it. And I’m proud to have my Billion Strong background behind me. I am very proud to be building Billion Strong.

[00:00:44] So I have on a black shaw and olive green shirt and blueish glasses.

[00:00:49] Nikki Nolan: Thank you so much for being here. We would love to learn a little bit about you. What is your story? What got you into this line of work?

[00:00:56] Debra Ruh: Well and thank you both for featuring me. I listened to a couple of your other episodes and very powerful conversations. So congratulations. I come from the banking and financial industry. I was at an executive level. My mom was so proud, blah, blah, blah. But I was in the banking financial industry, but when my daughter was born, my oldest daughter, she was born with Down Syndrome and I was really surprised at how my peers responded to that.

[00:01:23] It sort of, it was such a tragedy that my daughter had been born with Down Syndrome. I was really, sort of bummed out about that because I just really continue to believe my daughter’s perfect, just the way she is. And so I always thought, what am I gonna do with my life to support my daughter? And, in the banking industry, I started hiring people with disabilities because we had a program. I thought it was really cool. And then when my daughter reached middle school and once again we were being told she couldn’t join the workforce. She’ll add no value to society. I thought, what do you mean? And I’m like, I just sort of woke up to the fact that people with disabilities were being excluded from the workforce in ways that I did not understand.

[00:02:07] I also am a person that identifies with disabilities. I’m neurodiverse. I have ADHD, which is wonderful and a curse sometimes. It’s wonderful, if you are working cause you work, work, work, work, work, but it’s bad because you don’t stop and that’s that can be bad for my mind sometimes.

[00:02:25] Then as I mentioned, I identify as a mother of a daughter with disabilities, my daughter, Sarah with Down Syndrome. So I am the community. What that means is I’m the community. But when my daughter, again, middle school came and we started hearing how she would not add any value, I thought, okay, I’ve got to join this conversation in a more empowering way so that I can help people like my daughter. But that’s how the journey began.

[00:02:55] Sam Proulx: Hmm. I wanna focus on that a little bit, because I think it’s an extremely interesting kind of identity as a mother and as a family member and as a friend, and you talked a little bit about how there’s this perception that, yeah, it’s a tragedy. It’s a tragic thing that’s happened. I wonder, first of all, have you noticed that starting to change, over the last several years? And, second of all, how do you approach that as a mother and as a family member to support somebody with a disability who is being exposed to those messages?

[00:03:32] Because the messages that we are exposed to in culture have such an impact on not only what we can do, but what we, as people with disabilities, believe that we can do.

[00:03:40] Debra Ruh: So powerful, so powerful. That one comment is just so powerful and you’re right. I remember my daughter at one point, Samuel said, stop telling people I have Down Syndrome. I do not have Down Syndrome. She used the “normal” word and I just about had a heart attack. And I said, no, you don’t wanna be normal.

[00:04:00] Who wants to be normal? That’s so overrated, but identity is so important. And, also Samuel, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s blind that works for a large corporation. And his coworker said to him, quote, “man, I’d rather be dead than be blind”. Well, how is he supposed to respond to that first of all as a coworker? What, what? You’d rather be dead than have my life? How do I respond to that? But I will tell you, I do see changes. I do. I’m optimistic, I’m seeing changes. But I think that there’s a lot of work to do. And I’m starting to see, really, especially the younger people thank goodness for the younger people with disabilities, because they’re really owning their entire life.

[00:04:47] I had a client ask me this morning, what language to use. You know, that’s something that employers struggle with. And I said, well, I personally like identity language. I like lived experiences. I am a woman with lived experience as a wife, you know, but as a parent, as an individual.

[00:05:06] And so I said, but more importantly, ask. Right? Because everybody has different views of what they wanna be called. So take the time to ask, but I do see some shifts and changes, but I will tell you, I still don’t think it’s happening enough. And I think also most of the conversations that are being held are still being held by people that look like they don’t have the disabilities like myself.

