Reid My Mind

Exciting high energy music begins!

THOMAS: Welcome to the Blind-Centered Audio Description Chats. These are the edited recordings of the Blind-Centered Audio Description Live Chats!
CHERYL: The live is the most fun part! We get together, we start with a question, and then we invite up anybody from the audience who wants to come and chat with us, agree, disagree, shed light on something that we hadn’t thought about before, which is Nefertiti’s favorite. [electric whoosh]
NEFERTITI: I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, and I’m a bilingual professional voiceover artist who specializes in audio description narration! I’m also a fervent cultural access advocate and a community organizer.
CHERYL: I’m Cheryl Green, an access artist, audio describer and captioner.
THOMAS: And I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer Reid My Mind Radio, voice artist, audio description narrator, consultant, and advocate.
SCOTT B: Hi, I’m Scott Blanks. I’m a passionate advocate for the highest quality audio description in all of the arts. I’m the co-founder of the LinkedIn Audio Description Group and the Twitter AD community.
SCOTT N: Scott Nixon here. I’m an audio description consumer and advocate, hoping to be an audio description narrator very, very soon. [electronic whoosh]
THOMAS: Hey, Nef, why don’t you tell people how they could join the live recording?
NEFERTITI: That’s really simple. Just follow us on social media to keep up with important details, such as dates, times, and what platform will be using. On Twitter, I’m @NefMatOli. Cheryl?
CHERYL: I’m @WhoAmIToStopIt.
THOMAS: I’m @TSRied, you know, R to the E I D.
NEFERTITI: How about you, Scott?
SCOTT B: I’m @BlindConfucius. That’s Blind Confucius.
SCOTT N: And you can catch me on my social media, Twitter only. That’s @MisterBrokenEyes, Capital M r Capital Broken Capital E y e s.
[smartphone selection beeps]
CHERYL: Recording now!

NEFERTITI: I’ve noticed-and let me know, folks, if you have noticed this too-but a lot of things, like there’s a lot of fervor when something happens, and you stick something in our craw, and we get all up and like, aggh! And then the next thing happens, and it kind of just stays there.
SCOTT N: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: I think it’s high time that we stop doing that as a community, whether you be a blind consumer or a blind professional, a sighted professional, a sighted consumer, it doesn’t matter. Whatever AD means to you, we wanna talk about it here throughout these conversations, always ensuring top notch quality is at the forefront with, of course, you know, ’cause if you know anything about Cheryl, Thomas, Scott N. and I, Scott B., and I think I can say this about you, Scott N., as well, we are anti-racist, anti-ableism, anti-anything that keeps anybody out, including access to information.
SCOTT N: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: And that’s audio description. So, that’s my little spiel.
THOMAS: I know we all here have our own opinions on what makes up quality audio description. I wanna hear from other people. What does that mean? What are the elements that make up quality? And so, we know we start with the three basic, right? The script, the narration, the audio mix. But what else makes up quality audio description to you?
SCOTT N: I’ll start with what my idea of quality audio description is. And like Thomas said, it’s the basics. It’s the script, the engineering, I think. But the proper choice of narrator is absolutely paramount. And there’s been a big discussion, I know Thomas has been speaking about it quite a bit recently, about the cultural side of having the right narrator to the right material. And a brilliant example of this has recently come up with our friends at Descriptive Video Works who did the audio description for the new Predator movie, Prey, over on Disney+. When they did it, they had a very tight turnaround on the audio description track. And then the director of DVW was horrified to learn that the lead in the film was a member of the Cherokee Nation, and they didn’t have someone culturally appropriate providing the audio description. They’ve written to Disney+ and offered to redo the audio description with the right cultural sensitivity in at least the script, if not the narrator itself. And so far, Disney haven’t gotten back to them. So, that’s a really good example of the company being proactive and forward thinking and willing to do the work to get it done, because that cultural sensitivity and competency really does enhance the work of audio description. We all know, for example, what I call the Black Panther disaster, where a movie entirely produced by African-American filmmakers was given a very bland British narration. And I’m just sitting there going, “Did someone colonize audio description over here or what?” So, yeah, that’s my two cents for now. Scott out.
SCOTT B: So, this is Scott B. speaking, and…it was interesting, Thomas, you talked about the three basics. And I know that you-and we all know about it-but I think you left it out intentionally so someone would pick this up, which is I wanna point out two things. One, when you write a script and you have a narration, there needs to be a balance, a check and balance of quality assurance, and it needs to be in that process somewhere. It can be in a couple of different places. We can get into the technical about that. But there needs to be QC. And I am going to say that I think, as this is an artform and an accessibility tool that has been developed by and for blind people, quality work is a very good match for blind professionals as a job, potentially as a career or part of a career. Every piece of audio description that is created, brought into existence needs a QC balance. That’s point one.
Point two, just as a general comment about audio description quality. I think a lot about acting. Acting is an art, and it’s something that has been going on for as long as we’ve been around. And they didn’t just start acting and say, “All right, we’ve done it. This is as good as it gets. We’re doing it. We’re just gonna keep acting and doing exactly what we’re doing here.” There are schools. There are schools of thought. There are method acting. There are as many different things that have continued to evolve acting. Audio description is here, but we don’t stop. We make it better. And what making it better means might be a no, it is a subjective question, but it is undeniably something that can be made better on all counts: writing, QC, engineering, narration, all of it. And that’s Scott B. for now. I’m done.
NEFERTITI: Nefertiti speaking. Beautifully said, all of you. Thank you so much. And since I did invite Robert and Colleen up to the space or into the space, let’s hear from them. How about you get us started, Robert? Welcome.
ROBERT: Hello, everybody. I’m a blind audio description writer, and I’m kind of biased when we talk about audio description quality because I think that the script is like the main foundation that makes up the beautiful cake, right? So, when I think of quality, I start with the script and then work out from there. Recently, just as an example, as a totally blind person, I’ve been really thinking about how do describers, how do they put sizes into words that a lot of people can comprehend? Like, for example, if you’re congenitally blind, you don’t really have a point of reference for something like something is “gargantuan” or “gigantic.” So, what I’ve been trying to do in my previous few scripts is use terminology like, “it is the size of a locomotive” or something tangible like that. So, that kind of thing could also go into quality control. But those are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had about quality, and are writers really reaching the audience that they’re writing for? So, that’s it. I’m all done. [delighted chuckle]
NEFERTITI: Colleen!
COLLEEN: So, hello. My name’s Colleen Connor. I am…I am an advocate. I do a lot with audio description, but I primarily run Audio Description Training Retreats, which is developing virtual curriculum for all different types of audio descriptions and categories of audio description. And I’m also on that weird subject matter committee [laughs] of people in the US that’s working on creating a certification for audio describers and trying to sort of get it moving and get it…I feel like…. I don’t know how many people have sensitive ears here, but I recently just was like, “Do I have to be the bad bitch of audio description?” I don’t, I might have to be the [laughing] bad bitch of audio description.
NEFERTITI: Be the bad bitch, okay?
COLLEEN: And so, I am trying to bring lots more voices to the table. I’m trying to, you know, specifically bring as much education and keep things up to date and involve my former students and stuff like that. So, unfortunately, I haven’t done in-person training in a while, which was always lovely. The reason we’re called Training Retreats was because we used to take people to a lake house in North Carolina and do an entire retreat situation while you learned audio description. But the pandemic sort of threw that out the window. The benefits of that are that I have now reached way more people across the globe. And similar to this meeting, it was, “What time do we do? Okay, it’s 2 AM where you are. Thank you for joining us. I’m sorry.” [laughs]
SCOTT N: [chuckles]
COLLEEN: “You’ll be learning an activity that is very nuanced and challenging. Congratulations.” [laughs] So, yes, that’s me. I’m happy to answer any questions. I am not shy or easily offended, so.
SCOTT N: Colleen, it’s Scott Nixon here in Australia. I just wanted to congratulate you on the work that the retreats have been doing over the past couple years. And I just wanted to mention, I sent you Allyson Johnson a few years ago. You’re welcome. [laughs]
COLLEEN: [gasps] Yes! I am welcome. Yes. She, I’m so happy. So, I follow you on Twitter, of course. You know this.
SCOTT N: Mm.
COLLEEN: And I was wondering if it was the same Scott Nixon that she had mentioned. And I was like, I’m not sure!
SCOTT N: Yeah. For those of you out there who don’t know, Allyson Johnson is a very well renowned audiobook narrator who has done literally hundreds of audiobooks over her career. And a couple of years ago, I reached out to contact her ’cause I was such a fan, and we’ve become very good friends. And she was talking to me about how, you know, what else I do with my life. And I mentioned audio description one day, and she said that she was looking for something to branch out into to get a bit more work and give her life a new direction and everything. And I told her about audio description. She found Audio Description Retreats on her own and went to them, and the rest is history. And now she’s done some very good work. Queen Sono on Netflix and also Jupiter’s Legacy on Netflix are both two shows that she has audio described and did absolutely magnificent jobs on both. So, go check her out. And the movie Arrival as well, the sci-fi movie, yeah. So, yeah. Nixon out.
NEFERTITI: Excellent. Oh, my goodness. Well, Colleen-
COLLEEN: I’ve had a lot of….
NEFERTITI: -it’s so good to have you.
COLLEEN: One of my, one of my things that I’m really, really passionate about especially is as soon as the student reaches out and is of color or of something different [laughs], I am like, “Hello! How are you? What’s your financial situation? We’re gonna figure it out because you’re coming in.” [laughs] Because it was…. I started in 2015 with the company with a friend of mine, Jan Vulgaropolis, and it was just this, you know, sort of what we touched on before, the cultural awareness of it was, it was still be colorblind, meaning we don’t wanna offend anyone, so we’re not gonna mention anyone’s race at all unless it’s relevant to the plot directly. And then in the, in lieu of being, okay, well, we don’t wanna offend anyone ever, so we’re not gonna say anything. So, we’ve also erased everything as well. And I don’t…. [laughs] So-
NEFERTITI: That is the consequence of that, right? If you say, you know, if nothing, if nobody is nothing, then where are we? Where is everyone? The default becomes the majority, and for a lot of us, that’s just not the reality. What happens with all that?
COLLEEN: Yeah. My brief, very long-sorry-thing would be just the, hilariously, brevity and conciseness in description. I think one of the main quality points is even if you are doing extended description, [typing in the background starts] it is how do you get across what we need to know without extra? And how do you prioritize-especially if you are doing inline description, standard, in between the dialogue description-you don’t want the narrator speaking 100 miles an hour, and you don’t want to have two words and dead air where we wonder, did the track stop? Did….
NEFERTITI: Right.
COLLEEN: What happened? So, I think prioritizing. And like I said, just how do you, brevity, you know. Each word meaning something and not like fluff.
NEFERTITI: Yeah. I don’t know if you’re hearing that, Colleen, but I hear somebody typing.
THOMAS: That’s me.
NEFERTITI: So, someone’s out here taking notes.
THOMAS: That’s me.
NEFERTITI: Is that you, Thomas?
THOMAS: That’s me, that’s me.
NEFERTITI: Okay.
THOMAS: I said, I’m gonna write down all of the things that people say for quality.
NEFERTITI: Yes!
THOMAS: And so, I just wanted to write that. I meant to mute myself. So, sorry.
NEFERTITI: No, no. This is, I’m loving that we’re hearing that because we want y’all to know we’re taking this very seriously. We are writing this down. You know, we are taking notes. [laughs] So, keep this gold coming.
COLLEEN: So, over and out. But I’m happy to answer questions, contribute, whatever y’all want. I’m glad I made it in. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Me too. I’m glad.

THOMAS: Cool. Glad you came, Colleen.

