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benlaksana · 3 years

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2021

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It's been roughly a year and a half since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic here in Indonesia, and I've recently been trying to understand where I'm at. Not physically, as in physical space, but mentally and probably existentially. What is the state of my mind? I am aware that I've become somewhat bitter, my late nights are sometimes riddled with anxiety for what the next day may bring and reoccurring personal-collective grief has at times, and recently more often than I would like to admit, numbed me.

This may probably be my mind's automatic coping mechanism seeing all this death mainly as a result of how my government has failed us, its citizens, especially during a time of crises. And I really need to stress this point: how my government has failed us Indonesians during the times we need it the most and I very much believe that it is because of this why many of us Indonesians are in constant misery and haunted by that feeling of despair. If chronic physical pain causes constant daily anguish, I am not surprised if chronic physical and mental pain caused by structural violence causes persistent misery as well.

I'm somewhat fortunate in this regard, I'm grateful that I've learned ways to keep my sanity in check. My contemplative practice is key for me. Honestly, I wouldn't have gotten far in life without it. I have many people to thank, but Art Buehler especially, my former professor in esoteric contemplative/meditative practices who reminded me and pointed a certain possible direction of where I should head when I sense a lost in my life's direction, is one those I should thank the most. I know this seems like an individualized response to structural oppression, and I don't intend to paint such a picture, but I do believe we need some kind of mental stability to keep on going. To survive if not thrive.

Art sadly passed away in 2019. I received an email about his passing. And come to think of it I never really did allow myself to properly grieve for his passing. I don't know why. To be told through a short concise email that someone you cared for died, without having the opportunity to properly say goodbye feels like that person never really passed away. It is horrible way to end relationships. A sudden cut, nothing finalized, and since goodbyes are relational, now nothing can really ever be concluded. I have to make amends with myself and only with myself. If I said goodbye yesterday, or if I say goodbye today or perhaps tomorrow, will it ever be enough for me?

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Life is individual yet also relational. It's good to have friends, family, people that care for you or the odd mix of all three to get you through life. So although I have these array of tools to possibly help get me through life but if the people whom you look for some kind direction is no longer present, I'm just not sure for how long I can maintain it if I'm doing all this by myself. Will a breaking point come to me?

The mind is a fickle thing, and the mind is as strong as its habits. Bad habits, bad mind. Good habits, good healthy mind (no habits, no mind?). They also say that things that might happen, will indeed happen. It is just a matter of time. If so, how will I break? To what extent? For how long? What will change? What will I lose? Will there be something renewed? Will I come out the same person? Will I come out changed but for the worst?

This is one of the things that worries me. That certainty of uncertainty. The certainty of breaking, the uncertainty of when and of its form. Will I explode in sudden exasperation, engulfed in madness? Will it be a quick balloon pop yet a slow descend into meaninglessness? An unabashed diatribe rant towards someone I care? Something that's just a twitter post away from me on actually doing it. Will this be an opening, an opportunity for 'satori', a sudden lift of the 'veil', bringing about comprehension and understanding of the true nature of things? Questions, questions, questions, not much when it comes to answers, is all I have for now. To be hopeful is hard these days and with the wavering hope, very much coming and going like waves, it has become incredibly hard to even retain any semblance of kindness. That is something I do not want to actively become a habit of. Without hope, comes the cold embrace of fatalism that many on the 'left' are guilty of. Clutched by fatalism, empathy becomes harder to come by. I've seen it, and I have felt it.

I know that my eroding sense of hope is connected to my personal dreams. Specifically how it has become very hard to actualize it. Rara and I never really planned on staying in Indonesia for long. I was confident enough, a bit too confident come to think of it, that we will be out of Indonesia by 2021 the latest. A mere 2 1/2 years after our last stay in New Zealand. The plan was for me to continue my studies, getting into a Ph.D. program and of course a scholarship. That was our ticket out. Hoping that we'll be back to our old routine in Wellington, in and out the university's library, my head in books, loving our 'flatwhites' while regretting having too much of it, the usual stint doing some university tutoring, community organizing stuff, lazy gardening, out and about on the weekends tramping around Wellington and if Covid did not happen or/and maybe if my government handled things much, much better I think that would've been the case. Or at least I constantly would like to imagine that would be the case.

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Yet here we are still in Indonesia, me struggling to do my Ph.D. through this wretched distant learning, initially in the comfort of my home yet steadily devolving into cabin fever. And Rara with her own struggles trying her best to get back on her feet as an aspiring musician. None of it is going as well as we had hoped for. All this while juggling trying our best to keep ourselves safe and our families and friends safe. Both of us have become direct witnesses how challenging this has been, physically and mentally. Both of us slowly grappling with the continual kick in the gut, the never ending structural absurdity, violently absurd.

That slow grueling realization of how fragile our lives are. Not just existentially. It is existentially precarious yet at the same time understanding that precariousness in many of its aspects is structurally and politically maintained. It is this political construction of precarity, which Isabell Lorey elaborates in her book State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, that angers and saddens us the most.

