Standing at the Intersection of Race and Disability is Rabia Khedr

It's one thing to have a disability and feel left out, it's another to be part of a marginalized group as well. We chat with Rabia Khedr, founder of Race and Disability Canada in this Encouraging Abilities podcast.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Standing at the Intersection of Race and Disability is Rabia Khedr

 

00:06

Welcome once again to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. I'm your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Now today we're talking about one thing that is actually two things.

 

00:16

In this world, unfortunately, we see a lot of discrimination. It can happen to any marginalized group, such as people DDA advocates for, and those are people with developmental disabilities. In our podcast, we also talk about accessibility and disability of all kinds. Now, people with developmental disabilities are more likely to be bullied, they're less likely to finish school, and less likely to hold down a job, even though many are perfectly capable of doing so. Now, another form of discrimination we see around the world is the one that's based on race.

 

00:46

Now, what if those two became entwined? Well then you have a potential for intersection of problems when it comes to acceptance and accessibility. Joining me today to discuss the intersection of race and disability is Rabia Kheder from newly formed organization Race and Disability Canada. Rabia is dedicated to equity and justice for persons with disabilities, women, and diverse communities.

 

01:11

They most recently served as board member of Accessibility Standards Canada and the Minister's Disability Advisory Group and previously served as a commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She is the National Director of Disability Without Poverty and CEO of Dean Support Services. A founder

 

01:31

of Race and Disability Canada. She is also a board member of the Muslim Council of Peel, in Ontario of course, and a board member of the Federation of Muslim Women.

 

01:42

Rabia has received numerous awards for humanitarian services, including a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She holds a Bachelor's of Arts from the University of Toronto and a Master's of Arts, and she is also legally blind. So Rabia, thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you so much, Evan, for having me. And perfect pronunciation of my name. Thank you. Nailed it. That's good. Pardon me. Now.

 

02:08

Let's, right off the bat, you founded Race and Disability Canada. How did you get this off the ground? Well, I've been doing this work for years, almost 30 years. So my initial, you know, grassroots advocacy came out of an organization called Ethnoracial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario. And we were talking about the layers of barriers that people with disabilities face when it comes to race, faith, culture, gender.

 

02:38

age coupled with disability. And we didn't use the word intersectionality because we were really grassroots. We weren't running around in academia having these conversations. And fast forward, continuing that work, I discovered that there were huge gaps. And as somebody with lived experience, I'm blind. I grew up with siblings with intellectual or developmental disabilities for whom I was an advocate.

 

03:05

and or even substitute decision maker in different contexts. I recognized the exclusion. I lived the exclusion in many ways when accessing supports and services. And there were many other groups that popped up with similar needs through the Tamil community, South Asian community, at large, Asian communities, racialized peoples. And...

 

03:33

When I participated in federal space at the beginning of this century, you know, the 2000s, I discovered that our national conversation looked very white. There wasn't a lot of diversity from an intersectionality perspective, visibly present in the national disability landscape. And I stepped back and I focused local because I didn't belong there.

 

04:03

Fast forward a few years later, I went back, I did a master's degree, I founded Dean Support Services, and I went back to engage nationally. When I went back to engage nationally in 2017, I realized that again, nothing's changed. We still look the same.

 

04:33

culture still monopolizes the conversation on disability and disability policy in this country. So I came back and I said this isn't good enough. I reached out to my friends in other organizations and I said we need to form Race and Disability Canada to specifically talk about this intersection that makes us very visible.

 

05:01

coupled with our disability and poses all sorts of obstacles and barriers in our full participation in society. And that is equally true for folks with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Yes, absolutely true. So when you want to say how do you get it off the ground, how many people have been involved in this? And I know you're largely funded by the government of Canada, correct? Well, we did manage to secure a grant.

 

05:31

last year and yes, the work that we're doing right now is federally funded, which is really great. They have taken on some of the equity language and conversations that I've been having serving on the ministers advisory group and serving on accessibility standards Canada initially. It's really refreshing that they are looking at disability from an intersectional lens, particularly looking at that intersection of...