CHERYL: So, I have a question around quality, but specifically about passthrough, which may sound like a technical term to folks new to audio description. But the idea that, let’s say we provide audio description for a film, it’s gonna have a screening, and then it goes to a festival, but they don’t pass the audio description through. Or you know, we do a film, and then it gets on Netflix, and they redescribe the whole film with a Netflix-approved vendor or something. So, it’s a real issue in the industry that different platforms and distributors and festivals are not passing through the audio description. And so, the question is, can talking about quality be a way to incentivize passthrough? Like, why even make it good if it’s gonna be used once and thrown away and then redescribed at the next screening? I mean, I think it should be good, but it’s a question. Like, why are, what is the role of quality in relation to passing through the audio description and keeping it as part of the film?
SCOTT N: Oh, Nefertiti, may I speak on this for a moment, please? [conspiratorial chuckle] I have strong views on passthrough. [sighs] The fact that a audio described program or film’s audio description track is not automatically made available to all services, all platforms, whatnot who wish to stream it or broadcast it or whatever I think is a travesty! This garbage excuse that broadcasters and streamers put out of, “Oh, it’s licensing and copyright issues,” that should be null and void because all it is, is restricting access for people who want audio description.
Just for example, I’m only gonna use this as a pure example, the new Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon. It is only audio described on HBO in America and HBO Max where available. We don’t have HBO Max in Australia. We are never going to get HBO Max in Australia. The broadcaster that airs the program here in Australia have an actual company policy that audio description will never be provided unless the government legislate that it has to be because they don’t deem audio description to be a cost-effective strategy. They don’t think that they’re going to get enough blind subscribers into their pay TV, into their cable service to justify the cost of setting up audio description. So, and this is with a lot of shows, not just House of the Dragon, with a lot of material. The Paramount+ streaming service do not pass through any of the audio described content that they have on the service in, say, the Americas and the United Kingdom. Well, actually, the United Kingdom are in the same boat as us. They just don’t pass it on and palm us off by saying, “Oh, it’s because of licensing issues,” and things like that.
So, passthrough is very, very important. It’s something that needs to be looked at desperately. And as for Cheryl’s comment about it being rerecorded, that is something that I think needs to be looked at as well, because it can be a quality control issue. Perhaps the original audio description is something that Netflix or Disney+ or whoever don’t believe is up to their standard, and that’s a discussion for them and the vendor who originally audio described the content. And I think there’s a way that they could work together to make the script better and so on. But yes, passthrough is one of the biggest bugbears that I have in the industry at the moment. Nixon out.
THOMAS: Hey, this is Thomas. I wanted to jump in with a thought about passthrough. And Cheryl, you just kinda stirred this because the same way I personally would have liked to see Black Panther not pass through and someone have an opportunity to redo that. So, what happens when, yeah, when it’s not up to par, passthrough is an opportunity to actually fix it, right, to make it better. Also, Scott, and I’m wondering what you think about this because say something is described here in the States, and there are some differences in the language used to describe things in Australia, for example, you know, those of us who have experienced AD from the BBC, y’all know what you get it from. [laughs]
SCOTT N: [laughs]
SCOTT B: Mmhmm!
THOMAS: You know, we’re familiar with “boot,” you know, and “the lift” and all of that.
SCOTT N: Yes.
THOMAS: Does that, how important is that to you, having the local language, local references?
SCOTT N: I do believe it’s something that can be looked at, but you have to think about the audio description landscape in Australia at the moment. You guys are the Jetsons. We’re the Flintstones.
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT N: We have no audio description on free-to-air television. Two of our government’s funded stations have it, but only for a maximum of four hours a day. There is no streaming service that provides audio description, no Australian-based service that provides audio description. And the audio description companies that do operate in Australia are on shoestring budgets, screaming out for money, and just don’t have the time or the capability to do what they want to do. I would love a world where audio description could be done for American and British programs with an Australian voice. I think there is a market for it in some aspects. But at the same time, the Australian landscape has been so saturated with American and British programing over the years that quite a few of us would be more than happy to deal with the American or British versions of the AD as long as we actually get it. And we’re not actually getting it. That’s the thing. Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, those are the three places you go to in Australia if you want audio description on a streaming service. That’s it. Nixon out.
THOMAS: Okay. So, let me, I just wanted to ask another one just again, thinking about this, is what would y’all think about a service where you got to choose the audio description? So, for example, you have a film, and there’s multiple versions. So, all of these versions that were created, they sit on a repository somewhere, and you choose the one. And maybe that would have, let’s say it had the producer’s name, the writer, the narrator. And based on those things, based on your history with that, you would choose which one you wanted to hear.
SCOTT N: Oh, that…
THOMAS: [laughs]
SCOTT N: …that my friend, would be the dream. Again, [laughs] that is, that is beautiful.
SCOTT B: Yeah.
SCOTT N: If, say, I was able to go to Disney+, pick out Star Wars episode For a New Hope, you’d have the current version read by Miles Neff, you’d have a modern version read by Jedediah Barton, and you’d have an Australian version read by Scott Nixon. I didn’t say that out loud, did I?
THOMAS and NEFERTITI: [laugh]
NEFERTITI: I’ll listen to that!
SCOTT N: [laughs] You’d be able to pick that. I really do think that is a fantastic idea, Thomas, particularly since we are now reaching the point where we do have multiple versions of an audio description track for a film or a TV series floating around out there. Because whilst our community does not endorse in any way the concept of online piracy, we do know that it does exist out there, and there are places where you can get three, four, even up to five different versions of a film with different narrators. And there are times when you go in and you go, “Ah, I like this version, but this version is way better.” Or you get more from version A than you do version B. It’s all about writer, narrator, and so on.
THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SCOTT B: This is Blanks. We’re going by last name. Is that what we’re doing, Scott? Okay, I’ll do that.
SCOTT N: Yeah. [laughs]
SCOTT B: I can do that. I have my little flask of water that I’m gonna throw on this just a little bit, I guess, with the question, which is we’re seeing all of the non-passthrough that’s happening now, and this is a beautiful idea. But how do you get all of these people to work together on something entirely new when we can’t get them to work together with the platforms and the systems that are already in place to even pass these things through?
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT N: Yeah.
SCOTT B: I mean, this is why we’re here, right?
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT B: This is why you’re here to try to answer some of these questions, ’cause it breaks my brain quite a bit to think about how does that happen? How does that happen?
THOMAS: Yeah. And I’m not, yeah, throwing it out there. But I’m also throwing it out that for the next part of this, which is, and it kind of goes back to what I think Cheryl was talking about, because that would be a wonderful way of really getting into this comparison and seeing, well, what is quality? Getting back to that whole subject. Which one of these are really quality audio description? Because you can have one, you know, and all of it is subjective, right? All of it is subjective. But there are things. I mean, there’s good scripts, and there are bad scripts. There’s bad writing. We can agree on that.
SCOTT N: Mm.
SCOTT B: Sure.
THOMAS: I think the subjective part is mainly like, or the objective part, rather, is mainly the voice, right? Wait. Did I say objective or subjective? [laughs] So, yeah. So, basically, everyone has their own opinion on whose voice they like. So, that’s sort of that side of the thing. But I think we can agree on the script. But that would be, it would just be an interesting comparison to kind of weed out what is quality and all of that.
So, I mean, I know we talked about keeping this to about an hour, and so I’m wondering if we could get into some conversations of what we do, what can we do to influence…influence the industry? Because we didn’t talk about the fact that, well, how do we get the industry to really center blind people and blind and low vision people? Because right now I’m not sure if that is the case when it comes to audio description. I don’t always feel as though we are at the center of this. And there’s many reasons that I feel like that. Number one, I think this conversation about quantity and quality really does come down to who is being centered. Because when we talk about the quantity and really going for that, I think quantity, that whole, that kinda relates back to the whole compliance, let’s just get it done because the government is telling us we need to get it done. And that, to me-
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm. Checking that box.
THOMAS: Yeah. That, to me, brings about the Amazons, the AI, and all of that.
SCOTT N: [growls]
THOMAS: That’s what that’s about. And I think we all, the majority of us probably agree that that’s not really quality, you know, and we’re not centered in that conversation. That wasn’t about us. That wasn’t about bringing a good product to the people. That was more about, again, checking that box, like Nef said, and just making sure our numbers, and we do it efficiently, right? We do it on the cheap. That’s what that’s about. So, we’re not centered.
NEFERTITI: Do it on the cheap, do it at scale.
THOMAS: Do it at scale.
NEFERTITI: And check that box and, you know, keep it moving.
THOMAS: Right. And make sure Bezos could get to space. That’s what that was all about, right?
NEFERTITI and SCOTT N: [laugh]
THOMAS: So, we’re definitely not at the center of that, right?
NEFERTITI: No.
THOMAS: But the quality, the quality conversation, we’re at the center. I think that’s really about us because we’re the ones determining what the quality is. We should be the ones who are determining what the quality is. So, how do we do that?
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
SCOTT N: It’s a really, to use a desperately Australian term, a real sticky wicket to be able to get everyone to the table and explain to them, “Yo, you guys work for us,” type thing. ‘Cause at the end of the day, they’re all, a lot of the companies are squabbling amongst themselves, trying to churn out product as best as they can. There are some people out there who are low balling and cutting other people’s lunches, so to speak, and taking work when they end up churning out a product that we as consumers don’t find acceptable. But the, [sighs] the problem with that is, even if it is a crap…a crap turn out of the service, we are still going to listen to it because we need, because we need to be able to listen to the audio description to enjoy the program. If it’s something we want to watch, let’s face it, we’ve all put up with an AI at one point because we’ve just wanted to hear what something is like and be more part of the experience. So, it’s really turning around to these companies and saying, “Yeah, okay. You’ve done it. You can do better. Let’s show you how you can do better and show you that if you do better, we will give you more money. We will come to your service more often. We will recommend it to our friends.”
NEFERTITI: Uh-huh.
SCOTT N: So, yeah, that’s pretty much where I stand. Nixon out.
NEFERTITI: Hey. I just invited Darius, who requested to speak.

