Blaise's Introduction and Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Blaise Bryant, as stated on LinkedIn, is a communicator, podcaster, advocate, voiceover artist, digital accessibility consultant, and Dad. Blaise joins Disability in the Public Square on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, WCAG 2.1 and what more we can do on accessibility.

Transcript

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Welcome to Disability in the Public Square and Our Ability Podcast. I'm Blaze Bryant. It is really good to be with you as this is the first pilot episode that I'm recording here for the show. You likely heard John Robinson introduce me a little bit the other day when he taped his first pilot. Well, now I'm here. I'm the Blaze that John was talking about. So a little bit about me before I get into it here. I like John, live in New York's capital region. I am a person with a disability. I was born totally blind. The podcast setup here that I use is fully accessible. So it has a screen reader built into it. And it is from an audio company called Zoom. Not the same Zoom that we use for meetings and such. They're an audio recording company. They make microphones and other gadgets. And since March of 2024, they have been releasing products that have built-in screen readers. So I'm using what is the Pod Track P4 next. I also have a field recorder from Zoom that is also fully accessible and has a screen reader built into it. So that's how I do these things. And in the spirit of accessibility, today, May 21st, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which I'd love to sit here and say to you, happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day. But when we in the US, meaning the federal administration, kicked the can down the road with respect to digital accessibility, which is exactly what's happened here, because in 2024, the US Department of Justice under President Biden issued some guidance that said essentially companies that serve people with populations of 50,000 or more have until January or I'm sorry, April 2026 to make their websites accessible under the website compliance accessibility guidelines, WCAG 2.1, which essentially the short sweet explainer of that is websites that are accessible to screen readers. So having clearly labeled buttons, links, navigability with headings, alt text image descriptions, color contrast for people who have other visual impairments or autism, being able to navigate the website with a variety of assistive technology. That's really what constitutes accessible websites in a nutshell. Well, just before those regulations were supposed to take effect. This was last month's April 2026, the Trump administration said, oh, we're kicking these regulations down the road again for a year. Which is just freaking infuriating. Yes, I'm doing editorial licensing here because as someone who is born totally blind, who depends on screen readers to navigate websites both on my computer and phone, it's an absolute disgrace that the country I live in says to me and anyone else who utilizes assistive technology to use websites, hey, your needs aren't quite important enough for us to really enforce these regulations for another year. And then the cynical part of me, and maybe the realistic part of me these days and age, you can't get that confused, says, is this really going to actually happen in April of 2027, starting in April 2027? And then smaller organizations they have until April 2028, as it currently stands now. I mean, my guess is no. My guess is that we're just going to have to continue to advocate, advocate, advocate, and then wait. I really think that's what's going on here. Just based on some of the policies and the things that this administration has done with cutting Medicaid and not prioritizing disability services, blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI for a plane crash where 69 people were killed without any evidence, 12 days or um at the end of January 2025. It's like 10 days into this current administration, which there's a lot I could say about that. But because it's the first pilot, I'll save that for another time when it makes more sense. Now that's how I'm just generally feeling about Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Okay, great, but we need to be doing more. Now, having said that, of course, we have done quite a bit. All the smartphones now, the iPhone, which is what I have, they were the first to build accessibility right into their operating system with the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Now, I was in high school at the time, in 2007. I was in ninth grade when the iPhone came out. And a lot of my classmates and stuff, friends is a very loose term there, but they all got the iPhone. Or at least a good number of them did. I did not because I had no clue how I was going to navigate a touch screen. Well, I ended up getting an iPhone purely out of necessity back in 2011 when I had this phone that was sort of modified for blind people, and something happened where it was just time for a new phone. And I ended up getting an iPhone and I have not turned back because it's a very good operating system for me. People who use Android phones, they meaning Google, they put the talk back screen reader into the um Google ecosystem, which is fantastic. A lot of our gadgets now, smart TVs, all that stuff, has assistive technology right out of the box. You don't need to install other stuff. Trust me, that is huge. Having had to do that for a good chunk of my life. So we have made progress with respect to global accessibility awareness. I just wish here in the US it was more of a priority. But maybe it will be one day. But it's not going to be unless we, as disabled folks, really raise that issue. I'd love to know what you think. Let us know on the R Ability social media. I'm Blaze Bryant. You are listening to the Disability in the Public Square, an Our Ability podcast. I'll be back with you tomorrow and hope you have a great day.