A disability rights advocacy podcast that brings together advocates, policy makers, and people with disabilities to talk about the issues facing the disability community.
Episodes
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Thursday Dec 10, 2020
Robbie Kopp and First Sergeant McDaniels discuss their work creating the nation’s first school resource officer/disability policy. The two talk about how the policy works and how can be implemented not just in schools, but throughout our society. First Sergeant McDaniels also shares an impactful story about how his work creating this policy and his personal life intersected.
Big announcement at the end of the podcast!
Disclaimer
Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an Able South Carolina endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact us at advocacy@able-sc.org
Episode Transcript:
[music]
00:14 Chris: It has been 11,087 days since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and you are parked in The Access Aisle.
[music]
00:32 Chris: Welcome back to The Access Aisle, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We have an incredible episode for you today. We continue our interview with Robbie Kopp, and First Sergeant Walter Shawn McDaniels is a 24-year vet of the Richland County Sheriff's Office. We feel really honored to have you here, First Sergeant McDaniels. You bring such a unique perspective to this conversation, one that doesn't usually get brought to this conversation, one that's usually left out, and so to have you here to open up with us and to be vulnerable definitely brings a fresh air to what's a normally stale conversation.
01:15 Chris: Today's interview should be of great interest to any parent, to a child with a disability and any student with a disability, because Robbie Kopp and First Sergeant McDaniels are gonna talk publicly about the work that they've done to create the nation's first school resource officer/disability policy. One of the larger unintended consequences of having police officers in schools is that students with disabilities, especially black students with disabilities, are being referred to the SROs at a higher rate and more often being criminally punished for actions or behaviors for which they normally would not have had to face legal action or consequences prior to SROs being in schools, and so this change has had a dramatic and negative effect on a lot of students with disabilities.
02:15 Chris: So Robbie Kopp and First Sergeant McDaniels, they talk about this collaboration between the Richland County Sheriff's Office and Able South Carolina, how it originated, what the policy says, and how it can be used as a model, and not just in schools and education, but also throughout other institutions that face issues of racial inequity and just the American culture in general. There's some really fascinating stuff here, I hope you enjoy it. Before we start though, last week, I teased a huge surprise announcement. I have it for you, it's burning in my hands right now, but my producers tell me that we have to wait until after the interview. So we have a huge announcement, it's going to happen, we're gonna give you this announcement, but we're gonna do it right after the interview. So without further ado, Robbie Kopp and First Sergeant McDaniels.
03:10 Robbie Kopp: I wanna talk a little bit about the work that we did... This is not not our first conversation. [chuckle] The work that we did with Richland County around student resource officers a few years ago. It started maybe not the way that you would have liked. [laughter] Do you wanna set the stage for how we met?
03:30 First Sergeant Walter Shawn McDaniels: Sure. Sure, I can. So back in 2015, May of 2015, the United States Department of Justice received a two-prong complaint against the Richland County Sheriff Department School Resource Officer program. And the complaint, well, the complaints were that African-American students were disproportionately getting arrested and that school resource officers were dealing with students who have a disability from an uninformed position. And so fast forward to October of 2015, for those of you who remember, that's the same month that we had the 1000-year flood here in South Carolina, Columbia.
04:17 FM: Two weeks after that situation, we had an incident that occurred at Spring Valley High School involving a white male school resource officer and a black female student. And, of course, you know that got CNN attention, nationwide attention, it was globalized on a grand scale. And so, of course, the Department of Justice put a halt to their initial investigation into those two accusations that I mentioned earlier. And after they closed out the case involving Spring Valley, Sheriff Lott decided that in conjunction with the Department of Justice, they came to a mutual agreement that, "We need to look into the accusations, we need to conduct some research, we need to try to measure and become data-informed in those areas," and we did that for a three-year period.
05:18 FM: I was brought in as one of the liaisons to help with facilitating that research. It didn't help at the time. At the time, I had just started the PhD program in conflict analysis and resolution. So mind you, it was a professional PhD, in addition to an academic PhD that I had to start. We were required to develop a report at the end of the second and the end of the third year. But prior to that, in looking at the evidence early on within the three-year period, we discovered that we did not have the advanced training that we needed to have in the areas of disabilities, and we wanted to get that as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, for the research, even through the Department of Justice, the Office of Civil Rights revealed that it wasn't just us that this problem is stretched across the country within law enforcement as it relates to the area of disabilities. And so we've had to come up with a policy to address that, and so that was one of the first problems that we attacked.
06:32 FM: And so I know that I'm not smart enough to develop such a policy by myself, 'cause again, operating from a law enforcement position would have limited my knowledge of what that looks like and what needs to be brought to the table. And so we reached out to several organizations. We reached out to Lexington-Richland School District Five, we reached out to South Carolina Able, and that's how I met... That's how I met you, Robbie, and then you came in. And we also had a child psychiatrist, we reached out to P&A law firm, a leading law firm here within South Carolina on behalf of the rights of children.
07:17 FM: And I remember the first meeting. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about how... [chuckle] How everyone came to the meeting naturally. There was some defensive jockeying, if you will, some defensive positioning, because we were so used to operating within silos, and it's pointing the finger at one another in terms of where the problem lie. But there was this period, and I'm quite sure you felt the same way, you could speak to it on your own, but where we began to externalize the problem and we began to mutually learn that we each had a contribution, and dealing with the conflict of the absence of education and training in the areas of disabilities. And so from that, Robbie, as you know, we developed the nation's first school resource officer disability policy, and it was just awesome how that came together, yeah.
08:21 RK: Yeah, and I'm gonna make that policy available when the... As the podcast is released or wherever you access it from, whether it's the Able SC website or the Access Aisle podcast page, there'll be a link to that SRO policy so that you can get into the weeds with Sergeant McDaniels and I and really look at the work that took place and what was needed. I think just for me, in that experience, seeing the overlap of African-American students and students with disabilities, and how they were both getting... They were both having interactions with law enforcement through the SROs that weren't equivalent for other groups. For me, I think that was one of the biggest pieces. And I note that it's probably my privilege has made this possible, but this was the big crossover that I saw between the disability community and students of color, knowing that this was happening and that students were being taken out in handcuffs and for relatively minor infractions, and that damage was being done at the school with peers and students were being labeled as problems where they may have been working through some behaviors related to their disability or some of the trauma that they had experienced at home.
09:47 RK: So I, in the last few weeks, have really thought back to this policy and the way that it has changed interactions with SROs in Richland County, and hoping to see something systemic and wanting to see something systemic for law enforcement beyond that. We had some conversations around law enforcement response and making sure that law enforcement are always... They're always safe, but not at the detriment that they're using excessive force against a student, and I think we're seeing other manifestations of that in law enforcement and other places.
10:28 RK: Sergeant, what was... There's one thing that I think stands out for me the most when we were working on this policy, and that was really identifying the tools that law enforcement have. Does... I wanna see if the same thing stands out for you without me saying what it is. [chuckle] We talked about a tool that hadn't really been used. First, assess the safety of a situation. And then second, was being able to use time as a tool to help de-escalate a situation before there was a physical interaction, before there was charges filed, but that there was a chance to... For the law enforcement presence to be known and for the student to re-center and make sure that they're in a place that they can have a conversation around their behavior. Do you remember that part, and when we were really nailing that and feeling comfortable? 'Cause I feel like that was a bit of a watershed moment for the group.
11:23 FM: I would agree. Actually, you're talking about the TIER strategy that we came up with, and TIER is an acronym for Team Intervention Emergency Response. And I remember when the aha-moment... Now, mind you, just to help our listeners internalize that process, it was a facilitation, for lack of a better expression or example rather, the facilitation where we... You get representative from different factions, and we all come together to address a common conflict, and we began to... After the first meeting and everyone was able to voice their... They were allowed to be... It was a safe space to be emotional, it was a safe space to be... To question one another.
12:15 FM: And once we got past that, we saw the need to not work and to not operate within our own silos, but to see the importance of mutually learning and moving forward with externalizing the problem. We externalized it, and so it was no longer law enforcement's fault, no longer education... Educator, and at the education system's fault. We... It took flight. And I think the moment that you're talking about is what... That's when we all recognized a shift, if you will, in how we began to operate as a unified team dealing with that externalized problem separated from the individuals, and we started moving and we came with the TIER.
13:05 FM: I remember we were all excited about what does it mean? And we... Everyone knew that safety was first and foremost, which that satisfied my concern, and from a law enforcement perspective, and then we began to say, "Well, how do we get the teachers, the school resource officer, the school psychiatrist, to the counselors to begin to work together?" And we developed the TIER system, and it consisted of Tier I, which was... And I'll just read from it. Tier I is where the SRO provides a supportive presence only either in or outside of the classroom or a specific area as specified by the school's behalf. In this tier, there is no need, there is no need for the SRO to have direct contact, and again, while still assessing.
13:54 FM: Tier II is the SRO provides a supportive physical presence and assist the school faculty in using de-escalation and other advanced mediation techniques; clearing the classroom or moving furniture out in an effort to help the teacher navigate that problem with the student. And of course, Tier III is when there's a need for law enforcement to intervene, and when safety becomes an issue. And so that was crucial, to develop that TIER system. It speaks for itself, it's about the team and not necessarily calling the muscle, being the school resource officer, to come deal with a school-related problem.
14:35 RK: Yeah, and I... With every instance of either police brutality or police showing up to a scene and on reports of violent crime that aren't substantiated, and how those situations escalate so quickly, I keep thinking about this policy, I keep thinking about how that little bit of time to assess the situation and to make sure that as long as everybody's safe, then we can be okay with being safe and taking some time is... It just, it comes back to me every single story. And I think it's so much a part of, I'm having a hard time saying this clearly, that time has the ability for us to see past that initial response, where that initial response is... Because it's quick, it's more likely to be influenced by that, by that bias, and when we're able to have that breath or that half-breath to realize what's happening, that the situation can go differently, and without that time with actions that are the difference between quick and hasty, having a huge impact on the lives of people. It just seems more and more necessary to me that when interacting with a person with a disability, maybe knowing how their disability may impact that interaction and being prepared to navigate that without the use of a weapon, I think is tough.
16:12 FM: Yeah, one of the challenges that we have within law enforcement in dealing with students who have a disability is that parents struggle with their child being labeled as someone with a disability, a student with a disability, because they believe that they're... Again, 'cause they're conscious of some of the negative stigma associated with it, and they don't want their child to have to navigate through that obstacle, if you will. And so oftentimes, some of the students and their disabilities, they're not acknowledged, and so an officer doesn't have access to that information.