Lorey provides a nuanced approach in unpacking and differentiating this thing called being 'precarious'. The three dimensions of being precarious: precariousness, precarity and then precarization. On precariousness, Lorey draw's on Judith Butler's conceptualization of precariousness which she sees as existential, relational and inevitable. I'll insert my existential philosophy and Buddhist values here, to help me see and more importantly accept the transient nature of life and that impermanence or change is the only constant. Our lives, our bodies are destined to die and wither away. We humans are fragile mortal beings. The loss of life, the loss of one's identity, the loss of everything that makes us, us is unavoidable. It's also a 'relational' thing, as in it is also a shared experience. Everyone will experience it. It is the great equalizer some say.

Then we have precarity. Yes everyone dies, but the process of dying or even the process of grieving someone's death is dependent on what Lorey see as the “effects of different political, social and legal compensations of a general precariousness”. Some die at young age due to starvation, riddled with poverty and disease and have nothing or no one to ease their pain, others die surrounded by family and friends in a well-cared for hospital. Some have days or weeks to grieve, others have to go back to work the next day as she or he have no luxury to stop working even just for a moment and simply grieve. To stop working even for a day draws some closer to the possibility of death for the person or those dependent on the person working. This is the inequality of dying and grieving due to our social hierarchies. How fragile we are, is dependent on those social hierarchies.

And last we have Lorey's third dimension, governmental precarization which is the instrumentalization of insecurity by the government. In other words, the government using the idea and the reality of insecurity as a tool or device to control its citizens. The calculated, deliberate attempt by the government in destabilizing our lives in order for us to be easily governed. Insecurity, be it real or due to perceived constructed fear of insecurity is an effective governing tool. The fear of being labeled "useless and lacking in contribution to the nation-state". The genuine insecurity of not being able to get a job due to the false understanding that it is simply a result of an individual's laziness rather than due to systematic government policies. The deliberate attempt in making our lives constantly insecure, constantly on the edge, without us initially knowing it and when we do come to understand, the blame is on us. It is normalized and it is internalized.

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This is not simply a social issue, it is a deeply existential one as well. We Indonesians have very little to make us feel safe at the moment. Covid and the government's response to it has severely limited our movements and it's not simply physical immobility, but also an existential one, the inability to even have the imagination that our lives are actually "going somewhere", towards a forward direction. Perhaps some sort of minute incremental progress, but progress nonetheless. This imagined mobility is what Ghassan Hage calls as "existential mobility" and this immobility suffered by many of us is what he also calls as "stuckedness".

Turning an often momentary or the ephemeral nature of a crisis into something prolonged and perhaps even permanent is another part of the strategy of governmental precarization. Our lives or jobs are always on the line and again coupled with the sick prevailing idea that we only have ourselves to find the solution. The crisis is permanent, we don't know why but we've been told that way, if we fail to overcome it is because of our personal inabilities thus proliferating and intensifying this sense of stuckedness.

Forcing us to accept whatever solution the government-messiah presents us with in order to relieve us from this suffering. From labour laws that normalizes precariousness even more, to oppressive new laws that limits our desire and ability to dissent, to including who or how our enemies are defined, easily accepting who is to blame for all this insecurity we are all suffering.

Be it the long dead Indonesian communists, the Chinese Indonesians and the racist perception of them being "selfish and greedy", the Indonesian Islamists - the kadruns and their conservatism, the "foreign forces" whomever they may be constantly trying to take over Indonesia, anyone or anything is to blame. Anyone but the Indonesian government and its affluent patrons. Insecurity and the fear that rises from it renders many of us easily governable and compliant.

This governmental precarization and this 'stuckedness', which Hage sees no longer as a possibility that may or may not happen but an "inevitable pathological state which has to be endured" is how Rara and I feel at the moment.

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Rara and I feel our lives are going nowhere. We feel that our lives are stuck, constantly rotating in a hamster wheel trying our best to overcome our precariousness. No progress, no forward movement, no growth, just trying our best to survive from this sustained uncertainty. It's an awful feeling, paving way to existential dread. We are very much looking forward to moving back to New Zealand as soon as possible but with the conditions right now, that is something I can't even dare to imagine.

And although I am grateful that the weave of our privilege with at many times just pure sheer luck has kept us alive and physically well for the time being, we both now realize that we have hit a proverbial concrete wall here. Adding to the already precarious nature of life here in Indonesia, our line of work as a fledgling social science academic and aspiring artist and what Rara and I aspire to do socially, what we aspire to become, easily ends in stagnation if we intend to continue to live our lives in Indonesia. (I want to direct you to Social Science and Power edited by Vedi Hadiz and Daniel Dhakkidae to get the gist of what I'm trying to get at here.)