[00:05:30] I have to tell you I have a disability. And so I think that’s why it was so important to me to start Billion Strong. And, when I was starting Billion Strong, I’ll just say this to you, Samuel, based on your question, I was going to be the CEO, cause I have a lot of experience being a CEO. I have a lot of experience, so I thought it made sense.

[00:05:52] I’m gonna do this. This makes sense. My company’s building it. Yay. And then somebody, yeah, you can see where this is going, Nikki. So one of our board members, who actually has a disability and he’s quadriplegic uses a wheelchair and he said, oh good, another white woman without a disability is going to start a disability organization.

[00:06:14] And I’m like, come on. And he’s like, well, you know, the optics don’t look good. And I thought, he’s right. He’s right. And so I didn’t do it. I actually made Dr. LaMondre Pough, who is a man with lived experience with muscular dystrophy and a wheelchair user. He is the CEO and he’s as qualified as me and as talented and representation matters. That was a long answer, but I think things are changing. I think they’re changing, but we’ve got work to do.

[00:06:41] Sam Proulx: Yeah, I love that. And I also love in your book, you spend a lot of time talking about the importance of marketing and perception. Because it matters so much, not just for companies and for brands, but for people with disabilities themselves. I moderate the r/blind subreddit. And of the things that we spend time doing is talking to people who have been diagnosed as they’re about to go blind and trying to convince them that their life is not over.

[00:07:09] And your quote just brought that to mind.

[00:07:13] Debra Ruh: It would’ve said, think that people are already experiencing the loss of their sight and now people would rather be dead than be them? I mean, how do I even respond?

[00:07:22] Sam Proulx: And how do you respond when that is coming from someone who is going to be blind in two years? They have a diagnosis from their doctor and it’s a tricky problem.

[00:07:33] Debra Ruh: You bring up a really good point when I was first thinking about Billion Strong, I thought this is ridiculous, why does society keep underestimating us? Why, why? Then LaMondre said, yeah, but I’m also very concerned, Debra, because we underestimate ourselves. Now, I did not realize I had ADHD till I was much older.

[00:07:55] I got diagnosed when I was in my fifties. Oh boy. Things made a lot more sense to me. I was like, okay, now I get it. And yes, I had problems in school but I didn’t have the same kind of problems that LaMondre had. Where LaMondre was told, for example, his mother was told he would die before he was five.

[00:08:18] So now start wrapping your head around that. What society tells people with disabilities, that’s getting that outta your head, I think is a huge issue.

[00:08:29] Nikki Nolan: It’s so hard. But yeah, those messages of having this perfect child, like my mom, when she found out that I had learning disabilities, told me that she had to mourn the loss of the perfect child. And like those messages came, you know, Sam and I have very different upbringings as well. And so it’s been interesting to see, like I was told I could be cured. I was told all of these things and they took me to lots of therapies and tried to cure me.

[00:08:56] And that message-

[00:08:57] Debra Ruh: Right.

[00:08:57] Nikki Nolan: It’s very hard to unlearn some of these like ableist messages that are given to us.

[00:09:02] Debra Ruh: And I don’t think we realize how bad they are. They’re everywhere.

[00:09:08] Sam Proulx: I mean, I credit a lot of my success today with the fact that my father was blind. And so I grew up with a role model.

[00:09:13] Debra Ruh: Well, so you grew up being blind as normal.

[00:09:17] Because it is, it is normal. This is something else we wanna tackle at Billion Strong with the community. But, another thing that we do is, we and, I apologize for even hesitating, but things have been so intense with COVID 19 and, and of course who got it worse. Of course, the community of people with disabilities during all of that.

[00:09:45] But I think that society, well, the employers are certainly paying attention to what’s happening. Because they are seeing the great resignation where 40% of the workforce are leaving. Or they say that they will not be in their same job a year from now, 40%! And then young people are saying, we don’t wanna work with a company that isn’t making a difference to the world.