 

06:00

equity issues around race. And so we did some work initially at the grassroots level. We continued to talk about this issue wherever we could voluntarily or in other work. But really being able to mobilize resources and do real solid work hasn't happened until the federal government stepped in with its grant.

 

06:29

Right, I mean anything like this on a grassroots level is, it's got to be tough to do. It's got to be tough to find people to back it and it takes money to do something like this. It definitely takes money, especially when disabled people are leading the work themselves. We are the experts and it's important that we have the supports we need to leverage our expertise to bring the change that we need.

 

06:56

In terms of working with the government, have you been able to change some of the language within policy? What sort of effect have you been able to have so far? Well, like I said, they actually have put in their calls for proposals, applications for funding. They've recognized that there needs to be work done on equity and intersectionality. So, for example, at Dean Support Services,

 

07:24

just secured a grant specifically looking at equity and people with disabilities and knowledge mobilization. So this is another project that we will be getting off the ground, creating tools and resources and building capacity of the disability sector in Canada to appreciate, understand and respond more effectively.

 

07:53

to the lived realities of diverse communities of people with disabilities that have called Canada home. What is the IDEA project? And how does that relate to race and disability Canada? Well the IDEA project is essentially IDEA's the acronym, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility. So it's really to bring together research.

 

08:22

to better educate and inform disability organizations, employers, and society at large, how to better address the needs of people with disabilities who are racialized, who represent equity seeking groups.

 

08:52

needing accessibility, needing accommodation, but to look at the whole person who needs to belong, whether they are accessing employment opportunities or other opportunities within our society. And how are you reaching out to these groups and what sort of support and reaction have you been getting? So we are creating tools and resources, we are holding

 

09:21

focus groups, we are making presentations. So we're really bringing together the information and the needs out there to be able to appropriately respond. And you're doing podcasts. Yes we are. And what about Diversity Works? Is that separate from all of this?

 

09:47

That's totally separate. That's me, you know, in 2000, end of 2001 saying, I am quitting my full-time job because, you know, I worked for an employment service providing supports for people with disabilities and accommodation and access to employment. And I, you know, found myself in a situation where a colleague of mine was dismissed, who has passed since then, who had a disability.

 

10:14

And I was like, whoa, if we cannot retain a disabled person in an agency providing services to disabled people to find jobs, something's wrong here. I can't deal with this anymore. So I needed to, you know, balance my philosophy and my work with my family life. And I walked and decided to open my own consulting company so that I can do the work that has impact. And is that, I mean, outside of Race and Disability Canada

 

10:44

is the consulting company that's still your sort of bread and butter type thing? No, no, it's just a side hustle that sits on the back burner. And once in a while, somebody invites me to be a keynote speaker or something like that. I'm really not taking on large projects. It's more about speaking gigs. But my real work is disability without poverty right now. Right. That's right. You're quite, quite heavily involved with that.

 

11:12

And you talk about the employment and disability, it's, you know, that's a big thing for DDA as well. The thing I didn't mention is we operate another side of us, which is called Jobs West. And we work with clients and employers alike to get people working. And we employ about 100 people every year. So it's quite a successful thing. And it's something that we really got to focus on because, you know, I just pulled a few stats.

 

11:38

about the visible minority population with a disability in Canada. I'm sure you're probably quite aware of this. And it's visible minorities with a disability in Canada, both men and women, are around 14 to 15%. So that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people that are able to work and just need the supports to get going. Absolutely. And there needs to be a recognition that they face.

 

12:05

further discrimination, not just on the basis of their disability. And it's the one thing that I think businesses need to sort of recognize as well, because the buying power of the disability community is in the billions. So if we have these people working, they're going to be spending just like everybody else. Absolutely. So, let's go. You have a catchphrase, I don't waste time seeing a spend time doing. I love that.

 

12:33

What has your experience been like growing up in Canada as a person with blindness? I know you got here when you were, I think, about four years old, correct? So you essentially grew up here. That's what you know. Well, absolutely. This is what I know. This is home. And growing up as a brown kid in, you know, a mainly brown Muslim kid, actually, in a mainly Catholic neighborhood where the only two colored families were Catholic.

