Karen Reilly: Leading Team CommUNITY’s Accessibility Efforts
Karen Reilly is our new accessibility consultant and will be working on improving our online entities, as well as creating educational materials for the broader digital rights and Internet Freedom Community.
This article was written by both Team CommUNITY & Karen Reilly
Here at Team CommUNITY we want to keep making improvements, and we are starting by making accessibility a priority both off-line and online. To help us through this process, we have hired Karen Reilly whose experience in Open Source/FLOSS, digital rights, and accessibility activism is beyond inspiring. Karen will be reviewing our digital entities for accessibility and helping us make changes. We are going to publish all of this work, both to be transparent and in hopes that we can inspire more teams to work on accessibility and, most importantly, learn from our failures and successes.
Who is Karen Reilly?
Karen has been with the digital rights community since the early days. Her work and ethics have been instrumental in helping kick-start a culture that is equitable and fair for all. Her bravery and knowledge of diversity and inclusion issues has always made her an incredible ally and colleague. We cannot stress the impact she has had on Internet Freedom in this regard. As such, it felt like such a natural decision that she would lead the accessibility work we wanted to embark on.
Karen has years of experience working in the open source world. She is the colleague who will magically fix your broken phone charger on the spot, because carries around all sorts of geeky tools in her bag; or will sit with you to explain sophisticated technological concepts when no one else will. She is geek extraordinaire, seasoned with an incredible sense of humor, hardcore knitting skills, and an unparalleled knowledge of Internet memes. We asked her to write the following introduction below, so you can better know her as a person.
Find her @akareilly
Karen, would you introduce yourself & your work with accessibility?
Hi, my name is Karen, and my immune system is not typical. My immune system is a jerk. The disabilities as a result aren’t usually visible, so I have had the choice whether to talk about disabilities at conferences or at work.
“Karen is a staunch advocate for ensuring an equal and accessible internet freedom space. Having seen her extend her kindness and compassion to anyone in need, to make sure that no person is excluded because of their identity or their needs, is a practice all of us in this space should strive for.”
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I find it difficult to talk about myself in professional settings, but it’s important here. “Nothing about us without us” is a rallying call for disability activists for good reason. People with disabilities know more about their needs, but too often they are dismissed by doctors, teachers, families, managers, and politicians. The consequences include medical trauma, poverty, and discrimination. The fight for the rights of people with disabilities is a fight for autonomy, for freedom from being institutionalized, and to participate in society. It is vital that we speak for ourselves.
On that note, part of my work will be pointing to the work of disability activists from many communities. My experience of disability is not universal, and that’s not just because there are so many physical and mental differences that can make access and communication a challenge. Disability can not be separated from other forms of marginalization, and it’s possible to have privilege that can cushion the effects. For example, medical misogyny has caused me permanent physical damage and trauma, but I do not experience medical racism.
I’ve been part of the digital rights community for over ten years, and in that time, I have seen some things. Some things that need changing. My involvement is only the beginning, the start of setting the stage and then passing the mic.
Assistive Technology is Getting Better!
I’ve started discussing accessibility more publicly now. One reason is positive: assistive technology is getting better and more accessible, and open source software is helping. There are open source screen readers, maps for people who use wheelchairs, open source voice recognition projects, software to code with your voice, and everyday technology used for more access.
The other reason is that I’ve been discouraged by the state of accessibility online. I think the digital rights community should be leading through example on this issue and talking more about these issues.
Obviously, these discussions must include people with disabilities. Disability justice is connected to the issues we work on as digital defenders, and many of us will experience a temporary or permanent disability in our lifetimes. The ways that the digital rights community has led the way on inclusion are a model for making sure we’re not missing the perspectives of people with disabilities.
What People with Disabilities Go Through
To give you an example of what disabled folks go through in tech space, I want to share the following personal story.
I was at an open source software conference, and someone detected a Windows device on the network and tweeted about it, insinuating that someone with a Windows machine didn’t belong. Another person said that my opinion didn’t count because I was using an iPhone to respond on Twitter. They didn’t know that some assistive technology doesn’t work well with open source operating systems. They’ve probably never tried to use a computer when their hands don’t work. They’ve probably never tried using their phone when they can’t see. They can use open source video conferencing software without captions. Accessibility is not considered, or it’s last on the list.
Digital activism must include people with disabilities.
We need to do better. For most issues that are dangerous to report on or engage with, there is a link to a disability. Environmental activism is very dangerous. Damage to the environment is damage to human beings. Environmental racism increases the likelihood of chronic illness and disability. Police brutality against BIPoC communities includes people who were harmed because their disabilities or differences meant they attracted police attention, could not hear police demands, or were more vulnerable to being attacked physically. The stakes for surveillance are different when you consider disability in a risk assessment.
Digital rights and Internet Freedom will not succeed unless the inclusion of disabled folks is part of our vision. It's important to ask ourselves who is excluded when our software is inaccessible? Who is excluded when our conferences are not accessible? How can we change this? Because it needs to change.
The Beginning of Important Accessibility Work in the Digital Rights Community
My work with Team CommUNITY is only the beginning of a larger movement I would like to see take place in the digital rights and Internet Freedom community. In the coming weeks besides the accessibility audit I will be conducting for TC entities, I will also be designing workshops and meetups, and sharing blog posts to impart some knowledge. If you would like to be part of this, we are creating a small mailing list for folks that want to mobilize around this. Send an email to TeamCommUNITY to be added. I’m also just an email away! I can be reached at karen@digitalrights.community.
Looking forward to starting this journey with all of you! I can be reached at karen AT digitalrights DOT community as well !