>> Ashley Inkumsah: Hello everyone and welcome back to What’s Up WID, the World Institute on Disability, biweekly podcast, where we discuss what’s up in the disability community, across the globe. I’m your host Ashley Inkumsah and I’m so excited for you to hear or watch or read the conversation I had with the one and only Debra Ruh earlier this week.
Ashley Inkumsah: Debra has been a global disability inclusion strategist for the past 20 years. She’s a market influencer and internationally recognized keynote speaker. She’s an author, branding expert and an entrepreneur. She also happens to be a board officer on WID’s board of directors. She is the CEO and founder of Ruh Global Impact. She’s also the host of an online program called Human Potential at Work.
Ashley Inkumsah: Now, Debra and I had quite the fruitful conversation about why businesses, corporations and governments need to prioritize disability inclusion. As I always say, grab yourself your favorite snack. My personal go-to snack is brie and crackers, perhaps with a glass of wine, but grab yourself whatever your snack of choice may be and sit back and relax and enjoy my wonderful conversation with the fabulous Debra Ruh.
Ashley Inkumsah: Well first let me just say, I think you’re doing some absolutely amazing work in the realm of disability inclusion and I’m so, so excited to speak with you today. My first question for all of our guests is always, how are you doing? How are you feeling today?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, thank you so much for having me on this show, on this podcast. I’m very excited that WID has a podcast now. I’m doing fine. My husband is walking a very difficult path with dementia, and we often talk about people with disabilities and that we could age into disabilities. And he’s one of those individuals where that is happened. So it’s… The word of the day I think for many of us is, wow, it’s intense. So let’s be kind to each other and let us be the way forward for each other. So, but thank you for asking. But Ashley, how are you doing?
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Well, thank you for asking me. First, I want to respond to how you’re doing. I always say that disability is one thing that can happen to everyone. Sometimes it might be hard for other people to relate to other people’s plights, but disability is the one thing that literally intersects every facet of our livelihood. So I totally feel you and understand you on that. And I feel like there’s always that pressure to say that you’re doing great, but I’m glad that you are genuine with how you were really feeling. And I really appreciate you sharing that with me.
>> Debra Ruh: I think we have to be right now, Ashley, because what I know is everybody that I’m talking to is traumatized and it’s not going to let up anytime soon. So we just have to I think take the time to be a little bit kinder and nicer with each other.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. I think mental health… I think that this past year has very revelatory as it relates to our mental health and our mental hygiene, just taking care of ourselves and not feeling like we have to be strong all the time. It’s been challenging. So it’s okay to say it has been and be honest, I think that’s where the healing starts.
>> Debra Ruh: I agree. Well said, well said.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Yeah. And as far as how I’m doing I think I’ve been doing pretty good. Again, as good as we can be given our circumstances, I think that things are looking up and things are getting better, but I have been saying that we want to build forward better. We don’t want to go back to what we had before as it relates to the disability community for sure. We want to learn from the past year and move forward. So that’s kind of the head space that I’ve been in.
>> Debra Ruh: Right. I agree. And even though it’s so hard, it’s so hard. I don’t want us to go back to what we were doing, killing people with darker skin than mine in the streets. So I would rather walk this intensity and try to get it better, right for more individuals than go back and see the… whatever the way it was. We can’t go back anyway. But I think we just have to be deliberate about changing the world so that people can be more included and we stop deciding that people are throw away because they have a darker color skin or they love the wrong person, or they have a disability. It’s ridiculous what we do about… how we treat people.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. I think we’re certainly… we’ve grown. We’re much better than we have been in past years, but we have a ways to go. Again, It’s been a revelatory past year and it really has revealed that yeah, we have a ways to go as it relates to inclusion for sure. And that’s a great segue to my first question which is, how would you define inclusion for someone who is completely unaware of what disability inclusion is? How would you define what disability inclusion is?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, that’s a great question. And what disability… I think often people don’t know what we’re talking about when we’re talking about disability inclusion. And I know with the work I’ve been doing for a long time, people try to get me in a box and I’m just not going to be in a box. I’m not a square peg in a round hole, or I definitely am a square peg in a round hole, I guess I should say.