[00:10:10] We’re tired of the greed and the gluttony and the taking advantage of the people on our planet. So the young people aren’t even gonna work for you. And now we want to find individuals with disabilities. The valuable 500 brought 500 CEOs together, vowing to include people with disabilities in their workforce, but we are not coming out.

[00:10:33] You know, Sam, if somebody meets you and they can see, they’ll see that you were blind. You know. But Nikki and me, they’ll assume other things about us because they don’t have the verbal cues. But I just think it’s so important that we take all of these things back.

[00:10:50] Sam Proulx: And ending the fragmentation in the community that you talk about. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to be co-hosting this podcast with Nikki because, too often, people with disabilities mean screen readers. And once we’re accessible to screen readers, we’re done.

[00:11:03] Debra Ruh: I know you’re great. You’re great. You’re coming together to share your talents, you know what you bring to the table. That’s what people don’t understand. We all have abilities. And we all have disabilities. You know Sam, and I’ll turn it back to Nikki, but I remember a real good friend of mine, Dr. Larry Staden, who had lost his eyesight at the age of five. And he was a director at the National Science Foundation. And when he lost his eyesight to a childhood injury, they started trying to teach him to play the piano cause you know, all blind people are musically geniuses. Right?

[00:11:42] Sam Proulx: Don’t get me started. I am the least musical person.

[00:11:44] Debra Ruh: Sam is gonna start rapping for no reason… So finally the piano teacher after about six lessons said, I feel guilty. I cannot take your money. This young boy is not musically talented.

[00:12:00] But he wound up being a very, very, brilliant scientist and he married a piano teacher.

[00:12:12] Nikki Nolan: Amazing. I wanna shift this a little bit, so just for people listening, what is the Billion Strong community?

[00:12:18] Debra Ruh: It’s www.billion-strong.org, and it is a brand new global nonprofit focused on bringing together the 1.3 billion people with disabilities. Now we know there are a lot more people in the world with disabilities than 1.3 billion.

[00:12:35] There’s no way those numbers are correct. But at the same time we are all as society trying to figure out how to get us to identify, how do we come together with pride? Like the LGTBQ community did LGBTQIA. But the reason why that matters also is because they took back their words, the words that were used to hurt them.

[00:13:01] So L is lesbian. G is gay, you know, Q is queer. These words were used and are still used to hurt people that are part of that community. So they’ve taken the words back. So we are all at Billion Strong, we wanna come together with pride. We wanna support each other, buy from each other, employ each other or support entrepreneurs with disabilities. Have professional classes that include master classes that look like us.

[00:13:29] There is so much talent in our field. There’s so much talent, but we have to come together with pride. And one of the things that we’re thinking about doing, which I think is really cheeky of us, is taking on a project that encourages all of us to come out and identify that we do have lived experiences with disabilities on our social media handles, our bios, our email signature lines, in our resumes and our CVs.

[00:13:59] Now we’ve always been told, don’t do that in our resumes and CVs, but we’re also rethinking everything right now. And so maybe we should come out with pride.

[00:14:09] Sam Proulx: As someone who is blind, I don’t get an option to pass. If somebody sees me, they know I have a cane and that’s it. But as you’re talking about this, I’m thinking back to a struggle that the LGBTQIA community has had in the last 10 or 15 years, kind of around perhaps outing who may not want to be outed or who may feel a sense of shame or something like that.

[00:14:39] Is the community of people with invisible disabilities going through that same struggle and having that same dialogue. And if so, what are the solutions and what is the path forward?

[00:14:50] Nikki Nolan: So, because I have a non visible disability, I do tell people I’m dyslexic. I’ve always because I’ve always known that I was dyslexic, but it’s only been in the last year or so that I am starting to realize that I’m probably on the autism spectrum.

