I was born in 1947, a long time ago, and when I was 18 months old, I had polio. I was in an iron lung for three months and in and out of the hospital for three years. Now, we had lots of neighbors in our Brooklyn neighborhood, and some of them were really very helpful for my parents. Some of them were really afraid of contagion, and they wouldn't even walk in front of our house. They would literally walk across the street. I think this was a time when my family really began to realize what disability meant to some people: fear.
我生於 1947 年,很久以前了。 在我 18 個月大的時候, 我得了小兒麻痺症。 有三個月的時間 我靠著人工呼吸器維生, 有三年的時間我頻繁地出入醫院。 那時我們住在布魯克林, 附近有很多鄰居, 當中有些人給了 我的父母很大的幫助。 但也有些人很怕被傳染, 他們甚至不願意走過我家前面。 他們寧願繞路從對面走過去。 我想,就是在這個時期, 我家人開始真正了解到, 對某些人而言, 身心障礙意味著什麼: 恐懼。
And it wasn't even a sure thing that I would live at home, although I didn't learn about this until I was 36 years old. I was having a discussion with my father one night, and he said, "You know, when you were two years old, one of the doctors suggested to your mom and I that you live in an institution, that they could just go ahead with their lives and raise their kids and kind of be done with having to deal with all the disability-related things. I didn't believe my father, not because he was a liar, but I'd never heard this story, and my mother in fact validated that. She never wanted to tell me.
當時甚至不確定我會住在家裡, 我在 36 歲時才知道這件事。 有一天晚上,我和我父親在討論, 他說:「你知道嗎,當你兩歲時, 有一位醫生建議你媽媽和我 把你送到一間機構, 這麼一來,他們(我父母) 就可以繼續過生活, 養育他們的孩子, 不用再煩心處理所有 和殘疾相關的事務了。」 我那時不相信我父親說的, 並不是因為我認為他騙我, 但我從來沒有聽過這件事, 其實我母親也證實了此事。 她只是一直不想告訴我。
But in reality, I don't know why I was really surprised by this story, because when I was five years old, and my mother, like mothers and fathers all across the United States, was taking me to school to enroll, she pushed my wheelchair to the school in walking distance to our house, pulled the wheelchair up the steps into the school, and we were greeted by the principal. Not really greeted. But the principal said, no, I couldn't come to that school because it wasn't accessible. But he told us not to worry, because the Board of Education in fact would send a teacher to my house. And they did for a total of two and a half hours a week.
但實際上,我不知道為什麼 這個故事會讓我這麼驚訝, 因為當我 5 歲時, 和美國各地的所有父母親一樣, 我母親帶我去學校辦入學, 她用輪椅把我推到 走路就可以到的學校裡。 她把輪椅拉上階梯,進入學校, 校長在那裡歡迎我們。 其實不算是歡迎。 校長說,不行,我不能上那間學校, 因為學校不方便讓輪椅進出。 但他叫我們不要擔心, 因為教育局會派一位老師到我家。 結果的確派了, 老師來的時數總共兩個半小時, 每週一次。
(Audience murmurs)
(觀眾私語)
But for good behavior, they threw in an occupational therapist who taught me that very essential skill of cross-stitching.
但因為我行為表現良好, 他們也派了一位職業治療師來我家 教我非常重要的技能: 十字繡。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I don't cross-stitch today.
我今天不會做十字繡給大家看。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I didn't actually get to go to school in a real building until I was nine years old, and then I was in classes only with disabled children in a school that had mainly nondisabled children. And in my classes, there were students up to the age of 21. And then, after 21, they went to something called sheltered workshops with menial work and earning either nothing or below minimum wage. So I understood discrimination. My parents understood discrimination.
我一直沒在校舍裡上過學, 直到我九歲, 我才進到只有身心障礙學生的班級, 而那間學校大多數的學生 是沒有身心障礙的孩子。 在我班上, 學生的年齡在 21 歲以下。 21 歲以後, 他們會去所謂的庇護工廠 做卑賤的工作, 薪水低於最低薪資,甚至無薪。 所以,我那時就了解到歧視。 我父母了解到歧視。
My parents came from Germany. They were German Jews who left in the 1930s, escaping the Holocaust. My parents lost family and they lost parents. Both my parents lost their parents in the Holocaust. And so they realized that they could not be silent as things were going wrong for me in my life. Not me personally, but what was going on around me.