16:58 FM: And we noticed that during the study too, that you had a good number of individuals who were suffering with a disability, but suffering... When I say suffering with it, I mean because they were not given the opportunity to receive appropriate modified services. Appropriate, appropriate as it relates to their disability, not to the extent of treating them different in such a way where it limits them even more or it's unfair, an unfair distribution of services. No, it was they were silently dealing with some of the limitations unjustifiably placed upon them every day.
17:48 FM: And so it boils down to the absence of communication, the... When the negative stigma stops the parent from sharing, then of course, the end result is an interaction with law enforcement or with an authority within the school, an authoritative person within the school. And we're not able to service the child properly, which is why we train our officers in the area of disability identification, and the areas of autism and mental illness, well, mental wellness rather, and what does that look like for our student body today. We did that for three years in a row, provided that training, and so we need to continue to do that.
18:42 RK: Yeah, I think for me, in doing that work, I kept thinking to an example of a student who would be impacted and may have had a negative interaction with law enforcement. You mentioned autism, for me, the example was a student with autism who there was too much stimulation in that environment, and needed to be able to process and cool back down. Knowing that if law enforcement came in heavy into that situation, that it was only gonna escalate, but if an SRO is able to stand in the doorway and to give the teacher the support and even move other students out so that there's less noise and less stimulation, then that would be beneficial to the student and you can address the behavior when the student is ready to be back in that place. So that's... I think that's... The real life examples help to really shed light on what was happening and what could have been happening instead.
19:40 FM: I'd like to share this one story, this is... It's almost like a watershed moment, at least for me, it was. If you remember where my office was located in the back of Spring Hill High School where we first started meeting in that small little closet. And up until that point, I did not know that that was primarily where most of the students who were dealing with challenges, disabilities, if you will, that they were actually... Most of their classes were back there where my office was positioned. And I remember once we developed the TIER strategy, I remember sitting in my office and the door was open, and it seemed as if... This is... It's gonna sound crazy, but this is an actual true... This is a true story. Whenever I looked up, I would see one of the students go by and it just... Our eyes would connect, that seemed crazy to me. So I knew that it was... Creating the nation's first disability policy for law enforcement was bigger than us, it was bigger than us.
20:52 FM: And I remember noticing that everyone seemed to say hello to me, or nod their head. That was crazy. And in that moment, Robbie, this is true, I got a phone call from my son's teacher who, at the time, he was in the fifth grade, and another student's parent came in for a conference, and this particular student had a disability that not many of the kids knew about, some socialization challenges that caused him to have some socialization challenges. And so my son... The parent actually wanted to commend my son for making sure that everyone treated and gave this particular student the opportunity to play in the football game, and how he... And it really broke me down honestly in that moment while I was penning what we came up with as a group into our template, our policy template.
22:03 FM: So I saw the student... Imagine, I saw the students walking towards me while they were changing classes, giving me non-verbal cues that they were behind me, and then to get the phone call in the moment from the teacher saying that my son, which was across town at the time, was being acknowledged by a parent whose child had a disability because he treated their child like a person should be treated. 'Cause the child would go home and talk about my son, "Siya this and Siya that." And so anyway, I just said... I just knew then that it was bigger than us because you have to understand, the law enforcement's a culture. And so when you start creating and changing and modifying policy within any culture, you're gonna meet with, depending on the change, a certain degree of resistance, and so I was having to fight with that. Luckily for me, the sheriff was in full support of it. And so at the end of the day, that's all that matters.
[chuckle]
23:19 RK: It goes a long way, yeah.
23:21 FM: It goes a long way, he was in support of it. And it's just, it's a natural resistance associated with change and we're still working through that.
23:30 RK: Yeah. I think we're systemically seeing the calls for change and that there's a real need for us to rethink what law enforcement interaction looks like and what supports are provided. Because outside of a school, law enforcement is so often the one-stop. It's operating on an island and has to respond to mental health calls, and responds to crime, responds to any number of things, and as a result, I think there's a lot of pressure for law enforcement to be everything to everyone and I don't know that that can work. I think that's what really made this policy so strong, was when a situation is fairly and well-managed that there's more room for the school psychologist to address behavior with that student afterwards because they're not in jail, [chuckle] and that student can get the support they need, and I think we're gonna continue to see the pressure for that in the conversation of what needs to happen in communities across the country to make sure that the supports are there, so that law enforcement isn't as necessary.
24:40 FM: Yeah. And if I may add to that, we have to get the... What we created in that room on a micro level, it needs to be reproduced on a macro level when it comes to racial indifference, when it comes indifference towards disability population. You don't get just to take care of your own. It's an unfair expectation that's self-created when you believe that you're only responsible for those who exist within your own backyard. It's a self-created expectation that we have to get rid of. We bear an obligation to see ourselves in those traffic stops that have gone wrong, where the use of force has been abused, if you will. And so I take and bring... I guess bringing the conversation slightly back towards racial indifference, people know that suburban America is policed differently, we just have to stop acting like it's not. And so when you have law enforcement acting as if it's not, then that causes problems.
26:08 FM: And let's just be honest, the only difference between drug usage in suburban America and impoverished America is that you get the good cocaine in suburban America. [chuckle] The keg parties happened, the drug usage happened, opioid use has taken off, but the patrolling directives are different. I can go to the suburbs and pull people for minor traffic violations all day every day, they're not better drivers in suburban America. And so we have to focus our efforts in the areas where predominantly African-Americans live? No, that's a choice to have selective patrol directives, that's a choice. And guess what? People know that. People know that. And so that's why we have to fix that. We have to address that.
27:21 RK: Absolutely. And I think we're seeing the effects of over-policing in minority communities, and we're seeing those impacts that it's become impossible to look away, and that there is change that comes with that. I think what's... The next place of the conversation and what I'm hearing more from organizers is the call for not just less law enforcement, but the same level of supportive services. If a neighborhood is dangerous or deemed dangerous, it's not likely to have parks programs for kids, that's just how it works. And because there's no parks programs for kids, there's nothing else for kids to do. [chuckle] And the decisions that come with that may, for some, lead to other law enforcement interactions, and their neighborhood's more likely to be policed. So it's over-policing and under-serving in a lot of ways with how communities operate. So I'm glad to see those calls rising. When we say, "What's a community with a reduced law enforcement presence look like?" It looks like the suburbs, because that's what... [chuckle] We see that already, that's just... That's kind of the answer to that question. But I think it's important that we continue to have these, and it's important that the disability community know that there is a role for people with disabilities in these conversations.
29:04 FM: Sure.
29:05 RK: And there is a role for everyone to look at your life, to weigh your position, to find ways that maybe you've had it easier, maybe that you have an increased voice and an opportunity to pass the mic and raise the perspective of the folks in your community that are seeing the problems if you're not. But the work is happening, the work is needed, vitally important. So glad that you share this conversation with me and that you are doing the good work that you're doing at Richland County, and Able South Carolina will continue to participate in the conversation and further the real human-hood of every person as it should be taken. We have to see past indifference and use our role to make the systems better.
30:10 Chris: Well, that was an incredible interview. Thank you, Robbie, and thank you First Sergeant McDaniels. I think the moment that stood out to me was the story that he told about First Sergeant McDaniels, when he talked about his son's teacher. So often people don't understand the disability experience unless you have a close family member with a disability or someone that you live with. Those that do, those people that do live with those individuals, they're the ones that usually end up becoming what we call the champions of people with disabilities. And I think it's because those people have the chance to see that person as a person and more than just a disability, they get to really experience what that life is like and understand that this is just a person just like me. And I feel like that same thing basically happened here in that when First Sergeant McDaniel's son, he basically taught him a lesson about how we should treat other people, and not just people with disabilities, but everyone and I think that speaks to this entire conversation that we've been having about racial disparities in America. And if we treat each other as equals and with genuine care and respect, then it just makes everyone's life better.
31:32 Chris: Okay, everyone, I think it's time for our big announcement. I know I've been putting it off long enough. I'm just gonna go ahead and say, I'm gonna let everyone know, I don't really care what the producers say, it's time, we're gonna say it. And the big announcement is... Drum roll, please.
[vocalization]
31:55 Chris: This is the final episode of The Access Aisle. That's right. In January 2021, we will re-emerge as the Stop the Shush Podcast with Sparrow and The Bear. So yes, this is our last episode of The Access Aisle. We're gonna be transitioning to a new format. I will be your new host, Sparrow, and I am bringing along a friend. Allow me to introduce your new co-host, The Bear.
32:29 Bauer: Hello, hello. Thank you, Chris. Yes, I am The Bear, also known as Bauer. I will answer to either name. I'm really excited to be with you, Chris. I'm really excited to start this new adventure with you. So yeah, very exciting things.
32:44 Chris: Yes, yes, they are very exciting things. We are going to be starting a new format, we're gonna be changing things around a little bit. The podcast is not gonna sound like it used to sound, so new year, new sound. Bauer, tell me, what are some things that you're excited about with this new podcast?
33:04 Bauer: I think the main thing I'm really excited about is all the different conversations we're gonna have, and I'm not just talking about with you and me, but the conversations we're gonna have with our listeners. We're gonna make this interactive, we're gonna ask for feedback from y'all. But having conversations about topics that we don't generally talk about, things that we push under the rug, things that we shush. Deciding to not do that, deciding to take all of those taboo topics and bring them out into the open, so that we can make the change that we need to see in our society, I think is a really important and a really exciting thing.
33:42 Chris: So how worried are you that we're going to get in trouble at some point with something that we say? [laughter]
33:48 Bauer: I'm usually a goody-two-shoes, so I usually err on the side of not getting in trouble, or trying to not get in trouble, so we'll see how exciting it actually does get. [chuckle] But yeah, no, I think pushing the boundaries just a little bit is not a bad thing within decency's sake.
[chuckle]
34:10 Chris: Yeah, we're gonna have some good... We're gonna have a good time, we're gonna make this thing fun, we're gonna make it lively, we're gonna bring in some good banter, we're gonna have some fun guests, and we're gonna talk about these things that we normally don't get to talk about. And so we want it to be focused on the consumer, we want it to be focused on people out there with disabilities, and getting a chance to give you a voice and to bring light to topics that you don't normally get to talk about. So that is our goal, that is what we look forward to. So Bauer, Bear, we will see you and we will see the rest of the crew in January 2021, and we look forward to it, and watch out for the Stop the Shush Podcast with Sparrow and The Bear.
35:03 Bauer: Thanks, Sparrow. See you soon.
[music]
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
The summer of 2020 was a time when America experienced a heightened awareness of the racial inequities in policing in our country due to the high profile murders of several Black Americans including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Though racial inequities in policing have always existed, serious conversations about the matter exploded into the public discourse.
