Are you (or know) a blind programmer? What is your set-up? TTS or Braille? What OS do you use? IDE/editor? What limitations, annoyances or show-stopper issues have you encountered? Particularly interested if you use Rust, but happy to hear about the state of developer experience for blind programmers more generally.
Fedora: “The Fedora Quality Team is joining Week of Diversity with an Accessibility Test Week!
Much like other Test Days, the goal of this week is to put Fedora through its paces and catch as many accessibility related issues as we can for our disable users.”
Me: Fedora, your screen reader is broken.
Fedora guy: Patches welcome 👍
Me: reaches for block button
From the actually-what-you’re-referring-to-as-ableism-is-GNU/ableism department
Background: It’s not just Fedora. Every Linux distribution that ships with Wayland by default – and that’s almost every major Linux distribution – ships with a broken/unusable screen reader at the moment.
(Read that again until it really sinks in. Yep. I know. Uh-huh. Really.)
The Fedora Quality Team is joining Week of Diversity with an Accessibility Test Week!
Much like other Test Days, the goal of this week is to put Fedora through its paces and catch as many accessibility related issues as we can for our disable users. If you want to put your advocacy to action, consider participating!
The Accessibility Test Week runs from Jun 19-25, starting tomorrow.
Are you interested in accessibility on Mastodon? Are you blind or do you know someone who is blind and wants to use Mastodon?
There is a Mastodon-compatible accessibility app for Windows and Mac called TweeseCake which is designed for blind and sight-impaired people. You can find out more on its website at https://tweesecake.app
You can follow the developers of TweeseCake at @app
Subtoot. Alright, look. My disability isn't your disability. My blindness, is not your autism, or Deafness, or others. My blindness means that I need screen readers to access digital technology which has screens. So, when we, blind people, say that it's hard for us to use Linux, or that the command line can be difficult because of some commands using a table layout, like top, we um, I don't know, actually fucking mean it. When we boot up your Linux distro of choice, and find that Orca, the Linux screen reader, isn't even available on the install media, or that it cannot read the installer, that's Linux, and foss as as a general whole, being ableism. Clear and simple. If someone with low vision can use Linux well, that's great. I sure as hell wish I could just pop in any distro and get something that I can at least use like a sighted person, but no. If someone with Autism finds that desktop environments allow them to make things the way they need enough for them to get their work done more easily, that's great. Be glad you don't have to use a screen reader on top of that, okay? Next time you go distro hopping, I want you to try something for me. Shut down your computer, then put in the flash drive, press the power button or do whatever you need to to start the computer, then close your eyes. Then, set up your new distro. Then tell me how it went. I thought about just letting this kind of shit go, but damn it it's bad enough when we fucking get this kind of shit from non-disabled people, but when other people with disabilities pile on and basically accuse blind people of lying and that Linux is fine, no. I get that all disabled people have a disability. But just because you can see, that the world is made for you, doesn't mean everyone else has that privalidge. And right now, Windows is still usable by people who are blind, mainly because Windows is so open that we can have screen readers that can grab just about anything they want, and the Windows foss screen reader is amazingly scriptable. Wayland kills accessibility in the name of security. Orca doesn't support addons yet. So what's that about Linux being customizable? Linux distros only come with one, extremely barebones, sound theme. Orca still doesn't have sounds for important events, like when it enters browse or focus modes.
This isn't even getting into the fact that a lot of people with Autism on Mastodon seem to do really well with programming and techie stuff. Blind people? Most of us live on our iPhones. Oh, try browsing the modern web on that CLI that you say works so well for us. Try reading output of the top command using a screen reader. Do you like Ascii graphics? Screen readers sure don't! Like damn, do we need another label just for people with sensory disabilities? Because "disabled" is really getting crowded, and it's almost like blind people don't belong anymore.
A few months ago a friend told me I needed to stop “being a burden” on those around me & find somewhere with round the clock care to live & accommodate my disabilities. Knowing no such place exists for someone like me - I gave them a challenge.
I told them that I had looked for such a place many times - and I’ve come up empty because people like me (relatively young with unstable chronic illnesses) fall through the cracks. We aren’t considered when care homes are being established.
We have homes for the elderly, rehab centres and hospices but almost nothing for a young person who isn’t imminently dying but also has no expectation of improvement. I challenged this friend to find me a place - within a reasonable budget - and said if they did I would move.
Of course they were unable to find anything - and in fact even when they tripled their budget they came up empty. There was one contender that provided a brief glimmer of hope - but as soon as they discovered my heart condition they said no.
The reason? “She’s too unstable and we don’t have adequate monitoring. She should be in hospital or try hospice.” Most chronically ill people know that hospitals are short term solutions & will often discharge you before you’re strong enough to be on your own.
And hospice? You can’t enter hospice unless you are imminently dying. So around & around this friend went… hitting all the same roadblocks I’ve hit time and time again. Finally they asked if I considered private in home nursing?
In home nurses where I am start at around $36/hour. If you need round the clock care that’s just over $6000 a week. Clearly not an option for the vast majority of people.
Finally my friend conceded that I was right and there was no magical place where I could have round the clock care & cease being a “burden” to those around me. They were flustered and apologetic & kept saying “I just assumed you hadn’t really looked”.
