Morning. The ada. I want to start off, my name is rebecca cokley, director of the center for american progress. At first i want to start off by thanking mira and claudia for an amazing kickoff. Both of your support to this work, to this scene has been someaningful. Since its inception we couldnt do it without folks like you rally around us daily and remind us of the important work that we do the work that wehavent had. I love to increase our amazing panel that comes with a variety of experience in the employment and economic ability space to the experience of americans with disabilitiesstudy with , we had Crosby Cromwell who is the founder and this is a one . This is week one. What civility which is searched from targeting seniorlevel folks with disabilities in communities of color is actually nominal, the perfect time to focus on a senior sector which i know a member of us are thrilled to see that so congratulations crosby. Karen williams, this is our first event, he is the managing director of the poverty prosperity at the center for american progress. Kerry wade was the director of rams the American Association of people with disabilities. And the ever so dapper virginia carter who is the cofounder of new view consulting. So lets be honest, we know that this has been an exciting week. Theres a number of challenges folks and, these have anything that have been affecting our community for a long time we heard your address, we were wanting address it so while we know we have far to go, any frame of an economic narrative around the rights of people with disabilities and around what true Economic Empowerment looks like is not impactful if it doesnt take into account those intersections whether its in disabilities , its around disclosure, both live in the intersection of dealing with racism, hallelujah, as you, have all seen it, . We know this is you. But however you you all seen this, in your own career or the work that you all have been doing mark and you guys cant press your nose and say not. I would say that i am a career woman. Im also 30 so im sort of right at the start of Ada Generation i would say. Ada has alwaysbeen a factor in my life and my work. I always think that actually my experience in the workplace in the world at large has been one of privilege and a lot of that has to do with whiteness as well as economic status. I come from an uppermiddleclass family, everybody is educated, it was never a question of where you go to college how procedures will that University Mark i am sort of, i come from houston standpoint in terms of i didnt really have to think about my disability as a factor of my life experience. Certainly in an Employment Contract until i was maybe in my mid20s, early to mid 20s. It was always frayed as this whole thing that i have to navigate and it was sort of a you just have to find a way to do things and you do the same things and achieve the same thing with all of your fears which is great framework also did really let me off the hook confronting all these other intersections in any sort of real way, especially when it came to my Employment Status so i think ive sort of gotten a very skewed perception from my personal experience of what employment and what Economic Security and empowerment is like for disabled people because my dominant experience is one of privilege. But i will say as somebody who runs youth based initiatives at my current employer, ill say one of the things that comes up from these various intersections and impressions is that you can have for example participants of color in your program and people love to talk about that and they love to show the data of what percent is people of color, what percentage lgbt hue, and anything then not really have your programming acknowledge or reflect that in any way so youre still putting marginalized folks into a system designed for and by privileged white people and youre surprised when that doesnt go well, when is not affirming experience, when it doesnt provide for everyone what is supposed to provide. And thats the thing that i really have come facetoface with in my work with young people is how do i particularly as a white person in leadership help to restructure these programs to make sure that theyre delivering on the promise not just to people that are coming from already privileged backgrounds, making sure we are addressing and fully acknowledging the existence of oppression within theprogramming, not just whos participating in it. I was going to say much like kerry coming from a place of privilege, in some ways it a collateral of good intentions and understanding how damaging saying i dont see color, i dont see disability, wereall just people , how that erases identity and understanding actualization, understanding the recognition of identity is as important as the legislation component or the employment component that we walk into the spaces fully as our self, recognizing all of those. I would comment a bit on this. As a black woman who lives with a non apparent disability and who has really been socialized in environments that are both predominantly white and that is true of both education and employment, i have confronted i would say both external able is him and racism and also internal able is him. A lot of times thats taken the form of knowing that in order to be successful, in order to understand and be able to convey that i belong somewhere that i have to work twice as hard and that i have to work twice as long and i also know that if i make an error and i have no time, they may not be afforded that same level of break as would someone who has more privilege or someone who is presumed to be, to belong to that place in the first. I also as a nonapparent, as a woman with a nonapparent disability, as a woman living with colitis and arthritis know that if i work twice as longor twice as hard , that is a surefire way to land in the dr around the corner. So as i have grappled with that throughout my career, i can say quite frankly i dont get , i do not have the answer yet i do know that sometimes that my of resistance is to show up. To show up fully as my authentic