我父母來自德國。 他們是猶太裔德國人, 在 30 年代離開德國, 為了逃離種族大屠殺。 我父母失去了家,失去了雙親。 我的父親及母親 各自的雙親都死於大屠殺。 所以他們了解到, 當我的人生中遇到不對的事情時, 他們不能沉默。 不是我個人犯錯, 而是我周圍發生的事情出錯。
They learned that because I used a wheelchair, none of the high schools in New York City, in the entire city, were wheelchair accessible, so what was supposed to happen is I was supposed to go back onto home instruction along with many other students. So my parents banded together with other parents. They went to the Board of Education and they demanded that the Board of Ed make some of the high schools accessible. And they did. And so I and many others were finally able to go to high school, a regular high school, and take regular classes.
他們被告知,因為我坐輪椅, 而紐約市整個城市裡, 沒有一間高中能讓輪椅進出。 所以,應該要做的是 讓我在家裡接受居家輔導, 許多其他身心障礙學生也一樣。 所以,我父母和其他父母團結起來。 他們去教育部, 要求教育部讓一些高中 具備無障礙設施。 他們也照做了。 所以我和許多其他人 終於能夠去進入高中,一般的高中, 上一般的課。
So what happened next? I was learning more and more about what discrimination was, and equally important, I was learning that I needed to become my own advocate. I was entering college, Long Island University, and I had always wanted to be a teacher, and so I minored in education and I took all the appropriate courses, and then when it was time for me to go for my license, I had to take a written exam, an oral exam and a medical exam. At that time, all three of those exams were given in completely inaccessible buildings, so I had friends who carried me up and down the steps for these exams, not in a motorized wheelchair.
接下來發生了什麼事? 我學到了越來越多的歧視, 同樣重要的是,我學到 我必須爲我自己抗爭。 我上了大學,長島大學, 我一直都想要當老師, 所以我副修教育, 能選的課我都選了, 接著,到了我考教師證照的時候, 我需要參加一場筆試、 一場口試, 還有體檢。 那時 ,所有三項考試 都在我完全無法 進入的建築物中進行, 所以我請朋友扛著我上下樓梯, 以參加那些考試, 而不是坐電動輪椅。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
In a manual wheelchair. But I passed my oral exam. I passed my written exam.
我坐的是人工輪椅。 我通過了口試。 我通過了筆試。
My medical exam was something completely different. One of the first questions the doctor asked me was, could I please show her how I went to the bathroom. I was 22 years old and you know when you go for any kind of an interview, you think about all the kinds of questions that people could ask you?
我的體檢就完全不同。 醫生問我的第一個問題是, 我能不能示範給她看, 我如何上廁所。 我那時 22 歲, 你們知道, 當你要去任何一種面談前, 你會先設想對方可能會 問你的各種問題,對嗎?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
That was not one of them. And I was freaked out in the first place because I had heard that there were actually no disabled people using wheelchairs who were teachers in New York, so each step along the way I was expecting something bad. So I said to her, is it a requirement that teachers show their students how to go to the bathroom? If it is, I can do that.
我沒想到那個問題。 我一聽到就呆住了, 因為我早已聽說 沒有任何坐輪椅的身障人士 在紐約市裡的學校教書, 所以在一路上的每一步, 我都預想了不好的結果。 所以我對她說, 老師一定要向他們的學生展示 如何去上廁所嗎? 如果有這種要求,我可以做。
So no surprise, I was failed because I didn't pass the medical. The official reason that I was denied my job was paralysis of poliomyelitis sequelae of -- I'm sorry. Paralysis of both lower limbs, sequelae of poliomyelitis. Honestly, I didn't know what the word "sequelae" meant, so I went to the dictionary, and it meant "because of." So I'd been denied my license because I couldn't walk.
