by Melody Holloway
Many first words which spring to mind when defining culture, inclusion, and belonging center around ethnicity, race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality, income bracket, age specification, employment status, residential neighborhood quality, etc.
Among the blind and low-vision community, visual acuity is an additional factor. Among the deaf and hearing-impaired community, auditory acuity equals. ACB's membership, convention, leadership, and subsequent survey data also focus on these areas.
There is one vitally important category that is only occasionally considered. People living with several additional disabilities and chronic, often progressive health concerns, which if left behind by every community each individual is a part of, become more of a daily challenge to manage. Many choose not to disclose any other condition, disability, or identity due to fear of ridicule, shame, lack of understanding, and being sidelined and left out of conversation. We often have to divide ourselves into what bit or piece, each medical appointment, non-profit, group, club, or meeting is specified for at any given moment. No other part of us takes a break during those times.
Past experience increases the uncomfortable weight of mistrust which follows us throughout life. This, in turn, causes wearing multiple hats to become exhausting, burdensome, and eventually results in a metaphoric crucifix too thorny to carry.
It is easy to confuse or lump together inclusion and belonging unintentionally. If someone tells us we are included, they are basically checking what feels like a legal public relations box stating, "You are included. Of course you are welcome, only if the rest of us do not necessarily have to know key aspects of who you truly are." Are we then actually welcome if we feel 100 percent alone in a deafening, impermeable crowd of thousands?
True belonging presents when someone forwards a new acquaintance or old friend that first ACB Community Events schedule, state or special-interest affiliate info, hands them a business card, places a friendly check-in call or text, reaches for a pesky technology device and offers expertise driven by firsthand experience, or walks over, takes a trembling, uncertain hand and kindly states, “Come with me. I am inviting you to sit at our table, share our food, sit with us fireside with a piping cup of hot cocoa to warm your feet, and join our unpredictable, yet informative book club. Today's topic of discussion is the one book we all share without the requirement of a Bookshare account. A book constantly being written by all of us with each page-turning breath.”
The lady I cared for is one of a succession of mentors — advisors still ubiquitous to this day, more than four years after her physical body succumbed to assumption, perception, and lack of true belonging. She never failed to spot an underdog or a forlorn stray feeling lost, wondering where to fit in. She would walk over, reach her hand out, and ask in a tender quirky tone, "What are you doing out here by yourself?" The lost soul was then found. This is how we found each other. This is how my true calling was confirmed.
I have joined forces with many other influential individuals, including a few within the American Council of the Blind, to spread true definition of belonging even before we knew what ACB is. I started life with someone who would prove himself over time as one of the most sincere, patient, compassionate, skilled technology advisors, welcomers, and lifelong personal copilots who led me to another definer of belonging wearing shared specific hats not to be taken for granted.
I would like to extend my own hand to others who carry internal reservations fed by past experience of being knocked backward. I personally challenge ACB to do the same.
Belonging is individual outreach, inviting someone to pay initial membership dues, assisting with the process, inviting them to their first chapter meeting, then to lunch, maybe offering to cover their meal, learn why attributes at first presenting unusual may be just what that newly formed subcommittee needs, find out the origin of these attributes over time, and slowly passing each other's book of life between yourselves and gaining from each unfolding chapter a sense of lifelong education, kinship, and satisfaction.
Belonging is more than acceptance. Belonging is teamwork, partnership, and camaraderie.