This is a hard pill to swallow, harder to write and even more so to act upon. I am existentially tied to Indonesia, my family and friends are here, my father is buried here and so will my mother. Memories of the distant past, the colloquial language when shitposting on social media, my mind and body have been shaped by Indonesia in ways I possibly do not even fully realize. This is why I oscillate between guilt towards others and guilt towards the self. I feel guilty for simply having an exit strategy when many others don't, I have the luxury of choice. Yet I also I feel guilty for feeling guilty about this, as it means I am also neglecting the well-being of myself, now and in the future. I need to work on this and find my bearings, being stuck in a guilty limbo won't get me anywhere.

And the future is far from stable, I wonder what is on the other end of surviving this pandemic? There is so much collective grief, collective anger and of course personal anger. All this will amount to something, I'm sure of that. Although I don't know what exactly, I'm not entirely confident this something will be good. John Keane's new book 'The New Despotism' comes into mind.

What do I personally do with all this anger? I’ve noticed how anger, especially when it is on the verge of hatred, morphs itself and easily descends into madness, into aggression and often showing itself, unawaringly to us, when the act of expressing anger happens. Your mind becomes instantly clouded, ending in mindless action. This inability to have control over oneself terrifies me. I already have so very little semblance of control over life in general at the moment, if I truly have no control over myself whatsoever, what then do I have?

And I wonder if it is a waste of time asking these pseudo-intellectual questions? I don't know, yet I do know I live in a society where it hones aggression and hostility, whether it be in physical and digital spaces, and I would like to draw myself away from all this at the moment before I transform myself into something I do not wish to be. Anger I can fully understand, and it is needed and useful. Yet to actively transform it into deep blinding hatred and sustain it daily, is something I feel psychologically destructive for me and I'm trying my best not to go on that path.

I rarely update this blog I know, but this blog has always been used as a personal chronicle of how much I have progressed, digressed or both. And I needed to write all this, because I've never been this least sure of what my life should be like and where it should go. I know I am not alone at this. This pandemic has destroyed the lives of many, our futures, our dreams, our sources of love and I hope that anyone of you reading this finds a way to get through it, doing anything you can do day in, day out.

I'm not sure it if amounts to anything. Maybe it won't, maybe it will, or maybe it has but maybe we just can't see it. All I can personally do for now, is to hold on to these 'maybes', and maybe, just maybe I'll get through this too.

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“Where must we go...

We who wonder this Wasteland

in search of our better selves?”

- The First History Man, George Miller

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lesliepump · 6 years

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Podcast #147: Accessible Justice, with Haben Girma

In this episode, we talk with deaf-blind civil rights lawyer and accessibility advocate Haben Girma about accessible justice and how designing courts, law firms, and the attorney-client relationship for people with disabilities can increase access to justice for everyone.

Haben Girma

The first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma is a civil rights lawyer and she advocates for equal opportunities for people with disabilities. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change, and Forbes recognized her in its 30 Under 30 list. Haben travels the world consulting and public speaking, teaching clients the benefits of fully accessible products and services. She is a talented storyteller who helps people frame difference as an asset.

