Washington, D.C., June 16 – Disability is personal to presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, who has a son on the Autism spectrum. In response to a question posed to all of the viable 2020 presidential candidates by RespectAbility, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that fights stigmas and advances opportunities for people with disabilities, he is pledging to ensure that his campaign’s events and materials are inclusive of people with disabilities.
In response, he said his rallies will feature ASL interpreters, events will be held in accessible locations and specific seating will be reserved for people with mobility impairments. “We’re currently in the planning stages of increasing the sensory inclusivity of our events, as well,” he added.
Yang’s campaign participated in a nonpartisan briefing with RespectAbility on this topic. Seven other Democratic presidential campaigns also participated in such a briefing: Biden, Booker, Inslee, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Sanders and Warren. All viable campaigns were invited to participate in a general briefing or to schedule a briefing, and all are welcome to request a future briefing.
Each campaign has been asked to respond to the same question. We are presenting Yang’s response in full below:
Q: How will you be ensuring that your campaign fully includes people with disabilities and intentionally speaks to people with disabilities?
A: Our campaign is working to ensure that our events and materials are inclusive of people with disabilities.
For our events, we now make sure to only reserve spaces that are accessible. Our rallies always feature an ASL interpreter, and we reserve seats in a safe area for anyone who has mobility issues and requires extra space or assistance. We’re currently in the planning stages of increasing the sensory inclusivity of our events, as well. And we promote images of many different attendees to our events, including those with visible disabilities; we will continue to do so for any Yang Gang member who attends!
For materials we release, the majority of our videos include captioning, and we’re working on a system to ensure that we can increase that number to 100%. We also try to include alt text and image descriptions in our releases, when possible.
Our platform includes several issues important to Americans with disabilities, and Andrew has publicly spoken about autism, in particular, because of his personal experience raising a child who is on the spectrum. He’s committed to continuing to speak about this, and other issues while on the campaign trail.
We hope to keep working with RespectAbility and other groups to continue to learn about issues important to Americans with disabilities, and to expand our platform to promote policies that will improve inclusiveness in America.
RespectAbility is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that fights stigmas and advances opportunities for people with disabilities. RespectAbility does not rate or endorse candidates. View more coverage of 2020 presidential candidates here: http://therespectabilityreport.org/category/2020-campaign. To learn more about the organization, visit our website at www.respectability.org.
Be First to Comment