self and to understand that as i have grown in my career and i now have a seat at leadership tables, i have a responsibility and the ability to educate others on how damaging ableism can be, how damaging internalized racism can be and the ways in which implicit bias shows up in structures that we create. That said, the reason why we need this economic agenda that weve released today is because we are still actively producing institutions and policies that reinforce all of those and it makes it that much harder for us to really truly realize justice for the Disability Community and for all communities of marginalized people. Ill just add that particularly being in a space where being an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur or most of my life, and in the capacity to higher other folks is something that i never would have been able to think that id be into operate in the space of, so talking about that internalized legalism and the internalized racism, a lot of that also comes with who is in your circle. And kind of recognizing that some of those folks in your circle, even disabled people may disrupt or cause harm to your actual growth. This pertains to your lived experience so for me, i can honestly say that for probably most of my career prior to getting into politics and public policy, it was skewed and different and it took a clear recognition from me to understand that i need to take for myself and not be concerned with what my family thinks. Not be concerned with what my friends think in terms of what lane i should operate in. Because for the most part i can only speak for myself but in my line of work i didnt have a direct mentor that could speak to my experience and help guide my path. So i kind of had to create my own path and blaze my own trail individually and create space for others. Thank you. How do the issues, we have this continual debate in the Disability Community and im seeing it right now as it plays out ahead of 20 20 which is people are like, when is thisperson coming out with a disability agenda . And at the same time, we hear our community continually fight for inclusion and we want to be included alongside everybody else and one of the things that i thought was interesting in how it was laid out is how these issues fit into the broader agenda. They are really short bus issues or segregated disability issues. The brilliant author and the folks that work with her on this report sought to about how does this fit in the context of the broader Agenda Setting narrative right now. And so how do youthink of that . How do you think we engage on this conversation around creating a more integrated agenda versus creating a more silo agenda. I think for me, i think what it comes down to is having more conversations like this one. Having more folks in the space to actually want to be here rather than folks who are required to be here. And i know with respect as for many of the folks in the room right now. I think what it comes down to is making sure that the the space in the conversation and especially the agendas out disabled popes. And make sure that cable is accessible before you invite disabled folks to that table. Because a lot of times that table is not disabled so i think its really a matter of creating the agendas, creating the policy and id like to thank albert for taking the lead to generate this policy because its something that hasnt been seen in the, its something that folks in the disabled community have talked about never been on paper though i want back her again or taking the lead on that. But also understanding that her individual work that she put together is not the only report that needs to be done. We have to, have to be consistent. It can be one report, thats it. The policy is set, were done. It has to be consistent and it has to be an ongoing conversation and in order for the kind of landscape to change, the entire landscape of the accessibility space after also adapt as well. I think of an economic agenda for people with disabilities, i think of it as an economic agenda for individuals all across the country. Claudia, and marist talk already about what what is in this roadmap that weve released today for people with disabilities, i wont go through all of the points but i do strongly encourage everyone to take a look report and the recommendations that are made there i do want to highlight one example and that is the one of paid leave and sick days and i grew up in a family of women so i tend to be a storyteller at heart to forgive me of that but i can tell you a story. As me, as an only child a couple of years ago, when my father had the first of many falls and living in los angeles , it is because of paid sick leave, it is because of paid leave and Flexible Work that i was able to travel back and forth between dc and california for a couple of years helping care for him. When my mother had at lumpectomy a couple of years ago, it is because of paid leave the ability to take leave that i was able to go and be with her and care for her in that time. That is not good policy because i am a person with a disability, its good policy because there are americans all across the country who are confronting decisions every day about taking care of their work life and their family life. I think you will see echoes of that in every single recommendation that we have here. Echoes of what is a joint economic agenda for the country. It was written and produced by oz and it was done in partnership with a lot of the teams here at who recognize that we are truly going to be advancing aprogressive agenda , it is inclusive of people with disabilities but its good policy for all workers. Its good policy for all individuals. Who live in this country. Anyone else want to jump in on a . One thing i have taken saying when im invited to tables when we talk about this thing, people will generally invite me there as the disability representative , whatever that means which is already a bizarre thing to do. But i will always, theres no such thing as disability issues. I think that the phrase disability issues is one of my least favorite