Debra Ruh: But if you really want to include people with disabilities then you do that. You include the community, you make sure things are accessible. You make sure that you are focused on inclusive design. You make sure that you are employing people with disabilities. And if they’re not disclosing they have disabilities, you as a corporation, you should really ask yourself why. So you make it safe for people to be able to self identify and talk about who they are and their lived experiences. You make sure that you focus on the intersections because it’s great to talk about disability inclusion, but if you’re not talking about disability inclusion from the lens of the intersections, which you mentioned, black women with disabilities, LGBT members with disabilities, women with disabilities. Looking at all of the many, many, many intersections. What about refugees with disabilities?
Debra Ruh: So I think you have to understand how broad the topic is, and then make sure that you understand we’re also talking about the digital divide and digital inclusion, because if you don’t have access to the internet and I was struggling with that recently. And if you don’t have access to good technology. So I think when people say disability inclusion, sometimes they forget that there’s a lot of moving parts. And that’s why it’s so important to work with DPOs or disability persons organizations like WID.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Right? Yeah. I absolutely agree with you. And I’m so glad you brought up the intersectionality. In all social justice movements, I feel like there is no movement without including… Like in the Black Lives Matter movement, there’s no movement without including black women or black trans individuals. In every single movement that there is, we really have to include people who are multiply marginalized within that movement. So I really am appreciative that you brought up those intersections, for sure.
>> Debra Ruh: Yes. And I’ll make one comment and I’m probably not going to get some my numbers correct. But I believe that I’ll be able to make the point. When you look at gender issues, which I’m also very interested in because people will say that women are the largest minority group in the world, which by the way is not true. Women are a majority, there are more women in the world than men, but we’re treated like a minority group. So that’s it. So, and I believe in getting behind supporting the Black Lives Matter intersections, all of this, because we’re stronger together. When you look at… if you just look at it from a gender issue and there are major issues, so a man, and looking at this from the United States, I do a lot of work globally, but so you just look at $1.
Debra Ruh: So if a man is making a dollar, then I, as a Caucasian white woman, I make about 70 cents on that dollar. Ooh, that’s bad. But when you start looking at my sisters in the other groups, my sisters, that… My black sisters. Well, they make like 50 cents on the dollar. And then you start looking and you just go down and it’s the Latinos with disabilities. But you start getting to women with disabilities and it’s ridiculous. On the average, it’s like 20 cents on the dollar. So as you move through our gender intersections, it gets worse for you if you… And I don’t even understand why we decided that somebody with lighter color skin is better than somebody with darker color skin. But as you said earlier on, there’s a lot of things we need to correct in society. And these are just a few, but if it’s looking at it from that gender, you can see the disparities get worse and worse and worse and worse.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: I think ableism and sexism and misogyny and racism, they’ve just had extremely robust marketing campaigns where it’s literally infected literally every facet of society, whether it’s implicit or explicit, it’s 100% infected every facet of our society.
>> Debra Ruh: Oh, well said. And it’s amazing sometimes now that we are actually digging into it, it just is amazing. I always knew there were problems with housing and problems with that. But I had no idea how bad it was for other people. I just had no idea. And one time Ashley, I have a large social media presence, and one day something was trending on Twitter and it was white privilege. And I thought, “Go in…. Don’t go in there Debora, don’t. And I thought, “No, I have to go in.” And so I looked stupid at comments that people were making, “Oh, what do I do with my white privileges? I got out of getting a ticket.” Okay. Whatever.
Debra Ruh: It’s some stupid comments, but I went in and I said, “Well, what I’m doing with my white privilege is I’m making sure the door is wide open and I’m bracing it open. And I’m saying, come on in, because we all have privilege being born in a developed country. That we all are privileged if you’re living in the United States, but what are you doing with that privilege to help others that aren’t privileged?” And that ,I think, that’s the opportunity that we all have.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Yeah. That’s the age old question. What are we doing with our privilege? And I think allyship is really important, especially within the disability community. We need people who are non-disabled, who are allies, unfortunately, because people who are non-disabled… Our privilege that allyship to stand or roll or sit beside one another. For sure. Absolutely.
Debra Ruh: I agree. I agree.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: How, and when did you get involved in the disability inclusion space?