DARIUS: Hello!
NEFERTITI: There you go. Welcome!
DARIUS: Howdy, everybody.
NEFERTITI: Yes!
DARIUS: How fantastic. I just woke up and saw this on my phone. I was like, oh, wow. It’s audio description chat. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Excellent. Where are you from?
DARIUS: I’m from Australia actually. I’m from Melbourne. So, hi there.
SCOTT N: Hey! One of me!
DARIUS: [laughs] Hi there, Scott. I think I’m following you on Twitter actually. At some point I’ve been following.
NEFERTITI: He’s very popular, Scott N. [chuckles]
DARIUS: So, I’m working in film production, and I run a post-production house. We do a lot of feature films. And audio description is something that we do a lot of putting them into DCPs and things like that for cinema screenings. And I think just talking on the point of how do you kind of center quality, I think two observations that I’ve sort of made, ’cause we’ve just recently had the Melbourne International Film Festival has just wrapped up. And I noticed that in the usage of audio description devices in the cinema wasn’t sort of really being tracked at all. And I think that there’s a sort of a missed opportunity for them. And so, I suggested to them, I was like, “Hey, we got to, you know, we should actually be looking at some stats on what’s the usage of these.” Because I think that when you think about, going back to passthrough as well with like, organizations going, “Ah, we don’t think it’s gonna be useful enough,” I think it kind of comes down to perhaps a lack of information from them. Because I think that if more people knew, I don’t think audio description has been used that much if at all, I think it’s because nobody really knew that, actually, a lot of the sessions at MIFF had audio description.
And on the other side around quality, I’m always with this sort of new frontier stuff, we’re thinking about how I can convince directors and producers of things. And I think a lot of directors, at least in Australia, the audio description’s like, it’s very much like a, it’s part of the contractual delivery requirements. They don’t really understand what it is. They’ve never used audio description before or tried listening to it on Netflix or using a device in the cinema. I think that a lot of them would be sort of mortified if they heard some of the degree of quality that the audio description is being done for, because ultimately, they’re the biggest champions of their content that they’re putting their life and blood into. So, I think that that’s probably one of many different facets of improving quality is education for the directors, because they’ll champion it as well, because they want everyone to experience the film or their content in a strong way. Darius out.
SCOTT N: If I could just jump in here for a second. Darius, will you marry me?
SCOTT B and SCOTT N: [laugh]
SCOTT N: But seriously, mate, that is-
SCOTT B: Yay!
NEFERTITI: [laughs]
SCOTT N: That is the, I couldn’t have put it better myself when it comes to the Australian industry. Please, DM me once the Space is over. You and I really need to talk.
DARIUS: Yeah, I would love that. I would love that, Nixon.
NEFERTITI: Oh, my gosh. That’s what I’m talking about: bringing people together. Yes.
SCOTT B: This is Scott Blanks. And it’s really interesting. I think the data, the point about data is really important. There are a lot of people who will hear more if we can communicate with data as well as with stories, as well as with the impactful stories of audio description.
The other piece that I think is important here is it’s not, it’s nothing really innovative about it, but we know in the sort of the big group of big players in streaming or networks, there’s some good work happening. In fact, there’s a fair bit of good work happening. And some of those companies might be models that we want to think about ways to get some of these other streaming companies or networks or movie studios to somehow follow. I don’t know how that happens, but I think one of the things that makes it possible is we bring people together. And how do you bring people together? You have to establish, well, something like this Space, and it has to be an ongoing Space, and people have to get to know it and have to think about it as a place where they can come together and talk and learn [FaceTime call rings] and be challenged and be okay with that. We have, there are good cultures of accessibility and audio description quality happening in some places. There are people in those places who want to help move this along. They will be our allies, and they will be support for this. But they know just as well as that we need them, they also need us. They need blind people, they need professionals, all of it to come together. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take a lot of tenacity. I think we got that. Blanks is done.
NEFERTITI: Scott B.!!!
ROBERT: Wheee. We did it. [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: Wow.
ROBERT: Hello, this is Robert Kingett again. I had a couple quick things, and then I actually have to jump off here, sadly. But in terms of how to improve, how to improve the awareness of audio description, I wanna see more open audio described screenings, like at movie theaters and everything.
SCOTT N: Hmm.
ROBERT: And also, I wanna get screenwriters involved in the audio description process. I really think that would also help as well. In terms of quality, I just would like to briefly talk about the pay rates in the industry. They are very, very, very low, extremely low. And I think that if we’re talking about quality, I think we need to also talk about how do we pay our workers fairly and make sure that we’re not taking advantage of labor? So, that’s it. I’m done. [delighted chuckle]
SCOTT B: Very well put, Robert. Very well put.
NEFERTITI: Thank you, Robert.
COLLEEN: This is Colleen. There’s a few…. So, I wanna do 25,000-million things. There’s a giant list. But basically, one of the things I would like to do is talk to the filmmakers and the screenwriters. So, that would be establishing a group or, and again, these are things like, I’ve had time to start some of these and just not time to start others. But talk to the people on the front end, so the producers, the writers, and the directors and the filmmaker side of things so that they’re aware of audio description from the beginning. Ideally, I would like to make some sort of curriculum and partner with a school so that there would be a screenwriters’, like you would take a class that included accessibility in production from the beginning and not retroactively in post.
SCOTT N: Hmm!
COLLEEN: The other is, as I mentioned, I’m on the committee of people that’s trying to establish a certification, and I recently [chuckling] just shook up the table. So, I have made a couple proposals that I think they’re going to accept, one of which is I want to have an organized open forum with the committee members need to sit there and listen while we invite other people who are not us, who are not on the committee to speak and to explain some things to them and to answer questions and to, you know, it needs to be structured. But basically, there are a few big, big people in this group. And I think part of the issue that I run into the most with trying to start action is that there is several big people at the top who are like, “I have done audio description this way. I was one of the first audio describers. This is the way you do it. And I’m right, and I wanna bring everyone along with me.” And it’s like, okay. So, audio description is both an art and a science, and you can only regulate it, you can only test it or put it in a box up to a certain point. And so, the idea, I think the best thing we can do, action-item-wise, is connect with each other like we’re doing. Have, you know, continue to tweet and social media and @, like tag things for both the good and bad.
SCOTT B: Yes.
SCOTT N: [chuckles]
COLLEEN: So, Nefertiti asking, you know, asking questions, “What do people think about this,” and comment on it or, “what do people,” you know, “what are your thoughts on this?” And try and get engagement, but also, if something is very good, @ that, and if something needs improvement, @ that.
The other thing is getting…getting some sort of…. Oh, my God. It left my brain. Dang it! I had one more thing, but there’s, I have, I have a big list, and it’s just like I’m one person. And I’m like, no! Chronic illness, why? [laughs]
SCOTT N: Don’t worry, Colleen.
NEFERTITI: Listen, Colleen.
SCOTT N: We all got your back.
NEFERTITI: Yes! As one person with chronic illness too, now there’s two of you. And over there, there’s Scott Nixon and Scott Blanks and Thomas Reid and Cheryl Green and Darius and Robert. And there’s a lot of us out here who are feeling that one size does not fit all. It never did. It’s just that now we are gathering and galvanizing and actually speaking up and saying, “This doesn’t quite fit the bill.” And it’s okay. Let’s just meet these needs in other ways. It’s not that, as you were saying, the people up at the top, you know, like, “Goodbye. Get out of here.” No, there’s a place for everyone in this, but I think that’s the whole point. At least in my world, there is a place for everyone, right?
COLLEEN: Yes.
NEFERTITI: There’s this hashtag, DescribeEverything? Well, one population, or one segment of the population cannot describe everything. They are not everything, no matter how much they may have been, right?
COLLEEN: Yep.
NEFERTITI: Like, that’s just not the case anymore. We are here. We are not going to be quiet anymore. And in terms of quality, that’s what quality is all about.
COLLEEN: And-
SCOTT B: Everything counts or nothing counts.
COLLEEN: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Yes!
COLLEEN: The other thing, I remembered what I was going to say. Hurray, Nefertiti.
NEFERTITI: Yay!
COLLEEN: Is that educating people, because one of the things the report that I sent to the committee was how do we respect the past and progress to the future?
NEFERTITI: [light applause] That’s me clapping.
SCOTT N: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
COLLEEN: So, yes, you brought us here. You got us here. Fantastic. It’s, you know, we’ve gotta keep moving.
SCOTT N: Mmhmm.
COLLEEN: There’s all different kinds of people.
NEFERTITI: That’s right.
COLLEEN: Everyone has a different life experience that they bring to this. And the idea, they are, I think, a lot of people similar to in learning more about white privilege and the different sections of my life that became very apparent, people are terrified.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
COLLEEN: I think they’re honestly, they feel very threatened because they’re like, it’s just that difficult conversation that people do not wanna have, and they don’t wanna be, “I’m not. I’m not. I have a Black friend. I have a Black, blind friend!”
NEFERTITI: Yep.
COLLEEN: Like, just this panic of, like, you know, the fact that, hey. No, it is okay. The important thing is we have a safe space to have the conversation, we apologize, and get forward. Because that, I think, is part of the holdup for some of the larger names in AD is just they are older white men. And they are, that is, you know, not to throw old white men under the bus, but it’s just been, I have seen them respond to me the most with immediate defensive and like, “Well, I know you can’t be entirely objective, but it is, you know, as a describer, you are objective. And you” dah dah dah. And it’s like, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay. So, I think part of it is remembering, bringing the passion to it, but also having to toe that line, walk that tightrope of respecting the past and moving forward-
NEFERTITI: Yes.
COLLEEN: -especially when threatened and frustrated. And they don’t get it. They just, they can’t wrap their minds around it, or they haven’t had that light bulb moment. It’s like, just, you gotta have conversations, dude. So, yeah.
NEFERTITI: And if I may just say, Nefertiti speaking, hopefully they do have that light bulb moment. But in my world, whether they have it or not, it’s like if you have it, great, let’s go! If you don’t, I’m leaving you behind.
COLLEEN: Uh-huh! [guffaws]
NEFERTITI: Because I respect you. I respect you, absolutely. But I also gotta keep it moving. And I also wanna hear about myself. I wanna see more people like me. I wanna hear more people like me in everything.
COLLEEN: Mmhmm!
NEFERTITI: And that absolutely disclude-, includes audio description. I’m sorry, you guys. I’m very tired. This is like a 16-hour day, so my words are a bit meh.
SCOTT N: Nah, you’re doing fine.
NEFERTITI: Thank you!
ROBERT: Amen, girl! Hell, yeah. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Yeah, I gotta go to bed, but, yeah. Like, come with us or get out of our way, okay? Because-
THOMAS: Yeah.
SCOTT N: Scott here, just quickly. Guys, it’s been a pleasure. It’s an honor to work with all of you. And I think we have really started something magnificent here. Let’s keep it going. Let’s keep it moving. But I have been sneaky, and I just had my own light bulb moment. We need to petition Disney+ and Deluxe who do any audio description for the Marvel movies to get our boy Thomas Reid in to redo Black Panther 1-
THOMAS: [laughs]
SCOTT N: -and do Wakanda Forever. Do it seriously. You would crush it.
NEFERTITI: Oh, my God. You know, the Social Audio Description Collective has been wanting the same thing. So, Thomas?
SCOTT B: Clear your schedule, Thomas.
NEFERTITI: I think so.
SCOTT N: [laughs]
THOMAS: Aw, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah.
COLLEEN: I’ve been talking about that since 2018. Don’t think I ain’t in on that, guys.
THOMAS: [laughs]
SCOTT N: So, yeah, guys, it’s been magnificent. And for me for now, follow me on @MrBrokenEyes, and I’ll talk to you guys next time. Peace.
NEFERTITI: Absolutely!
SCOTT B: So good to hear you, Scott.
NEFERTITI: Thank you, Scott Nixon!
THOMAS: This is a great start. And these conversations are definitely what we need. We need to get more people involved because the more I think about it, there are definitely organizations doing what they do and doing certain things when it comes to audio description. But obviously, it can’t be everything, but it doesn’t always need to be them doing the work. And I mean that by, you know, like, sometimes I think we leave it up to an organization to do certain work, right?
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: And I think there’s pressure that needs to come from within, and then there’s pressure that needs to come from without. And there’s some of this work is not gonna get done by the organizations. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that’s what happens sometimes. Sometimes it’s not the organization’s place to do it, and sometimes they’re just not built to do it because they have other objectives.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: And so, some of this stuff has to come from the people.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: And we are the people, and we need to put some of this pressure and keep this up. And so, I think having these sorta conversations are absolutely great. And I think we also need to take a look at what we mean by support from the community, because to me, support is conversation. Support is not falling in line with what someone says. Support is conversation. Support can be disagreement and just discussion and doing that in a way that is for the greater good. Because I truly believe that we all wanna get to the same thing, right? But the way we get there is a little bit different. Some of us, you know, [clicks tongue] some of us wanna be a little, some of us are just tired. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: [chuckles]
THOMAS: Some of us are just tired, you know what I mean? We don’t have that much time.
NEFERTITI and SCOTT N: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: We need to see some things. And we’ve seen a lot. And even if it’s a, you know, it might not be just, you know, it’s not just audio description. Because as we see, again, it’s not just entertainment, all of that. Yes, it’s true. It is not just entertainment. This is big. This is big. This has really serious implications.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: And so, we need to remember that. And I think if we’re gonna be a community who’s gonna support one another, don’t think we have to always agree, but we do have to be civil about it and have these conversations and be respectful. And I don’t see anybody, I see most of us having that, doing that and being respectful. So, just keep that in mind. That’s all I’m saying. If that made sense, I hope it made sense.
SCOTT B: Mmhmm.
NEFERTITI: That made absolute sense. Love each other.
THOMAS: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: Even if you don’t-
THOMAS: Respect.
NEFERTITI: Yes.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Even if you’re not coming at something from the same perspective, or even if you might diverge from someone else, there’s no need to be rude or point fingers or degrade. There’s no need for all that.
THOMAS: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: I think Thomas is absolutely right: We all have the same end goal, which is to improve, to enhance, to make it better, to make it more inclusive, to make it less gate-kept, right?
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: And again, there might be different ways that we get there, competing, sometimes conflicting priorities. But to someone, it might be about Dolby Atmos. To someone else it might be having people of color describing films that are of people of color. You know, it could range on what our priorities are. But ultimately, I think it comes back to what we first started talking about here: quality. We want the quality of audio description to improve and to be better every day.
THOMAS: Yeah. And let’s salute those who are actually doing that right now, because not everybody’s doing it. And I think we know. I don’t necessarily have to go through the list of companies who are doing it, but I think we need to start recognizing those who are doing it, those who put their name. Notice who doesn’t put their name. [chuckles]
NEFERTITI: [belly laugh]
THOMAS: There’s folks who, you know-
NEFERTITI: Very telling.
THOMAS: -their names just aren’t there. That’s very telling.
NEFERTITI: Very telling.
THOMAS: And if you can find out who that is, you’ll notice that means something. So, when the names are there, notice if that correlates with quality. Like, that’s real. That’s real. And then shout these people out because the HBOs, the Netflixes, I really do think that we’re the ones who should be, we should be determining who they work with.
NEFERTITI: Mmhmm.
THOMAS: But right now, it’s the dollar that is determining who they work with.
NEFERTITI: Uh-huh.
THOMAS: And so, I think we have power to be able to shut that down by just bigging up the folks who are doing it right. And let the Netflix know, “Hey, these guys do a good job. These guys you hired over here today? Uh…you know, they’re okay, but maybe not for this one. Maybe for something else.”
NEFERTITI: That’s right. Yeah.
THOMAS: “Maybe for something else.”
NEFERTITI: Yeah.
THOMAS: So, I think we need to explore that a little bit too.
NEFERTITI: We are the drivers of that.
THOMAS: Yeah, let’s drive this for real, for real.
NEFERTITI: I think we’re going to try to have, aim to have conversations with folks in positions of influence, I would say.
THOMAS: Yeah.
NEFERTITI: Power and the like. Because, yeah, we are the voices that need to be heard, right?
THOMAS: Absolutely.
NEFERTITI: Audio description by blind people, for blind people. We are blind people!
THOMAS: Yeah. So, what you’re saying, Nef, is that this is not just a, this is not a one and done here? Is that what you said?
NEFERTITI: Oh, no! I certainly hope not!
THOMAS: [laughs] Aight, cool. So, be on the lookout.
NEFERTITI: Like we said at the beginning, hopefully this is the first of many, and hopefully we will have many more people join us, whether you’re a listener or a speaker, a host at times, though, you know Thomas and Cheryl. Cheryl at the beginning of the said that she had a fan club for you and me, Thomas. I’m in the fan club for you and Cheryl, so.
THOMAS: I’m, pssh. Come on. Come on. Y’all know where I go. I’m Cheryl and Nefertiti all day. Come on. Come on. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: [giggles]
CHERYL: I’m president. Not just in the fan club. I’m president of both y’alls fan clubs.
THOMAS: [laughs] Well, I am definitely president, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of both of y’all!
NEFERTITI: Here, here.
SEVERAL PEOPLE: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: I’m Prime Minister, bitch. Okay? All right. Who was it, Colleen? She said, “I’m gonna be the bad bitch!” I love that!
THOMAS: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Yes! Yes.
COLLEEN: I’m the, I, I, I’m gonna have to be the bad bitch of audio description. [laughs]
NEFERTITI: I love it!
SCOTT B: [laughs]
NEFERTITI: I’ll join you. I’ll join you anytime, girl. Anytime.
DARIUS: Thank you so much for organizing this. This was fantastic. I’m very excited, and I feel very inspired. And I look forward to engaging in conversation with all of you ongoing. I had no idea it was even happening! [laughs]
NEFERTITI: Yeah.
DARIUS: I literally woke up. I rolled out of bed, and I was like, oh, there’s an audio description chat happening. Fantastic.
SEVERAL PEOPLE: [laugh]
SCOTT N: The more you know, Darius, the more you know.
SEVERAL PEOPLE: [chuckle]
SCOTT B: I just wanna say, this is Scott Blanks, I just wanna say we’re, yeah, we’re only getting started. There will be more. We’re gonna do these at different times, on different days. As we can clearly hear and see, there is a lot to be done and a lotta people who wanna do it. So, we have a lotta cause to be back here again and again. And I think that’s what it’s gonna take for us to see some of this change. So, thank you all for putting in the effort and for the effort that’s going to come I’m sure. It’s all really appreciated, and it’s gonna pay off. I feel that.
THOMAS: Excellent. Excellent.
NEFERTITI: Whoo!
SCOTT N: Yeah!
THOMAS: I salute y’all.
NEFERTITI: Galvanize, y’all. Gather and galvanize.
THOMAS: There it is. [laughs]

Outro music begins
THOMAS: Cool. Well, that concludes this week’s conversation. Why don’t y’all keep the conversation going on social media.
CHERYL: Use #ADFUBU, for us by us, #DescribeEverything, and #AudioDescription.
NEFERTITI: And hey, you know we’re out here, right? Mmhmm! Gathered and galvanized y’all. If you haven’t joined us yet, what are you waiting for?! You can find us in the LinkedIn Audio Description group and the AD Twitter community. We know that your participation will only make these spaces better.
Music fades out!