 

13:03

was challenging, to say the least. Being a family of four children with disabilities, we faced, not only did we face exclusion in the mainstream, but we faced exclusion within our own cultural communities. We faced exclusion within our cultural communities, in our places of worship. And that's the lived experience that drives my work.

 

13:33

And when I say I don't waste time seeing, I spend time doing. You know, as years went by, my vision, uh, got more limited. And by the time I was in my mid thirties, I basically started to say, yeah, I'm blind, it's no longer quote unquote visually impaired and I never liked visually impaired language to begin with. And you know, I, I just found it easier not to focus on, you know, the visual cues and just.

 

14:01

do what needs to be done, so speak truth to power and shake up things and make the change that I want to see. Now in terms of your own blindness, that happened a bit later in life, so did you finish your education before that started happening? No, no, I have an eye condition from birth, so I never saw it perfectly. So I was, I was quote unquote legally blind all my life. But functionally, completely, like more or less.

 

14:31

not having much functional vision came later. So I went through the school system. I faced exclusion again in many different ways given my identity of my faith, my color, my gender, my disability that people didn't understand. But I muddled through school, I made it, I went on to university. When I went back to do my masters at that point, I was quote unquote blind, totally blind.

 

15:00

more or less. Now, growing up, what kind of support did you get for, I mean, I know we're talking about intersectionality and all that stuff, but in terms of your vision, what kind of support do you get in this country? And like, do you have any sense of what that's like compared to other countries? Evan, initially, I was mislabeled and misplaced because, you know, the school, I went into the school.

 

15:23

And you know, there's a longer back story to this, so I don't know how much you wanna know, but you know, I sat at home for four years in this country when I arrived. I didn't go to school until age eight. No one ever asked my parents, is she in school? You know, I went to the best eye clinic at the best hospital in this country. I was a textbook case for them, but they never asked, is she in school? And that makes me wonder, you know, is it because we were a brown family? It never occurred to them.

 

15:53

When I went to school, I was mislabeled and misplaced. The school psychologist assessed me and put me in a general learning disability class, not recognizing that it's not, that I wasn't doing well on his little testing because I couldn't see the stuff. He thought I couldn't process the stuff. That's just, Yeah. So it took a few years for teachers to figure it out and bring in CNIB to do an assessment. And then they had to label me legally blind. And

 

16:22

you know, as an exceptional student, whatever the heck that means. And then eventually I started to get, you know, a nice crisp copies of things in larger print. Slowly as technology evolved, I started to get, you know, a closed circuit TV. I started to get audio books. I had some maybe, you know, volunteer support. One of the best skills though that school ever taught me.

 

16:46

was typing, you know, when we had typewriters. Mm-hmm, I do. So, you know, so my fingers, you know, my ten fingers fly on a laptop. I have no issues. Just give me a keyboard anywhere, man, and I can do my work. And technology is phenomenal today. Today, like, you know, to kind of quote Charles Dickens, you know, it's really badly.

 

17:08

It's the best of times to be disabled today. I modified the quote, obviously. Well, in anything from like, I mean, here at DDA, our clients like to use a lot of iPads. There's a lot of interactive stuff they can do there. And what's becoming really popular is the virtual reality stuff. You know, like the, what are they called? Meta, the, anyway. So they're able to like put that on and like go to different places in the world.

 

17:38

without leaving if they can't, if that becomes really, really difficult. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The experiences through technology are tremendous. For me, as somebody who's blind, there's so much access to information today that I never had before. Most of my life skills work through my technology. Banking I do independently.

 

18:02

you know, my recipes are online, I can search them up and you know, just just technology is phenomenal. My instant pot for cooking, you know, like all these things, you know, are are day are impact my daily quality of life. Huge. Yeah, you need to get a thermo mix. If you're talking kitchen. Okay, phenomenal.

