Waiting on the World to Change

One of the most successful singer-songwriters of his generation, John Mayer has penned many sensitive and memorable tunes and is a four-time Grammy Award winner. In 2007, his song Waiting On The World To Change won him a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Recently, I stumbled across a video interpretation of this song that truly shook my world.

The video was produced by a group called the Deaf Professional Arts Network (D-PAN). Their mission is to promote “professional development and access to the entertainment, visual and media arts fields for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.” Beginning with the statement “It’s everybody’s music”, the visuals on the video are a brilliant and colorful blending of images and American Sign Language interpreting that lead the viewer on a short but upbeat and powerful journey through Deaf history and Deaf rights. Through this remarkable blend of images and song, the message is poignant and clear - people who are deaf are misunderstood by the hearing world… misunderstood, and because of that, subject to discrimination and hampered from achieving equitable participation in society. With a vision of equality, they are waiting… waiting on the world to change.

As I watched the video (over and over), I realized that, in addition to how it well it represented the yearning of the Deaf community, the chorus of Waiting on the World to Change could readily become the anthem for people with disabilities throughout the world.

For the most part, our work has evolved beyond “fixing” people with disabilities – it is our world that needs fixing. For decades, we assumed people with disabilities to be a different and deficient minority in society. We did what we could to make them as “normal” as possible and then we cajoled employers to be nice and “hire the handicapped”. We have since become wiser.

We now recognize that disability is not unusual. Rather, it is a frequent and commonplace part the human experience. We have learned that, far from a small minority, people with significant disabilities represent at least 10% of the human community throughout the world. We have learned that people with disabilities, like everyone else, have their own individual talents, strengths, and gifts to contribute to our societies and workplaces. We have learned that people are “handicapped”, not by their disabilities, but by their environments. (Think about someone in a wheelchair and wanting to get into a building – one with ramps and one with stairs.) We have learned that our job is not to fix people with disabilities, but to fix our workplaces - to enable them to fully engage the enthusiasm, talents and productivity of everyone.

Reflecting on this, I was reminded of the biblical parable of the sower; “And a sower went out to sow…” The seeds spread by the farmer fell variously on unprepared soil where they remained on the surface and were picked up by birds; on stony ground where they grew but, unable to fully root, were withered in the sun; amidst weeds where they were weakened and unable to bear fruit; and on good soil where they flourished and produced a bounty.

In the parable, it was not the seeds, but the ground upon which they fell that determined whether or not they would thrive and prosper. Our seeds are job seekers with disabilities – each with the same inherent promise of a seed - to take root, to be nourished and grow, to thrive, and to yield a bountiful harvest. As we know too well, the patches of “good soil”, the receptive workplaces, are rare and scattered across the vast landscape of North American workplaces. And so we have a twofold mission – first, to seek out those rare patches of soil, those rare workplaces that are inclusive and welcoming to employees with disabilities, and second, to transform the soils of other workplaces, field by field (company by company) into the kind of grounds that will enable employees with disabilities to flourish be productive.

To enable people with disabilities to join us equitably and productively in our workforce, we need to bring change not to them, but to the companies and organizations that decide who is hired and who isn’t – who is given the opportunity to be productive and earn a living and who isn’t. We need to:

• Till and loosen the hardened soil of unfounded personal fears, biases and reservations that can make so many employers resistant to the notion of including people with disabilities in their workforces.
   

• Expose and roll away the fieldstones of policies, practices and environments that needlessly restrict and inhibit people with disabilities from settling in and giving their best to their jobs.
   

• Root out the weeds of misinformation and erroneous assumptions that cause so many employers to avoid recruiting people with disabilities, to make poor hiring decisions about them, or to not give them the support they need to thrive and advance in their jobs and careers.

So, as we make new inroads, as we make new allies, as we celebrate our small victories, as we pursue our individual and collective visions of inclusive workplaces, and, as we do our very best to nudge it along,

we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

~ Rob McInnes

© Rob McInnes, Diversity World, January 2010 (If not used for commercial purposes, this article may be reproduced, all or in part, providing it is credited to "Rob McInnes, Diversity World - www.diversityworld.com". If included in a newsletter or other publication, we would appreciate receiving a copy.)

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