[00:15:05] I did have to out myself at work because I became the co-lead of our Disability ERG. And I think that I outed myself until somebody who didn’t have a disability asked if I felt pressured to out myself and I didn’t think about it. And then I was like, I guess I did. There was a lot of pressure for me to be publicly disabled and I didn’t hate it.

[00:15:25] And I think a lot of amazing things have come from being publicly disabled. However, the experience of telling my parents and their reaction was really traumatic to me. And I think Sam’s question is really interesting. And I’m curious to hear from other people as well, like, is it hard? Is it not hard? Cause that’s an access issue that we can start exploring.

[00:15:47] Debra Ruh: It is. It’s a great question. We do believe if we come together with pride, we’re gonna make a difference. But at the same time, it is interesting coming out because I’ve seen other people come out with non visible disabilities and sometimes it did look like they were just coming up with something. But what’s interesting about that is that these are all included in the definition of disabilities. So either we rewrite our laws or we accept that if you have dyslexia you are part of this community. If you have ADHD, if you have cancer, diabetes. I mean, we’ve made the term so broad.

[00:16:28] And of course the definition of disabilities in the Americans with Disabilities Act differs from the one in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So that is a bit confusing and confusing for employers. But if we just have to come together and support each other.

[00:16:47] We have to. I wanted to make sure it was Billions Strong, cause I’ve been in the field so long. We’re not a very welcoming field often, you know? Oh great. Now they’re doing a podcast. Well, instead of, oh great, now they’re doing a podcast, yay, let’s hear the diverse voices and let’s get the different opinions, but I think we have to come together.

[00:17:08] And so the one point I was making was they said, okay, well, what are y’all gonna do at Billion Strong to protect us if we come out and we’re discriminated against? And these happen to be Americans. And there’s a reason why I’m gonna say that. And so I said, well, I understand how you use the word protection, cause I’m also an American.

[00:17:29] That means we’re gonna sue each other. And I said, we are not gonna sue people at Billion Strong. That’s not what Billion Strong is for. Billion Strong is an identity organization. We wanna come together with pride. We wanna highlight the voices out there. We want to talk about the corporations that are including us. But I said, at the same time as Americans with disabilities, we’re gonna have to be brave at some point. Because our brothers and sisters in other countries, some of them don’t have a chance. They’re born with disabilities, they’re told to kill the babies. So, I mean, this is very, very serious around the world, what is happening to our brothers and sisters with disabilities. So if you’re in a developed country and you have a disability, you have more options and more rights than your brothers and sisters in other countries.

[00:18:17] So we have to not be selfish. We have to really wanna get out and help each other.

[00:18:22] Sam Proulx: I think speaking of being selfish, there’s also a kind of false conflict that comes up, where in the developed world, even we believe, oh, there’s only so many resources for accessibility. And so if money is spent on captioning, then it won’t be spent on audio description. Or if money is spent on audio description, then there won’t be enough for captions or like things like that.

[00:18:46] And it’s like, we’re trying to divide up a limited pie and it causes conflict within our community. Is that something that you’ve seen and how do you deal with it?

[00:18:57] Debra Ruh: Yes. Oh, yes. We have such a lack, lack, lack, lack, lack thinking, and a poverty consciousness. It’s ridiculous because there really is enough for everybody. There is. And if we all came together and supported each other, we would change the world. Not only for us, but the future generations. So I do not believe that I can compete with anybody.

[00:19:20] And I always celebrate. And one thing that I did, I wanna have you and Nikki on my show talking about what you’re doing, but I do, because I’m always telling the story of what others are doing. So let’s celebrate each other and it is not lack based. The amount of money that’s being spent on people with disabilities in the states alone, it is ridiculous how much. But at the same time, I get a little frustrated with it because I don’t think a lot of that money really goes down to really changing lives for people with disabilities. So I think a lot of the money is wasted. I think it’s wasted. So I think let’s do something with that, but society just has to decide that this is important enough to do it and that we wanna hear the different voices.

