On Tuesday, Manchester University’s students’ union passed a motion encouraging students to swap audible clapping for British sign language (BSL) clapping (or “jazz hands”) to make its democratic events more accessible to disabled people. I didn’t balk at the decision, as many rightwing journalists and users of social media did, especially considering it’s not a new concept. However, I did have an issue with it being advertised as a decision made on the grounds of accessibility. For a blind person, inaudible clapping is anything but accessible.
When I was at university, I remember attending a meeting where we were organising a demonstration. Instead of clapping to show appreciation for ideas and thoughts that we approved of, we were instead encouraged to adopt the BSL applause. After some time, I came to the slow realisation that I wouldn’t truly be able to take part in the meeting because I couldn’t see people shaking their hands around. While my friend came to the rescue by whispering in my ear whenever jazz hands were being fluttered up in the air or down by the floor, I felt undeniably isolated. It fuelled my anxiety, rather than tempering it as the adopted-BSL clap was supposed to do. How was I supposed to know how people were reacting to something I had said?
Much of the backlash has been centred around “consensus feminist jazz hands”, snowflake students, PC culture and illiberal “bans” (although the union has not banned clapping). That’s not what I’m saying. Moving towards a world where everything is accessible is no bad thing. In fact, it’s a great thing, and unions that are adopting these policies have noble intentions – opposition to accessibility is a surefire way to further isolate disabled people. What I am saying, however, is that events need to be accessible for everyone, and we can’t do that by including one group and then excluding another.
I don’t want to pit the blind community against those with other sensory impairments. God knows we need more solidarity among the disabled rather than division. But we’re always going to have accessibility issues, many of which are completely incompatible with one another. Some institutions, however, have already solved the catch-22 by catering the same event to people with differing accessibility needs.
Take some cinema outlets that provide audio-described, captioned and autistic-friendly screenings of the latest films for people with various disabilities to enjoy. That’s making things accessible. Having both lifts and stairs: that’s making things accessible.
Some think the answer lies in the quiet finger click. In 2015, Katherine Rosman wrote in the New York Times that finger-clicking had become the new way of signalling quiet agreement or appreciation at conferences and in university lecture theatres, and while that would work for me, it again wouldn’t work for everyone.
I’m not going to pretend I have the universal solution to this, some would argue, inconsequential snowflakey conundrum, especially for student union-based democratic events. But tailoring events to their respective audiences and speakers is a good place to start, and if events need to be run more than once, then so be it. Run them twice. But in the meantime, as the debate continues to rage, I’m going to choose to endorse the desk knock or the quiet lap tap. Ah, isn’t that soothing.
• Alex Lee is a freelance writer with interests in tech, culture and politics