 

18:27

uh... but yeah it's uh... you know i have not done a couple of other interviews with uh... one of the heads of the rick hansen foundation out here and uh... but but at the same time you know adaptive tech gets limited at this in the same breath because you know he's he's in a wheelchair from an accident uh... when he was twenty seven and his wheelchair cost thirty eight thousand dollars oh yes and that's not all covered you might get something from the government

 

18:56

but you're largely on your own buying a car essentially. And that Evan is privileged in this country. For many people around the world, a basic wheelchair is out of reach. Yeah, exactly. And they literally physically crawl from point A to point B. So we have a lot of things to be very grateful for, but even here, you know, for the average person with a disability,

 

19:22

You know, it's even a low tech repair on a wheelchair is not affordable. Yeah, yeah, it's on it's on that, you know, that kind of blew my mind that, you know, that's one thing that people pardon me, sort of don't understand is like when it comes to just being able to afford to live. And we you know, we're hoping that this new CCB benefit is good. And there's no clawbacks and stuff like that, just to help raise people's quality of life that, you know, it's expensive.

 

19:52

to be disabled. Absolutely. There is an added cost to living with a disability and people with disabilities who live in poverty currently, it's one in four people at least with a disability live in poverty today. So we are looking at deeper and deeper poverty and harder and harder to thrive. And it just compounds the barriers that they already face because of their disability. Yeah.

 

20:21

The irony is there are so many people in this country that identify as having a disability. 27% now. 27%. And if they, you know, we have so much to offer if we are given the support that we need. I am succeeding in my work because I have the supports that I need to do my work.

 

20:50

If I don't have those supports, I cannot work and I cannot earn. If people with disabilities don't have sufficient income to pay their rent, have food, have access to transportation, have basic medication that they might need or a repair that they might need to their assistive device or mobility aid, they cannot get out the door to even think about working.

 

21:19

or volunteering. But if we give them that safety and security of the Canada Disability Benefit that brings them to the poverty line, then they can get things going to be able to consider possibilities. What can they do? What is possible for them? There's endless possibilities of contributions that disabled people can make.

 

21:47

to their family, community, and society. We just have to have the right supports in place. Yeah, exactly. I want to track back to the education, your experiences being in schools in Canada. Now, you have kids, correct? Did I read that correctly? Yes, I do. I have four adult kids. Four? Yes. I have two. That's too many. No, it's not. Somebody has to contribute to the tax base, okay? That's true. We need people. That is true.

 

22:17

Now, have you seen, like, through their eyes, through their experiences, have you seen stuff like this improve in terms of marginalizations? Well, I live in Mississauga, which is pretty diverse. So things have changed for them. For example, you know, when I grew up, the demographics weren't here. Like the halal food wasn't here, man. I had to settle from vegetarian everywhere I went.

 

22:44

you know, Muslims are meat lovers. Yeah, halal food just opened near my house, actually. Yeah, and now, you know, in Mississauga, like, it's everywhere. And, you know, anywhere in this country, you can always find something halal somewhere. So that's a huge difference, and it contributes to belonging. Food is a bridge builder. Absolutely. You break bread, you belong together, right? I started to wear hijab when I graduated university.

 

23:14

My girls chose to wear a hijab as Muslim girls in grade school for God's sake. Things definitely changed. My kids don't belong anywhere but here because their parents come from two different parts of the world. So this is absolute home for them. However, today what's concerning to me is the fact that

 

23:42

things are going backwards as a society with Islamophobia on the rise, with global issues having such local impact on our social fabric. I'm deeply, deeply concerned about our youth and their future. You also mentioned something, since COVID-19 you feel that there needs to be a new normal for people with disabilities. What does that mean? Well, you know...

 

24:09

The system keeps talking about building back better. And I'm like, no, no, no, back was not better buddies. We need to build forward better. You know, we need to learn from the exclusion that able-bodied people start to feel during COVID and the provision that they put in place to have accessibility, right? So when COVID hit, we locked down.

 

24:37

we flowed money like rapid fire to able bodied people so they could have their basic needs met. Right. For the most part. Well, they kept the liquor stores open, right? Oh well, whatever. Yeah, exactly. Like those privileges that able bodied folks wanted, they insured were available to them. And you know, things that people with disabilities had advocated for to be accommodated.