In this episode of the Access Aisle we talk with someone who experiences both sides of the issue, First Sgt. Walter Shawn McDaniel. First Sgt. McDaniel is a 25 year officer with the Richland County Sheriff’s office and a Black American. He shares his unique perspective about healing the racial divide in our country as well as how the police and disadvantaged communities can work together to earn trust back and develop more of an understanding of each other.
Disclaimer
Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an Able South Carolina endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact us at advocacy@able-sc.org
Episode Transcript:
00:14 Chris Sparrow: It has been 11,059 days since the ADA was passed, and you are parked in the Access Aisle.
[music]
00:30 CS: I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Chris Sparrow, but you can just call me Sparrow, and I am your new host of The Access Aisle. Today, we have an incredible interview with Robbie Cop and First Sergeant Walter Shawn McDaniel, and stay tuned 'cause afterwards, we got some exciting news for you. So Robbie, go ahead and take us away.
00:56 Robbie Kopp: Today on the Access Aisle, I'm joined by my guest, Walter Shawn McDaniel. He is currently a First Sergeant with Richland County Sheriff's office, and we have had the good fortune of being able to work together on some law enforcement and disability interaction policy with Richland County Sheriff's Department a few years ago. So welcome. Good to see you over Zoom, Shawn.
01:23 Walter Shawn McDaniel: Good to be here, thank you for having me.
01:25 RK: Absolutely, thank you for taking this time. We're really living in a unique moment right now as we see the interactions of law enforcement under increased scrutiny, as we see lives lost like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and many, many more, presumably as a result of bias from law enforcement and risk to folks of color and people with disabilities. And what we're hoping to cover a little bit is a time to hear your perspective from law enforcement and as a person who's Black, and hear the interaction of where things are now and where things really could be and should be with acknowledging difference, and also making sure that we're looking out for each other and protecting each other. So with that, I'm gonna open up pretty broadly and let you share a little bit, what's the perspective that you've gotten? What are some of the things that you've been seeing inside law enforcement as we navigate and have a larger conversation around race?
02:35 WM: Sure. So, the narrative of racial indifference is not a new narrative, to be honest with you, it is not a new phenomenon that we're just discovering. And so I get a chance to speak from both perspectives, if you will, of 24 years of experience in law enforcement, working in different areas such as major crimes, armed robbery, aggravated assaults. You get a chance to see society from a different space, if you will, and trying to understand human behavior. It forces you to rely on instinct and to rely on your training, which is a key factor that hopefully this conversation will lead in that direction, 'cause at the end of the day, it's broken on both sides of the fence, and it's time that we each take ownership of that. To include citizens who are fully aware of racial indifference, gender indifference, socioeconomic indifference, and due to their silence, they've contributed to the protracted conflict associated with indifference. And so we need to do a better job at understanding what our contribution is, and so I look forward to the conversation. It's a difficult conversation to have. And so, of course, we have to be willing to hold it. We have to be willing to mutually learn on both sides of the fence.
04:06 WM: We have to be willing to allow space for emotion. That's crucial. If you don't allow space for emotion, please know that emotion will be heard one way or another. And when you're not allowing that space, you're almost forcing the hand of those individuals who feel slighted. They know something's wrong, they can't put their finger on it, and that's what we're experiencing. We're experiencing whites in general that typically can't seem to separate themselves from this statement like, "I don't see color." So we clearly know that that's not true, and I think I know what they're trying to say in terms of that, like, "I don't see color." Well, clearly, to not see color is equivalent to, if someone's in a wheelchair, for you to say, "I don't see anyone that's handicapped or anyone that has a disability." Right? So that's just unrealistic on a very basic fundamental level. And although you may have good intentions, it's actually offensive to say that. So if you don't see color, then that means that you don't see me, 'cause that my color is part of me.
05:24 WM: And so I think one of the things I've found throughout my walk within law enforcement, and as a Black man, is that many times, we pick and choose those battles in which we're willing to fight, and we pick and choose those battles based on our comfort zone and based on the familiarity factor, to not be willing to extend ourselves beyond that. I think that this is the end result of it. We've been trained to believe that we should focus on the differences. Let's just be honest, if you ask the average individual who's white in this country, if they would swap out their position for the position of anyone that's African-American in this country, very few of them would, because they can't put their finger on what's wrong, but they really... They know something is different. We can't suffer from what is known as the theory of attribution, we attribute certain behaviors to certain people or certain groups, and apply these parameters to them, such as, "Well, they're only like that because their home was broken." And we know that there are broken homes in the white culture and in the African-American culture and in every culture, there are broken homes. And so that theory of attribution doesn't really apply.
06:46 WM: So the position of a lot of whites today, "Well, slavery is over. Well, I never owned any slaves and you were never a slave, and so why are we still holding that conversation?" They think that by discussing it, we're perpetuating the old narrative. Well, I wanna say this to you, to those individuals, number one is, it's offensive. To say that the Homestead Act had nothing to do with the current socioeconomic positioning of whites today is equivalent to saying that the original creators of the phone had nothing to do with where we are with the phone and its usage today. And you can't separate the two. And so you can apply that to everything and anything. Our systems that are in place, that there is systematic indifference, there is systematic racial indifference, that prevent access to opportunity, that it creates the presence of demoralizing stereotypes for certain people. And again, not just racially driven, but also socioeconomic indifference. We look down on those that don't have what we have, right? And so we have to be honest about that. Everyone knows the one set of cousins that may not have what you have, but yet we tend to think that that's okay, and to be solid.
08:15 WM: And lastly, I think we all need to do a better job at realizing this one fact. Everyone is responsible for fixing and leaving this world better than how we found it. You don't get to just do it for your own race, you don't get just to stand by and... Or your own gender, or your own socioeconomic class, you don't get to do that, you don't get to do that. And so if there's a conflict, if there's an existing problem, you bear an obligation to take ownership of what your contribution is, even if it's silence. If you've utilized silence when you heard the N-word and you said nothing, then that's your contribution. If you recognize that there were issues in military, law enforcement, whatever field you're in, as it relates to gender or race, and you said nothing, well, that's your contribution. I'll end on that note, and I know I said a lot, but...
09:16 RK: Yeah. And I think that's so important that everyone take the time to find their role in the indifference, the racism, the ableism, whatever the -ism is, and do the work that's necessary to address that, not make it somebody else's problem, and not to make somebody else make you feel better or make you do... Or teach you something, but to really educate yourself and find your role and find ways to do better and elevate people as people and make sure that the footing is at least equal because of the systemic racism, ableism, transphobia... Pick a group. Marginalized populations have been marginalized, have been put down to a place where in order to reach equality, we have to address all of these past inequalities, and acknowledge them and own them and move past them. And I think that that's the challenge. And I think what has been giving me hope in my own work is seeing how communities are coming together to a point to acknowledge each other and acknowledge where each group is coming from.
10:35 RK: With violence and police brutality in the cases that we've heard, I think they have stirred something in everyone. In being able to see another human looking back at you, in the case of George Floyd, and hear the story of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, we have the same stories or... No story is the same, but similar stories from inside the disability community, from people of color and white people with disabilities, too, that are being targeted because of that difference or have received a death sentence for something incredibly minor that should not have happened that way, with cases like Maha Chaudhry and Laquan McDonald, and making sure that the stories have to be told, and we have to do the uncomfortable work of acknowledging how these biases really wreak havoc across systems. I wonder if you'll comment a little bit, I think there's a lot of terms that people are using in this space with these conversations, tell our listeners a little bit around your use of indifference as kind of a term that defines what's at odds in society right now.
11:48 WM: Sure. So when I use the term racial indifference or indifference as a general application, I am talking about that when indifference is fueled by implicit biases. And not knowing what those implicit biases are can oftentimes manifest itself in the form of indifference. And you end up utilizing whatever position you're in, whether you're an employer seeking to hire an interviewee, and you begin to project your implicit bias, and it evolves into the form of indifference. And next thing you know, that individual is not graded or considered to the same degree as someone else that doesn't trigger your implicit bias. So I think that's in law enforcement. And first of all, training in law enforcement has got... We can talk about that again. Training has gotta shift in law enforcement with respect to measurable tools that are transparent in the form of pre and post-exams during training to give us some sense of measurement with respect to proficiency, and to see how agencies are scoring in the areas of cultural diversity, implicit bias training, adverse childhood experiences, and to be able to grade an agency.
13:28 WM: How comfortable would that be to know that your loved one is traveling through a small town in Alabama, and you discover that they are being pulled over in a traffic stop? And in one quick search, you'll be able to find that they scored a... They're at the 92 percentile rate with respect to proficiency in the areas of cultural diversity, so you know that they're trained on it. That just creates discomfort that's needed throughout the country right now with respect to trusting law enforcement. So when I talk about indifference, I'm talking about the usage of implicit biases through the authoritative positioning of one's privilege or a job or status. That's what I'm talking about. And that also comes in the form of gender indifference. Oftentimes, whilst you're hanging around the cooler with the fellas, and a female employee will walk by and an inappropriate comment is made and you said nothing, you did nothing, you didn't... You're just as guilty as the individual who made the comment.
14:38 WM: And so yeah, that's what I mean by racial indifference. So when law enforcement began and when they start utilizing their position to effectively exercise their implicit biases. And they need to know what those are. We need to... And give them an opportunity to be coached through it. That's important, that's so important. You're the sum of all of your experiences, Robbie, and if you're a white male that never had to be around African-Americans before and now you're a police officer, and as a result of six months' worth of training, you're now given the authority to engage and interact with people who culturally, you're sincerely ignorant with in knowing how to deal with them, well, we need to know where your limitations are so that we can train you through that. We need for you to identify what your implicit biases are. We need for that officer to see the need to move beyond their comfort zones and to seek understanding concerning other cultures, to include those, the culture of disabilities. We're not trained in that area like we should be across the board.
15:53 RK: Yeah, and I think that that's a good bit of what we're hearing nationally around conversations that are termed "defund the police", and often refer to restructuring. How do we rethink policing? How do we give cops the tools that they would need to do their everyday work? Is that a different title? I think we see a lot of community work that falls in something that is kind of an emergency category that ends up being a law enforcement issue. If it's not fire, then it's law enforcement in a lot of cases. So I think that there's a lot of expectations from law enforcement to be able to interact with every last person, and that there's a lot of expectation that that situation may be inherently dangerous. And that's not always the case. So I'm curious, I think we've seen training as a helpful tool in that I think that there have been some best practices put forth around training. And I really like the idea of having an attributable number and the public being able to see this law enforcement officer, this department ranks highly or proficiently very well in that cultural awareness and sensitivity.