Hide the transcript

— Tape rewinds
— Music begins: Snare hits increasing in volume into a smooth R&B instrumental…

Welcome back to the podcast featuring compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability in general. My name is Thomas Reid, I’m your host and producer. We’ve reached the last episode of the YGBD 2022 Season, you know, that’s Young, Gifted, Black, and Disabled. Some people ask me, Thomas, why Young Gifted Black and Disabled? My first reaction? Why not? Then I’m like, Nah, that’s not polite. Am I lying.

Now, if you just caught what I threw down and responded, either in your mind or out loud, “No, you’re quite right,” you and I share something that has nothing to do with blindness. However, that thing we share could also make our experience of blindness different from others. In this particular case, my reference was to an early rap song by Doug E Fresh called “The Show”. Just one of many Hip Hop references you will find in the history of this podcast. While Hip Hop isn’t necessarily an identity, one can make a good argument for being one. I personally will always identify as being hip hop. Black is definitely an identity. That intersection between Black and disabled has its own unique experiences that need to be discussed, even for the sole purpose of centering the experience of Black disabled people in the disability conversation. That’s of real value to me.

Then there are the additional levels of identity. Last year. We closed out YGBD discussing masculinity. We went places I didn’t know we were going, but I’m glad we did.

— Music stops

So this year… (repeats in an echo effect)

— DJ scratch
— Music begins: Snare hits increasing in volume into a smooth R&B track.
R&B crooner sings, “Ladies… Beautiful Ladies!”…
– “Ladies” Lee Field and the Expressions

— Reid My Mind Radio Theme Music

TR:

allow me to introduce you first to Boston based advocate, Heather Watkins…

Heather: 02:20
I self identify as a Black disabled woman, born with a form of Muscular Dystrophy, who didn’t always use mobility aids like I do now. I’ve been using them for the past 15 years including a cane and on occasion a manual wheelchair and also a ventilator to assist compromised respiratory muscles. I am a mother, blogger, author and I serve on a handful of disability related boards and projects including as a former chairperson for the Boston Mayor’s Commission, for Persons with Disabilities Advisory Board, the Disability Policy Consortium, the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities and Open Door Arts. My pronouns are she her hers.

TR: 03:06
Also joining me today co host of the white stick Connect podcast from Philadelphia, PA, Lisa Bryant

Lisa: 03:12
I’m a Black female, dark skin with locs. And I’m currently a freelance journalist. And I’ve written for few local platforms but also looking to expand my reach, looking at some national opportunities. I was just recently appointed to the board of the Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Foundation

TR: 03:35
Two Black women with different disabilities, each bringing a unique experience of disability.

Lisa: 03:41
In terms of identifying my disability, I struggle with using the white cane but I’ve had to do that a little more of late. I went most of my life without having any difficulty. I was still driving. Then along came 2011 things took a turn and I had to stop driving and adjust to being legally blind.

— Music begins: A piano melody leads into a slow, dramatic groove.

TR: 03:59
If I asked you what does it mean to be a woman? Perhaps you have a list of things that come to mind. Maybe you even strike up with images that represent that. What does it mean to be a Black woman? What comes to mind now?

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
I want to start here with what did you learn about being a Black woman as a child? What were the lessons that you were getting, whether they be from adults in your life, even from the media, like what was sort of the things that you were learning about being a Black woman, Heather you want to start it off?

Heather: 04:30
I grew up in the city of Boston, we lived in a section called Dorchester, which is one of the predominantly Black areas. Roxbury Dorchester Mattapan.

It was definitely a matriarch. My grandmother lived on the second floor. Aunties lived on the third floor. There was always family around. I was surrounded by strong women and bringing that up from the Greenwood Mississippi. All that wisdom sort of poured into me from my grandmother having grown up in the Jim Crow south. She laughed and joked, but she did not play. We didn’t have everything afforded to us. You kind of get inventive? I learned, if it’s not there, we’ll figure it out

TR: 05:11
pretty valuable skill, especially necessary as a disabled woman

Heather: 05:15
in terms of disability an being a Black disabled woman, Across the media landscape, I didn’t see that reflected back in ways that I found meaningful. Flip through beauty magazines, I didn’t see Black disabled women openly identified that way. That message was like, Where are we? Why is that hidden? What I didn’t see in the media I saw within my family.

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
Lisa, same question.

Lisa: 05:41
My family images were very strong women. But I definitely remember as a very young girl, being more influenced by media and even classmates, when I was growing up, dark skin was not necessarily appreciated. We were teased about being dark. I didn’t like being teased. I was an only child, my imagination sometimes got very creative. I had an imaginary friend and she was exactly opposite of me. She was lighter skin, long, long hair. That was just what I did. And that was just how I imagined. I guess the way I sort of internalized that I just accepted that as No, that’s kind of the way it is. I don’t know that I remember even having meaningful conversations with my parents about that. I think I probably just kind of tuck that away. Later on. I thought, wow, how about that kind of self hate.

TR: 06:44
I really admire and appreciate Lisa for being so honest, and sharing that with us. It’s hard being vulnerable, that something only really strong people can do. That hate doesn’t start from inside us. It’s just another tool of white supremacy. A systematic approach to establishing power, by convincing Black people in others of color to feel inferior. It’s anti-Blackness at its finest.

Internalizing negative beliefs. That’s not just about race or color.

Lisa: 07:12
Fast forward to becoming legally blind, like Heather said, When did you see, on the cover of a magazine, someone very proudly, in a wheelchair, or proudly using a white cane?

I had absolutely no one else to relate to until becoming a member of the local NFB chapter. And even those that I did see some of the elderly people like in my church who vision was failing, I was so much younger, and I still had usable vision. So that was just a whole different world, the age I think, alone being like the big kind of barrier. So then it’s becoming a matter of, well, let’s see how we can fake this without making this announcement about my disability. It’s funny how much you just kind of internalize and live through things, and accepted as normal, even though it’s really not.

— Music ends.

TR: 08:13
Actually, I think these reactions are quite normal. I don’t think anyone wants to feel less than, unfortunately, what has been normalized is the idea that beauty is one thing. Disabled anything means inferior.

We can keep on with other things like age, gender…

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
I’m wondering whether your experience with disability, how did it impact the definition of Black womanhood? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Heather: 08:38
Sure. I think it definitely evolved. So when we talked about disability, what back then we would say, quote unquote, handicapped, your handicap, but your healthy. So it was spoken about like that. The exposure that I got, regarding disability at that time was through MDA camps, Muscular Dystrophy Association camps, and like clinics. But still, I wasn’t seeing all the Black disabled kids. I saw maybe one during summer camps.

TR: 09:09
Every summer for about a week, Heather, as a child would stay at these camps for children with muscular dystrophy in the New England area, a chance to get away from the city environment.

Heather: 09:18
It was just like one, or maybe another person who was of color, or certainly only like one Black kid. And the messaging there too, was like, I have to go outside of my community to see other kids with visible disabilities. It was hard to really connect and have that kind of support system where you can connect with other kids in peers, who are disabled to talk about your life experience, but also to talk about frustrations because that’s important to getting tips and resources. Those weren’t things I discovered until much later in advocacy circles, so important in terms of building your own self awareness and even sharpening your advocacy skills.

TR:10:04
As a child Heather never really had the chance to form any sort of relationships with other Black disabled children.

This reminds me of the time in 2020 when clubhouse was new, and the 15 Percent Club was rockin. We hosted an event to discuss Black disability experiences. There had to be 30 people or more predominantly Black. Read my mind radio alum and CO producer of the first YGBD episode, AJ Murray famously remarked that it was his first time being in the presence of that many Black disabled people. There were several others who acknowledged it being their first time as well.

Lisa: 10:40
I had a similar experience when I went to a national convention. So this was 2019. I knew of other Black people in the Federation who were blind, but I had never been in the same circle with them. That was the first time and it was like, wow, I went a long time without really having anyone else who got me not just being female, not just being Black, but being visually impaired female or Black, or at least two of the three. It was a long, long, long, long time.

Heather: 11:15
What if we were exposed to cultural icons in grade school, who had disabilities? How that might have shaped and impacted our awareness? I’m talking about like Fannie Lou Hamer, and Harriet Tubman, Brad Lomax Sojourner Truth, all of them had disabilities, and it also impacted their life, how they govern their lives. Imagine learning that at such a young age or even being newly disabled, how that would shape your awareness and your concept of disability.
We get so many messages that downplay or erase disability because people generally assume that it’s synonymous with negativity. It has a much wider lens, it’s actually very comprehensive.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 12:01
Heather’s describing what we mean when we talk about disability isn’t what you think it is.

Consider how disability is talked about. Often from the perspective of a diagnosis. It’s used as a metaphor, often to indicate negativity:

— Music begins, melodic, dramatic strings…
TR in a mimicking over dramatic voice
“, she was blind to what was going on around her.”
TR in a “Financial commentator” voice
“That will cripple the economy.”

Heather: 12:20
Who would I be, without having a disability and the evolutions and the twists and the turns and all of the folks that I’ve met in advocacy circles, especially diverse advocacy circles, who really has been a mirror for me, in validating that and raising that ceiling, where I was often capping my own potential.

So I often like to say I’m a woman in need of care, a caregiver and a community builder, all at once. But if you redact any part of that bio, then you reduce my community contribution, and visibility. It impacts every aspect of your lived experience in determining key quality of life areas. housing, health care, education, employment, how you live, how you shop, dine, socialize,

— Music fades out.
— Sounds of a woman walking down busy city street.

TR: 13:15
let’s get into these lived experiences, beginning with relationships.

Lisa: 13:19
I was walking down the street with my cane, and I just kind of had an image of myself. And I just had a thought, Well, I wonder what attention I don’t get now because of this cane.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 13:33
So you walking down the street looking cute. You got the white cane? I don’t know what your status is dating, married, not sure of your status. But how has it affected that part of your life?

Lisa: 13:45
I have not been actively dating. So I’m not on any kind of dating website or anything like that. There’s certain places where I’m very familiar with my surroundings, and I may not have it right out. The sort of compliments or whatever I make it. I don’t think I had the cane.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 14:05
So they try to holla when you don’t have the cane?

Lisa: 14:08
Yeah.

Sometimes I hear people say, well, blindness doesn’t define you. I know what they mean by that sentiment in terms of, they don’t want it to define you in a negative way. But at the end of the day, it is a part of you. It’s just as much a part of you as anything else about you your name your hair color. So let’s not sort of suppress that. There’s got to be a way to embrace it, put it out there, but in a way that just lets you know, people know like, this is who Lisa is, in fact, it’s an integral part of me because it does define my world. I navigate my world as a visually impaired Black woman. People probably see the ladder first.

Then there’s the cane.

TR: 14:49
The cane we know serves multiple purposes. First, an aid to orientation and mobility.

Lisa: 14:57
It’s just as much for me and my safety. but it’s also an identifier. It’s a way of saying to the world, you may think I see you, but I may not. Or I may only see you til you’re right up on me. I need to accept that it may sort of reduce some dating opportunities. But then, at the end of the day, are those really people I’d want to date anyway. Maybe one day, it’ll actually attract the right guy.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 15:25
Heather, what do you think

Heather: 15:27
I was so ambivalent, for a while to use a cane 15 years ago, because I was thinking I was quote, unquote, giving in to my disability, it’s gonna make me appear weak and old. Then it dawned on me that this is a mobility a that is quite liberating. It’s helping me get from point A to point B, giving the nod that yeah, I’m in charge of my life here. I’m not sitting idly by, I’m actually moving and grooving. Those are the kinds of epiphanies and internal dialogue that I had to have, in rooting out that internalized ableism. So much of our gaze comes from a non disabled viewpoint. You’re not even conscious of it until you are and then you’re like, oh, wow, I’m comparing myself to all the non disabled peers and counterparts. And it’s just so self injurious.

TR: 16:23
It’s not only canes and adaptive equipment we use in public.

Heather: 16:27
I especially felt that when I started using the ventilator, and it looks like scuba gear. And I’m like, how sexy is that? Because it feels like a robo breather. I’m like, what partner’s gonna see that as sexy. I had to really think about all of those kinds of things in terms of dating and being attractive to the opposite sex and what that means for me, in terms of acceptance, it goes back to not having those kinds of images across the media landscape where the storylines are informed by disability, from a comprehensive viewpoint, where the person is a love interest, maybe they’re running a business, maybe they are parents, maybe they’re out and about moving around in the world, making really critical decisions. We are starting to see more of those images now. And the first thing I think of is on Queen Sugar. It’s informed by Ava DuVernay because she has lupus. And so Aunt Vy has lupus and is a matriarch, she’s married. She’s a business owner, community builder. When you have those kinds of storylines, mirrored in that meaningful way, you can best believe those get absorbed by people. And then we have new ideas and people can conceptualize disability in a much grander way. I’m thankful for shows like that. Echoing all of those thoughts and the ideas of what beauty is. Sex, sexuality, pleasure, kink? How often do we hear that all juggled in the same sentence with disability? There are quite a few Disabled Parents, including myself. And guess what, those kids, you know, were conceived the old fashioned way.

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
(Interrupts)
Not immaculate conception!