 

25:06

such as work at home became a new norm for able-bodied people. And that was a giant step. Now we're starting to build back better, so-called, which means we're going backwards, in my opinion, telling people you have to come in to work. Whereas for disabled people, they are more productive if they are accommodated. And if that accommodation means work at home, you don't have to take

 

25:36

two hours in the morning at the mercy of service providers to get ready, a pair of transit services to come and take you to work, and the snow to be shoveled and blah, blah, blah that adds like, you know, four extra hours of work to your eight hour workday and exacerbates your disability experience. When you can be, you know, twice as productive sitting at home in those eight hours. I think it's, you know,

 

26:05

Like the return on investment of letting somebody work at home is far more than bringing them into the office. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Now we sort of touched a little bit on health. In terms of the intersection between race and disability, I know the First Nations people out, the Indigenous people out here, often say that their access to medical health is not as good.

 

26:34

So where does, where does the, in your experience, does, where does that fall? Where does the, the intersection of race and disability and how is that doing in terms of our medical system with your experience? Again, our healthcare is tailored traditionally to, you know, healthy, white able-bodied men. We've fought hard to make sure that.

 

27:01

health care is responsive to the needs of women, recognizing that a lot of our, you know, again, medical models are based on colonial practice. Those practices are built to exclude racialized communities and they don't respond effectively to the needs, diverse needs of racialized communities who have different ways of knowing and peeing.

 

27:31

given their cultural experiences, their transnational experiences, their migration journeys. You know, when we talk about health and healthcare, for example, again, let's just, you know, use food for argument's sake. We have different food routines and habits and preferences, and those contribute to our health outcomes. And if the system...

 

27:59

doesn't recognize what those are, then we don't have equal access to health care. Mm-hmm. And cultural beliefs, I think, would play into that quite a bit as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. And historical abuses, you know, when we've experimented on people who are black, for example, and hence the fear of immunization.

 

28:28

And that's just, you know, you just mentioned like there's a historical and cultural factors that have shaped the relationship between race and disability. And, you know, how do they continue to influence contemporary attitudes and policies? Well, it means making space, investing in getting people to the table, not just, you know, expecting us to come, but deliberately reach out to invite us in.

 

28:57

and invite us in as equal partners, not as just token volunteers at the table. You know, I've volunteered for years, and in principle, I continue to volunteer, but today I will say, you know, I can afford to volunteer. But I would like to see other racialized people at the table who cannot afford to volunteer be compensated for their expertise at the table.

 

29:25

when everybody else around the table has a paid job to be there, to engage in systems change and policy change. Do you think attitudes are still prevalent that, you know, because you're a person of color and disabled, you're going to do, your work isn't going to be as good?

 

29:48

there's always assumptions and presumptions and discrimination.

 

29:55

And is it, I mean, are we doing better? Are we on the right trajectory in your mind?

 

30:02

I'm always hopeful. I'm the forever optimist. To me, every obstacle is an opportunity. And the reality is times are tough when it comes to othering people, excluding people, and times are just getting tougher. We have to be very deliberate in ensuring inclusion. In order to ensure inclusion, we have to be very deliberate.

 

30:32

In order to ensure inclusion, we have to be very deliberate and intentional. Otherwise, we will definitely exclude people and leave them behind. Yeah. I'm on social media a lot for work and just as something to do. I see a lot on Twitter in particular that, or sorry, X, people just pushing back against quote unquote this woke culture. And I...

 

31:01

That seems dangerous to me. Like, how do we combat that?

 

31:08

I honestly don't have an answer. I mean, you know, I did a webinar this week and I just said, you know, I'm Rabia and I'm coming from the traditional territories of blah, blah, blah. And today's the first day of Ramadan. So, you know, shout out to anybody who's fasting like me today. And somebody messaged back, you know, just saying, you know, there was no need to bring

 

31:36

identity politics into the space. I'm leaving this group because I, you know, like you use the word woke, right? That was exactly it. And then, but I'm sure it's probably okay if you said Happy Easter. Oh, of course it is.