17:13 WM: So gone are the days, Robbie, of hoping that they actually provide, and hoping that the officers who are being trained internalize the training, and then hoping that they know how to apply it and allow it to become part of their daily routine. We can not only just rely on that. Respectfully, in good faith, we're not training on those areas, and we need to do a better job at that. And then we need to be able to measure it and hold them accountable for understanding and applying that in which that they learned. And we're not doing that, we're not... We say that we are. And I think when you open up the training curriculum to the public, I think that that level of transparency forces law enforcement to make some pretty sound decisions in how they administer training and how they measure it. And what's equally important is the need to go back and train where there's a void, the need to go back and... If someone scores a 74 in the area of implicit bias or cultural diversity, then we don't need to hope that they'll eventually get it. We need to know that there's a practice, a methodology, if you will, that's in place that will ensure that that particular individual is going to get advanced training, and that particular individual is going to be expected to meet a certain standard.
18:54 WM: Right now, with our department, if you fail our PT test on the third try, you are terminated. You are fired. And so with the same sense of urgency and the same level of importance that we apply to that aspect of our training. We need to apply to the areas of being disability-informed, being trauma-informed, being informed as it relates to implicit biases, being informed as it relates to adverse childhood experiences, and stop riding the boat of, "Well, that was then, this is now." Right? So I utilize the, again, the analogy of a track race. If we're all in the same race, but there are two starting guns, one allows one group of individuals to get ahead and to go two and three laps ahead, and then the other gun is for another group of individuals to, "Pow! Now you go." And then we're looking at them saying, "Catch up." It's just an unrealistic way of looking at how we have evolved as a society in this country.
20:21 WM: One of the biggest gripes for a lot of whites is those who are... I guess the best way to say it is this, Africans were not brought here to seek the same, they were brought here as property. And so now, when slavery was abolished, now you have to do... What do you do with these individuals? Now, they're just as educated, now they have access to books, now... That was the reason why. If you were caught with a book in your hand that you can suffer severe punishment. That was the reason, because of what we're experiencing now. And we're not going anywhere, to be honest with you. We're gonna live together, we're gonna work together, we're gonna move past what Martin Luther King coined as sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. And we're going to acknowledge how we've all created this problem, how we're all complicit in dealing with this cultural cancer. There is one overall culture, and that is the human culture, and we all share in that culture. We're forced to engage with each other. It's just, we have to stop falling subject to what Antonio Gramsci identified as hegemony and false consciousness, and realize that we're all in the hamster cage [chuckle] trying to figure out who's gonna get on the wheel next.
21:58 RK: Yeah, for sure. I think in my observation, there's just been so much division, and there's kind of this attempt to draw lines between groups of people, while there are systemic issues, while there are institutions that have been built on premises of racism or ableism. The lines that we draw are the biggest part of what separates, is that we have this opportunity to be human and to look out for each other and to care and to find your role in other people's struggle, and make sure that we're owning that role and covering that role and erasing the lines where they need to be gone and helping each other up where that's needed.
22:49 RK: And I think that that's what's really interesting in seeing a lot of the work that's taking place in communities across the country following the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, is that, I think a lot of other rights groups, and again, that this other mentality is probably off, [chuckle] but other marginalized groups are finding that same thread of indifference, or are finding that when there's one voice of rights, of human rights, that all boats can be lifted. We have cases of individuals with disabilities that are Black and can see that outcomes are worse, whether it's an academic outcome, employment outcome, earnings outcomes, or arrest rates. We see that where groups are marginalized and where they identify with multiple marginalized groups, there's even more barriers, and that that can be especially challenging.
23:58 CS: Thank you, guys, for such an eye-opening interview. I learned a lot there that I'd never really thought about before, so thank you. Part two of the interview is gonna be coming up next month for the Access Aisle. And like I told you before, we got some big news, so there's gonna be some big changes happening to the Access Aisle in the New Year, and we're really excited about it. We think you guys are really gonna love it and you're really gonna appreciate what we're doing here. So please stay tuned for next month, for part two of the Access Aisle interview with Robbie Cop and First Sergeant Walter Shawn McDaniel, and then we're gonna give you a little bit more information coming up in the next episode. So stay tuned for episode two.
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Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
In this episode of the Access Aisle, Able SC's Advocacy Coordinator Tiffany Namey, teams up with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina's Lynn Teague to share the specifics of how to participate in real-life advocacy. In this primer episode, the co-hosts share the many outlets for making your voice heard to decision-makers and how to make your message clear and effective.
Disclaimer
Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an Able South Carolina endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact us at advocacy@able-sc.org
Episode Transcript:
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00:14 Tiffany Namey: It has been 10,799 days since the ADA was passed, and you are parked in The Access Aisle.
[music]
00:34 TN: My name is Tiffany Namey and I will be your host for today's episode. We have a guest today, Ms. Lynn Teague, joining us from the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. For those who have not met me yet, I am Able South Carolina's new advocacy coordinator. That allows me to serve as an advocate for persons with disabilities and help create a community that advocates for disability rights, both here within our organization and outside in the community at large.
01:05 TN: We are going to start out for the first half of this podcast and talk about the basics of advocacy, what it is, why you do it, and very lightly touch on tips of how you do it. In the second half of the podcast, we are going to talk about how to find out about issues you may wanna advocate for in the disability community and getting involved in social justice organizations. So Lynn, can you tell us briefly, what is the League of Women Voters and what is your role?
01:34 Lynn Teague: The League of Women Voters is an organization of women and men, 100 years old. We came out of the Women's Suffrage Movement, and once women had the right to vote, it was felt that it was important that women help others register and vote and also be educated voters, informed voters.
01:56 LT: So also, we have an advocacy arm. So we are basically involved in both voter services, which is not my department of the league, and advocacy, which is my area in the league. I'm the vice president for issues and action for the South Carolina League and that translates among other things, to being lobbyists at the State House for the league.
02:20 TN: Wonderful. So let's get started on today's topic, "Advocacy." Advocacy is central to the Center for Independent Living's mission and that's what Able South Carolina is. There are a couple of kinds of advocacy. Today we are talking about systems advocacy, which is a fancy way of saying "advocacy in social or political change."
02:45 TN: And specifically today, we are talking about advocacy for disability rights, which is done when we work to create positive and meaningful change to bring awareness to barriers for persons with disabilities. So those are barriers that people with disabilities face in the community and we work to remove those barriers, but you can be an advocate for any kind of injustice you see. So just because you're a person with a disability, it doesn't mean you have to advocate for disability rights issues. Lynn, how do you define being an advocate?
03:26 LT: For me, an advocate is any citizen who wants to make their voice heard on their own behalf or on behalf of an organization that they're part of. You can either speak simply for yourself or you can become involved in an organization addressing a particular area. The League of Women Voters for example, has a very broad area of interest, but we focus very much on the government accountability and transparency issues and what we fondly refer to as "Making democracy work." So, an advocate is someone who speaks up especially to public officials about what they... The needs they see and the kind of solutions they envision.
04:11 TN: That is something that I grew up being told. My parents always taught me that if I see something that needs to be fixed in the world, you can't rely on anyone else to say or do anything about it but you. And I think a lot of people, especially people who come from minorities like the disability population, wonder if what they do really makes a difference or if their voice really counts. So if I were to ask you, "Why should I be involved in the political process?" What would you say?
04:49 LT: I think any time you don't speak for yourself, you're letting others speak for you, and they may not have your full perspective on the issues that concern you. I'm very glad that you mentioned "systems advocacy", because very often people will look at a problem for the disability community, I would imagine something like, "That sidewalk's inaccessible." But it's very important to ask, "What is the reason that this city doesn't have a rule on how these things are done, so that I don't just get this sidewalk fixed, but I look at how all sidewalks are designed for people with disabilities."
05:33 LT: So, I think it's very it's very important to take that broad view and to make... You are the person who knows what you've encountered in life and what your issues have been and what kind of solutions have worked for you. So, I think it's very important that we realize too that public officials expect to hear from you. You are not out of line somehow by calling your senator. [chuckle]
05:53 TN: Right.
05:53 LT: You are doing what any responsible citizen is entitled to do.
05:58 TN: I looked up some quotes on advocacy and one of our founding fathers in the disability rights movement is a gentleman named Ed Roberts. And he said, "The greatest lesson of the Civil Rights Movement is that the moment you let others speak for you, you lose." And I think that's a general... What you were saying.
06:22 LT: Yes, yes.
06:24 TN: And I think another thing to remember is, is that the people who are speaking are the people who are making the rules, and we hear a lot about, "Oh, the system is run by old white men." Or, "Oh, this system is run by this group or that group." But there is a serious lack of representation of persons with disabilities out there making laws and making rules, so we really do need people with disabilities to be involved.
06:56 LT: Yes, run for office. Don't just vote. Don't just talk to your representatives, run for office.
07:03 TN: Yeah. Or at least get involved. At least make sure you start out by talking to your legislators, vote and then run for office.
07:13 LT: And become involved in organizations whether it's Able or the League of Women Voters or whatever, that will help you learn how to advocate.
07:20 TN: A problem. I see a lot is people who are new to advocacy go to the wrong legislator for the right reason, can you tell us how to know if an issue is a federal issue, meaning you need to go to a congressman or a senator? Or a state issue, meaning you need to go to a state senator, or a state house representative? Or a municipal issue, so a city issue or a county issue?
07:55 LT: Well, sometimes it can be multiples, but we won't get into that [chuckle] today, 'cause you just need to have an entry point in the system. And in fact, determining the right entry point is crucial. And I use the example of a dear friend of mine who went to her state senator about a tree that was blocking a right-of-way in the city of Columbia. One thing that... One way to find out is to call somebody in you'll find... They'll tell you, "I don't handle that, so-and-so does." But for one thing, if you wanna find out who your representatives are and who your public officials are, if you can go online, scstatehouse.gov, if you put in your address, it will tell you who your senator, your congressman, your state senator, or your state house of representatives member.
08:43 TN: So that was S-C...
08:44 LT: Statehouse.gov.
08:46 TN: Scstatehouse.gov.
08:48 LT: Right. And county and city governments also have websites that will provide information. My experience has been that most of the people who handle public contact for state government, for example, are extremely accommodating and helpful. They will tell you if you're in the right place, [chuckle] but you need to figure out not only is it federal, state, city, or county, but is it executive, legislative or judicial?
09:17 TN: So executive means...
09:19 LT: Executive means the people who actually carry out the daily work of government. So if you have a tree that's fallen on a utility line, probably your city right-of-way people can contact the utility company and help do all of that and get it straightened out. If you, however, want to change how utility lines are managed in your city, then you probably wanna talk to your city council in your legislative branch. Congress is a legislative branch, the state house and senator, legislative, but county and city council are also legislative. They make the rules. Are you concerned about something that's how the rules are implemented? Or are you concerned about something that is how the rules are written? And so there you have that distinction. Judicial of course, that's when you come to a situation in which it has to be resolved by that third party, the judicial branch.