不意外地, 我沒拿到教師證照, 因為我的體檢沒有通過。 他們拒絕給我這份 證照的官方理由是, 小兒麻痺癱瘓,源於——抱歉是 雙下肢癱瘓,源於小兒麻痺。 老實說,我不知道「源於」 這個詞是什麼意思。 所以,我去查字典, 它的意思是「因...所造成」。 因為我無法走路, 所以他們拒絕給我證照。
So what was I going to do? This is a really important time in my life, because it would be the first time that I really would be challenging the system, me, and although I was working with a lot of other friends who had disabilities who were encouraging me to move forward with this, it was nonetheless quite frightening. But I was really very lucky. I had a friend who was a disabled student at Long Island University and was also a stringer at the "New York Times," and he was able to get a reporter to write a really good piece about what had happened and why he thought what had happened was wrong. The next day there was an editorial in the "New York Times" with the title of "Heumann v. The Board of Education" and the "New York Times" came out in support of my getting my teaching license.
那時我該做什麼呢? 這是我人生中非常重要的時點, 因為那會是我第一次 真的去挑戰體制,我自己。 雖然許多和我一起奮鬥 也有身心障礙的朋友 都鼓勵我去做, 但我還是挺害怕。 不過我非常幸運。 我有位朋友, 他曾是長島大學的身心障礙學生, 也是《紐約時報》的特約記者, 他找了一位記者 針對發生在我身上的事情, 寫了一篇很棒的報導, 包括為什麼他認為這種事是錯的。 隔天,《紐約時報》刊出了一篇社論, 標題是「霍伊曼對教育部」, 《紐約時報》公開支持我 取得我的教師證照。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And then the same day, I got a call from an attorney who was writing a book about civil rights. And he was calling me to interview me, and I was interviewing him. He didn't know that. And at the end of our discussion, I said, "Would you be willing to represent me? I want to sue the Board of Education." And he said yes. Now, sometimes I say that the stars were aligned around this court case, because we had an amazing judge: the first African American female federal judge --
接著,同一天, 一位律師打電話給我, 他在寫一本關於公民人權的書。 他打電話來要訪問我, 而我也同時訪問他。 但他並不知情。 在我們討論的尾聲,我說: 「你願不願意代表我? 我想要告教育部。」 他答應了。 有時我會說,這件法庭 案件真是有老天眷顧, 因為我們有位很棒的法官: 第一位非裔美國女性聯邦法官——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Constance Baker Motley.
康斯坦斯·貝克·莫特利。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And she knew discrimination when she saw it.
當有歧視時,她馬上看得出來。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So she strongly encouraged the Board of Ed to give me another medical exam, which they did. And then I got my license, and while it took a number of months for me to actually get a principal to offer me a job, I finally did get a job and I started teaching that fall in the same school that I had gone to, second grade. So --
所以她強烈鼓勵教育部 再讓我做一次體檢, 他們照做了。 然後我就拿到了證照。 雖然花了好幾個月 才有一位校長願意給我一份工作, 但我終於得到了一份工作。 那年秋天我開始在 那間我曾就讀的學校教書, 我教的是二年級。 所以——
(Applause)
(掌聲)
That's a whole other TED Talk.
那是另一場 TED 演講了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But I was learning as my friends were, and people I didn't know around the country, that we had to be our own advocates, that we needed to fight back people's view that if you had a disability, you needed to be cured, that equality was not part of the equation. And we were learning from the Civil Rights Movement and from the Women's Rights Movement. We were learning from them about their activism and their ability to come together, not only to discuss problems but to discuss solutions. And what was born is what we call today the Disability Rights Movement.
我和我的朋友們, 以及全國各地我不認識的 身心障礙人士學習到 我們必須爲自己抗爭, 我們必須反擊大眾的想法: 如果你有身心障礙, 你就需要被治療, 以及身心障礙人士 和大眾是不平等的觀點。 我們借鏡於民權運動 和女權運動。 我們學習他們的主動精神, 以及他們如何團結在一起, 不只是討論問題, 還要討論解決方案。 這些行動產生了現今我們所知的 「身心障礙者權利運動」。
So I'd like to tell you a couple of riddles. How many people do you think it takes to stop traffic on Madison Avenue during rush hour in New York City? Do you have a guess? How many?
我想要問各位幾個謎題。 你們認為,需要多少人 才能阻斷麥迪遜大道上的交通, 而且是在紐約市的尖峰時刻? 你猜得到嗎?幾個人?
