>Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 16:53:48 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Jamal Mazrui <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Disabled people represent the true digital divide
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>To: Disability Policy <[log in to unmask]>
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>>From the web page
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/000322-000001.html
>
>The Register
>SUNDAY APRIL 30TH 2000
>
>Disabled people represent the true digital divide
>
>
>Disabled Americans are missing out on a good deal of the benefit
>which IT can offer them, a new study concludes.
>
>Only twenty-four percent of disabled Americans own computers
>compared with a national average of over fifty, and only ten
>percent use the Internet compared with a national average of
>thirty-eight, according to a report from the Disability
>Statistics Center at the University of California, San
>Francisco, written by David Keer of the US Department of
>Education.
>
>Elderly people with disabilities, and disabled people with low
>incomes or minimal education, are even less likely to take
>advantage of such technology, the report notes.
>
>In previous coverage of the Digital Divide, The Register
>ridiculed the Clinton Administration's cultural arrogance in
>calculating the desire of minorities to emulate Whites by
>getting wired, as if Blacks and Hispanics should be seen as
>nothing more than Whites in training.
>
>With the handicapped, we see an entirely different picture.
>Disabled people have little to lose and much to gain from
>joining the wired community. Internet chat and e-mail can
>provide relief from social isolation; access to news, academic
>libraries and research materials can be accomplished with a
>mouse click; Net entrepreneurship can provide a much-needed
>opportunity to work from home; on-line shopping promises
>convenience and independence.
>
>With the advent of speech-recognition software, the blind, who
>normally wait months or years for information to be made
>available in Braille or on audio tape, can access such material
>as soon as it becomes available. The motor-disabled can use
>speech-recognition technology to write e-mail, pay bills, or
>perform work-related tasks, the report observes.
>
>Indeed, the more we think about it, the more convinced we are
>that the true promise of the Internet is precisely that of
>service to the disabled. We hope they won't be overlooked, as
>they so often are, as Washington prepares to propitiate the many
>competing Sacred Cows of Political Correctness with federal
>dollars for community investment in technology programmes. r
>
>Related stories
>Govt gives voice to Net for the blind Blind AOL users sue over
>discrimination
>Blind%20people%20struggle%20to%20use%20the%20Web
>
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