10:13 TN: That's if the rules that are written are wrong?
10:17 LT: Right.
10:17 TN: Yeah.
10:18 LT: And you can't get it fixed otherwise.
10:19 TN: Exactly.
10:20 LT: But very often you'll find that it's oversight. Years ago, my husband counseled me when I was upset about something to remember that usually ignorance is a better explanation than somebody actually having evil intentions.
10:36 TN: Right.
10:37 LT: So consider that they just haven't heard your voice yet and need to.
10:40 TN: Which is why we need more representation, we need more people being advocates.
10:45 LT: Right.
10:46 TN: So we talked about how to find out how to contact our elected officials, so we know what our issues are, we know how to contact our elected officials, we know who to go to, what do we do now?
11:03 LT: There are many ways to make your voice heard. There are public hearings that are organized for many issues, and I will say that these are indispensable, and at the same time, they're not enough, because they tend to be fairly superficial ways to get input. When you write to your elected officials, or for that matter, to a regulatory body like the Public Service Commission that might be handling how a utility issue is resolved, when you write to them, that's another way to get your voice heard. I do not encourage email as a usual way of communicating with legislators. It may work for some kinds of government offices, but legislators tend to be, these days, overwhelmed by bulk emails for their public email addresses. So you may not be heard if you just email, but phone calls tend to be effective. Often you'll speak to a staff member not to the actual public official, that's fine. Staff members do a lot of the work. They assemble a lot of the information, they do a lot of the research. Sometimes, they're closer to an issue than the actual elected official is. But if you call your elected official, you can discuss either with the official or with a staff member what your concerns are, and what you want.
12:22 TN: But an email is better than nothing for people who aren't able to physically write a postcard or a letter.
12:30 LT: And so if you do that, one little technical hint I would make is put in somewhere in the subject line that you're a constituent, concerned constituent on disability issue something like that, so they know it's not just one of thousands of emails from some made national organization.
12:34 TN: And if you can't go to the public forum, you can usually still make public comment on a public forum.
12:34 LT: Yes.
12:57 TN: If there's a county commission meeting or there's a listening session that's somebody's having, you can usually make a public comment even if you can't go. Most of the time, those people have public comment, is that correct?
13:11 LT: That's correct. And online official comment mechanisms are different from just bulk email. They are effective, they are effective to do that. Now, another thing though that I think people should be aware of is, usually online petitions are not tremendously effective and they're usually done not so much to affect the official, as for people who are interested and the organizations that are interested in the issue, to get your contact information. Who is it that's our audience? And that's fine if you want to be identified to that organization.
13:43 TN: Well, and joining social organizations is another good way that you can find out more about different ways to represent your values.
13:50 LT: Absolutely, because the league for instance, has 100 years of experience in how we advocate and we're very careful about how we analyze our issues, study our issues. I'm sure Able also is very careful about positions it takes and has established ways of communicating. And so when you're starting, it's especially useful to be part of an organization that will help you find your feet on how to handle it.
14:23 TN: So if you would like to feel confident and empowered to speak with your representatives, I'm gonna give a little advertisement here. We will be holding a training on the finer points of self-advocacy and talking points, how to develop an elevator pitch, making an ask, and all the things in between. This is a great way to get ready to participate in Advocacy Day for Access into Independence at the South Carolina State House, which will be happening on April 1st at the South Carolina state capital. So if you are interested in learning more about how to be an advocate, you have a great personality and you care about access and disability rights, you can sign up today. You can find out more information on the dates and times on Able's Facebook, Twitter, shoot us an email or just give us a call.
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15:33 TN: So once again, I am Tiffany Namey, I am advocacy coordinator for Able South Carolina, and I am here with my guest, Lynn Teague, from the League of Women Voters, and you are parked in The Access Aisle.
15:45 TN: We just talked about what advocacy is, why people should advocate for an issue, and how to contact a legislator. But I wanna take a break for just a second and talk about how we ended up here.
15:58 TN: So for me, I grew up in a very politically active family. My father was very involved in Democratic politics, my grandparents were very involved in Republican politics, and my uncle actually still is very involved in judicial races.
16:15 TN: So, I considered myself a fairly educated person when it came to current events, but I was suffering from a pretty bad bout of depression. And as a non-driver, it was really hard to fight at that time because I couldn't get out of my house.
16:36 TN: And so, my dad decided that he needed to take me to this debate watch party for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It was their first debate and it was at a local restaurant, and everyone seemed to be laughing at the same things and booing at the same things, and I had a panic attack.
17:00 TN: And so I walked outside and I was leaning against the wall and I was trying to self-soothe, and this man walked up to me and he was carrying campaign signs, he was wearing this Armani suit and he just started talking to me. And I wasn't... I didn't think he was a serial killer, he didn't... And you were raised, if somebody's talking to you and they're not dangerous, you speak back, that's just manners.
17:27 TN: And so before you knew it, I started feeling better. And he looked at me and he said, "You're too smart to be the princess in the tower." I'll never forget that sentence.
[chuckle]
17:40 TN: And I said, "Okay." And he said, "You're gonna come and work on my campaign." And I said, "Well, there are two problems with that. One, I already told you I have epilepsy, I can't drive. And the other is, I don't know what a property appraiser does." That's what he was running for.
17:58 TN: And so he said, "Well, I'm gonna send you a cab every day. And if you wanna leave, you just call it and it'll drive you home, I'll pay for it. And you'll learn what a property appraiser does, and while you're learning about it, you'll learn about my opponent. And if you don't think I'm the best person for the job, stop coming." Well, you can't really say no to that. It kind of sucks up all your arguments, right?
18:22 TN: So I started working for him and before you knew it, other people wanted me to start working for them and started gathering petitions and volunteering on other campaigns. And then I started working in the disability rights movement and now here I am. And so, that's how I got involved in advocacy.
18:41 TN: I love it, I love what I do and I love the opportunity that I have to be here. I feel like I have a purpose. And through all of it, I actually decided to go back to school, which I never thought I would do, and I actually got a degree in public administration. So, I have a degree in doing this.
[chuckle]
19:08 TN: Which is just amazing. [chuckle] 'Cause as a person with a disability, we're told a lot of times all the things that we can't do, and there were people telling me all the things that I could do. And now, I wanna tell everybody what they can do too. And I think that's really important that we need to share that with people, we need to be going around telling each other what we can do. And that's my advocacy mission. So Lynn, how did you get involved in the League of Women Voters?
19:44 LT: Well, the short answer is a friend caught me at a meeting and said, "You belong in the League of Women Voters."
[laughter]
19:52 LT: The longer answer is that from childhood, there have been issues around South Carolina that I really felt needed addressing and many of them have to do with social justice and how the system works here. And I was gone for many years, my career took me to Arizona as an archaeologist for much of my life.
20:13 TN: That's a cool career.
20:15 LT: Well, some days it was, some days it's not so much.
[laughter]
20:20 LT: But when I retired, my husband and I both retired, and we moved back here, 'cause we love South Carolina, we really love its people and the place. And so for a while, we were very occupied with family matters, but when that started to be less compelling, we were looking for other things. My husband got involved in art which many people like to do when they retire, and I got involved with the League of Women Voters, and it turned out to be the perfect home for me, because it's issue-oriented not partisan, very non-partisan. We are extremely careful about that, and issues are what propelled me. Now, I absolutely respect people who are very engaged with partisan politics, but it's different from what suits me personally.
21:09 LT: And I would also say for anybody who's trying to make their own voice heard, do not make assumptions about partisan divides. You will find people in both parties that will listen to you and be helpful. You will find people in both parties who will not. You need to keep an open mind, and you need to always remember that somebody who may be on your side on one thing may not be on your side on everything, but that's okay. You don't have to agree with everybody on everything. So that's... I found the League of Women Voters, and it was the right place for me, because that is an approach that suits me.
21:48 TN: You're obviously from South Carolina. South Carolina is something that you're passionate about being a resident here. I just moved here from Florida, can you tell me and our listeners where we can learn more about political advocacy and grassroots involvement, both in the Columbia area and in general. Obviously, they can come to League Women Voters meetings, they can get involved in Able's Advocacy Day. What are some other resources for them?
22:24 LT: Well, once you get involved with any organization, or even just visit the meetings of any organization, you'll run into people like myself who work with a wide variety of organizations. For instance, here I am talking to Able.
22:38 TN: Right.
22:38 LT: And so you can go to people who are involved in advocacy and say, "My main passion is this, do you know of an organization that's focused on what I want to work on?" And those people who are already engaged are gonna be your easiest route, and then can tell you, "Yeah, you know, Able works on what you are concerned about. AARP is very active in the area you care about. Here are the people you need to talk to." So I would strongly recommend going to meetings for a few likely organizations, talking to people, and starting to refine your idea of what you wanna work on, 'cause you can't do everything. Nobody can do everything. What is it that you really are passionate enough about that it will carry you through? And by passionate, I mean deep caring. I don't mean you have to be hyper-emotional.
[laughter]
23:34 LT: And I would just say that when you're talking to public officials, they get a lot of very emotional appeals. Very often, what will actually motivate them is when you can give them some solid facts, some substance. You say, "I know what I'm talking about." And if you're a part of an organization that can help you know what you're talking about, have the information you need. That gives you a leg up. You don't have to re-invent the wheel.
24:02 TN: Yeah. And that's one of the tips we're gonna give you at our advocacy class is we tell people to make sure you bring a folder, and we try to encourage you to bring two, one for you and one for the legislator. That way if the legislator is looking at it, you have something to reference for yourself. But that folder should have some hard information in it about what you're talking about. So some statistics and maybe an op-ed which is an opinion piece from a newspaper or a study from a university, something that can back up what you're saying. Maybe going back to her sidewalk example, if you have an article about where somebody got hit by a car on your street, because they didn't... You don't have a sidewalk, a study about how pedestrian fatalities are reduced when you have sidewalks in subdivisions.
25:15 TN: When you have those kinds of information, and then you're able to put your contact information and leave that with the legislator and then the legislator goes, "Oh, do you have one for my friend?" And you say, "Yes, I do. You can have mine as well." And so that way, you have that hard information, and you're not just going, "This is what I want, because I want it," but you can go, "This is what we need as a community, because we need it." And so we're gonna show you in our advocacy class here how to put that together, how to assemble it, what it looks like.
25:58 TN: And if you're looking for resources to get involved in disability advocacy in particular, I wanna give a few shout-outs. You can go to www.unlockingbarriers-sc.org. You can go to https://www.facebook.com/SCAccessIndependence/. You can go to ablesouthcarolina.org. You can go to AAPD.org, that's the American Association of People with Disabilities. Go ncil.org, that is the National Center for Independent Living. #CripTheVote on Twitter is a non-partisan social media community of people with disabilities who talk about politics. That's really great to watch if you're watching the debates online right now, you can get a cross-disability platform view of what's happening in politics. It's absolutely fabulous.