TR, Heather & Lisa chuckle!

Heather:
So we exist.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 18:22
So let’s go there.

— Music begins: A slow vibrato synth, leads to snare hand claps and a driving confident Hip Hop beat

You said that being disabled really has informed your parenting? Talk to me about that?

Heather: 18:29
Sure. I had to leave my job due to progression of disability. And that was probably when my daughter was like around nine or 10. I was so nervous about the fact that what does this mean for me? What’s the next step? So I really had to contemplate the trajectory of my life. It was doubly scary for me because I had these little eyes watching you, right? And they absorb everything around them had to get real clear. Take that internal deep dive and figure out, what would you like to do next. And I said to myself, you know, you need to provide a blueprint, an example for how it would be for your daughter, and not that she needs to be at home, but be more empowered to make her own decisions and choices. I just moved very slowly and methodically. I started thinking about what I was passionate about. I was thinking about disability advocacy. I ended up taking a class that the State offers. It’s called the Massachusetts office on disabilities, Cam training class, Community Access Monitor. Little steps I was taking to figure out where I wanted to go next and how I wanted to impact the world. I didn’t just want to instruct her. I want to give you an example. What to do when how to be a person that contributes to your own community. Disability impacted my parenting by being more mindful and intentional about all of my life’s choices.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 20:03
How old is she today?

Heather:
She’s 28.

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
Okay, what’s the impact on her life?

Heather: 20:08
She is a very strong willed empowered out and proud member of the LGBTQ community, her seeing her mother be involved in, in advocacy circles. It made her more open to just being herself in a very big and loud, authentic way.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 20:30
There’s sort of like an “outness”, about disability.

Heather:
Yeah.

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
I dig it!

TR:
What about the impact disability has on a person’s career?

Lisa: 20:38
That is a very important question. And in my case, it’s just starting to turn around. Before my vision became more complicated. And before I even knew all of the resources, assistive technology, I was a senior development officer at a local nonprofit and doing very well in that. But it just got harder and harder to see my work got harder to see on the computer, I couldn’t drive at night. And some of these one on one donor opportunities would be in the evening outside of the city, which meant small streets, maybe dimly lit, and I just couldn’t do that. I actually ended up mutually separating from that position. And it was a long time before I could really figure out okay, what can I do?

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 21:34
I have this thing about that question. What can I do? I mean, I know a specific,

Lisa: 21:39
What can I do on a computer? What could I do where I wouldn’t have to drive and I could just get easily to places on public transportation?

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 21:45
It’s very practical. But there’s a larger question.

Lisa: 21:48
I remember the day when I thought, what do I want to do? I want to do something a little more creative. During the pandemic, I went to school for journalism. This has just birthed , well, maybe rebirth, something altogether new in me. I just think that that writing bug was there for a long time. But just dormant.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 22:10
Journalism was a real interest of leases in her college years.

Lisa: 22:14
I just kind of tabled it all those years ago. Although I really did love journalism. I didn’t like the career paths that were available then. So I just went in all kinds of different directions. Now. I can work remotely, I can do human interest stories. I don’t have to cover murders and fires and burglaries. There’s so much more out there. I can cover the nonprofit sector I can write about in justices. I absolutely love it. And I love that I can do something that’s mentally challenging. Sometimes it’s nerve wracking, but I get to talk to people the same way I did when I was in development, because that’s all about cultivating relationships, you have to know how to communicate to all different types of people. So I think I’ve found my fit. However, I have yet economically to be at that level.

— From ABC News broadcast: 23:07
Today marks the day, the average Black woman working full time must work into 2021 to catch up with what an average white non Hispanic man earned in 2020.
Let me Repeat that. Today, August 3, 214 days into the year is when an average Black woman worker will have to catch up to her white male counterparts. 2020 pay. According to the National Women’s Law Center, Black women are paid 63 cents for every dollar made by white men across industries.

— Music ends

TR:
Yet!

Lisa: 23:39
I’m much more fulfilled than I had been in a long time since 2011, when I was declared legally blind.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 23:47
I’m just curious, do you see that as an opportunity that was presented by disability?

Lisa: 23:54
I guess the disability has kind of opened that because it’s allowed me to do it on my terms. I could do it from my computer and I could use 12 time magnification if I need to. And nobody has to know you know, I could have my screen reader on nobody has to know. So yeah, yeah, I suppose it has.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 24:16
Okay, good. Good.

Heather: 24:18
How many similarities? Wow, I’m a Mass Comm major. My daughter was very young when I graduated. So I was going to go to school full time, be a mother full time, but I couldn’t, you know, add on the internship part of it. So when I left college, I started working for a health insurance company. It wasn’t until years later that I got involved in writing and blogging and doing freelance work like that. Disability definitely impacted that sort of rebirth and rebranding you were talking about being online and using the internet. Hasn’t that been such a great equalizer in that way for so many disabled persons? I’m not only talking about obviously a parent, but not a parent in chronic illness, folks who, for one reason or another may not be able to get to a brick and mortar location for being online, they have access to remote work or flexible hours and balancing work life.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 25:15
Meanwhile, there are real benefits for hiring and retaining disabled employees.

Heather: 25:20
So many of us have higher sensitivity levels. Have adaptive and analytical skills, logistical skills like nobody’s business, we know workarounds, contingency plans, so many of us are out of the box thinkers. I tell people all the time, you want disabled folks in your employ, in your planning committees, event committees, your communities, your corporations, because there’s a lens and a lived experience that you’re not tapping into that that asset to your organization.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 25:53
Do you see any sort of examples that say, okay, yeah, I see some of this taking place now?

Heather: 25:58
The pandemic, really put that into overdrive, right? So many people were saying, Oh, no, we can’t accommodate you in this way, for remote work and being able to access even entertainment and theater, then all of a sudden, voila, overnight. Everyone has access. So it wasn’t a question of why it couldn’t be done. It just couldn’t be done for y’all!

TR: 26:21
One of several things revealed during the pandemic is the inequity in health care,

Lisa: 26:26
I was thinking of an Article I just wrote on Black women in breast cancer, the death rate is much, much higher for Black women. Nationally, it’s close to 40%, which is ridiculous. So there’s that in general disparity of health care for Black women. But then you add this other layer of having a disability. Now I am in the two worlds.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 26:53
That second world, if you will, is this ability.

Heather: 26:56
It’s been 32 years, since the Americans with Disabilities Act signing, we’re still having to advocate so much for the smallest of rights, it really is daunting and exhausting. nearly 62 million in this country identify as having some form of disability, one out of four people 25% of the population, nearly 1 billion globally, it’s a sleeping giant of a demographic that needs a much better marketing plan.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 27:28
So when someone who is blind, for example, walks into a medical establishment,

Lisa: 27:32
I generally am carrying my white cane. And it’s amazing to me how they’ll see the white cane and still give me a clipboard. People just don’t get it. They only know this is what I do. I’m the receptionist, this is what I do. You come in you tell me your name, I give you a clipboard. Look, I can’t fill out your little iPad. I know it’s cute. And it’s like the way to go here. But that’s not going to work for me. And there have been times when they’ve been helpful. And there have been times when I’ve been dismissed. Some of the same challenges can be addressed if there were more sensitivity and people to help. Because it’s not only vision, it’s not only physical, their language barriers, there’s not being tech savvy,

Heather: 28:19
lack of cultural competence regarding disability, gender, and race, especially when you have providers who are not very knowledgeable about disability, but also, maybe the hospital or healthcare setting is not outfitted for receiving you in a very physical and literal way. Maybe the doorways aren’t wide enough, maybe you can’t access the bathroom because it’s inaccessible. Or if you’re someone like myself, who had difficulty getting on the exam table, because you needed a hydraulic one. And so you had to forego your GYN exam, because you couldn’t access the table that resulted in me filing a complaint with the patient advocacy department. So the next time my follow up visit, that hydraulic exam table was there because along with that complaint form, I included a copy of the part of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That said I had a right to accessible medical care.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 29:16
So you have to advocate just for you to go to the doctor and give them money.

Heather: 29:22
Had to do it more than once to a different providers office. You’re not always believed, so many stories of pain management, managing the variety of disabilities, whether they’re a parent, not a parent or include chronic illness, we should all have the right to have medically accessible care that is done with culturally competent providers.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 29:43
That’s medical providers that are not only familiar with the differences, but also value them. That’s reflected in process policy and services.

Heather: 29:52
When I was younger, I was only considering apparent disability and our families. How many of us have died At heart disease, I have died from complications of diabetes. My father, he ended up dying of kidney disease. I took care of him for the last 11 years of his life in our home, just an interdependent relationship, because he’s helping me physically. And I’m helping manage his entire health care, all while raising a daughter. And then also having my nephew come into my home through a DCF kinship placement, Department of Children Family Services placement as a older teenager who had intellectual disabilities.

So many of us live interdependent lives. And when juggling so many responsibilities, we are practicing those kinds of advocacy skills in real time. That’s the real commentary for a lot of Black disabled women.

TR: 30:47
All you have to do is follow disabled Black women on social media. And you’ll know that we’re just touching the surface of the many challenges they encounter on a daily basis. And yet, they see hope.

Lisa: 30:59
The small things can mean a lot. I have had to say that I’m visually impaired I use assistive technology. I’ve got well, how can we accommodate? Do you need us to send you things in some other file? I went through a seven month long Fellows Program for journalists, and they were absolutely wonderful. Like they just insisted that like, look, we don’t want this to stress you out. It’s not as off putting, as it used to be.

I said earlier, I had to leave my job. Because they just didn’t know what to do with me. It’s really changing for the better. I mean, you have media platforms that are exclusively devoted to people with disabilities. Are we there? Absolutely not. But there is hope.

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
Cool.

Heather: 31:45
I love it when I’m able to connect with more Black women with disabilities, whether it’s a parent non apparent or includes chronic illness, if their parents, whether they’re into the creative arts, I love being able to connect with them and just learn more about their lived experience and how that evolved over time. Because I always feel like I learned every day, that helps me, in my own self awareness, become a better advocate

— Music begins: A melodic synth piano opens to a inspiring mid temp heavy kick Hip Hop beat.

TR: 32:15
today, passing those lessons on to others.

Heather: 32:19
It wasn’t until I got heavily involved with repeat exposure that I began to deliver how vast and wide that disability is, there comes a culture of political movement, history constituency, there wasn’t an indictment. It’s an identity marker. And even the word itself, disability, the di s prefix is not only not an option, but has a Latin and Greek derivative, meaning dual into so hence another way of doing and being in the world, and so much easier to adopt that first person language and say, Black disabled woman. This is why there will be no ambiguity in that meaning, because I’m not shying away from any of those things. You know who I am is the amalgamation of all my choices. And that doesn’t mean that I’m glossing over any frustrating aspects of disability because for sure, they are there to give a full bodied expression in meaning of what it means to live with a disability to have a disability or to be disabled. It is a very comprehensive, layered experience.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 33:33
Full bodied expression. That’s what I’m talking about. Can you handle all of this greatness? Now I need you all to check out and support our sisters. That’s my fellow Libra. The new addition to the Reid My Mind Radio family from Boston. You see how I did that? New Edition, Boston.
— “Cool it Now” New Edition

Heather: 33:56
My website’s SlowWalkersSeeMore.com. So that’s like my condition and my personal mantra.

TR:
Facebook, Twitter and IG.

Heather:
at h Watkins nine to seven.

TR in Conversation with Heather & Lisa: 34:10
You can find Philly’s finest Lisa Bryant on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Lisa:
@ByLisaBryant

TR in conversation with Heather & Lisa:
Appreciate y’all for coming here and sharing your experiences. And you know, that makes you official, members of the Reid My Mind Radio family. So salute y’all, I appreciate you.

Lisa: 34:28
Thank you, Thomas. This is great.

TR: 34:31
Big shout out to all our sisters out there doing your thing. In fact, that’s how we began 2022 doing your thing with disability. We then had to flip the script on audio description. You know how we do it. And by the way, don’t forget to check out this year’s ACB Audio Description Awards Gala, hosted by yours truly. This year. I’m happy to say I have a co-host one of our Reid my Mind Radio family sisters and alumni, Nefertiti Matos Olivares, who is also providing audio description. We had some fun filming and I hope you all check it out. No spoilers. It drops on November 29 2022 On Pluto TV and of course ACBADAwardsGala.org.Check the site for times and official information.

So this is the last episode of The Year y’all but I feel like spreading some holiday cheer this year. So make sure to keep a watch out for a special episode. The best way to do that is to make sure you subscribe or follow wherever you get podcast. And we have transcripts and more at ReidMyMind.com.

All you got to do is remember it’s R to the E I… D!

Sample: “D and that’s me in the place to be!” Slick Rick
NS be in a place to be
TR:
like my last name!

— Reid My Mind Radio Outro

TR:
peace

Hide the transcript

TR in Conversation with Haben: 00:03
Good afternoon. How are you?

— Music begins: A celebratory synth opens a cool energetic Hip Hop beat.

Haben: 00:07
I’m doing well. I wanted to pause and explain communication. I am not hearing you. So I have a typist typing what you’re saying. I’m reading it in Braille and then responding by voice. So if you notice a delay between when you say something, and when I respond, that’s because the typing is coming through.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 00:32
Okay, I wasn’t sure if you made use of the captions if they come through a Braille display. That’s good to know.

Haben: 00:46
So some podcasters, edit out the delays. Some keep them in to make it part of the experience. You can choose what works best for you.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 00:58
Excellent. I do a significant amount of editing anyway, just to make it an easy. Listen for folks. I can always include this as part of how we communicate it. I think that’s interesting.