(Audience members shout out answers)
(觀眾喊出答案)
Fifty. One would be too little. Fifty people. And there were no accessible paddy wagons, so they had to just kind of deal with us.
不對!需要 50 個人。 1 個就太少了。 需要 50 個人。 因為沒有無障礙囚車, 所以他們必須與我們協商。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
But let me tell you another riddle. How many people does it take to stop a bus in New York City when they refuse to let you on because you're in a wheelchair? One. That is the right answer. So what you have to do though is take your wheelchair --
我再說個謎題。 需要多少人才能阻擋 紐約市的一台巴士, 如果他們因為你坐輪椅 而拒絕讓你上車? 1 個人。那是正確的答案。 不過,你要做的是 將你的輪椅——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Sidle in the right place right in front of the steps and give it a little push underneath, and then their bus can't move.
推到巴士的階梯前的某一個地方, 向巴士底下稍稍一推, 那時巴士就動不了了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Any of you who want to learn how to do that, talk to me after this.
如果在座有人想學這個技巧, 演講後來找我。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
In 1972, President Nixon vetoed the Rehabilitation Act. We protested. He signed it. Then the regulations that needed to be promulgated to implement that law had not in fact been signed. We demonstrated. They were signed. And when the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA, our Emancipation Proclamation Act, looked as though it might not in fact be passed in the House or Senate, disabled people from all across the United States came together and they crawled up the Capitol steps. That was an amazing day, and the House and Senate passed the ADA. And then President Bush signed the ADA. It's a great picture. President Bush signed the ADA on the lawn of the White House. It was an amazing day, and there are about 2,000 people there. It was July 26, 1990. And one of the most famous statements he had in his speech was, "Let the shameful walls of exclusion finally come tumbling down."
在 1972 年,尼克森總統 否決了復健法案。 我們抗爭後,他簽了這個法案。 接著,實施該法案所需要的相關規定 其實並沒有被簽署。 我們示威後,那些規定就被簽了。 當美國身心障礙人士法案,即 ADA, 等同是我們的解放奴隸宣言法案, 看起來好像無法被參議院通過時, 美國各地的身心障礙人士集合在一起, 他們爬上了美國國會大廈的階梯。 那是很了不起的一天, 參議院通過了 ADA。 然後布希總統簽署了 ADA。 這是張很棒的照片。 布希總統在白宮的草坪上簽署 ADA。 那是很了不起的一天, 大約有 2000 人參加。 時間是 1990 年 7 月 26 日。 在他的演講中,最有名的聲明之一是 「讓排擠人的可恥牆壁倒下吧。」
For any of you in the room who are 50 or older, or maybe or even 40 or older, you remember a time when there were no ramps on the streets, when buses were not accessible, when trains were not accessible, where there were no wheelchair-accessible bathrooms in shopping malls, where you certainly did not have a sign language interpreter, or captioning, or braille or other kinds of supports. These things have changed, and they have inspired the world. And disabled people around the world want laws like we have, and they want those laws enforced.
在座各位如果 你的年紀在 50 歲以上, 甚至是在 40 歲以上, 你們可能記得以前,街上沒有斜坡, 巴士不是無障礙的, 火車不是無障礙的, 購物中心沒有 供輪椅用的無障礙廁所, 當然,也沒有手語翻譯員、 字幕、點字, 或任何其他類型的協助。 這些都已經改變了, 也鼓舞了世界。 全世界的身心障礙人士 都想要有和我們一樣的法律, 且希望那些法律能被執行。
And so what we've seen is something called the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is a treaty that was adopted in 2006. It's celebrating is 10-year anniversary. More than 165 countries have joined this treaty. It is the first international human rights treaty fully focused on disabled people. But I am sad to say that our US Senate has failed to recommend to our president that we ratify the treaty. We signed it in 2009, but it doesn't come into force until ratification, and the president -- no president can ratify a treaty without the consent of the Senate. So we feel really strongly that our US Senate needs to do its job, that our Senate needs to enable us as Americans not only to be able to assist disabled people and governments around the world to learn about the good work that we've been doing, but it's equally important that disabled people have the same opportunities to travel, study and work abroad as anyone else in our country. And as long as many countries don't have the same laws as we do and don't enforce them if they have them, opportunities for disabled people are more limited.