You can follow Haben on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists and Clio for sponsoring this episode!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast with Sam Glover and Aaron Street. Each week Lawyerist brings you advice and interviews to help you build a more successful law practice in today's challenging and constantly changing legal market. Now here are Sam and Aaron. Sam Glover: Hi, I'm Sam Glover. Aaron Street: I'm Aaron Street. This is episode 147 of The Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today we're talking with deaf/blind civil rights lawyer and accessibility advocate Haben Girma about accessible justice. Sam Glover: Today's podcast is sponsored by Ruby Receptionist and its smart, charming receptionists who are perfect for small firms. Visit Call Ruby dot com slash Lawyerist to get a risk-free trial with Ruby. Aaron Street: Today's podcast is also sponsored by Clio Legal Practice Management Software. Clio makes running your law firm easier. Try it today for free at Clio dot com. Sam, we had the privilege of seeing Haben keynote the Clio Cloud Conference in New Orleans this fall and instantly knew that we needed to have her on the podcast to talk more in-depth about some of these topics. We've talked a little bit in the past about accessibility as it relates to law firm websites and client experience and intake. I think it'd be worth spending a couple of minutes here before the interview refreshing how practices in accessibility can relate to better design overall for everyone. Sam Glover: Yeah. Haben and I talk a little bit about this. I think it's really worth emphasizing. Microsoft has a theory on this that they employ in their design. I think it's really aware of just the advantages that you can have by designing for people who are disabled. The theory is that people who are disabled have more challenges moving through the world day to day that they've already solved most of the problems that the rest of us have. In designing things for people who are disabled you're probably solving problems for everyone else too. That turns out to be true again and again and again. You're listening to this through the medium of a variety of devices that were all built with accessibility first in mind. Aaron Street: Absolutely, whether that's your iPhone with a whole set of accessibility features or on the website. Sam Glover: Phones, keyboards, microphones. All of that stuff was built for disabled people first. Aaron Street: We transcribe every episode of this podcast so there is an alternate text version of it. Those might help people with disabilities access the content in this podcast but the reality is regardless of whether you have a disability or not you might prefer the text transcript of this and it makes it easier for Google to know what's in this podcast so that if you're searching for this topic it makes it easier to find. Lots of ancillary benefits to pursuing things that are good for some people that make them good for lots of people. Sam Glover: I want to say this again and again. It is not that difficult. I know that it feels daunting because it feels like you're trying to put accessibility on things or you need to go out and reach out to a consultant who will make your stuff accessible. Really, it's just about the stuff you ought to be doing anyway. In hiring somebody to optimize your on-page SEO for your website you're probably also nailing 98%, 99% of the things that you need to do to make it accessible. It's stuff you ought to be doing anyway and it's not that hard. I think once you dig into it you'll find that it's a lot less difficult than you maybe worried it is. There's no reason to delay. Make it so. Aaron Street: Today's conversation with Haben is not an SEO conversation but it's fascinating how a conversation about how to make justice more accessible for people with disabilities can have SEO and marketing implications and ... Sam Glover: It's super neat. Aaron Street: It's a really cool topic. Sam Glover: Here's my conversation with Haben. Just at the beginning we're going to leave in the delay while Haben's translator types my questions for her to respond. I just want you to get a feel for the way the conversation flowed and then we'll start cutting out the typing so that it flows a little more quickly. Here's the conversation. Okay. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Haben Girma: My name is Haben Girma. I work as a disability rights lawyer, public speaker, and author. I teach organizations about the value of disability. Disability can be an asset to a community, an organization. It's a matter of learning about how to be accessible and what are the different things we can do as a community to make sure our websites, our apps, our facilities are welcoming to everyone. Sam Glover: Haben, thank you so much for being with us on the podcast today. Maybe we should start by talking about how we talked about disability. What are some of the words that we should be using when we need to distinguish between people who are disabled and people who aren't and just discussing disability in general? Haben Girma: The words I prefer using are disabled and non-disabled. A lot of people ... Well, some people are not comfortable using the word disability but I'm comfortable using the word disability. The word disability for me is associated with civil rights because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and other civil rights protections that use the word disability. Maybe in this podcast we can use disability and non-disabled. Sam Glover: That sounds good. I'll do that. On your website you have a frequently asked questions that starts with some messages that we should avoid when talking about people who have disabilities. I want you to tell us a little bit more about those messages and why we should avoid them. Haben Girma: There's several messages to keep in mind. One message is that when we talk about disability we should avoid trying to judge people with disabilities as existing to help non-disabled people feel grateful that they don't have disabilities. Often stories in the press will describe people with disabilities as inspiring non-disabled people to stop complaining. Like, "You have no excuse. Disabled person did this. Therefore, non-disabled people should feel shame that they're not able to do this." That's not fair. That's disrespectful. It's still stigmatizing a group when you're using them to shame another group. I