Haben: 01:10
So are you recording right now?

TR in Conversation with Haben:
I am.

Haben:
Is it okay, if I ask you questions?

TR in Conversation with Haben:
Absolutely.

Haben:
Excellent. And then one last thing regarding accessibility. It does help if you slow down.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 01:26
Okay, very good. That would be great, because I should slow down anyway. It’s that New York thing. So let me know if you’re ready to start. We can go from there.

Haben: 01:42
Go for it!

— Repeats with a echo effect.

— Reid My Mind Radio Intro Music

TR: 01:58
Joining me today on the podcast. Well, President Obama named her the White House Champion of Change. She received the Helen Keller Achievement Award, a spot on the Forbes 30 under 30 List and time 100 talks. She’s a disability rights lawyer, speaker and author honored by heads of state all around the world. Now she’s with us. Family. Haben Girma.

Haben: 02:22
I’m in my 30s. I’m a black woman of Eritrean and Ethiopian heritage, long dark hair, hazel eyes. I am deaf blind, and I’m using a Braille computer and keyboard for communication. So what you’re saying is coming up on my Braille computer, I’m reading it, and responding by voice.

TR: 02:45
If you’re listening to this podcast, I’m pretty sure you heard of Haben. Perhaps you read her memoir? If not, I highly suggest it. The book is titled Haben: The Deaf Blind Woman who Conquered Harvard Law. It was featured in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, the today’s show,

Haben: 03:02
I read my book out loud, using braille to create the audio recording. So I narrated my own book. And I’ve heard that it can be tricky for a lot of blind people to do that, because Braille literacy is still growing. And there’s still so many struggles to gain access to Braille. That was a fun and really moving experience to be able to read my own book, and have that recorded.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 03:35
I read your book last year. I’m not a proficient Braille reader. I became blind about 19 years ago, I do audio description narration and so I use my screen reader as sort of a audio teleprompter to do narration, but know of some blind narrators who use their braille display to do narration.

Haben: 03:54
I’ve also heard of blind authors using their screen readers as prompts, so listening to their screen reader and then voicing in their own voice, when doing an audio recording of their own book. Did you listen to the audiobook or another format?

TR in Conversation with Haben: 04:14
Yeah, the audio book from Audible.

TR:
It’s also available via the National Library for the Blind

— Music Begins; a hard kick drum and piano chord drop together, leading into a driving Hip Hop beat that hints to West Coast Dr. Dre style production.

Various anonymous people on stage04:25
Clips of varying people providing self-description play over the beat.

– “:And I have wavy dreadlocks”
– “I am a Latino woman.”
– “My pronouns are she/her, I’m a White Jew”
– “Half Croatian and a half Moong”
– “. I’m Black with a capital B”
– “Hi top Vans like the pop punk princess I am.”
– “kind of Kurt Cobain meets David Byrne vibes.”
– “I am wearing a white corsets that my mom handed down to me.”
– “My name is Goldilocks. I defy gender.”
– “I am wearing a look of like fear as well.”
– “My name is Sophia Chang, as you heard, I’m the baddest bitch in the room.”

TR: 05:04
This is the topic of my conversation with Haben. Self description.

Haben: 05:09
said, Thomas, my very first question is, what’s the reasoning behind asking me to do a visual description on a podcast?

TR: 05:20
I thought I was the host of this podcast, it’s my job to ask the questions. Haben came prepared? And honestly, I’m not mad at all.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 05:26
Very good question. So as part of a podcast, we have to make podcast artwork available. That’s a part of the requirement for putting a podcast on Apple, iTunes, and whatever they call it now. So when folks do receive the podcast in the digital format, there’s artwork that accompanies that. I’m not doing anything significant about the artwork. But that is part of it. I will ask you to provide at some point, before I publish this episode, an image file. And usually that’s a headshot. That’s part of introducing folks to the self description, because sighted folks do actually get that from a podcast. The other reason is, because it’s something that I feel is relevant to a conversation is the identity of a person. Rather than me kind of noting someone’s identity, I like to ask people to share whatever identities they want to share about themselves. And that’s part of the self description.

Haben: 06:34
So there have been so many conversations about this, particularly in the last few months. And some of the questions are about which identities do we amplify? And which do we choose not to share? Because all of us are multitudes? We have so many identities? Do I share that I’m a dancer? Or do my share other characteristics? Do you give any guidance on which identity is people should be sharing?

TR in Conversation with Haben: 07:08
No, I don’t. That’s interesting that an identity for you is possibly a dancer, I’ve never heard anyone say that being a dancer is a part of their identity. I leave it up to the guests to share whatever it is that they like to share about themselves.

Haben: 07:24
All right, and because you have done so much work around audio descriptions, I want to lean into that. And I know a lot of sighted and blind people struggle to answer this question. Because there are so many judgments made in a sighted world in a visual world. And when you self describe yourself, if you are feeling uncomfortable, or awkward about some of your identities and traits, do you take the easy route and just not share it? Or should we offer people guidance and urge them to share some of those identities, even if they feel awkward and uncomfortable about it? Because it’s part of access. So like you said, there’s a difference between describing one of your identities as a dancer, versus your eye color or hair color. So I feel like as a community, it would be super helpful if we provided more guidance on how people should approach identification. So we have lots of different identities. But when it comes to visual descriptions, there’s certain visual traits that are visually accessible to sighted people. And if we’re sharing artwork that shows those traits. We should have a structure for our visual descriptions that will ensure accessibility, access to information while also preserving freedom of expression, creativity, and giving people the choice to share which identities to highlight

TR: 09:24
specifically on the podcast. I don’t usually give much guidance. I think that’s probably because most of my guests are familiar and comfortable with the process. However, I do want my guests to share their color ethnicity, along with a bit more about their visual presence. While I do believe that we should try to get people to share as much as they want with the guidance for access issues. I’ve also been in a situation where describing themselves was a trigger. I was in a meeting of about Eight people and one person was trans. They said that it was a very triggering thing for them to describe themselves. And I was the only blind person there. I immediately said, I did not want them to feel uncomfortable. So was that an access issue for me? No, there’s no way I could be comfortable with accessing that information, knowing that it made that person uncomfortable.

— Music ends: A slow reversal of the beat as if leading into the following statement.

Haben: 10:28
Safety is a huge piece of this conversation. So we need to try to create safe spaces where people feel comfortable sharing this information. And if they don’t, even a space that has been attempted to be safe. Sometimes we just need to say, okay, you don’t need to share.

TR: 10:51
Another piece of this self description conversation that also comes with a bit of controversy is pronouns. Now I get it when people have difficulty remembering which pronoun to use. I’m in my 50s. I grew up with he and she, but I also grew up getting chased out of neighborhoods, because I’m black. You get what I’m saying? There’s all sorts of discrimination.

Haben: 11:11
I feel like we should also have conversations regarding should age be part of the description. A lot of sighted people who look at a picture kind of subconsciously assume the age of the person. And a lot of our visual descriptions that are happening right now, often don’t include age. How do you feel about that one?

TR in Conversation with Haben: 11:36
That’s an interesting one. A few years ago, before my beard, became more salt and pepper, it was Microsoft seeing AI, I took a picture of myself. And it described me as a 32 year old and at the time, I think I was 49. When I took that picture.

Haben: 11:56
Were you pleased?

TR in Conversation with Haben: 11:58
I was very pleased. And I tell this story a lot.

TR:
Ain’t no shame in my game. I will eventually tell this story again. In fact, let’s see what the awesome seeing AI app says today. Open Microsoft seeing AI app.

— Sound processing along with Apple Voice Over going through the process…
Menu, quick help button recognizing English channel, adjustable…

“one face near center take 34 year old man wearing a hat and glasses looking happy”

34… laughs…

TR in Conversation with Haben: 12:27
So now, I forget the salt and pepper beard. I might say I have a beard, but to describe it as salt and pepper is not something that I’m used to because I’ve never seen myself with a salt and pepper beard. So I often end up leaving that out.

Haben: 12:46
Right? Right. So you can always make assumptions about someone’s age, based on the color of their hair. So one could go all the way and just say I Yeah, insert number years old. And then there’s the question. Is that too much information? Should you just share what is visually accessible? And someone could be older, but actually look younger? Or they might be younger, but actually look older? So do we provide facts or just visual access? And if we want to try to remove harmful assumptions, maybe providing facts and stating the exact age? How you identify would be more helpful, rather than leaving room for assumptions.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 13:49
Yeah, but then there are so many other things right? So especially if we think about the corporate world, revealing your age, could really impact your position,

Haben: 13:59
right! Because there’s lots of age discrimination. We could also go back to all the other crates and say, you know, there is sexism, there is racism and ableism.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 14:11
I think it should be left up to the individual to share the things that are visible, that they feel comfortable revealing. I think that’s a start to a guideline for me.

Haben: 14:25
I agree. That’s a great starting point. Over the last year or so there have been lots of discussions about visual descriptions. And one of the biggest complaints is that a lot of them are poor quality. Because people are struggling to figure out, what do they describe, and they’re feeling anxiety and stress over what do I describe? How much to describe? So telling people share what you’re comfortable with it As a starting point, but at this point, a year in, many years for others, who’ve been in this conversation for much longer, I think it’s time to have a more detailed guidance.

— Music begins, a dramatic repeating piano loop, followed by a hi hat lead into a mid temp Hip Hop groove. that

Haben continues:
How much to share what to share, how do we best model visual accessibility, while being aware of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and the other forms of oppression?

TR: 15:31
No one is saying this has to be a mandatory function at every gathering. Guidelines, quite honestly just helped make it a smoother process,

Haben: 15:39
so that people who are new get a sense of what to do. And people who have been in this a while can fine tune and improve their image descriptions. And guidelines would help people be more succinct in their descriptions. If we could give guidelines to limit it to one or two sentences, for example, that would help people keep it short. So many of the complaints about self descriptions are due to the fact that a lot of people are struggling and don’t know what to share and what not to share guidelines would help with that,

TR: 16:16
in my opinion, those are all constructive complaints. When I hear someone say, well, it takes too long. I infer that means it would be cool if it was quicker. But not everyone is constructive.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 16:23
What about the idea that, what someone looks like or what someone is wearing, has no importance? How would you respond to that?

Haben: 16:37
Then turn off the video, turn the lights off, if it really doesn’t matter.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 16:44
(Thomas chuckles!) I like that very succinct.

Haben: 16:47
You’re welcome. (A big smile in her voice!)

TR in Conversation with Haben: 16:49
I’ve heard folks say that it’s a performative act, it does nothing to enhance the access for blind people,

Haben: 16:56
there are different degrees of performance, if you are going on stage to do a presentation you are performing. So to an extent we have to accept that self description is a performance.
If you turn on your camera you are performing. So we need to accept that part.

— Music ends: The beat comes to an end with a DJ scratch to emphasize the next statement.

Haben:
The response as in an earlier response, give guidelines so people can do better. There are already so many blind people who have said they appreciate visual descriptions. There are people with other disabilities who are sighted and also appreciate visual descriptions. And there are people who identify as non disabled, who also appreciate self descriptions, because it helps with so many unconscious biases when people are open about self describing.

TR: 17:51
I wrote an article for the Disability Visibility Project on this subject earlier this year titled, “Making the case for Self Description: It’s Not About Eye Candy.” I’ll link to the article on this episode’s blog post.
And shout out to Alice Wong.
By the way, if you haven’t read her latest book, “Year of the Tiger”, what’s wrong with your life?

Voice of Marlett, with an audio effect that simulates being heard in one’s head:
“Maybe find a gentler way of saying that!”

TR: 18:18
Did y’all hear that? That’s my wife’s voice I hear in my head every now and then when I want to make a point. Okay, maybe that was too rough. I just want us to support her work, it’s a really good book. And the audiobook narrator is on point…

The article is framed as a response to a piece written in the NFB Braille monitor. I counted the so called argument made by the author, honestly, most of it gave me the impression that he was trying to do a bit of crude stand up. But the main point I think I always come back to on this subject…

TR in Conversation with Haben: 18:43

My problem with the folks who are calling to abandon this process is sort of tied to what you just said.
That there are a lot of people who already recognize it as access. And if it’s access for one group, why should any part of the group try to take that away? Why isn’t the conversation around improving it? And so in addition to the guidelines, how can we go about improving this process?

Haben: 19:25
We can improve it by tapping into voices, listening to voices of people from underrepresented communities, because I’m worried about people of privilege, deciding that there’s no value in self descriptions, and deciding to take it away.

TR: 19:48
At the time of my conversation with Haben. I was unaware that some members of the NFB were proposing a resolution to discourage the practice of self description.

Haben: 19:57
But thankfully, members of the NFB many members of color, I believe, advocated to remove that resolution that would have discouraged it. So I’m deeply fascinated with guidelines for visual descriptions. I haven’t found a good one online yet. And I’m hopeful that this will be led by blind individuals from underrepresented backgrounds, religion, disability, as in blind people who have other disabilities like deaf blindness, blind people of color, trans LGBTQ, blind people from underrepresented backgrounds should be leading the creation of guidelines for self descriptions.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 20:45
Well, that’s a fantastic point. It feels as though the negative response, the call to abandon self descriptions, that comes mainly from folks who are not of color.

Haben: 21:05
(Begins with a laugh)
I have had similar thoughts. And I feel like it’s people who have a lot of privilege and are concerned they may lose their privilege, lose keys to the normal, cool club, if they speak up about issues that certain communities find controversial, like race and other things that should not be controversial.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 21:37
Losing the keys, what does that look like in the real world? What does someone actually put at risk by having these conversations?