 

31:54

You know, and that's the, you know, we got to sort of root out these sort of double standards in society and make sure everybody's included and allowed to say whatever they want. Well, I'm just, I'm just hoping that, you know, we're not going to, as times get tougher and, you know, there's always hope. We're hoping for the better. But right now times are tough. Given these tough times, I hope we don't see what's happening south of the border here.

 

32:24

you know, leveraging that despair for political gain through divisive politics. Yeah, and it's, you know, I spend time on X, you know, posting stuff for DDA and things. And it's just, if I was to believe everything on X, it would feel like the United States is such a divided country. And it's just...

 

32:51

cesspool down there. I hope that that's not really the truth and you're just getting a tiny fraction of people's opinions on X, but it's it gets ugly and it's it makes me concerned for people with any sort of issue of marginalization because it's it does not look hopeful on that platform. I got to tell you that. You know skyrocketing housing prices skyrocketing cost of you know, you know rent and

 

33:21

food is really impacting people. And when people face tough times, they fall into the trap of othering. They really fall into that trap. If somebody doesn't look like them, doesn't believe like them, doesn't live like them, they start blamely and discriminating.

 

33:47

and saying, you know, well, they're taking something away from me. And that's a very dangerous space to be in. And unfortunately, when we enter into the tough times, you know, democracy tends to deflect the reality of tough times by, you know, continuing that narrative of othering.

 

34:16

in through divisive politics. And so groups like Race and Disability Canada, groups like DDA, people like yourself, we just gotta keep banging on the door of these attitudes. We can't give up, we have to create opportunity for people to get to know each other, to learn, to share, to care about one another.

 

34:45

and recognize that if 27% of people in this country are disabled, the other 73% are their families and friends. Exactly. And that's 27% today. I mean, it's like...

 

35:02

Myself, I'm fairly able-bodied at the moment. I'm 52 years old. I've, you know, I've got some problems with my eyes and but age is definitely coming and I'm gonna need support at sometime like we all are. You know, so it's accepting that that's everybody is gonna experience this at some point in their life.

 

35:26

So we can't just keep those walls open. So what is the future for Race and Disability Canada? How long have you been around and where do you see this ultimately going? Well, Race and Disability Canada came forward as a concept in 2017. Dean support services evolved out of the Canadian Association of Muslims with Disabilities, which was around since 2004.

 

35:53

So Dean evolved in 2013 and then we brought forward Race and Disability Canada as an initiative of collaboration amongst several organizations that have been around for 20 to 30 years and have been doing work on the ground, but just haven't had capacity to grow. And so today,

 

36:21

as a funded initiative, we've been driving full force since the beginning of 2022, end of 2022, early 2023, and we hope to continue infiltrating the national landscape around disability to really spotlight the intersection of race and disability and encourage the change that we want to see for racialized people with disabilities.

 

36:51

Now you're currently operating on a grant from the federal government. Is that something that's going to be ongoing, do you hope, or is that something you have to reapply for every year? Well, it's a two-year grant. It comes to an end in November. We hope that there is, you know, opportunity for a subsequent phase that they haven't announced yet for another two to three years. And in that process, we hope that we're able to diversify opportunities to continue on.

 

37:21

Anything else to add today, Rabia? Well, like I said, every obstacle is an opportunity. I am the forever optimist. My cup is always half full and overflowing often. Good. So I believe that as Canadians, we have deep-rooted values that we all share of life, liberty, and security of the person, of justice.

 

37:51

of equity, of human rights. We just need to wholeheartedly embrace those values and champion them to build connections amongst each other and recognize that we all belong and that we all have an obligation to ensure truth, reconciliation and disability justice.

 

38:19

here and around the world for all Indigenous peoples and everyone else. We're all in this together. We're all in this together, absolutely.

 

38:32

Well, thank you very much. You have been listening to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. With me today has been Rabia Kheder. She is founder of Race and Disability Canada, a relatively new organization to raise awareness of the intersection of race and disability and the problems and issues that come along with that. You can find more information about who they are and what they're about at racedisability.ca. Rabia, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you, Evan.

 

39:01

I'm your host, DBA Communications Manager Evan Kelly. Thanks for listening and see you next time.