所以我們看到的名為 「身心障礙者權利公約」, 它是在 2006 年通過的協定, 現在已經是第十週年了。 超過 165 國加入了這份協定。 它是第一份完全 以身心障礙人士為中心的 國際人權協定。 但,我很難過地告訴各位, 我們美國的參議院 沒有能夠向我們的總統 建議要正式批准這項協定。 我們在 2009 年簽署這個協定, 但在沒有正式批准以前 是不會生效的。 而總統——任何一位總統 若要批准一個法案, 一定需要參議院的同意。 所以我們非常堅決認為 美國參議院要盡它的本分, 我們的參議院必須要讓我們美國人 不僅能夠讓全世界的 身心障礙人士與政府 看到並學到我們投入的努力。 同樣重要的是, 要讓身心障礙人士有同樣的機會 可以到國外旅行、讀書、工作, 就和我們國家中所有其他人一樣。 只要其他國家沒有 和我們一樣的法律, 或是有法律卻沒有執行, 身心障礙人士的機會就會更受限。
When I travel abroad, I am always meeting with disabled women, and those women tell me stories about how they experience violence and rape and how in many cases these forms of violence occur from family members and people that they know, who in fact may be working for them. And frequently these cases are not adjudicated. I meet disabled people who have been offered jobs by businesses because they live in a country where there's a quota system, and in order to avoid a fine, they will hire you and then tell you, "You don't need to come to work because we really don't need you in the facility." I have visited institutions where the stench of urine is so strong that before you open the door of your vehicle, you're kind of pushed back, and then gone into those institutions where people should be living in the community with appropriate supports and seen people almost naked, people who are chemically drugged and people who are living lives of despair. These are some of the things that the US needs to be doing more to correct. We know discrimination when we see it, and we need to be fighting it together.
當我出國時, 我總是會和有身心障礙的女性見面, 那些女性會告訴我 關於她們經歷過的 暴力和強暴的故事, 以及在許多案例中, 這些形式的暴力行為 都是由家庭成員 以及他們認識的人所做的, 甚至可能是他們所僱用的人。 然而這些案例經常都沒有被裁決。 我遇到一些身心障礙人士, 得到企業給他們的工作機會, 是因為他們的國家有僱用 身心障礙員工的比例規定。 為了避免被罰款, 企業就會僱用你, 然後告訴你: 「你不用來上班, 因為我們公司其實不需要你。」 我造訪過一些身心障礙養護機構, 尿騷味非常重, 重到在你打開車門下車前, 你就已經怯步。 接著,進入這些機構當中, 裡面的人是應該要住在 有配套設施的社區裡。 他們幾乎裸體, 他們被餵以藥物, 過著絕望的生活。 這些是美國必須要花更多心力 來改善的一些狀況。 當我們看到歧視時, 我們都認得出來, 我們必須要一起對抗它。
So what is it that we can be doing together? I encourage you all to recognize that disability is a family you can join at any point in your life. I'd like to see by a show of hands how many of you have ever broken a bone? And then, when you leave today, I'd like you to maybe write a couple of sentences about what that period of time has been like for you, because frequently I hear from people, "You know, I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. People talked to me differently. They acted differently towards me." And that's what I see and other disabled people see in flashing letters.
所以,我們能一起做什麼? 我鼓勵大家承認 身心的障礙在你人生的 任何時間點都可能會發生。 能否請在座曾經斷過骨頭的人舉手? 今天各位離開時, 我希望各位也許能寫下幾句話, 關於當你的骨頭斷掉的那段時間 你的感受如何。 因為我常常聽到大家說: 「你知道的,我無法做這個, 我無法做那個。 別人跟我說話的方式不同。 他們對我的舉止也不同。」 那就是我和其他身心障礙人士 每天所面對的切身之痛。
But we -- you in this room, people listening and watching this TED Talk -- together we can make a difference. Together we can speak up for justice. Together we can help change the world.
但我們——在座的各位, 正在聽和看著 這場 TED 演講的人—— 同心協力,我們就可以造成改變。 同心協力,我們能為了正義發聲。 同心協力,我們能協助改變世界。
Thank you. I have to go catch my bus.
謝謝。我得去趕巴士了。
(Applause)
(掌聲)