because it gives us this excuse to sort of separate the community from everyone which is exactly your point. Saying that if we remove that framework of certain issues or disability issues and certain issues are not, recognize the truth is if you work in policy, the working programming, where you work, you are working with disability people already whether you know it or not and that a paradigm shift im really hoping to see and encouragingly, it does, often in my work with youngpeople. Second nature to some of the, that an obvious point. That disabled people are everywhere and that disability issues are all issues. And also kind of shifting the conversation away from just inclusion, the point you were making. Make sure the table is accessible when you get there but shifting away from simply including disabled people and disability issues and how do you empower us once we arrive. An understanding that some of that, closing, making that change will require discomfort on the part of people that have historically been in leadership around these conversations but thats really where we need to go and thats whats most important. I would add as a community we need to be careful of celebrating small wins like major victories and mentions arent enough anymore. It needs to be platforms and i think exactly what karen said, its about the inclusion across the board whether that be wage and hour, whether that be childcare, whether that be whatever that is, its time to have inclusion and not separation. Leading off of that, were now starting to see the Disability Community galvanized behind these issues, around a really good example was the public charge fight earlier this year where we talked about the Disability Community come out for the first time with a stick in the ground and say this issue and immigration issues, Immigration Rights are a disability cause or something that we need totalk about, we need to be getting behind. Data tells us the Disability Community and Lgbt Community are most likely to use paid family leave to care for others and direct biological relatives. Were seeing with this next, sort of falling into ada and this movement wears in conversations around accessible childcare in a way weve never seen that before and not just accessibility from the standpoint of what does the facility look liketo be accessible for disabled children but from the front end, what is a Childcare Center need to be accessible for disabled parents. What do you all think is behind this . Do you think the Disability Community was like wow, we need to get on this letter mark what was the impetus and do you think that previous policies, do they hope to get there and is it more of a social impetus . I think it was probably a little bit of both. There was certainly a push from individuals who work at multiple intersections in the Disability Community to speak up about migrant issues, to speak up about lgbtq issues as well and how they intersect and i think part of the problem and i dont want to use that phrasing but i will is, and i think when we talk about policy in the past, policy currently or policy goingforward , part of the problem is we heart addressing the intersection at the forefront. We are kind of waiting to say we need this person who lives at this many intersections as they got before we actually address this policy issue. Depending on what the policy issue is, whether its paid sick leave are raising the wage. You know, all of these issues need to be addressed intersection consistently and we cant wait until one individual speaks up and if that one individual does the gap, we have to empower as has already been mentioned, we have to do a better job of empowering that voice and looking up that voice and protecting that voice because coming with empowering also comes strolling and vitriol and anger and negative response. And why are you talking about this, why are you segmenting, why are you reading , we all talk about things at the same time, we can talk about things at the same time because you waited until this person spoke and now youre trying to silence them by saying they are doing enough or they are just one voice, when one voice is speaking to their experience and it automatically silencing them out of the gate, that doesnt give them the opportunity to look up and speak the truth. Okay. Lets jump over to carry. Youre wrapping up the latest year of the American Association or people with disabilities Internship Program. And you work very closely obviously on the ground with a whole cohort of you know, related generations, i dont want to call the next generation, i dont want to emerging leaders because they clearly already emerged,were not having them on the head with a one , but with every generation comes different priorities. And i think coming out of gen x is where we are seeing things like the movement around civil rights for parents with disabilities, seeing the conversations around, we saw the conversations around Police Violence and disabilities for gen x and millennial area what are you seeing out of this next generation of disabled leaders as sort of, what are they focusing on and also, whats the preparation they need that we need to be doing to support them, to make the next step, connected to the career theywant to have and the lives they want to leave. Absolutely, and happily ever emerged by the way. I spent nine weeks looking with his coordinates and incredible. Its an incredible learning experience for me and a moment for ada as an organization and i think thats what the Internship Program should have always done and not coming closer to reaching that ideal of are the people that we are working most closely with which is in turn actually the people that drive our culture and the things thatwere focusing on. Im heartened to see that this cohort of interns that we have is s internet, integrating organizational change. I will say i have a skewed perception because interns are people that apply for an Internship Program in washington dc so theres a certain type of people that are going to find that interesting. So theres certainly isnt cutting across every