[00:20:06] Sam Proulx: Hey, as we approach the midpoint of this amazing episode, let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsor.

[00:20:11] Ted: Hello. My name is Ted. I’m a full-time screen reader and switch input or alternative navigation user. I am a member of fables, community of accessibility testers.

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[00:20:49] To learn more, check out our website and www.makeitfable.com.

[00:20:52] Sam Proulx: Now that we’ve heard from our sponsor, let’s continue the interview.

[00:20:55] Nikki Nolan: Can you tell us a little bit about the statement that if disability is not on your board’s agenda, neither is diversity. What does that mean to you?

[00:21:02] Debra Ruh: I will start it with this, a while back and it’s much better now, the SHRM Society of Human Resources Management. They’ve done wonderful jobs of diversity inclusion. But I remember years ago, like eight years ago, I went to an event and they were saying, okay, for diversity, equality, and inclusion, who all should be included? Women, LGBTQ, you know?

[00:21:26] And so the participants started shouting out names. And so I just stubbornly sat back and thought, I’m just curious how long it’s gonna take us to be included. I was just curious how long it would take. They came up with 18 other diverse categories and still no one had mentioned disabilities and the instructor was about to stop it.

[00:21:46] And I said disabilities and everybody’s like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And so to me, it’s often an afterthought. We had a fireside chat with software engineers. They’re starting with disabilities. Of all of the groups, they’re gonna start with us.

[00:22:02] Yay. And so we’ve nagged and complained and everything and SHRM is much better, but we still see often disability is not being included in the DEI. They’re talking about women, we’re talking about black and brown. Yay. All very important, but disability never seems to make it. And some of it is because employers think it’s too hard. And I say, that’s bull crap. And if we hear that from you, we’re not gonna work for you. And I mean, we aren’t gonna work for you because one thing I meant to say when Sam had asked a question is those of us that don’t look like we have disabilities, or we love someone with disabilities, we are more rampant about this. And we will fight you and sue you and embarrass you in the media if you don’t include our loved ones with disabilities. It’s interesting because we really do want our loved ones included. And I think now the younger people are saying, well, not only that, we want everybody included.

[00:23:02] So it’s not just our community fighting for our community, which we’re still not doing.

[00:23:07] Sam Proulx: How does this intersectionality play into it? I mean, there was sort of a criticism, I think, of like early seventies, feminism, that it was only inclusive of white women. I wonder if we are falling into the same trap in the disability community and how do we avoid it?

[00:23:25] Debra Ruh: Yes, we definitely are. We definitely are. And it’s something that I know I’ve been really, really, really going on about. Sometimes I feel like I’m nagging everybody, but I really am bringing up the conversation. And I think sometimes Sam, one reason why I get invited to speak. I mean, I’m not in the industry and stuff, but, I think sometimes they almost find it’s easier to ask somebody that they think might not have a disability.

[00:23:50] Because they’re afraid to say things wrong. And so now of course, I keep coming out and saying I am proud to be part of the community. But I think we’ve got a lot of work to do with this particular thing. I think there’s just so many moving parts and I just think there’s still a whole lot of work to do. But I am actually getting very, very hopeful. Cause the younger people are just not willing to sit back and wait for my generation, the baby boomers to leave some good legacy.

[00:24:22] I also complain about people my age, in the disability field. We have to turn the microphones over and give the younger people a chance to be more engaged in this.

[00:24:33] And I see some of that happening and I actually am being very deliberate about it. And, so I gave up my seat at the table for example. And then somebody said, no, don’t give up your seat. Just pull up another chair. But guess what? It doesn’t really work that way. There are a certain amount of chairs at the table.

[00:24:50] Yeah. We like to think it works that way, but it does not. So yeah.

[00:24:55] Nikki Nolan: What are some of the things that companies can adopt to make their businesses more inclusive to people with disabilities?