27:09 TN: And I encourage you to check out organizations with your specific disability or disabilities, but make sure that they are run by persons with disabilities in leadership roles with empowerment of persons with disabilities in mind. The Center for Independent Living's model is a cross-disability model run by people with disabilities for people with disabilities. You wanna make sure you're not looking at organizations that are run by people without disabilities for people with disabilities, 'cause they're not always empowerment oriented. And you may wanna also check out intersectional organizations, ones that are specific to other demographic groups that you might be a part of.
28:02 TN: So no matter where your passions are, it is important to get involved. When the voice of the disability community is at the table, there are benefits to accessibility, diversity, and inclusion across the board. The disability community in South Carolina needs you to speak up, and our intersectional rights organizations need you too.
28:22 TN: So I wanna talk a little bit about what it feels like to be involved and be a self-advocate and set some reasonable expectations and goals. So let's start off talking about some of those reasonable expectations. We don't always get what we want right off the bat, and that can feel hard. People who feel differently than us aren't always nice either. I know we talked about how sometimes people with political opinions can be accessible, and they can be easy to talk to, but sometimes they're not [chuckle] so is that ever hard on you? I know, before we started the podcast, we were talking about people who changed the schedule at the last minute.
29:20 LT: Right.
29:23 TN: So let's talk a little bit about what it can really be like.
29:26 LT: Okay. Well, first of all, most public officials and especially those who are elected public officials, try to be pretty polite to the public, and you need to distinguish, first of all, between whether somebody's not being nice to you, and whether somebody's just disagreeing or saying that they can't do what you want. In my experience, you are much better off dealing with somebody who's honest about what they will and can do for you than you are somebody who's going to just smooze you and tell you everything will be fine, and they forget about it the minute you walk out the door.
30:04 TN: That's a very good point.
30:06 LT: And so one of my earliest experiences was sitting down with Senator Larry Martin who was then chair of Senate Judiciary in South Carolina, and I told him what I wanted, and he smiled and he said, "I can't possibly do that for you."
[chuckle]
30:24 LT: And I quickly learned that Senator Martin was one of those people who would tell you the truth, and I learned that there are other people that you go to and they, "Oh, that sounds really good. Yeah, I'm really interested in that." And then they'd never follow up. So respect those people who will tell you the truth and that at least let you know where you are [chuckle] and plan accordingly. I have found that it's not that often that people are genuinely rude or unpleasant when you're doing advocacy, even the side from the elected officials. It's really pretty uncommon in South Carolina especially where people value manners. I did a little bit work with the legislature in Arizona, and I will say that there were legislators there who would really stand out like a sore thumb here for their rudeness, but...
31:16 TN: It can get pretty brutal in Florida.
31:18 LT: Yeah.
[laughter]
31:20 LT: But you need to talk, not only with your public officials, but with people who have an interest in your issue that may be opposed to your interest, because if you can work things out with them, if you can find a compromise, then you go to the official with, "Here, we've been talking, and we have something we think, it maybe isn't perfect for either of us, but it works better than what we have."
31:44 TN: Right.
31:44 LT: That public official is going to really respect and appreciate that you've come part of the way to the solution, and those people who disagree with you, again, it's a disagreement on an issue, it doesn't mean that they're bad people.
32:00 TN: No.
32:02 LT: Now and then, it does.
[laughter]
32:05 LT: But mostly the... Mostly, it simply means they have different priorities, or they have a different background, different information. Sometimes sharing information will change that difference, but sometimes it won't, and then you just go on and find where you can find common ground.
32:19 TN: So what benefits do you see in your life from being involved as an advocate? What is the best feeling that you get at the end of the day?
32:35 LT: I'd say, actually, some of my best moments have been when I found a way forward on something that seemed intractable, that seemed really hard to resolve. And sometimes, if you just poke at a problem from different angles, you'll find that there is a solution. There's a wonderful cartoon that I wish I could present, but it shows a cat in a carrier trying to figure out how to get out of the closed door, and the top is off the carrier. If you focus too much on the problem rather than the potential solutions, you can lose sight of things. It's immensely gratifying to see something actually happened for the public good, because you were able to work with people and find a way forward. It's something that I value a lot.
33:32 TN: For me, I think the best feeling is when I am able to work with somebody who started out having a difference of opinion and I'm able to get them to look at something from another side, or when I change my mind. I think... I tell people all the time that when I started this journey, I never would have thought that I would be a person who uses first person language, and now I'm the biggest advocate for first person language, and it's like I didn't realize that I didn't have respect for myself. And so it's funny that sometimes the best feelings are the feelings when we change our own mind, because we're learning. And I think that's the point, right? We want all of you out there in podcast land to get those feelings of pride and community and empowerment. I've made so many life-long friends and people I consider family from being involved in advocacy.
34:49 TN: And you can have that by by being involved in... We want you to join us at Advocacy Day for Access and Independence on April 1st and meet people and get involved. And join other organizations, join the league, join anything that you think represents you. And if you have never been to Advocacy Day for Access Your Independence, it's a great chance to listen to the disability community leaders and policy makers rallying together to bring awareness to disability rights issues. And that is on April 1st, it is on the South Carolina Capital steps. And another reminder: If you are interested in meeting with legislators, at Advocacy Day, you can sign up for our advocacy training class, where we will be covering ways to make you feel more confident talking to law makers in more detail at the Abel, South Carolina Columbia offices or by webinar.
35:54 TN: So, for more information on Advocacy Day or training classes, check out Abel, South Carolina's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, send us an email, or give us call. So, with that, do you have any closing remarks, thoughts...
36:11 LT: Yeah, I think very often people think, "Well, why are they gonna listen to me?" And when you're dealing with fairly small governmental units like a house district in South Carolina, there really are not very many people who are very vocal in dealing with their representatives, and they pay attention to the people who are. And even getting input cards or postcards, phone calls, whatever from 15 people will definitely get the attention of a member of the House of Representatives in South Carolina. So don't assume that your voice is lost.
36:50 TN: I think our stories, our unique experiences, for the sheer fact that we are the people that we are, go just a long way, you know? Just people who come together and have a community, people who are residents of the state of South Carolina bothering to come and talk to our legislators. It's... Such a small percentage of people vote. I mean, even a smaller percentage of those people actually bother to talk to their law makers, and so just for that they will listen to you. Harness your inner power, be an empowered person, and remember your law maker works for you. You are the voter, you're the one who gives them their job, right? And don't be snotty about it, you know, but have that...
37:49 LT: You don't have to be snotty about it. If there's anything an elected official thinks about all the time it's, "These people I'm dealing with either vote for me or won't."
[laughter]
38:00 LT: You don't have to remind them.
38:03 TN: I would like to thank my guest Lynn Teague, Vice President of Issues in Action of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. And I would like to thank all of you for spending this time with me today. I hope to see all of you who are South Carolina residents at self-advocacy class and Advocacy Day for Access into Independence on April 1st. You have been parked in the Access Isle, a production of Abel, South Carolina.
[music]
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Disability PSA: Voter Registration 2020
Join Dori Tempio and Sydney Arsenault, our hosts, as they discuss how to register to vote and why voting is so darn important. Register to vote now at scvotes.org where you can also find other helpful voter information.
Disclaimer
Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Able South Carolina interns, board members, and staff are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Able South Carolina or any of its funders. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact Able SC.
Transcript
[music]
00:13 Sydney Arsenault: It's been 11016 days since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
00:19 Dori Tempio: And you are parked in the Access Aisle.
[music]
00:32 SA: Welcome everyone. My name is Sydney Arsenault, I'm a Master's level Social work intern with AbleSC.
00:39 DT: Hi, I'm Dori Tempio. I am the director of Community Outreach and consumer rights for Able South Carolina.
00:49 SA: Dori, I'm so excited to be here with you today because we're talking about something we both really care about, which is registering to vote, we're in the middle of an election year, so it's important that we're all registered and ready to make our voices heard on November 4th, the election day.
01:04 DT: You got it Sydney, I have been a proud voter for years, and I am so excited about the opportunity for people with disabilities to register to vote. It's extremely important for people with disabilities to get out and vote so they can have a say in the legislative decisions that affect their lives. People like you and me, people with disabilities, we elect officials from the president and senators, on down to our local towns council people and judges. It's important because we have the opportunity to either support or block improvements in disability policy with the way we cast our votes. So whether it's benefits and employment, health insurance, home care, criminal justice, equal pay, accessibility and more. When we get out and register to vote and then cast our vote, we have opportunities to participate in the community. As a person with a disability, I have been voting for years. As a disabled voter, I have been using many different methods to vote over the years, I have used in-person voting, absentee ballot, and curbside voting. With each of these methods of voting, I have used what we call reasonable accommodations, and all people with disabilities have access to those tools and supports, they need to cast their vote.
02:44 DT: So if you wanna learn more about reasonable accommodations or ask questions about support you may need to vote, please don't hesitate to ask us at Able South Carolina, and we are happy to support you in any way that we can.
03:00 SA: That's exactly right. And thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. We wanna make sure that everyone is out there fighting for the issues they care about, and one of those ways is by voting. And there are a few requirements we should keep in mind while preparing to register to vote. You need to be at least 18 years old before the next election, you need to be a United States citizen, as well as a resident of South Carolina in the county and precinct in which you are registering, you cannot be under a court order declaring you mentally incompetent, you cannot be confined in any public prison resulting from the conviction of a crime, and you can not have a conviction of a felony or offense against the election laws. Or if you do have a previous conviction, you must have served the entire sentence, including probation and parole or received a pardon for this conviction.
03:57 DT: As Sydney just mentioned, there are so many different ways you can register to vote, that include online, in-person, by mail email or fax, South Carolina offers online voter registration, you can register by mail, email or fax to vote in South Carolina, by printing a voter registration form, filling it out and mailing it to your local election office. Or if you're like me, I prefer to register to vote in person, so you can go to your local election office and register in person to vote.
04:34 SA: Yeah, even though there are so many different ways, they all pretty much ask for the same information, this includes your date of birth, your social security number, and a South Carolina driver's license number or ID card number. If you don't have a license or ID card, you can use a current utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck or other government document that shows your name and address in the county you're trying to register. This license and ID requirement is not necessary if you are a voter with a disability, a member of the US Uniform Services or merchant marines or their families, or a US citizen residing outside the United States.
05:18 DT: Don't forget, the fastest way to register is online at scvotes.gov, you will need a South Carolina driver's license or ID card to register online. And remember, if we don't vote and we don't have an ID to vote, when we don't have an ID to vote, it can cause sometimes in-person voter impersonation and can make us feel less confident in the election process.