don't want disability to be used to inspire shame in anyone. The interesting thing about the disability community it's the largest minority group and it's a group that anyone can join at any time. Our bodies are always changing. As we grow older change is a natural part of growing older. At every stage in our life we deserve dignity, inclusion, and access to everything. It's really, really important to respect those of us who are different. Rather than categorizing us as an other and stigmatizing we should instead be welcoming to everyone because it's not really us versus them. We're all going to change. We're all going to be different at some point. Sam Glover: It sounds like part of the danger is in thinking that disability is something unlucky that happens to just a few people when really you could almost look at it as a spectrum that we all sit somewhere on it. Haben Girma: Exactly. There are actually a lot of people with disability. In the United States there are about 57 million Americans with disabilities. Throughout the world there are about 1.3 billion people with disabilities. That's a significant population. When companies choose to be inclusive they get to tap into this large market. It's good business to be inclusive because you get more customers, a larger audience. That means more business, more revenue in the long run. Sam Glover: When we talk about people with disabilities we're talking about I think roughly a fifth of the population, which is a huge chunk. Haben Girma: Exactly. We may also be talking about our future selves. Sam Glover: I think, though, a lot of people who don't think of themselves as having disabilities or who don't fall into that don't really understand how to empathize with the problems faced by people with disabilities in just moving around the world. Maybe you could tell us a little about your journey to becoming a lawyer so that we understand how that has played out in the law school and law experience that you've had. Haben Girma: I am deaf/blind. Most of this world is not designed to be accessible for people who are deaf/blind. I faced many barriers. My disability is not a problem. The problem is the way the world is designed. People can choose to provide information in multiple formats or they can choose to provide information only in one format. People can choose to design a building to have ramps and elevators so that people who use wheelchairs have access or they could choose to only have stairs and deny access to people who use wheelchairs. When there are barriers it's not the disability that's the problem. The problem is the design and the choices that people make. Sam Glover: I really like that way of thinking about it. Thanks for that clarification. The world is a design problem and we've only designed it for some of the population. Haben Girma: Exactly. Most schools are not accessible. I was very, very lucky. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, which happens to be the heart of the disability rights movement. The city of Berkeley was one of the first cities to have curb cuts so that wheelchair users can independently move from sidewalk to sidewalk and cross streets and travel around a city. A lot of disability rights access changes have been first in the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up here so I've benefited from many of these changes and I've benefited from having teachers and going to schools that valued inclusion. I had people telling me, "Yes, you can." I had people getting me all the materials I need in accessible formats. I had access to school. I was able to learn math, science, English. If I had grown up two hours outside the Bay Area in other parts of California or in a different state in the United States I probably would not have been able to get an education and go to college and definitely not go to law school. I know other deaf/blind students in California who missed part of elementary and middle school because the school refused to provide real materials or they refused to provide interpreters. The parents and students spent all their energy trying to advocate for access when they could have been learning. There's still so much unfairness here in the United States and limited access to materials. We need to change that. We need to make sure everyone has access to an education. Sam Glover: One of the things that you've talked about before is just pointing out how many innovations that we all use came to us by way of designing for disability. What are some of your favorites? Haben Girma: A lot of the technologies we use have been designed or inspired by people with disabilities. These stories are hidden. Very few people know about them. I think it would be beneficial to get these stories out there and have more people learn about the stories. One example is Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, is hearing impaired. Before the internet existed as we know it today, deaf people didn't have an easy way to communicate long distance. Vint Cerf found that by sending electronic messages, electronic mail, he could communicate long distance with people without having to strain to hear on the telephone. This benefits everyone. Email benefits everyone. Lots of people use email now. That's an example of how something that helps the disability community, a solution inspired by disability, often has benefits for the whole world. Sam Glover: I think when Vint Cerf was using the internet over the phone lines the phone lines were also designed by Alexander Graham Bell to overcome either his hard of hearing or his wife's difficulty in hearing, wasn't it? Haben Girma: Yes. Alexander Graham Bell did a lot of research to try to find ways to help deaf individuals communicate. Through that process he ended up developing a telephone. That's another example of how when you see disability as a design challenge and design solutions, often these solutions benefit the entire community. Investing in hiring people with disabilities and making your businesses accessible drives innovation. You're more likely to have a more innovative workforce if you include people with disabilities. People who think differently are more likely to come up with innovative solutions. Diverse teams are stronger teams. Sam Glover: You've mentioned before that ... Maybe this is just what you're getting at but in designing things for people who have disabilities you're probably solving problems for the world at large by doing that. By designing