[00:25:01] Debra Ruh: Well, I think there’s so much they can do, but first of all, you gotta make it safe. I think the leaders need to talk about why we value people with disabilities. You’ve gotta have a sign from the leadership that it is safe. And don’t just say it’s safe. It truly has to be safe.

[00:25:17] And so leaders also should come out and talk about their personal lived experiences with disabilities. And anyone that says they don’t have a lived experience with disabilities, you really need to think about that. Because so many of us have disabilities. Because I thought that when my daughter was born with Down Syndrome. I thought she was the first person I ever really met with disabilities

[00:25:39] My grandfather had lost both of his legs to diabetes. But it is so there’s so much still awareness building that we still have to do. To once again, normalize that we belong here and we’re capable of being here and we’re very talented. But everybody thinks when we talk about disabilities we think wheelchair, the white cane, and people with Down Syndrome.

[00:26:02] Sam Proulx: Yep. There’s also a saying that’s popular in corporate culture. That being, if it doesn’t get measured, it doesn’t get done.

[00:26:09] And we’ve seen a lot of kinds like Apple and Microsoft putting disability-related efforts into their OKRs. Is that a good thing? Or is accessibility and diversity and disability, something that can’t be measured and quantified?

[00:26:22] Debra Ruh: Great question and it definitely can be quantified and measured, but you should be asking your employees if they have disabilities and you should be asking them in a way that they feel comfortable answering you. Now, there are a lot of different things that we can do to make people feel comfortable, but it should be very deliberate by the employer.

[00:26:42] And if your websites aren’t accessible and the applications that you use aren’t. If I go to check out for my benefits. See what benefits are. If these things aren’t accessible, you’re telling your employees with disabilities, they’re not welcome. And accessibility, of course, as we all know, improves the process for everyone.

[00:27:04] So I think the most important thing that a company can do is talk about it. And the leaders talk about why they’re so proud of their employer, their employees. And talk about their own lived experiences. And if you don’t do that, it’s hard for the employees to really feel that- they just think it’s another program.

[00:27:27] They don’t think it’s safe and they’re not gonna think it’s safe if you don’t come out and talk about why. I was just watching a couple of videos this morning from a customer and they had three employees with disabilities. And they videotaped them talking about their experiences and it was so powerful.

[00:27:45] It was so powerful. And then the CEO was talking about his lived experiences. And once again, when you say lived experience, it doesn’t mean you yourself have to be a person with a disability, but what’s your lived experiences with it. You know, and think about it and honor it. And ask, you know, Nikki, you know, what are her experiences, but also, how could you improve your experiences by asking her questions?

[00:28:09] The same with Sam. I think we need to break down some of the barriers we’ve created. People are afraid to ask the questions too. They don’t wanna get it wrong.

[00:28:18] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it’s true. And last question kind of related to this, this topic before I turn it back over to Nikki to move on with things. But, there is a danger when we are doing these inclusivity efforts that somebody who has a disability is being used for marketing or is being used as a figurehead. Or that people are doing their disability marketing to the community of able bodied folks to say, look how good we are, don’t you feel good being our customer? And, they’re not actually talking to the community. And how do you avoid that? How do you work with that? How do you do representation and marketing without turning people into figureheads and feel good stories?

[00:29:03] And the word that is sometimes used is inspiration porn, right? That content that’s just to make people feel good.

[00:29:08] Debra Ruh: Yeah. The inspiration porn stuff. Yeah. You bring up a very valid point because do you wanna be the one person that’s responsible for the billion of people with disabilities? You better get it right Sam. You’re the token person, get it right. I mean, it puts a lot of pressure on individuals to do that to them.

[00:29:25] And also we don’t really feel that that is inclusion. We don’t wanna be your one token person. It’s gotta be created throughout the entire organization. And don’t think your employees and people looking in can’t tell whether or not it’s authentic.

[00:29:41] It can be but at the same time, there’s also some scary stuff happening too. I’m not gonna be mean and mention the company, but there’s a company right now that does overlays. That is actually paying people that have disabilities in the United Kingdom and other countries to advertise for how great they are.