05:49 SA: Right. And we wanna protect our right to vote and make our voices heard. We'll be back with more information on voting logistics closer to election day, so please stay tuned. But in the meantime, if you have any questions on registering to vote, please go to scvotes.gov or contact Able and we can send you in the right direction.
06:10 DT: Thank you for listening. And make sure you get out to vote.
06:14 SA: You have been parked in the Access Aisle a production of AbleSC.
[music]
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
Wednesday Jun 10, 2020
LGBTQ+ Pride Month Panel
In this episode on the Access Aisle, Able South Carolina’s Asha Jones celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride Month with panelists Dr. Julie Edwards and Effy Francis who are members of both the disability and LGBTQ+ communities. Asha, Effy, and Julie discuss the importance of community, ways to improve access, and give personal perspectives on life as a person who identifies as a member of multiple and sometimes conflicting communities.
'The Access Aisle' is a production of Able South Carolina.
Panelists
Asha Jones is an EQUIP leader at Able SC who is a non-binary lesbian. Asha is passionate about disability education because she wants other people with disabilities to take pride in and advocate for themselves. She also wants to make society more accepting and accessible as a whole.
Dr. Julie Edwards is a queer and disabled activist raised in Columbia, SC. Julie earned her doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy. Her activism focuses on rooting out inequities in the healthcare system. She looks forward to continuing to build community and solidarity locally so that more disabled and/or LGBTQIA+ individuals will run for and be elected office.
Effy Alece Francis is a queer, non-binary trans person with physical and psychiatric disabilities, working, living & advocating in the south. Licensed as an esthetician and professional makeup artist, when they are not working in the beauty & wellness industry they are pushing for equity, inclusion and social justice in every aspect of life.
Disclaimer
Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Able South Carolina interns, board members, and staff are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Able South Carolina or any of its funders. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact our Director of Advocacy and Community Access.
Transcript
[music]
00:14 Asha Jones: It has been 10,911 days since the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed and you are Parked in The Access Aisle. June is Pride Month, a time where the LGBTQ+ community celebrates our various identities, histories, and our resilience and resistance. Members of the LGBTQ+ community come from various backgrounds and many of us are also people with disabilities. It is estimated that over one-third of LGBTQ+ people are also people with disabilities. I have two panelists here today who are members of both communities. Would you all go ahead and introduce yourselves with your name, pronoun, and a little bit about yourself? My name is Aja Jones and I use she/her/hers and they/them/their pronouns. I am a non-binary lesbian. I am an EQUIP leader at ABLE South Carolina, and a fun fact is that I'm currently watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
01:07 Julie Edwards: My name is Julie Edwards. I use she/her/hers pronouns. I'm your local bi-pan queer cat lady. I have three cats and a dog who acts like a cat. I am an activist, I've done work with Indivisible Midlands as well as other local organizations. And excited to be here.
01:23 Effy Francis: And my name is Effy Francis. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. I'm a non-binary transgender as well as pansexual person. As far as work goes, I'm a licensed esthetician and make-up artist by trade, so love to beat me some faces, make 'em look cute, working on skincare, [chuckle] do it for all my friends. And then I am also a queer and disabled activist on every day that ends with Y.
01:50 AJ: Awesome, thank you so much. The first question I have for you is: What do you think the importance of community is for people with disabilities as well as the LGBTQ+ community?
02:02 JE: I'll start. Communities are where a lot of people on the fringes of both communities find themselves. I have had Type I since I was nine, but I didn't really understand what being disabled meant until I found a community on Twitter. So I really stepped into owning my disability status, identifying as disabled, and it brought me a lot of connections, a lot of hope. Hope and joy are where our communities shine, for me at least. And especially in this moment of this pandemic, we're all dealing with so much loneliness, and reaching out to people that we know that have similar life experiences to us is kind of a tether in all the storm that's going on right now.
02:46 EF: This is Effy. So I honestly think that community for any marginalized group is everything, but honestly, especially because I identify with both groups, but especially for disabled people and folks in the LGBTQI+ community. If we're going by history alone, we know that people with disabilities have traditionally been segregated from society, and so that's why the recent film on Netflix, Crip Camp, I really, really loved. It's, I think, a radical insight into what community looks like for folks with disabilities. I mean, as it turns out, we are just like everybody else. We have friends, we like exploring our sexuality, playing instruments, having dance parties, literally everything that non-disabled people do, we just literally have differing access needs. And going along with what Julie said, the same goes for the LGBTQIA+ community in that we have both faced such societal stigma. The phrase, "Nothing about us without us," is what first jumps to mind for me, which was really spearheaded by the disability community and now I hear it everywhere. So it's really cool that that resonates with people, and I think it really shows that having that peer-based kind of community is so, so important.
04:11 JE: Yeah, in this pandemic time, queer people are especially going to be at risk for losing their jobs. It's hard to get hired if you don't present the way society expects you to already, but I think one thing that is so amazing about our communities is how we provide mutual aid for each other. If you know someone's out of work, well, I know three people I can ask to throw in $10 and maybe that person gets to eat that day. And while we still fight for the structural changes that need to happen, it's a beautiful thing to see our communities aid each other.
04:42 EF: Absolutely, kind of my mantra lately. Community Care. Who takes care of us? We take care of us.
04:49 AJ: Agreed. I really agree with that. Community is so important and we do take care of each other. My next question is a sort of follow-up to that. Since you both are both advocates and activists, would you mind telling a little bit about your advocacy in these communities?
05:04 JE: Sure, I'll start. My actual first foray into activism was after the Pulse massacre. I, like many in the queer community, just was devastated by it and I felt like I had to do something. So I started on Facebook reporting gun sales that were not supposed to be happening, and that got me interested in especially online activism, being a disabled person. And so I've helped several movements. I'm Type I diabetic, so I'm involved with the Insulin For All movement providing affordable, I want free, insulin to diabetics everywhere, 'cause it is such an expensive medication and our community is very tightly bonded. We are always crowdsourcing insulin for people. So that's the stuff I do on a day-to-day basis.
05:48 EF: That's fantastic, Julie. So I actually got my start into advocacy and activist work as an EQUIP leader with ABLE South Carolina, kinda what Aja's really excelling at today. I worked as an EQUIP leader from almost the beginning of the program's inception as a year-round program, not just a six-week summer series, and I did that until about two years ago. So aside from sharing my lived experience as a disabled young adult, I really, really focused my advocacy work on things like sexual health education and LGBTQI+ intersectionality for the disability community. Some examples of that were I served on a coalition such as SAASH, the State Alliance for Adolescent Sexual Health, and representing an event such as the Safe School Summit, which was an annual summit to highlight the kind of violence that happens in schools and for young adults, when it comes to bullying and all the things that intersect with that. And so I really focused on how that impacts students with disabilities, young adults with disabilities, as well as I eventually, really came into activism as a Fat Liberationist and pushing for openness around that as well.
07:14 AJ: Thank you. So we've already started touching on this. What topics and issues do you think overlap between communities?
07:21 JE: The one that I think most people in the LGBTQIA community don't fully realize is that not all disabled people, including queer disabled people, can get married. If you rely on Medicaid, it could be very possible that getting married would remove your status for Medicaid. I am currently in that situation, and so it gets... I try to tell people that marriage equality hasn't fully come all the way to everybody and that the fight's not over. So that's definitely one area that overlaps.
07:52 EF: Julie, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you brought that up because I feel like that is an issue that constantly gets overlooked. So thank you for bringing that up. For me, while I think there are a lot of similar overlaps between the queer and the disability communities, such as things like under-representation and things like media and educational curriculum, both communities deal with micro-aggressions and systemic prejudice, and both communities have had their own prominent civil rights movements in the US. There are still, however, certain ways in which our stigmas are actually complete opposites. And I really noticed this doing advocacy work for young adults, is that while queer folks are hyper-sexualized, disabled folks tend to be de-sexualized and presumed to be asexual, therefore not needing sexual health education. And where queer folks are vilified and viewed as deviants, disabled folks are pitied and viewed as incompetent. So I just think it's really interesting how both these communities intersect, both of them grow through a lot of similar barriers. It's just interesting to see how some, they are complete opposites and I think that's really something that needs to be accounted for.
09:11 JE: When I was in pharmacy school, I got a chance to really see how systemically-oppressed queer people are, as well as disabled people in the medical community. As far as even just accessing queer-affirming, trans-affirming doctors here, it's difficult sometimes. Even having coverage to go see those doctors, very expensive, and our state has not expanded Medicaid as it should have when the ACA passed. So unfortunately, disabled folks, queer folks, and then, especially, black-queer-disabled folks are at such a high risk of being overlooked by the medical community. And you see that playing out in this pandemic where black people are dying at such a higher rate of this, and we know why. And as a queer disabled person, I have a doctorate and I still have a hard time getting doctors to take me seriously, to listen to me. And again, that's where it comes back to community, is sometimes you can't find doctors that do that and your community's gotta be there for you to either help you find new providers...
10:15 JE: Honestly, there's been times where I've seen people who realize that they had a condition that they needed to get seen, thanks to communities talking. But those structural ones, especially medical racism, is one that cut... It's intersectional struggle. We have to look at those that are most at-risk and try to get them what they need. And so I think Medicare for All and those plans, that if we were able to get there, think of all the disabled people who currently are underemployed because maybe they need the Medicare. I'm on SSDI, I need my Medicare and Medicaid. I can't really go work part-time right now 'cause I am too ill to, but if I were feeling like I could, it's sometimes difficult to then have health coverage. So having universal health coverage is gonna allow queer disabled folks to open up businesses, it's gonna allow them to start non-profits more easily because that side of it will be taken care of, so that's something that I'm passionate about.
[music]
11:29 AJ: There are issues people face as people with disabilities and there are issues that people face as queer trans people. What issues and topics do you think are important that happen in the spaces where that crosses, when these identities come together?
11:45 JE: One issue, I guess, is who we're centering when we have our stories told, queer disabled people.
11:52 EF: When looking at things like I believe discrimination and misunderstandings in both disability and LGBTQI+ spaces, as somebody with these multiple identities, this is where things get frustrating for me. As someone who both has a significant disability as well as being a gender and sexual minority, I have found that despite both communities having so many intersections and so many shared oppressions, it's still really difficult to find a place where both my identity and access needs are respected at the same time. So in queer spaces, it's often very difficult to find things like specifically, disability inclusion, whether it's architectural accessibility, accessibility via ASL interpretation, image-video captioning, being accommodating of neurodivergency, etcetera.