Therein lies the problem for so many of us - our friends & family always seem to assume they know better and/or that we have simply failed and not “tried hard enough”. The reality is we often spend all our energy looking for solutions - but those solutions simply don’t exist.
I thanked my friend for apologizing & for their efforts in trying to find a place - but I also asked them to consider how it feels to be called a “burden” just for needing support to survive. To be told you needed to go away & stop “bothering” friends & family?
Of course my friend didn’t have an answer - just uncomfortable silence followed by some muffled apologies. I share this story to implore people to stop assuming disabled people haven’t already tried the things you’re suggesting.
This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to make suggestions. But if we tell you we’ve already tried it and it’s not an option - believe us. It’s exhausting spending your days dealing with chronic illness - we don’t need to be explaining ourselves to people who should have our back.
Lastly - disabled people are NOT a burden. There’s nothing wrong with needing help to survive. Telling someone they should feel bad about receiving that help is an unkind thing to do. Please offer help or keep quiet. Most importantly - believe us when we say we’ve tried.
Begging creators and developers to use this tool to see if there are harmful flashing effects. I’m sick and tired of people slapping a “strobing effects” warning up front and calling it a day. #epilepsy#accessibility https://trace.umd.edu/peat/
The most egregious example of this is video essay editors using literally flashy effects that make their videos impossible to watch. You chose to use those filters. Stop it.
Being disabled & chronically ill is beyond lonely. Far too many people in society can’t comprehend illnesses which are permanent & unrelenting but don’t necessarily kill you. As a result they EXPECT you to get better.
When you don’t - they abandon you.
People understand illnesses like cancer - you get sick & get better or you die. They can support & empathize with that.
When it comes to chronic illness … that support & empathy dries up. The idea that someone could be sick FOREVER & not die is too much for people.
I understand it’s not something anyone wants to think about. The idea of being sick forever with no end in sight is understandably scary. But just because something is scary doesn’t mean it’s not real. It doesn’t mean it’s fake or an exaggeration.
The unwillingness of people to confront their own frailty - to consider the possibility that they could lose their health one day - leads them to isolate those of us who are chronically ill. They disappear us so they don’t have to face it.
It often starts with comments like “I’m sure it can’t be THAT bad” or “you just need to try harder”.
Gaslighting remarks that are disguised as kindess when in reality they tell us you don’t believe us. Then people start asking “are you better YET?”
That one really hurts because the emphasis is always on the “yet”. It’s as though our still being sick is an inconvenience to THEM. No thought is ever given to how awful it makes us feel to have to explain for the millionth time that we aren’t ever getting better.
These exchanges go on for awhile until they succeed in either pushing us away - or they inevitably ghost us. But the result is always the same. Friends and family lost from our lives & us facing our illness alone.
This loneliness drives a lot of people to look for community on social media. It’s an invaluable place to connect because we can find like minded people & engage without ever getting out of bed. We don’t have to shower or try and look “our best”. We just have to show up.
Unfortunately there’s people who seek to tear down the connections you make online - either by invalidating them or by incessant trolling which render it nearly impossible to use the website. This has gotten much worse since Covid.
All of these things lead to an isolated and lonely life - one where there’s a lot of longing. I long for someone who will show up for me & help me without judgement. Without dismissing my concerns or insinuating I’m not really “that sick”. I long for safe & loving connection.
I worry that Covid has only intensified the loneliness for the vast majority of chronically ill people. Those who are desperate to believe Covid is over NEED us disappeared. We are a constant reminder of the fact that they’re risking their health - and they don’t like it.
I understand why they don’t want to face us. No one wants to face a reality of lifelong chronic illness. But turning away won’t save you. We can HELP protect your health. We can help build better safety nets so if you ever DO become sick you won’t struggle the way we do.
Plus you can help us. We’ve already lost so much. Our health. Our independence. Our agency in many healthcare decisions. Our ability to safely access public spaces. Our friends and family.
We need allies we can count on to be there to support us. Who believe us.
My ask of all people tonight is to take a moment and think of the sickest you ever were - whether that be a flu or Covid, food poisoning or surgery recovery - and imagine feeling that way for the rest of your life. Imagine knowing there was no end in sight.
Once you imagine that - consider how hard that reality might be in a world that’s screaming at you to “just stay home” or blaming you incessantly for covid mitigations. In a world that doesn’t even think you deserve safe access to healthcare. In a world embracing euthanasia.
Now reach out to a disabled or chronically ill person in your life. Tell them they’re cared for. Ask if they need any support. If you don’t know any disabled people …
Find an account on here & follow and amplify them. I promise we need that support now more than ever.
The proposed mask ban in North Carolina will turn people who are trying to protect their health (and the health of others) into criminals.
While the action of the government doesn’t surprise me - the response of the public does. I expected most people to find this type of law appalling - and instead I’m seeing people celebrating what I consider to be eugenics in action.
I wrote about the proposed bill, the public response and the disability community’s right to survive:
This is great but can we please also have Fedora (& Ubuntu, etc.) acknowledge they started shipping operating systems without a functional screen reader when they switched to Wayland and that that’s still the case?
This is not to name and shame. Unless we acknowledge this as an error on par with shipping without monitor support and unless the culture is altered to make accessibility a showstopper, it’ll happen again.