your firm or your business around accessible principles you're probably building a more client-friendly firm for everyone. Haben Girma: Exactly. Wouldn't everyone want more clients? Wouldn't you want to be able to tap into the largest market possible? Another thing to keep in mind is that the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. There are also other laws, state laws, and federal laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. Access is a right. It's really important for everyone to invest in inclusion. Sam Glover: As a civil rights lawyer I imagine you have a much clearer window into some of the ways that access to justice is harder for people with disabilities. What are some of those challenges that those of us who aren't dealing with disabilities on a day to day basis may not be aware of? Haben Girma: Some of the barriers that exist in terms of access to justice are physical. Court houses, reading spaces that are not wheelchair accessible. Designing access to people who use wheelchairs. That could be lawyers who use wheelchairs, it could be judges who use wheelchairs, it could be clients who use wheelchairs. There is a lot of information online regarding legal services. Often information online is not accessible. The vast majority of websites and apps have access barriers. We need people in the legal field to ensure that their websites and digital information is provided in accessible formats. The web content accessibility guidelines teaches people how to design websites to be accessible. For mobile apps, Apple and Android accessibility guidelines teach people how to design them to be accessible. Sam Glover: Haben, have you had a chance to visit Lawyerist dot com? I'm wondering how well we've done. Haben Girma: No. I haven't had a chance to visit it yet. Sam Glover: We have tried to design it around those accessibility principles. It's not really that hard. It turns out that a lot of those things that you would do to build an accessible website are the kinds of things that Google would like you to do to optimize for search engines. It turns out Google is also deaf and blind. Haben Girma: That's a good point. When people make their services accessible it increases content discoverability. Accessibility, some of the things that are necessary to do to make sure services are accessible online is to make sure you have text labels or images for buttons and when you increase the text associated with your content you also help with search engine optimization. Those are things to keep in mind. Access benefits you in multiple ways. Sam Glover: One of the things you mentioned when I heard you speak at the Clio Cloud Conference is that you have to be aware of trying to put accessibility on your app or your website or your building at the end. Can you say a little bit more about why that's a problem to try and add accessibility? Haben Girma: It's much harder to try to add accessibility at the end of the design process. It's much easier to plan for it from the start. An example we often use is to compare it to building a skyscraper. To ensure wheelchair access a skyscraper needs an elevator. It's much harder to build the skyscraper without an elevator. Then once you're done building the skyscraper to add an elevator afterwards. That's more costly, time-consuming, it takes more resources. It would be easier and cheaper to design the skyscraper to have an elevator. Put it in the plans. Same thing with digital accessibility. If you plan for it from the start it's easier to do. Sam Glover: It sounds to me like accessibility needs to be part of the lens through which you see the world and see the design problems in your client service delivery methods? Haben Girma: Yeah. Accessibility needs to be prioritized. Make sure your websites are accessible, have your designers look at the web content accessibility guidelines, and design the website based on those principles. It also helps with search engine optimization. Also, keep in mind that there have been a lot of lawsuits these past few years regarding digital accessibility. I worked on one of those cases. It was a case called [inaudible 00: 19: 49] of the Blind versus Script. Script is a digital library. Blind individuals wanted to be able to read books in the library. The way the library was designed created barriers for blind readers and blind readers couldn't read books on Script. Script tried to argue that the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't apply to online businesses. The judge in that case looked at our arguments and agreed with us and said that the Americans with Disabilities Act does apply to online businesses like Script. Script and other online businesses need to adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act. That was an exciting, rewarding case to be involved with. It's something that a lot of organizations need to keep in mind. Sam Glover: A bit of a stick and a bit of a carrot. Haben Girma: Sam, can we take a few minutes break? My dog is crying. Sam Glover: Yes. Of course. This podcast is supported by Ruby Receptionists. As a matter of fact, Ruby answers our phones at Lawyerist and my firm was a paying Ruby customer before that. Here's what I love about Ruby. When I'm in the middle of something I hate to be interrupted. When the phone rings it annoys me and that often carries over into the conversation I have after I pick up the phone, which is why I'm better off not answering my own phone. Instead Ruby answers the phone and if the person on the other end asks for me a friendly, cheerful receptionist from Ruby calls me and asks if I want them to put the call through. It's a buffer that gives me a minute to let go of my annoyance and be a better human being during the call. If you want to be a better human being on the phone give Ruby a try. Go to Call Ruby dot com slash Lawyerist to sign up and Ruby will waive the $95 setup fee. If you aren't happy with Ruby for any reason you can get your money back during the first three weeks. I'm pretty sure you'll stick around but since there is no risk you might as well try. Aaron Street: Imagine what you could do with an extra eight hours per week. You could invest in marketing your firm, you could spend more time helping clients in need, or you could catch your daughter's soccer game. That's how much time legal professionals save with Clio, the world's leading practice management software. With Clio tracking time, billing and matter management are fast