by Penny Reeder
On February 2, President Clinton spoke to the students of Washington, DC’s Ballou High School about the so-called “digital divide,” and steps the Clinton administration and its legislative, business, and community partners are taking to bridge — and ultimately, eliminate — that separation.
The experience of attending the president’s speech was quite a moving one. We were in the gym at Ballou High School. Twelve hundred students — mostly African-American kids who live in Washington, DC’s southeast quadrant, in neighborhoods which bear more resemblance to impoverished third-world countries than to the northern and western sections of the federal city which are familiar to tourists and suburban commuters — listened and cheered as the president presented a picture of inclusion and hope. Corporate executives, including Steve Case from America Online, and Ballou’s principal, the manager of their computer center, who is a former Ballou student himself, and president Bill Clinton, explained to them that their status on the wrong side of the digital divide is not a secret to the comfortable and powerful people on the other — computer-savvy, Internet-literate — side of that divide. The president said that his administration is introducing a proposed budget and pursuing business partnerships that can eliminate the inequities that still exist, and bring the prosperity and the inclusion which the information revolution offers to affluent Americans, to the homes and communities on the less prosperous, more despondent sides of the digital divide.
Charlie Crawford, his guide dog Ruthie, and I sat in the section of the gym where members of the Student Government Association and their advisors were seated, just in front of the marching band, and to the right of the stage where President Clinton was standing. “I am so proud of my students, every one of them, and of our school,” Sharon Bean, a special education teacher, told me. “We are very honored that the president has chosen our school for this announcement.”
There seemed to be no doubters in the audience. The kids sat in rapt attention. Their community leaders, Anthony A. Williams, the mayor of Washington, DC; Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents them in the House of Representatives; business leaders, including David Sterling, president of EpicLearning.com, a company which provides computer training classes in the city; and Darnell Curley, Ballou alumnus and coordinator of the school’s computer training center, were there to confirm that the promises of the World Wide Web and the “dot-coms” springing up — even in their neighborhoods — are real promises. The technology of the 21st century may level the playing field for every American, bridging the gaps between haves and have-nots, offering hope and jobs and equity which have eluded these kids, their parents, and their communities for decades.
I was pleased to be there. I was moved by Darnell Curley’s story about how computer technology had allowed him to graduate from high school, get a good job, and support himself and his younger brothers and sisters. I applauded along with the kids and their teachers when David Sterling from EpicLearning.com told them how pleased he was to be able to teach them and their parents and grandparents the computer skills which will offer good-paying jobs and career paths reaching to fulfilling and prosperous futures. Steve Case, CEO of America Online, described the Power-Up community computing centers which his company and others are opening all over the country. “These community centers,” he said, “are a place to learn, a place to go after school, a place to have fun. Within weeks there will be a Power-Up Center at Ballou High School!”
Case said that by the end of the year there will be 250 Power-Up sites across the country, and eventually, thousands of sites — urban, rural, and suburban — where adults and children can gather to learn, to share skills and energy, and to jump over that digital divide with expertise and confidence.
I loved the excitement and the enthusiasm. The majorettes were dancing and clapping, the drummers were pounding and enthusiastically spreading the word. The kids were justifiably proud of Darnell Curley, and their principal, and their school. The adults in the gym were justifiably proud of the kids and hopeful about the future the president was describing.
Yet, as one of several disabled members of the audience, I kept having to push away my nagging doubts — my fears that everyone might make it across the bridge to the other side of that digital divide except people like me!
There are about 12 million Americans who are so visually impaired that they are categorized as legally blind. Unless we can obtain and use various assistive technologies which make our computers speak, or display text in enlarged fonts or braille, reading the electronically generated text and graphics on computer screens is either impossible for us, or so fatiguing that the effort is hardly worthwhile! “Just point and click,” television and radio commercials tell us, “and you can buy groceries, invest in the market, do your homework, e-mail your teachers and your friends, purchase the latest gadgets and gizmos, learn if the medications you’re taking can coexist safely, one with another, preview a video, read the newspaper, visit the library ...”
“Point and click. Point and click – It’s easy, it’s fun, everyone can do it!”
But how many blind people do you know who can?
Will Steve Case’s Power-Up community centers have computers that talk, or trainers who can teach visually impaired people how to use them?
It’s simple, it’s fun, it’s all possible! The president and the CEOs told the kids and the nation. “We want to invest in you,” they said. “We can bridge the digital divide. We need a national crusade, and we’re prepared to wage one!”
Sounds good. But does the “you” include us?
As I write this column, I am gearing up to attend a hearing to examine whether the Americans with Disabilities Act really meant that even the Internet must be accessible to people like me! Apparently, some members of the House of Representatives are worried that the act of bringing people with sensory impairments to the other side of the digital divide will impede commerce! The dot-coms are sending the markets into the stratosphere. America is experiencing the longest uninterrupted period of prosperity we have ever known — in our entire history!
Yet the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution wonders, do we have to include people with visual impairments in this particular aspect of public accommodation, in this prosperity, in this information revolution?
Steve Case, who assured the kids at Ballou that America Online can include them in the jobs and careers and hopes for a better life which are a sub-text of the information revolution, is being sued by blind people who cannot access the graphical user interface which makes AOL so popular among the point-and-click generation. When Case was addressing the African-American students of Ballou, did he remember that four out of every 1,000 of them probably have visual impairments serious enough to make reading a computer screen without some kind of assistive technology an impossibility?
I applaud the president’s commitment to bridging the technological and economic gaps in the America of the 21st century! I wish I could have just sat there in the audience, enjoying the ambience, the excitement, the kids, the promise of better days to come for everyone — without that nagging, insistent doubt in the back of my head. I wish the members of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution weren’t so threatened by my specific accessibility needs that they feel compelled to question my mandated right to the public accommodation of the Internet.
But I am resigned to my role of nagging squeaky wheel! Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Case, Mr. Sterling. Thank you for your commitment and your resolve to do the right thing. While you're at it, please don't forget those of us at the very bottom of that digital divide — those of us for whom the promises of the information revolution will be meaningless unless the leaders of government, business, and our communities exercise the will to make the technology accessible to us. Please remember that access for people who are blind means assistive technology, specialized training, and thought and forethought about web design.
Don’t leave us out when you bridge the digital divide. We want to experience the freedom, the prosperity, the jobs, the inclusion that the information revolution promises. We have our guide dogs and our white canes and our fingertips at the ready. Don’t leave those of us at the bottom of the digital divide behind. We, too, are ready and eager to cross that bridge.