Haben: 21:47
So vice president Harris said…

— Audio from the now infamous meeting:

I’m Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, I’m a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.

Haben: 21:53
And a lot of people had so many ridiculous responses to that, because it felt like, it’s so obvious, don’t talk about it. But they weren’t thinking about an accessibility perspective. It was sighted people with a lot of privilege, and blind people with a lot of privilege, trying to brush that off, then we get to a situation where, let’s say, a white person says that they’re white. A lot of people who carry privilege will feel uncomfortable with that. And a blind person who is white, and at a conference, does an image description and says they’re white, they might feel like they’re putting themselves at risk of being ridiculed, and no longer being cool, or risk of losing respect. If they say something that a lot of people carrying privilege feel like, it’s so obvious, it should not be discussed, it’s not relevant.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 23:11
Okay, I get that. It’s hard for me to grasp it from the perspective of that individual who feels that way. Because all of these things are visual, right?

Haben: 23:23
They’re visual. But when you voice them, you call attention to them. So when you voice, that you’re white, you’re calling attention to whiteness, which also calls attention to white privilege. And there are still so many people who do not like talking about white privilege, or feel like it doesn’t exist, it’s not a thing. So when you bring up concepts that are adjacent to white privilege, like describing that someone is white, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 24:03
Okay, that makes sense. We’re making people uncomfortable. And the people with the privilege are those who are uncomfortable.
TR: 24:06
Go ahead and add that to the list of Why I think self description is a good thing. And please don’t make the mistake of thinking that someone who was white and blind doesn’t have access to that privilege, and therefore may even be in fear of losing that access, or more.

Haben: 24:24
And there are blind people who are concerned that if you ask for one more accessibility feature, you’re going to lose all of the other accessibility features as if there’s a limit to how much accessibility can be called for. But I feel like we should approach it from a place of abundance and assume and desire that everything be accessible.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 24:49
Yes. I don’t understand why folks would think that you have to give up one to get the other.

Haben: 24:56
I think it’s from years and years of being excluded. It is frustrating to be excluded from so much information.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 25:05
This reminds me of some of those in the community who are so eager to accept poor quality audio description, such as that which uses synthesized speech instead of human narration. For example, I’ve read things online like…

(Thomas mimicking a very nerdy voice, says):
“These companies have bent over backwards for us, if we aren’t grateful, they’ll stop describing altogether.”

Well, that’s what they sound like in my head, when I read these types of things.

Voice of Marlett, with an audio effect that simulates being heard in one’s head:
“Maybe find a gentler way of saying that!”

TR:
You know, I should be more compassionate. It’s not really their fault. However, I would encourage these folks to just look at history. It’s not until the disenfranchised raise their collective voice and take a stand. At some point, you have to just realize, what are we really at risk of losing? Maybe that’s just bad audio description? Personally, I’m good with that.

Now, back to the guidelines.

Haben: 25:59
I don’t know of any guidelines right now for self descriptions. And I’m hopeful that you will be part of the process of creating these guidelines, and that there will be conversations with blind people from underrepresented communities to create these guidelines.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 26:21
Yeah. So how can we do that? (A knowing giggle.)

Haben: 26:24
Giggles!

Conversation. Plans.

In this podcast, we’ve been talking about what should be in those guidelines.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 26:35
Yeah, I guess I’m thinking, if it’s not one of the two large consumer organizations who get behind it. And we want it to be led by marginalized groups of blind people and others, who’s the organizing body,

Haben: 26:55
we can change the structure, we don’t necessarily need an organizing body to lead the way.
We can have individuals leading the way.

Music begins.
A bouncy bass drum drops into a driving rhythm that hints at an Afro beat style.

TR: 27:06
You know I’m in there.
But if I weren’t, she would have had me at, we can change the structure.
I believe both consumer organizations are extremely useful and important to the community. They serve a variety of purposes. However, I’m not a member of either right now.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 27:14

I’m a row cowboy. Lol.

Haben: 27:25
It’s not something a rogue cowboy can do on its own. But then a cowboy can collaborate with other cowboys and cowgirls.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 27:36
(Laughing )Let’s change it because I don’t even like the cowboy reference anymore.

Haben: 27:42
(Laughing )
Let’s try it again. What reference would you prefer?

TR in Conversation with Haben: 27:46
Yeah, just people. I like the fact that you’re saying that it should be done within community. And I guess I want to find more people who are like minded, such as yourself and others, to form that community to really feel like there are a lot of other people who are speaking about it. And I think what happens in social media, sometimes it feels like, yeah, people are “liking”, therefore trying to amplify the conversation. But those who are actually in conversation seems to be far and few. And I just want to find more.

Haben: 28:19
Perfect. So let’s build up a coalition of people who believe in self descriptions value. And then once we have that collective, we can start brainstorming what should be in the guidelines.

TR: 28:35
So we started with some of the possible guidelines we identified here today.

The act of self describing should be quick, about a minute at most. This means folks unfamiliar should be given some advance notice that they’ll be asked to provide this access.
Including the notice and guidelines along with the meeting agenda, for example.
Consider what’s visible to those in attendance. Are we talking about a Zoom meeting?
Keep it to your waist up and start from the head down.
Skin Tone eye color, if that’s something you’d like to highlight, hair color, facial hair, glasses, a brief description of your shirt or blouse, you get it? What’s your background? If you’re seated by a window overlooking the city skyline, that may be a nice touch.
Plain white wall? Meh!
But remember, it’s zoom, there’s probably no need to describe those things off screen.

— Music ends: The bouncy bass drop that opened the track echoes and fades out… emphasizing the statement that follows.

Haben: 29:24
And then there’s an asterisk, however, share and describe those things that are not visible on camera, if they are highly relevant to the things that are visible on camera. Sometimes people might appear a certain way, like someone might look white, but identifies with other racial and ethnic identities, and they want to share that even if it might not be visibly obvious.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 29:57
Yes, good example.

TR: 29:50
It’s okay to be creative. Put some of your personality into the description. I mean, let the words the tone, also speak to who you are as an individual. And as we mentioned earlier, for some identity can be triggering. So safety first. It’s always optional. Although I read some posts where some opt out of the practice of self describing or providing their pronouns just to be provocative. Allow me to suggest an appropriate self description for such an individual…

Eminem Sample: 30:28
“May I have your attention please!”
“My name is…”

TR: 30:31
Asshole!

Concise, right?

Voice of Marlett, with an audio effect that simulates being heard in one’s head:
“Maybe…

TR:
(Interrupting) No!

this is a good time to remind us all that while we’re talking about access, we’re not necessarily including everyone.
There’s a difference between purposefully excluding people and unknowingly doing so. The difference is awareness. As with audio description, for example,

Haben: 30:52
I can’t access audio descriptions, because I’m deaf. I don’t hear them. So to access films, I need a descriptive transcript. And that would have the audio descriptions. And they would also have the dialogue. And because there isn’t a time constraint, that descriptions can be much longer and more detailed compared to audio descriptions.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 31:20
And I know those are far and few.

Haben: 31:23
Yes, yes, they’re still quite rare. It

TR in Conversation with Haben: 31:26
feels as though it shouldn’t be that hard, because what you need exists is just not together.

Most films that come out have captions, and those that are coming out now with audio description, that text is alive somewhere. So it’s just the combining of the two, what kind of conversations are being had now to make that available?

Haben: 31:50
Not many conversations, I reached out to Netflix asking for descriptive transcripts. And they created what the first one from Netflix that I remember, is crip camp.
That came with an amazing descriptive transcript. And I read through it, it was almost like a novel so many descriptions, and all the conversations. And since then there have been more descriptive transcripts from Netflix.
TR in Conversation with Haben: 32:14
where do you get them?

Haben: 32:15
On the page for the show or film? I believe there is a more or notes section on that webpage? Under that would be a link to the transcript.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 32:37
So does one need to subscribe to Netflix in order to gain access to that?

Haben:
Yes.

TR in Conversation with Haben:
So it’s not a lot of content. So you’re paying the same price, but have access to way less content.

Haben: 32:50
That is the frustration of not having enough descriptive transcripts. And I’m hopeful there’ll be more than that other media companies will also create more.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 33:02
Wow. So right now it’s only Netflix who gives you access to that.

Haben: 33:06
I think Netflix is the only one out that I can think of that does it formally. There are other descriptive transcripts for other films out there. But it’s not a consistent thing.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 33:21
How can this podcast help to promote more access for folks who are deaf blind?

Haben: 33:29
When you talk to people who are working in media, encourage them to include descriptive transcripts.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 33:36
And a sample from crip camp would be a great place to point them in order for them to kind of take a look and see what that looks like? Correct?

Haben: 33:44
crip camp is great. And if they don’t have a Netflix subscription, they can look at some of my videos. I include descriptive transcripts in my videos, that’s

TR: 33:55
via her YouTube channel, Haben Girma on YouTube,

Haben: 33:59
Instagram, and to some extent on Facebook and Twitter as well. And my videos tend to be about deaf blindness, accessibility, human rights…
A sample from Haben’s YouTube channel:
Haben speaking. Hello. I need to tell you about CRM alee, an American child was forcibly disappeared by the Eritrean government. We are calling on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to help her…

Haben:
and the last video was about chocolate.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 34:33
What kind of chocolate do you like?

— Sound of Haben opening a package of chocolate on her YouTube video…

Haben: 34:36
I love experiencing new flavors and trying new combinations of chocolate.

— From the video, Haben announces after trying a new chocolate:
“Thumbs up.”

Haben: 34:35

I’m deeply curious and love culinary adventures.
So something will be my favorite temporarily. And then I continue exploring and trying new things and then I discover a new favorite.
My favorite thing is adventure!
TR in Conversation with Haben: 35:02
I like that!

What else do you like to do when you’re not working in writing your books? You’re not talking to people about self description. What does Haben Girma like to do?

Haben: 35:13
I am a dancer and I love dancing.

Swing, Salsa, Merengue, I feel like it’s a beautiful way to create community, meet new people and get exercise.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 35:27
Do you dance competitively?

Haben: 35:28
I did briefly when I was in school. And I realized competitions kind of take the fun out of it. I don’t want to be in a zone where I’m judging people, or I feel like people are judging me. I’d rather be in an environment where people are expressing Joy building community. So I’ve long since moved away from dance competitions.

TR in Conversation with Haben: 35:55
You know what you want! Excellent.

— Music begins: A quick snare drum as if confirming what was said along with a voice that says, “Yeah”. This opens a smooth joyful but funky bass line over a melodic groove.

TR:
Well Haben, I truly appreciate you taking some time. I want to let you know that when folks come on the podcast and speak to me and share some of their story or share some information. I like to make sure that you all know that you are an official member of the Reid My Mind Radio Family!
I hope this is just a first conversation of many more to come, especially around this topic of self description. I hope we can work together. So thank you.

Haben: 36:27
You’re welcome. And thank you for having me on the podcast.

TR: 36:31
If you want to contribute some thoughts to this effort of creating self description guidelines, hit me up at ReidMyMindRadio@gmail.com.
Specifically, we’re seeking input from people of color who are blind or have low vision and from other marginalized communities.

If you want to share any opinion on this topic whatsoever, you can feel free to send me an email as well. If you send nonsense, well…, I’ll say less.

Big shout out to Haben Girma.

Over the years, many of y’all reached out and suggested that I get Haben on the podcast, I wasn’t at all against it. I just really like to make sure that the content coming out of this podcast is different from others. Reid My Mind Radio isn’t really about telling you all about the newest gadget book or whatever. There’s plenty of podcasts that do that and do it well. I want this podcast to add value to whatever conversation we’re in. So if we’re discussing anything description related, anything about representation, technology, or whatever, I hope we can bring a valuable voice to the discussion. And of course, make it funky!

Haben brought that. And this was the right place and time for that conversation.

On that note, let me tell you it’s always the right time for Reid My Mind Radio!

The majority of our episodes are “evergreen.” So if you know someone who hasn’t given this podcast and listen or read of the transcript, let them know they’re missing something in their life. They can easily find Reid My Mind Radio wherever they get podcast.

We have transcripts and more at ReidMyMind.com.

Now come on fam, say it with me…

That’s R to the E, I … D!
— Sample: (“D! And that’s me in the place to be.” Slick Rick)
Like my last name!
— Reid My Mind Radio outro
Peace!

Hide the transcript

Music begins – A bouncy synth opens a driving Hip Hop beat.

TR:

[megaphone sound effect]

Greetings Reid My Mind Radio family. Welcome back! to the first episode in this final season of 2022. I’m talking about Young, Gifted, Black…

[in the background]

say the word

[yells]

And disabled!

If you don’t know it all began with an episode I produced in 2020 with my man, brother, Ajani AJ Murray. If you haven’t listened to that original episode, I strongly suggest that you do.

I like to begin the episode with some sort of an intro, you know, an update, a skit, a few words loosely tied to the episode or its theme. Well, today’s guest has so much greatness to share that I want to honor that and leave most of this episode to her and the topic at hand. But here, we always kick things off with the drum.

Reid My Mind Radio Intro Music

A collage of different crisis from news reports: 01:07
“We have stormed the Capitol!” A rioter yells!

“To Washington and the high stakes hearings on the January 6 attack on the Capitol.” – News anchor.

“A rally organized to protest COVID restrictions, with members of the state’s militia groups openly taking part” – News Reporter.