>> Debra Ruh: Great question. I believe that I got involved 34 years ago when my daughter was born with Down syndrome because I remember right after I gave birth to her, looking at her. And by the way, thinking that she was the most beautiful baby ever born, which I still agree with, but I had this quiet little thought flipped through my mind that said this, she looks like she has Down syndrome. And I remember thinking, what does that even mean? I had never met anybody with Down syndrome. I’d seen the kids going in the special classes, but I ignored that thought. And four months later the doctors diagnosed her with Down syndrome, but I believe that’s when I joined the community. What I didn’t know was I was already part of the community with my ADHD and anxiety. I just didn’t know anything about it.
Debra Ruh: I didn’t think at the time I’d met anybody with a disability, which so many people are like that. What I realized as I moved into the field, really aggressively into the field was I was surrounded by imperfect humans. And by the way, I wanted to be around imperfect humans because who’s perfect? Nobody’s perfect. And so, but I was in the banking industry and I was at an executive level in the banking industry. And I was trying to help, I was actually employing people with disabilities because we had programs to do that. But when my daughter reached middle school in, it would have been about 1998 or something like that. But I just was so surprised how there was no plans for her joining the workforce at all. And I thought, “But wait a minute, she can contribute.” So, that’s when I got very involved. That’s when I decided to quit my well-paid banking position and create access where I committed to employing people with disabilities.
Debra Ruh: I also did not… And we were a technology company focused on accessibility, but I didn’t want to be a, for a nonprofit. I wanted to prove I could be a for-profit and stand toe to toe with other people that weren’t employing people with disabilities. We now would call that a social enterprise. So I did that around 2000, but I would say that I joined the community in 1986 when my precious daughter was born.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Amazing. It’s amazing how our lived experiences go on to color what we end up dedicating our lives to. That is wonderful.
>> Debra Ruh: I just always thought I was here for a reason. And so when my daughter was born, when they told me she had Down syndrome, I thought, “Okay, all right. I want to help.” And yeah. And then my son was born 15 months later and I realized, okay, I also have to navigate two children, but I think you’re right. Our lived experiences can help us navigate where we’re going.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. What kinds of challenges have you seen when it comes to corporations, working with corporations as they try to incorporate disability inclusion initiatives within their organizations?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, I would say that the problems have shifted, but early on, they just did not understand what we were talking about. So we spent a lot of time talking about the business of including people with disabilities, employees with disabilities. And so, but now what I see happening, and also we were seeing a lot, and this was happening mainly in the states, but we saw a lot of… I’m just going to focus on accessibility because I don’t want to get sued. And so I saw them and I don’t blame them. Sometimes when you look at a problem, you’ve got to see where your risks are and you’ve got to address that first.
Debra Ruh:n But I think what I continue to see is corporations just don’t understand the moving parts. They don’t understand that if you don’t make your systems accessible, that we can’t even apply for your jobs, they don’t understand what would you… When we’re talking about disabilities that about 80% of the disability population have invisible or hidden disabilities. And you don’t even know for sure if they’re a person with disability and they don’t know how to encourage us to self-disclose because I’m a person with hidden disabilities. I’m very vocal about it. I’m a person with ADHD and severe depression and anxiety, which this intensity right now is not helping, but oh well, but so the corporations don’t understand. They don’t understand the complexity of inclusion, of disability inclusion. And then also they’re confused because they’re having diversity and inclusion conversations in other ways like with our Black Lives Matter or with LGBT or women and gender, or Asian Americans, Latin Americans, but they don’t understand the intersections.
Debra Ruh: And often diversity groups don’t understand the intersections. Some of them are starting to, but I remember years ,this was about three, four years ago. So a long time ago, I was at a SHRM conference, the Society of Human Resource Management, which is really trying to help us. And there was a diversity and inclusion and they were saying, “So what is part of diversity inclusion?” And I just sat and I waited. I wanted to see how long we were going to go be before our community was included. And it got to 15 categories and still nobody had mentioned. And so I raised my hand and they’re like, ” Oh yeah, yeah.” But that’s what we see as we, the disability community is often not even being included in the diversity inclusion conversations.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: It’s so true. I feel like we are having more and more conversations about race and about gender disparities. But for some reason it feels like the disability conversation has been, I don’t know, somehow left on the sidelines and the social justice movement hasn’t caught up to it yet.
