WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Hi,my name is Joseph Scamardo and I am an 
assistant professor of philosophy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and associate Director of the Institute in Public Affairs

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at San Diego State University

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I specialized in philosophy of disability and
bioethics.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I also identify as disabled, I have a spinal cord injury as well as a rare kind of dwarfism

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So you get two for the price of one with me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, my first memory of discrimination was, well, it's hard to say.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I have lots of memories as far as the experience of stigma

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or bigotry, mostly around my dwarfism

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so, you know I have lots of early memories

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
around that with children staring and laughing and that sort of thing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from a very young age.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Then as far as sort of a more systematic discrimination that sort of excluded me from something

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that I wanted to do,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I had a pretty good experience as a child,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
mostly because my parents really did a lot to make sure that I was included

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can remember being in boy scouts and cub scouts when I was a kid

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and my father, really doing a lot with me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to ensure that the inclusion of my disability--

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You know going on camping trips with me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and sort of acting as a personal attendant

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
kinda thing to make sure that I was able

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to go and participate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that sort of thing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so the first real experience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of exclusion that I can remember

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
happened when it was time

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to go to high school.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I had gone to the public schools in my town

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in my town up until the 8th grade

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then when it came to high school,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was supposed to go to the same

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
private religiously oriented school

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that my older siblings went to

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I took the entrance exam and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even got a small scholarship to go and everything,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it didn't have an elevator,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so I used a motorized scooter

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to get around, and it was

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
going to be impossible for me to

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
attend that school, because there was no

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
elevator. Now this was actually

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
after the passage of the ADA,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but because it was

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a religiously oriented school,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was exempt from the requirements

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the ADA.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so, I didn't have any leverage with

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that law.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To be able to get them

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to make accommodations for me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so I ended up going to the public school

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in my town, which actually, personally,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was pretty happy about anyway,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because that's where all my friends

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
were going.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it still sort of clued me into the fact that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not everything is accessible,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not everything is designed for me and that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this was going to be something

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was gonna have to figure out throughout

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
my life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As far as

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
remembering the ADA and its ()

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that sort of thing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was pretty young when it was passed,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was sometimes referred to as part of the

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ADA generation, which means that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I grew up with the ADA mostly,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was born in 1982,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so I was 8 or 9 years old when the ADA

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
passed,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so I didn't really have

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
any kind of recollection of, "Aha!"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's--Of the moment that it passed.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the recall of where I was at the time

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or anything like this,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but I do remember my father explaining

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it to me, around the time of my

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
start of high school.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I experienced this with that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
private catholic school, and having that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
sort of systematic discrimination experience.