and easy. Giving you more time to focus on what really matters. Clio is a complete practice management platform with plenty of tools and over 50 integrations to help you automate daily tasks such as document generation and court calendering. See how the right software can make it easier to manage your practice. Try Clio for free today at Clio dot com. Haben Girma: Sorry about that, Sam. Thank you for your patience. Sam Glover: Oh, of course. My dog is currently enjoying our freezing cold weather here in Minneapolis. Haben Girma: Wow. My dog ... When I lived in Boston we had to deal with snow. She hated snow. She would refuse to go to the bathroom when it started snowing because she didn't like snow on the ground. Sam Glover: My dog is a husky so my challenge is getting him to even come inside. Haben Girma: Oh. Husky, those are beautiful. Sam Glover: He is very fuzzy. Haben Girma: Did you grow up in Minnesota? Sam Glover: I didn't. I grew up in Virginia, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Haben Girma: Wow. That's a fun and exciting childhood. Sam Glover: It sure was. Haben Girma: Did you go surfing in the DR? Sam Glover: I was in second and third grade so I don't think I got past a boogie board level. It was very cool. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Haben Girma: Yeah. I went there for a wedding. It was amazing. The staff were super friendly. Often times when I go into a restaurant here in the United States the staff stare but they don't really ask questions. In the Dominican Republic I remember when I was in restaurants waiters would come up and ask, "What is this? What are you doing?" Not in a mean way. Just in a friendly, curious way. I just explained that it's a keyboard and braille display. People type on the keyboard, I read in digital braille. I let them try it. They typed in Spanish and I know basic Spanish. I studied Spanish in high school and college. [Foreign language 00: 24: 20] I was able to read that and respond back. Sam Glover: Very cool. It seems like one of the challenges is people who don't want to engage because they're shy or uncomfortable asking questions or approaching you. Haben Girma: Yeah. I love questions. There's nothing wrong with asking questions. I don't mind if people ask me questions about disability. The thing to keep in mind is your intentions. It's more about attitude. If someone uses the wrong word I'm not going to get offended. If they have a pity and disrespectful attitude I'm not going to be happy. It's more about their intentions, how they approach a situation. Is it friendly, respectful curiosity? Or is it pitying questioning, implying that you don't belong and to leave their establishment? It's really about their intentions and attitude. When people come up and ask questions I'm happy to explain. Deaf/blindness is rare. I don't expect people to know about deaf/blindness. My parents didn't understand deaf/blindness. They hadn't heard of Helen Keller or braille. My parents are from Eritrea, Ethiopia, so they were learning a whole new system: the American culture, our system here, and improving their English in addition to learning about disability access, braille, the civil rights movement, that sort of thing. I'm used to people not knowing. I don't mind teaching and explaining as long as people are respectful and kind when they ask. Sam Glover: It sounds like a lot of the solution to inclusion and to increasing accessibility is to include. At the beginning of every process, whether it's creating a business or a building or meeting a new person, to favor inclusion rather than getting to it later. Haben Girma: Yeah. Plan for it from the start. Make it a priority. Before you build something, whether it's a new building, a website, an app, a program take the time to plan about accessibility. How can you make sure everyone in your community is welcome? If you're not sure, do the research. Look at the web content accessibility guidelines, engage with the disability community. There may be disability organizations in your area. If not, you could tap into national networks. You could contact disability rights experts, like myself. You can reach me. I have a website Haben Girma dot com. I'm also on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. People can find and follow me there. Reach out to people if you don't know the answers. Definitely start asking questions with the intention of trying to welcome everyone. Sam Glover: I think what people will find as they try to open up their practices, their websites, the court system, is that it's actually not as hard as it seems like it might be once you get started. Haben Girma: Exactly. It's really not as hard as it seems. Often times disability access needs are free, simple, easy. The vast majority of people with disabilities can explain what they need. If you ask, people can help point you in the right direction of what you need to do. Sometimes it's being flexible. Maybe moving a meeting place from an inaccessible spot to an accessible spot. Maybe it's just moving furniture a little bit to create more room. Maybe it's bringing in an interpreter. Maybe it's switching from telephone to email or using a chat service that provides access. Just being flexible about how you communicate, where you communicate, will allow you to connect with more people. Sam Glover: That sounds awesome. I hope that lawyers who are listening are starting to think about ways that they can bring that fifth of the country who is disabled in and help them find legal services and make them clients. Haben Girma: I strongly encourage everyone to think of this as a business opportunity. It's not charity. It's good business for all of us to be inclusive because you get to tap into a larger market. Sam just said it's one-fifth of the population. 57 million Americans with disabilities. That's a significant market. It benefits all of us to be inclusive. Sam Glover: Haben, thank you so much for being with us today. I really enjoyed our conversation. Haben Girma: Thank you for spotlighting inclusion, Sam, and creating the opportunity to teach more people about disability access. Aaron Street: Make sure to catch next week's episode of The Lawyerist Podcast by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast app. Please leave a rating to help other people find our show. You can find the notes for today's episode on Lawyerist dot com slash Podcast. Sam Glover: The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.