>> Debra Ruh: Yes. Agree, agree. And you know, I love the term social justice and that’s what we use as well. And you look at things like we’re talking about, you start digging into the problems and you’re just stunned. But if you look at our prison systems where we are totally warehousing a lot of brown and black people, but 65% of prison inmates have disabilities, why would we do that? First of all, why would we put people in jail because of the color of their skin, which that is happening, that is totally happening. But at the same time, how can we not have the empathy that these people are in trouble? And we’re going to jail them? Anyway, things like that.
Debra Ruh: I won’t get caught up in that drama. I don’t understand how we can say we’re a humane society and then do what we’re doing in the States and our prison systems. But yeah,
>> Ashley Inkumsah: A whole other can of worms for sure.
Debra Ruh: That’s right. That’s right. I’ll be careful to stay on track.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: So how have you helped corporations to overcome these challenges that they face?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, I’ve been working on helping corporations include people with disabilities since the early two thousands. And how I started helping was with accessibility. I really believe in accessibility, all technology needs to be accessible. The buildings need to be accessible. And then I started really focusing on this from a global perspective. It’s like, okay, but it’s great that you’re including people with disabilities in the United States or in the United Kingdom, or maybe in Australia, but you need to do it… corporation, in all of your geo footprint.
Debra Ruh: So why aren’t you doing in Bangladesh? Why aren’t you doing it in Poland? Why are… And so sometimes I feel like I’m just being the nag of the industry. I’m the mother nag going, “Come on, everybody’s got to be included. Come on.”
>> Ashley Inkumsah: We need the disruption.
>> Debra Ruh: We do need the disruption. But what I have done, which is relatively new over, it’s been about four months now, is I decided to create a global nonprofit called Billion Strong, very proud that WID of course, has joined this effort being a global advisor. But I… And I’m saying, I, and then I’m going to switch to we because you can’t do anything with an I, but I really wanted… I was seeing things like the Valuable 500 happening. 500 CEOs committing to include us. And I thought, “Well, wait a minute. If our community doesn’t come out and self identify in a way then they’re not going to be able to find us.”
Debra Ruh: So could we create an identity organization, once again, being very mindful and deliberate about including the intersections of those identity organizations, like the LGBTs, the Black Lives Matter and others, but also do it from a global perspective because solving it in the U.S. is great, but we’ve got to solve it in the world. And so I’ve been able to pull in so far 58 countries, hundreds of advisors, but at the same time I’m going to make another point. It’s also very, very important to be very deliberate right now, because as I said, Ashley, I am a person with disabilities but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me if you could see. Now, I’m also a mother that has a grown daughter that was born with Down syndrome. I’m also a wife that has a husband that has aged into dementia, which is sad, I’m so many different things, right?
Debra Ruh: But what I decided to do with this organization, we created Billion Strong, which is billion-strong.org was not be the CEO of the organization. Instead I selected, and with my team, we selected Dr. LaMondre Pough to be the CEO. And the reason why is because he has lived experiences as a black American. So he’s, African-American, he also has lived experience growing up in the south of the United States, which is the states that fought to not free the slaves and still there’s a lot of… there’s prejudices everywhere, but it’s a little bit worse I perceive sometimes in the part of the country that I was born. He also is a man with lived experiences with disabilities. He was born with muscular dystrophy and his mother was told to institutionalize him. His mother was told he wouldn’t live past five.
Debra Ruh: Well, he just celebrated his birthday. I think he’s 47. He’s got this-
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Sounds amazing.
>> Debra Ruh: Yes he’s an amazing leader too. He’s such an amazing leader, but he has not only lived experiences with disabilities. He’s a wheelchair user. He has limited use of his upper and lower body. But let me tell you what he is. He’s an amazing, talented man that is going to change the world. And all of us are going to get behind him and support him. But representation right now matters more than ever before. If you have a chance to hire somebody and you have three qualified candidates, and one of them is a black woman with disabilities, you should select the black woman with disabilities. Let’s just be more deliberate about including the disenfranchised people, because we’re not going to get past this if we’re not more deliberate about inclusion right now.