[00:30:00] Even though a blind organization has come out and said, well, our screen readers can’t use this. And so it’s sort of buyer beware as individuals with disabilities too, because you should ask when they’re hiring you, are you the first person they hired with a disability? What are their expectations of you?

[00:30:18] And also leave if they don’t do right by you. Because right now, if you’re a person with a disability and you have technology skills that we all need, people want you. These corporations are gonna be fighting for you now. They’re gonna be fighting for you. There’s 500 minimum corporations that wanna include you.

[00:30:36] So right now this is the time to be noticed. Get out here like Nikki and Sam are doing and talk about this because they want you. They really do want talented individuals.

[00:30:49] Yeah.

[00:30:50] Sam Proulx: And we’ve gotta get people over that poverty mindset that you talked about earlier. If you are not being treated right, and you give up your job, there is another job out there for you. Right? Some people read the statistics and they get so afraid and well, I have to do this because I have to put food on the table.

[00:31:06] Debra Ruh: Right. They just have to put up with it. They have to put up with abuse or I remember Sam when I had my first company tech access, 90% of the team were people with disabilities. And by the way, very proud. 90% of our team are people with disabilities too, at Ruh Global Impact. But, how do you compete with somebody that is not including people with disabilities when you’re trying to support our community? How can you even understand what our community wants and thinks? And it’s just fascinating to me that our community being such a gigantic community is still so excluded.

[00:31:42] Nikki Nolan: So how do you see us connecting this fragmented disabled community?

[00:31:46] Debra Ruh: Well, we do like we’re doing right now. Y’all have this brand new podcast. You’ve already interviewed several really amazing people. And so what we do is we highlight what you’re doing here. And then we share and we help each other. We’ve gotta help each other.

[00:32:05] We buy and we purchase from entrepreneurs with disabilities and we also stand up to groups that are not including us, or if you have an equality index or something that you can get a hundred percent on the first time you take it, but you don’t have to employ anybody with disabilities.

[00:32:23] You don’t have to have accessible websites. Our community’s not gonna put up with that anymore. So we are finding our voice. We are coming together, but we gotta support each other, help each other. And we’ve gotta share with each other too. If we did this we would be the most powerful community in the world.

[00:32:42] We really would be.

[00:32:43] Nikki Nolan: What are some things that people with disabilities can notice about a company that could be red flags or this isn’t the company I wanna work for? Or do you have any of those things that you could share with people?

[00:32:54] Debra Ruh: Well, are the systems that you have to use to do your work, are they accessible? Do you, if you use assistive technology, do they ask you what you want? Do they provide you training? Is the assistive technology up to date? We know whether or not we’re being included.

[00:33:09] Do they have a disability resource group or employee group? Do they treat you like your ideas are valuable? Do they wanna hear about your disability experience? Do they wanna hear about it or do you talk a little bit about it and then all of a sudden you can tell nobody really wants to hear about it. And I agree with Sam, if the company you’re working for today is not appreciating who you are, go and find another employer. They do want you openly. And I know it’s dangerous to openly admit that you have something, but the reality is, we’re already being discriminated against now.

[00:33:48] Or can we be discriminated against more when we come out? I don’t think so. When it’s silent, that’s when you get discriminated against, when people aren’t talking about it. The me too movement showed us that. So it’s exciting times, but we have to support each other.

[00:34:05] Nikki Nolan: I’m gonna totally switch subjects just in the vein of time, what was the first piece of technology you remember using? It’s totally out of left field, but we’d love to learn about our guests’ use of technology.

[00:34:18] Debra Ruh: Oh, I’m an older lady. My dad was a technologist before anybody knew what that was at AT&T, but we did get an Atari. So we had one of the first Ataris. And we were so excited when we got it out of the box, because it was just a black screen. We didn’t know how to turn it on.