This transcript was prepared by Rev.com.

Podcast #147: Accessible Justice, with Haben Girma was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

from Law and Politics https://lawyerist.com/podcast-147-haben-girma/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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Original Post Here - First Part Here - First and foremost: thank you all for your kind support in the past two posts... not only the responses, but the dozen+ messages. Some of you just wrote to say you're interested, some even offered to help out. I'm grateful and hope you all keep along with me on the journey - rain or shine.TL;DR from the past: I'm hoping to make the step-up to stop thinking and start doing. I'm going to start a dropshipping e-commerce website with a large number of items & a (hopefully) unique value proposition.Most importantly: I'm not now, nor plan to, sell anything or benefit from this directly by any means. I won't be posting my website, linking to my blog, or offering a course at end (if I start making money). The reason for these posts will be: to gather my thoughts into words, to regurgitate what I'm learning (teaching is the best way to learn new concepts, etc etc) and most importantly to get input from you guys. I'm hoping people may learn from what I do, mistakes I make, things I read/summarize, etc. and that I can learn from your guys' experience.1 - Where We Are NowThe Website: is more or less finished. I have about 20 products left to finalize (choosing pictures, editing description, etc.) & finalizing some of the categories.The logo: I took a lot of your guys' thoughts from the last post and I decided on not spending much money or time on a freelancer. Instead, I DIYed my first logo. It's not great, and it's not going to be my everlasting logo but I think it's good enough for now. A simple picture with text - nothing fancy. When I start turning a profit, I will spend a good amount of money on a nice sleek logo.. but for now, I just want to get going. A special shoutout to all of you guys who took the time to offer your services and time, as well as your advice. Some of you guys that offered your help in design may hear from me in the future :)The website/homepage: Here are some examples to show you what the pages will look like: Homepage 1 Homepage 2 Homepage 3 Homepage 4 As mentioned, there will be lots of adjusting of the categories & information as we go. The categories in particiular will be slimmed down a little as I feel there are maybe too many options at the moment.The products: we have 245 products on the website. As mentioned in previous posts, these have all been vetted for high selling & high rated items/vendors so as to avoid problems as much as possible. Some items only have "details" from the vendor, and some have a few sentences of SEO information from me. At the moment it's about 50 of those done with verbage and the rest with just details. I started with planning on putting verbage on them all, but it was taking too long so I will be launching with just vendor details and adding those individual SEO keywords & descriptions as we go. For example, here are two items: Item 1 Item 2. For your reference, here is the aliexpress link for the first item: Elephant Tapestry take a look at the seller rating, the description, the feedback, etc.The Legal Stuff: This is the major sticking point before I'm ready to launch. A lot of you guys mentioned that my idea of using an LLC & a DBA was overkill and I looked into it further. I decided on bypassing the LLC for now, and just starting as a sole prop w/ a business bank account & credit card and using a DBA. When/if we start making some money, we can move to an LLC (not a single-member one though because it's pretty useless, as far as I've read). I decided against an LLC due to the tax, record keeping, etc. & the fact that in my state the fees for an LLC are about $500 minimum.If anyone has input on this, i'd GREATLY appreciate it.My remainder for this:Decide on a name for DBA & register DBARegister for EINRegister for sales tax in my stateUse DBA to get a PO boxGet bank account & credit creditThings I need to look into:Charging for sales tax -> as far as I've seen I only have to charge sales tax for people who order in my state. I need to make sure it's an origin sales tax state (aka I charge MY rate, no matter where the customer is).Charging for duties/tax? I am planning on starting with the US only as to avoid these problems, but eventually when I go worldwide I will need to figure all this out. Shit is confusing, guys. How the hell do people do al lthis2 - Marketing PlanFirst off: I made the social media accounts. I don't have much going on, but I did focus on using Instagress at the beginning just to get some stream going. All my 10 followers on Instagram say hello ;) As we ramp up with more pictures, I plan to use Instagram the most so that's what I'm worrying about. Later, we can get into Facebook & Twitter. Lastly will be Pinterest, simply for the reason that I've NEVER used it before and it will have the largest learning curve.Instead of explaining all of it (Adwords, facebook ads, bing, whatever.) I'll go into a few avenues that I'm in particular looking forward to:Instagram Influencers: This is the one I'm looking most forward to. I had a fellow redditer reach out (/u/saintsintosea) offering to help me with this with his company Mightyscout. I hope that sounded like a paid advertisement because it felt like it, but I really appreciate the help & offer to work with me on the cheap to help us launch & get started. Give a little get a little, ya know. With sites like this (I know there are a few out there that I plan to look into), as well as my own personal reach-out to 'social media influencers' (that sounds so weird to write) I can get some cheap traffic. My ideas:1) Offer a set amount of $$ for a link/shout-out. This is the most common AFAIK, and if doing this a few times provides a high return, I'll keep going.2) Offer the social media account a % of items bought with a discount code. I know this is super popular in the fitness industry, and I can see why. Offer a user the chance to give something to their followers, and only pay them from the profits. Win-win.3) Make a customized collection for the social media user. For some of the trendy accounts that would LOVE to say "I'm so important that this website featured me" is enough, and I hope to use that as a way of getting free advertising. Maybe throw in a lower amount of % of the profits if I find it difficult to get people to agree for free.4) Offer people coupons for tagging their friends. "If you tag your friend, we'll send you BOTH a 20% off discount" or something.5) Allow users to make wishlists and share. This would encourage people to make wishlists and send it off to their followers (maybe requiring a little $$ like number one) and make it seem less of a paid advertisement. A user I follow sometimes does this in a really humorous way (she posts a link to her wishlist and says something like "boy wouldn't you HATE IT if I used my followers to link to a wishlist like www.xxxxxxxx.com and asked them to buy me stuff. Wouldn't that just be such a sell-out move" but, ya know, with her humor. Followers like it because it's part of her shtick.Facebook Video Ads: I've heard/read that this is probably the most undervalued marketing tool right now. I can definitely see the value of it, and so I plan to make a video of some of the products and throw together an ad campaign. This is probably something I'll have to hire a freelancer to do. Any advice would be appreciated.3 - What's NextSo, we have the website almost ready to launch. I'm thinking all the legal paperwork (DBA, EIN, PO Box, etc.) will take about a week - so I hope to launch in around a week or so. I'm looking forward to it. However.... as some of you mentioned, and as I was looking into, Chinese New Year starts soon. For those who don't know, it's a holiday where Chinese factories are off for about a week, and lots of people are off for anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. I've looked into and while lots of manufacturers still take orders, their processing time & shipping time is greatly slowed. For this reason, I will launch as normal, explain my shipping time in bold, and see what happens. If we get sales, I'll feel comfortable that they're OK with the shipping times and I'm not fooling anyone. I expect there to be a large amount of errors, returns, refunds, etc. in the first few ~100 orders anyways so this will be par for the course. We'll know that things will only get easier from here on!My next update will read: "website launched, lets look at the traffic"4 - FinancialsRevenue - $0Next post will have expenses to date since not much has changed from last time. Including paperwork fees, ad fees, etc.P.S. I will respond to posts & messages as fast as I can, but please be patient. Thanks. Thanks for your kind words, thanks for your help, and thanks for your love.

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