Debra Ruh: It’s not that I don’t want white people included, of course I do. But we’ve disenfranchised people of color too long. People that are brown and black, people with disabilities. Yeah. LGBT community. So it… right now, representation and intersections also matter. And I know you agree with that, Ashley.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Yes, absolutely. I think we often get into this conversation about identity politics, this term about identity politics. And are you including this person because they’re, so-called qualified or not qualified, or just because of the identity that they are personalized or ascribed to. And I think it’s really important what you said that people of color, people with disabilities have historically not been given a platform, not been given opportunities to be employed, to have an education, to exist. And so many sectors of our country and really of our whole entire world. So, it’s really important to actively and intentionally want to include them in the conversation.
>> Debra Ruh: Yes, yes. And another thing that I saw happening, Ashley, which was bothering me, I love that the corporations are starting to employ people with disabilities. I love it. But I started noticing, especially during the pandemic, I had quite a few younger people, now I’m in my sixties, but younger people. So I started seeing a trend. I had about 15 different ones, all separate that… most of them were women. Most of them, except one had lived experience with disabilities. A lot of them were part of the intersectionalities. They all worked for major multinational corporations. But what they all were also saying was that they got hired, but then they sort of got stuck. They weren’t being promoted. They weren’t getting professional development and that feels a little bit like tokenism.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Exactly.
>> Debra Ruh: So it’s like, “Hmm, did you hire me? Because…” Right? And so that’s another reason why we created Billion Strong. I mean, I still have Ruh Global Impact and we are a corporate. We help corporations all over the world, understand the nuances of this, but I really, really felt that we needed to have a global identity organization.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Why do you think it is that disability inclusion tends to be so lacking in society and corporations and marketing endeavors of corporations? Why do you think that is?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, I think a lot of the reason is because the community itself has not identified. We don’t… I think we could learn so much from the LGBT community, for example, that they took all their different parts. They’re still doing it and come together. You know, I… we can learn a lot from the LGBT community. It’s really LGBTQIA plus because they’re figuring out their identity.
>> Debra Ruh: And they have been told by society and by religious doctrine that they’re broken and that they’re… But they came together with pride and we have not done that at the disability community level. We haven’t. I think we need to come together with pride and say, “I’m proud to be a Caucasian woman, a white woman with lived experiences with disabilities. I’m proud of my lived experience.” And we also need to say Ashley, that having a disability doesn’t make us broken. It actually can make us very sexy. So how can we change the dynamics? Because right now, when a child… when my daughter was born with Down syndrome, people didn’t congratulate me on having my beautiful baby girl. People were feeling sorry for me. So it’s not a tragedy to be… have a disability society is the one that makes it a tragedy.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. I was just saying on our last episode, how people with disabilities have to do so much to fit into a world that was not built for them when it should be the other way around. And it’s actually the same. And I’m really into the body acceptance movement and like anti diet culture movement. And it’s the same way that women, we, as women are often trying to fit ourselves into a size two dress, whereas designers should be making clothing that fits all of our different, beautiful bodies. You know? So it’s the same thing with the disability community.
>> Debra Ruh: And once again, it’s human beings telling to other human beings they’re not good enough. You’re not pretty enough. It’s ridiculous. We have got to stop discounting people. We have to stop it.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. We have to do better as a society, for sure. Why do you think that governments and corporations and society as a whole… why is it so important that that people with disabilities are included in their planning and overall business practices?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, in the first place, if you want to hire young people, period, you better do it because the younger generations are not going to put up with this anymore. The younger generations have out, we won’t work for you. Thank goodness for the younger generations.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely, the Gen Z kids are really the… they are the best that there’s ever been. I’ve been saying I’m kind of jealous of that myself.
>> Debra Ruh: Whoa. And they’re saying, “We won’t work for you. We won’t buy from you. And if we are working for you, we will walk out on you if you are not including us.” And so if you want to be an employer of choice, you better be paying attention in hiring people with disabilities and other diverse groups. So some governments and corporations, they don’t realize society has changed. Some older generations don’t realize it, but it has.