[00:34:37] We turned it on and there was this little game in there, Pong. We threw the thing across, but we were so excited we were using a computer. So yeah, I’m definitely old.

[00:34:50] Sam Proulx: Hey back when computers were pricer, but in some ways they were simpler and maybe more accessible in some ways and less accessible in others. It’s fascinating to look back and see where we’ve come from.

[00:35:01] Debra Ruh: And all the blind programmers. What programmers that were blind added to the community. I’ve always been fascinated with that too.

[00:35:10] Sam Proulx: Absolutely. I think it’s something that as we unite the community, there’s a saying in programming, kind of eating your own dog food, which is using the tools that you create. And, I can’t wait to see more of that as we begin to work at bringing the community together. I think it needs to be more than just blind people programming.

[00:35:30] There needs to be people with every kind of disability writing the tools

[00:35:34] That makes them better. But anyway, I’ll stop right there…

[00:35:36] Debra Ruh: No, but I agree and we need to be buying from each other and we need to use each other as vendors. At Billion Strong we are only going to hire people who have disabilities and we can do this. We can, we’re allowed to say this is an identity organization. We are employing people with lived experience with disabilities.

[00:35:54] I mean, doesn’t make any sense to do it any other way.

[00:35:57] Nikki Nolan: Is there anything we didn’t ask that you wanna talk about?

[00:35:59] Debra Ruh: Maybe one more, one thing I could think of is that we need to make sure we are fighting for technology for all and technology for good. We’re dabbling with AI as society now, but we’ve got to keep fighting to make sure we’re included.

[00:36:18] Our voices are included and that unconscious bias is not being built into the technology. So we need to fight for technology. We need to have our voices heard when they start messing with our technology in a way that it’s gonna make us less independent. We need to be heard more often, which was once again, why it’s so important to have programs like yours.

[00:36:40] Sam Proulx: As we end things off, where can people find you? What do you wanna promote? If someone did one thing, right after listening to this episode, what would you want them to do?

[00:36:48] Debra Ruh: Oh, gosh, go and hire somebody, a talented person with disabilities. Pretty please and support them and make sure that they’re paid well. And please don’t leave them in the job. They want to be promoted like everybody else.

[00:37:00] Well, I’m all over social media. I’m obnoxiously all over social media and I’m very proud to be a market influencer there. So that at Debra Ruh, D E B R A R U H and R U H Global. And also on Billion Strong. Even though we’re still figuring it out. The websites are www.ruhglobal.com and www.billion-strong.org. And we are very active. We’re very active. Please join us, send us emails, texts. We will be promoting this on our YouTube channels and on all of our other channels, but we’re stronger together. And this is the time. This is the time when we do it.

[00:37:47] And what do I wanna promote? You know, really, please join us at Billion Strong. We need you so bad. And when I first joined the industry, I was sort of not welcomed because I was a parent, oh, a parent, but we should welcome everyone. We should welcome parents. We should welcome siblings. We should welcome bosses and supervisors and friends.

[00:38:10] We all have to be part of the Billion Strong movement because people with disabilities aren’t broken. We are already an integral part of society, but we just keep being left out. Society disables people, society does that.

[00:38:24] Nikki Nolan: Thank you so much for being here. This was a lovely conversation.

[00:38:27] Debra Ruh: I agree. I agree.

[00:38:29] Nikki Nolan: Thanks for listening to Disability Bandwidth. If you liked this episode of Disability Bandwidth, please subscribe and share it with friends and family. Today’s episode was hosted by Sam Proulx and Nikki Nolan. Edited and produced by Nikki Nolan. Transcripts are written by Emma Klauber. Theme music is created by Efe Akmen.

[00:38:45] Special thanks to everyone at Fable who without their support. This show would not be possible.

You can find out more about Disability Bandwidth on Twitter, @disability_band and Instagram, @disabilitybandwidth, or on our website https://disabilitybandwidth.com/.

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