12:49 JE: Absolutely. I stopped going to some conferences because I just got so tired of being overlooked. Conferences especially, I've just had a hard time, and that's an area where we could employ queer disabled people to have sensitivity training, access training. You need to make sure that your movements are open to not just queer people, queer disabled people. Our stories matter and we want to tell them, but we got to get where we're able to do so, and being overlooked, it hurts.
13:19 EF: And kind of on the flip side, in disability community spaces, I have honestly found it personally near impossible to have things like my identity and my pronouns, as a non-binary person, respected and used. So I think there is still a lot of work to be done as far as disability inclusion in the queer community and queer inclusivity in the disability community, and I'm trying to do everything I possibly can to marry the two and make it easier for people like myself who have these multiple parts of our identity, respected and taken seriously.
13:54 JE: I also really felt that in higher education. When I was in grad school, being queer and being disabled was really tough to navigate in a conservative, professional environment. And that's where so much growth could be done, and it's just the sort of respectability thing that people expect from queer people and queer disabled people. Breaking down the notions that we have to use the tone of voice you wanna hear to tell you why you're wrong. [chuckle] But in Higher Ed, it was tough because I didn't wanna be seen as deficient in my program and not deserving of my degree, but what was really happening was that my professors weren't taking my access needs seriously, they were punishing me at times for it, for time missed or different things. And I know that it's really hard in academia for queer and queer disabled people to get positions where honestly they do a ton of good as far as inclusion and access.
14:53 EF: As somebody in both the communities, one thing that has been really helpful with me is honestly the app Twitter. It has really become a space that I feel like activists within the disabled community have really been thriving. It's given a lot of visibility, especially in terms of activism. And so that's one of the places where I feel like a lot of people can learn from and access what these activists are doing in real time.
15:25 JE: Yeah, sometimes I'll just actually Google disability hashtags, and I often find people with big platforms, they'll have little write ups of these hashtags like, "Disabled people are hot," or, "Disabled isn't a bad word," or... There's a bunch of hashtags, and I always find people to follow and talk to and connect with through those, again, through Twitter.
15:47 AJ: Thank you for sharing that. I'm gonna have to also say Twitter has been a wonderful resource for me, connecting especially with disability activists and also just the peer support that you find there online for either community. And for those who are a member of both, there's lots of peer support out there, and that has been very helpful for me to learn more about myself and be able to do the things that I want to do because I've spoken to people who have been in similar situations before. So thank you for that.
16:18 JE: I would say another resource is find queer artists. If you're into music or arts or things, Columbia has a great art scene that is always open to finding new people to add to. So once we get past where we can have people and gatherings in larger spaces, the arts community is always where you find resilience, and the people that are the most resilient are the ones oppressed at these intersections. So that's another place that I tend to find friends.
16:50 AJ: Well, thank you. So my next question: What would make the LGBTQIA+ space and disability spaces more accessible for their members who are a part of both communities?
17:04 EF: Honestly, I just want both communities to have better awareness of each other, and honestly, even going beyond awareness, acceptance. We have so much in common, so much overlap in the folks that make up these communities. I just want people with these intersecting identities like myself and Julie and Aja to feel seamlessly at home in both groups. And I know with the autistic community specifically, pushing for not just awareness, but pushing for acceptance. And I think that can be carried into this kind of situation as well. 'Cause it's like, we know we exist, other people know we exist, and I think it's more of just a matter of pushing for not just knowing we exist, but actually how to accommodate us.
17:56 JE: And even past accommodation, how to put people like us in power positions, in the positions that a lot of time traditionally, if it's the LGBTQI movement, it was generally white gay men as with cis men as the face, and getting more people who are disabled and queer in these positions where we can have change and make it more accessible for disabled people is really important, that sort of pass-the-mic mentality.
18:27 EF: Oh, absolutely. Julie, I think you hit it on the head earlier. It's just thinking about, who are we centering in these communities? Who is underrepresented? I don't think it's a matter of speak up for the voiceless, which is a terrible way to phrase things. I think it's, exactly, it's pass-the-mic, give people the opportunity and the access to speak up for themselves.
18:52 JE: Yeah, there's one specific thing that tears at my heart specifically, that cuts definitely both, is if we think about incarceration, how disabled people are treated in prison. I don't see a ton of activists or disabled activists that are specifically focused on abolition, I wanna find more of them, because I've seen stories of how chronically ill and disabled people and queer trans folks in incarceration situations. I don't think that advocacy for them gets talked about nearly as much as it should, especially in a state like South Carolina.
19:29 EF: Right. School-to-Prison Pipeline is one that definitely jumps to mind affecting...
19:33 JE: Exactly.
19:34 EF: It's affecting primarily people of color, black people especially, and intersecting, again, with disability, folks with psychiatric issues that are deemed behavioral and then just get, honestly, shut down by the system, which it was built to do. So, again, [chuckle] so many good things.
19:53 JE: Exactly.
19:54 AJ: Both people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ people are over-represented in the carceral system. And when you factor in race, especially with black people, the disparities become even more obvious. So thank you for talking about that. So my next question is: What experiences do you have with pride in those communities, and how do you show that pride?
20:18 JE: Pride through art is just so beautiful to me, the art that people create in these challenging times, whether it be Effy and I, we both love make-up and to express ourselves through that. But visual arts, all of it, Pride Month gives me joy like it should and that sense of community in times where society wants to separate us, Pride is very much a coming-together moment. So, for me, I just, I like to hang my Bisexual Pride flag outside my house, do bright make-up and have fun. Unfortunately, this year it's up in the air whether people will be able to gather, so I'm interested to see the creative ways that people have Pride this year and create that resilience art that's just inspiring and makes me wanna keep fighting.
21:09 EF: I think the way that I have and show the pride that I carry in both these communities is super radical. So between reclamation of the term 'queer' as an all-encompassing term that I feel really fits both my gender identity and my sexuality, and then something like embracing identity-first language for describing my experience as a disabled person. Language, honestly, I think can be a really great way to show pride because it's not just who we are, it's how we describe who we are, and through language especially. I don't like to use all of these euphemisms for my identity, like the hashtag campaign Say the Word. I think it's really important to highlight that disability, disabled, it's not about something...
[overlapping conversation]
22:03 JE: There's one that disabled people, Disabled People Are Hot. That is a good one to check out, that hashtag.
22:10 EF: Yep, created by Andrew Gurza. Yeah. [chuckle]
22:12 JE: Exactly. There are such great hashtags that disabled people... It's been so joyous to see expressions of sexuality, like you said earlier Effy, that normally are ignored by society or people are surprised that disabled people are sexual, and it's just... [chuckle]
22:28 EF: Right.
22:30 JE: It's odd to me at first because I've never considered that being the possibility or the reality. But Pride, I think also educates people who are not part of either community about how they are treating people in the communities. And again, like you said, modeling language, teaching a lot of... I don't like Allies as a term, but people that show solidarity with our communities, teaching them how to use the language and then go out in their communities and help spread this acceptance, awareness, is also just really important. It's hard to measure word-of-mouth change, but it is one of the most foundational ones, is teaching people in your life who you are, how they're not respecting you potentially, but how they could do better and how they can show you love. 'Cause that's what both communities really do survive on is the love that we find in our communities.
23:25 AJ: Thank you for those wonderful responses. I definitely look forward to seeing what Pride looks like this month. And I hope that we find a way to show that sense of community and to share that love, even though we may physically be separated. And I think the disability community does a good job of that too. So perhaps that's something that we can share. My last question is: Moving forward, what changes are you working on or what changes would you like to happen within these communities, how these communities interact with each other?
23:56 EF: I can jump on this one. So like I mentioned before, my advocacy work has always really been specifically tuned to highlighting the similarities between these two communities and how we're so much stronger together. I guess, as an example, I attended a trans and queer-focused camp within the last two years and while it was an amazing experience, I was able to join other campers following the event, other campers with disabilities, and pushing for better future accessibility. We actually came together as a group and put together a letter that we sent to the non-profit org that was hosting the camp. And honestly, we saw some really great change through that advocacy work, and I think that's just a testament to the kind of work that we can do together. And honestly, that's just the hope I carry for not only the future, but for the present. I think we do place a lot of hope in talking about the future, but also, we have the tools we need to make the present better now. And I think through these group advocacy efforts for both ourselves and on behalf of others, we will reach full inclusion no matter where or who we are.
25:18 JE: Yeah. And sort of building on that, I think one of the most important thing any movement or community or non-profit or activism group, whatever you... You always need to be looking inward and being introspective about who you're leaving out in your org, who's not being listened to, and just to really address things within the community, such as fat oppression, racism in both communities. It's... And talking about language, I see a lot of times people in my queer community, unfortunately, using language online that's very disablist, making fun of mental illness, calling different political leaders fat, and trying to get them to understand that our struggles are united because no one is free until we all are. So a lot of introspection I think needs to be done constantly, not just when if there is any sort of incident or outrage, that's not necessarily the time to... Introspection should be going on all the time. And that's what I like to, when I talk to new, younger activists, really get into their head about really taking a step back.
26:35 JE: 'Cause sometimes you want to help something so badly, but you don't realize you're not giving the help that the person needs. If that's the case, then there's really no point in organizing or doing what you're doing. So that's a really important thing moving forward that really all communities need, but especially our queer and disabled communities.
26:54 AJ: Thank you all for Zooming in here today. Any final remarks?
26:58 EF: Yeah, just as a final comment on what we've been sharing today, and Julie, I really, really think you hit it on the head there at the end is, I think inclusion is not an end goal, it's a journey, and it's one that never ends. And so, like you said, I think we need to constantly be introspective, we always need to commit ourselves to once we know better, we do better. It's not offensive being called out when you're using the wrong language, doing something that is not actually helping the community you're trying to help. Going on the intent-versus-impact model, I think we just need to be mindful of what our impact is and I think that that will really help this inclusion that we're trying to reach. But Aja, thank you so much for having us on here today.
27:58 AJ: Yeah.
27:58 EF: It was really great to be able to speak on our experiences.
28:01 JE: I was gonna add just one last thing. I wanna speak to some of the listeners out there right now who maybe haven't identified with the community fully. Pride as a queer person and Pride as a disabled person aren't time-sensitive. Just because you aren't visible and loud in your work that you're doing as a queer disabled person, it's not time sensitive. We welcome you with open arms to the community, but it is all about self-exploration too and figuring out where you fit in, where you need support and where you need community. So if you're not quite there yet, it took me time to identify as disabled, but once I did, I found so much love and support, that I just wanna encourage people to look for communities 'cause it's a lonely time right now.
28:47 AJ: Thank you all for being here today and thank you to our listeners. ABLE South Carolina is here for you and we want you to be here with us, so subscribe to our email, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and contact us by phone. You've been parked in The Access Aisle, a production of Able South Carolina.
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