Debra Ruh: And the younger people are not going to put up with it. So you want to be considered a leader, stop stealing our data, stop being inappropriate, stop making money. Everything that you’re focused on, make sure that you’re looking at… We want you to make money, but you also need to do social good. And you need to have a diverse workforce that includes people with disabilities and we are watching. And so I think the number one thing that’s going to change everything are the young people. They’re not going to put up with it anymore.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Those Gen Z kids are going to give them a run for their money. That is for sure. And it’s amazing. I love to see it. What lessons would you say that you’ve learned along the way that you can share with other businesses and NGOs and corporations that might be still on the fence as to whether or not to include people with disabilities and disability inclusion as a whole?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, once again, you have no choice. You have to include people with disabilities. And by the way, if you don’t, we’re going to continue to talk about your brand and the community is going to… Once again, we’re getting together, like with Billion Strong. We already have strong leadership groups like WID and National Organization on Disability and the Valuable 500. But when you get this identity organization together and then others will join. If you don’t include us, we’re going to talk about it. So I mean, society is going to have to take a stand and we’re going to have to take a stand together, all of us together saying, “By the way, it is not okay that you’re not including brown and black. It’s not okay that you’re not including more LGBT. It is not okay you’re not including women in meaningful ways and it’s not okay.”
Debra Ruh: So the corporations, by the way, do know this is happening. And so did the governments, but they don’t completely know how to proceed. So I think we still have a lot of work to do to make sure they know. For example, something that WID does is they have a great program to help make sure that conferences are fully accessible. So you have to think about that. Yeah. There’s a lot of moving parts, but these corporations, these governments need to be deliberate about working with organizations like the World Institute on Disability because they represent our community and we’re paying attention. We’re paying… And there’s a lot of ways to mess up. But if you’re working with an organization like WID we’ll make sure or Billion Strong or all of us, because there’s so many different moving parts, we will protect you.
Debra Ruh: We’ll help you be successful with this. But if you’re not including us, you can expect the lawsuits to continue. You can expect us to be talking about your brand in negative ways in social media. I’m talking overall. Not me personally. I tried to be real nice with social media.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Yes, absolutely. Well, like I said, it’s been an awesome, very fruitful conversation for sure. Where can our audience find you? Where can they keep up with all of the amazing work that you’re doing?
>> Debra Ruh: Thank you, Ashley. I’m very visible on social media. And most of my handles are my name, Debra Ruh, D-E-B-R-A R-U-H. I’m on Twitter and Instagram and Twitch and LinkedIn and YouTube. I’m on all of the channels, but also my website is www.ruhglobal.com. And that’s… we have a little think tank consulting group, and then Billion Strong is billion-strong.org. And we just started billion-strong.org so there’s not a lot of content on the website because we want the community to help us, but we are proud that WID is a partner of Billion Strong, and I think you’re a great interviewer too Ash. And I do want to bring that in here.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, I actually have one more question actually. My last question for you is what is one piece of advice that you would give and offer to businesses? What’s one piece of advice you would offer as it relates to disability inclusion?
>> Debra Ruh: Well, I think the one piece of advice I would use is make sure that if you have employee resource groups, that you have one for people with disabilities, and if you have other groups see how you can pull those groups together to support each other and support you as a brand. And once again, understand society has changed. And those younger people that are so talented that you’re seeking, they don’t want to work for you if you’re not showing leadership in diversity and inclusion and accessibility. And if you don’t believe that, just go out on social media and they will tell you that. So I would think the one thing that I would recommend is to pay attention to what is happening in society, because it has changed and is going to continue to change.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it any better.
>> Debra Ruh: I’m teaching the world Ashley.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Yes you are.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: Well, like I said, I mean, this has been an amazing, awesome fruitful conversation. So much to think about, so much actionable things that we need to get out there in our community and really start to create and move the needle forward in disability inclusion for sure. So it’s been a pleasure. It really has been.
>> Debra Ruh: I feel the same way, Ashley, thank you so much.
>> Ashley Inkumsah: What an absolutely great conversation. I mean, I really just had so much fun chatting about why businesses and corporations and governments really need to commit to including employing and advocating for people with disabilities with Debra.
Ashley Inkumsah: It really was awesome to speak with someone who has the shared mission of operationalizing inclusion. Debra is truly so, so incredible. Thank you so, so much for tuning into today’s episode. You can find transcripts and American sign language interpretations for today’s episode and all of our past episodes on our website at www.wid.org/whats-up-wid. And as always, our famous last words here on What’s Up WID, to paraphrase one of our directors here, Nicholas Love, and one of our founders, Ed Roberts, we need to get out there and change the old attitudes so we can build forward better. Thank you so, so much once again, and I’ll talk to you next time.
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