“Longer fire seasons, stronger hurricanes, more intense heat waves and floods. Across the world climate events are getting more extreme” – News anchor

“If it feels to you like there are more weather related natural disasters. That’s not just a feeling.” – News reporter

TR:
All of these things are taking place around us today and are increasing in occurrence. And my recent dive into the speculative fiction of Octavia Butler, and it really got me thinking how prepared are we people with disabilities for major disaster? Then I recall meeting someone on Clubhouse who can really speak to this in a way that truly takes this all into account.

— Music begins, Triumphant horns blow as a symbol crescendos into a mid tempo Hip Hop beat lead by a driving kick drum.

Justice Shorter

Justice:

I am a black blind lesbian woman. I hail from the Midwest Region born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but I currently reside in Washington DC.

I am the granddaughter of Leola Daniels Carter and Fanny Jahari. I’m the daughter of Lily Mae Carter and Michael Demetrius Shorter. It’s always top of mind for me to link and give honor to the lineages in terms of the work that I do, the spaces that we occupy.

I describe myself as a curator, as a creative, a coordinator of sorts. I am a disability justice advocate a Black Disabled Lives matter amplifier, a international trainer and speaker.

I do a lot of work that heavily focuses on disaster, justice, disability justice, racial justice, gender justice work, because they are inextricably linked, you cannot have one without having the other.

A lot of my work kind of centers around those primary issues. Iadjusted and adapted as I continue learning and growing and evolving because quite frankly, there is no other way for me to move and maneuver in this world.

TR:
A part of that learning, growing, evolving is in regards to her blindness. This began with glaucoma around the age of five or six.

Justice:

That actually first started out with a retinal detachment which took all of the vision in my right eye. Then glaucoma slowly started to take the vision and my left eye. From very early ages, it has informed my life. So it would be categorized as a developmental disability for sure. Given how it has informed my developmental years, my early developing years.

My relationship to disability, though, is one that has come with the progression of time as well. I have always been deeply steeped in my blackness. But coming into a closeness and intimacy with disability has been something that has happened over time.

TR:
I’m sure there are a lot of people with intersecting identities who are adjusting to disability that can relate.

BIPOC, or a ter that better encapsulates this group, people of the global majority, who may have spent years learning how to deal with overt racism, microaggressions and all sorts of injustice, while trying to develop a strong and positive self identity. Only to have to now be faced with internal and external ableism.

Justice:
It wasn’t until I started to delve more deeply into the work of quite frankly, people of color with disabilities, that I started to see myself more clearly and I started to smile and rejoice of what that was reflected back to me.

To see yourself mirrored and the experiences of other people who have similar journeys as you do, really helps you to getting a better understanding of how you can position yourself in this community and in this space.

So it wasn’t until I started reading folks like Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Patty Burns, Stacy Park Milburn folks who, again, are luminaries in the space of Disability Justice articulators and architects of what we now know as disability justice. That I was really able to grab hold to it in a way that was so deeply personal, and that encompassed such a profound sense of pride.

TR:
We’re talking about the power of people and our stories, enabling us to fully see ourselves and explore all of those things that make up who we are.

Justice:
I had already realized quite early on that standing in my truth was a means of survival. It was a means of me utilizing my own story, as opposed to having others use it for themselves. What does my story mean, not only to myself, but other young women like me, other Black lives, LGBTQIA, folks just like myself, other people of color, like myself with disabilities, it wasn’t until I started to think about that a bit more that I was far more inclined to start working on disability as an area of practice.

TR:
Part of that process can literally require finding the right location, a place that presents opportunities for justice, and then moving to Washington, DC.

Justice
I came out to DC, the doors kept opening and they were all related to disability. There were a lot of internships and practicum opportunities and all of that stuff. And all of them were like disability oriented opportunities. And I’m like, well, here we go, I’m not gonna turn down this internship I’ve been dreaming up or this post grad school job that I’ve been dreaming of, because it’s in the disability space, and I didn’t want to be held in a box. I was very scared for quite some time that disability would cage me. I say that with purpose. I say that with intention. So many of us are caged because of our disability.

TR:
Cages are more than physical, a boundary that limits our movement. Well, that can be in our thinking about our lives and possibility.

Justice:

Considering how many people of color, how many black people are imprisoned in this country, and how many of them have some sort of disability, mental health consideration, or access or functional issues.

I think about trying to do this work in the different layers of discrimination that happens when you say that you have a disability and you’re trying to find a job, I did not want to be pushed aside, I did not want to be pushed out of the different sectors that I wanted to pursue professionally. The opposite happened. The very thing that you think will cage you can sometimes be the thing that frees you. It became the thing that allowed me to see myself more clearly, allowed me to grow wings, in a sense of flying in all of these different directions and with all of these other phenomenal people who are also doing dope stuff being completely embodied in their truth, and that should just excited me to know him.

TR:
When I first began making audio even before this podcast, I thought about working in radio and reading mainstream stories. I recall thinking,

[faintly]

I’m more than just disability.

[back to normal speech]

When I hear Justice say…

Justice
The very thing that you think will cage you can sometimes be the thing that frees you.

TR:
… Learning more about disability culture and challenging my own ableism has brought me to a place where I realized the opportunity and value in telling stories from a disability lens. In no way am I settling for something less rather, I’m fully aware of his greatness and possibility.

Justice:

A lot of folks have distanced themselves from the word disability as a means of survival. That history is the interlocking ways that people have been discriminated against all of those forms of compounded discrimination has caused many folks to distance themselves, whether it be locking you out of the school systems, locking you out of the employment system, locking you out of the type of medical care that you need, locking you out of the type of housing that you need, actually locking you into nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, group homes, settings that you don’t wish to be in. People with disabilities have an acute awareness of these things. It has caused folks to quite honestly try to be very fearful about the proximity of disability, kind of getting too close to that word, or getting too close to those issues. That should not be the reality that we all live in.

TR:
You know this isn’t about the word disabled, right? Many prefer to use terms like “special needs” or “differently abled,” but that doesn’t change the impact of systemic ableism.

Justice:
And that is why it’s so deeply important that we change those structural inequities that people have to deal with on a day to day basis, so that people can, people of color with disabilities, young and old, of any age range, any type of disability can hear that word and understand that it is inseparable with freedom. It is inseparable from joy. It is inseparable from laughter, and levity and friendship and fellowship, all of the things that allows your soul to breathe. That’s kind of what I try to center my work on as much as I can.

TR:
Building bridges for us. Our wellbeing physical, emotional, spiritual. We’re talking about our safety and you know, that goes beyond natural threats.

Justice10:00
There’s also human-caused crises that we have to contend with: the Flint water crisis, things that are happening with the nuclear power plants, factories that pollute water, you think about environmental injustice, which also, of course leads you to the Environmental Justice Movement, which was founded by people of color. A lot of times that history gets pushed aside or buried, when we talk about environmental justice.

TR: 10:24
Whether man made or natural, these threats to our safety don’t always just spring up on us.

Justice10:30
Dealing with structural violence on a day to day basis. Also, it creates what people in the social work and psychology world call the sandpaper versus baseball effects. The baseball effect is when something hits you over the head, it’s kind of very hard. It’s a hard hitting issue that evokes this trauma. But then there’s also the sandpaper effect, which is trauma that things that grate on you over time, it kind of wears you down wears on you over time, things like poverty, not being fully represented, not only in terms of your politics, but also in terms of these social environments that you navigate within things like medicalized ableism. And discrimination, all of these things wear on you, over time, all of these things are structurally violent, it is the difference between your potential reality and your actual conditions.

TR:
Too often individuals are held up as an example to model “he overcame the poverty,” “she broke through the glass ceiling.” Whether we’re talking about racism, sexism, ableism, we hear it all the time, “she was able to do it, why can’t the rest of you?” But focusing on individuals does nothing to address the systemic problem.

Justice:

We as people of color with disabilities, we have the potential certainly to pursue whatever aspirations that we want to pursue in terms of professional or academic or spiritual. And yet, so many of us are kept out of those areas of those sectors for all sorts of reasons, but many of them tie back to racism, ableism, sexism, ageism, so on and so forth. All of those things are structurally violent, because it keeps you from living the life that you could live.

Toni Morrison tells us that racism itself is just a distraction. It keeps you from living the life that you truly wish to live. It keeps you from doing the things that you truly wish to do, because you are in a perpetual space of having to explain your very existence to people who quite frankly, may or may not even give a damn at the end of the day.

TR: 12:31
That’s fighting for employment that enables you to earn a living wage in order to afford housing where you don’t have to worry about your children getting lead poisoning, or access to good schools or even clean drinking water. And then there’s something we really need to consider in regards to the often suggested advice around disaster preparedness.

Justice 12:50
So many individuals who are impacted by disaster or who live in disaster prone areas are told to simply prepare, to pack up as much stuff as you can pack up, hoard as much stuff as you can hoard. Have you a to-go bag that’s filled with all of these things that you can afford to put in it. But if you cannot afford these things during times that are not embodied by crisis, then you certainly can’t afford them enough to stock up on them prior to a crisis. Are we sculpting solutions and recommendations based on the conditions that only a select few can meet? Or are we creating solutions and ideologies, remedies and practices that are going to be applicable for the people who need them the most.

TR: 13:36
As Justice simply put it, preparation comes with privilege. If you do have that privilege, by all means, consider checking out various suggestions on what to include in an emergency to go kit. Ready.gov has a number of suggestions. As people with disabilities you also want to consider your access needs like white or mobility canes, assistive technology, and other technology that may be required for you to gather information or communicate with others. However, it’s important to note that the onus shouldn’t always be placed on the individual.

Justice:
It’s kind of the wave in the finger in the face response.” Why didn’t you prepare better, we can’t always save everybody!”
People deserve to survive irrespective of what their class status is. My thinking around this has shifted. I go more towards how are we building community and connection. Whereas I may only be able to buy a flashlight, my neighbor up the street may be able to buy a couple of extra cases of water. My other neighbor down the road may have a generator. My other neighbor down the street may have a couple of more cans of food. Can we create community in this way? Disability Justice teaches us that we are each other’s survival strategy.

Music begins – a smooth slow jazzy Hip Hop groove.

TR: 14:46
This feels like the antithesis of our society’s norm contrary to the idea of independent making sure you have your own solely relying on yourself. This is interdependence. We spoken about this here before and up approach that encourages collaborative work.

Justice 15:02
coming back to center around community, how can we help each other survive? What I can’t carry, maybe you can. What you can’t do, maybe I can? How can we support each other?

TR: 15:14
Another term for this way of acting and thinking is mutual aid.

Justice 15:18
It’s looking at this in a way that says, even if you cannot contribute in these ways that kind of meet other material needs, your life is still worth saving.

How can we support in that way? That could be any of us at any time, that is also a means of planning for the future. I don’t have this disability today, I may have it in two months, or if something hits me in a certain way, I could have that mobility disability.

So us planning around how we’re going to support these folks in our community, now, it’s important for all of our collective survival.

TR:
Perhaps this goes beyond the physical.

Justice:
Cole Arthur Reilly, who has this wonderful book called This Year Flesh. In that book, Cole says, What if God did not just want to use you? What if he also wanted to be with you? I think about that, in terms of people having inherent worth and recognizing wholeness, which is one of those disability justice principles. We recognize the wholeness of people, we understand that there doesn’t have to be a utility. In order for people to survive catastrophe. We could just inherently care about the presence and the value of each other as people. And that could be enough to make us think about preparedness in a more expansive way. That recognizes that all of us deserve the opportunity to survive.

TR: 16:31
With that said, what exactly are some examples of mutual aid that exists today?

Justice 16:36
Mask Oakland, because they have done extraordinary work to help protect people with disabilities during wildfire seasons by making sure that people had masks to help themselves to breathe during the wildfires of California. These are people with disabilities helping other people with disabilities by supplying them with masks.

They also had a very targeted approach in terms of helping people who were houseless because they were the folks who were the most exposed. People who can go indoors and shut the windows and use central air units to stay cool and protect themselves from the air.

TR: 17:06
How often do we hear the narrative of people with disabilities as recipients of aid? Rarely do we hear of us as providers, especially when it goes beyond the disability community. But check out who stepped up when the pandemic hit and the rush on masks resulted in a shortage.

Justice 17:23
Oakland had masks that they were trying to distribute at the very least when supplies were running low.

Providing people with information on what types of masks to get and what type of masks did what, and making sure that people were willing to know. So that informational awareness was key.

This is also something that a lot of folks are doing online, in terms of telling people different ways to stay safe. And all of these different COVID protocols, people sharing knowledge on how to save themselves.

This is also happening in kind of non-crisis wave people with disabilities creating hashtags and creating websites around disability at home. What are some of the hacks that people are making? I think that’s actually the site’s name, “disability at home.”

TR: 18:00
Disabilityathome dot ORG, a catalog, if you will, of ideas and inexpensive hacks that enable people to create low cost solutions for mobility aids In Home Solutions for creating safe, accessible spaces in bathrooms, and for completing daily chores at home. As Justice noted, the same things that keep you safe on a daily basis are needed during disasters. So providing information is a component of disaster justice, to activism and advocacy, a real and important function that just so happens to be accessible for those with disabilities.

Justice 18:36
Sometimes when we talk about activism, we try to only act as if that can happen in ways that are very physical, being in the street, going up against police officers going out there and directly helping someone evacuate carrying them on your back out of the flaming building, right?

When we think about that, as forms of support, or activism, or things that would kind of constitute this framing around who is a responder or who is someone we can call in a crisis related event. But there is also a ton of work that’s happening in virtual spaces and online. And that’s really key, especially for many of us who can’t physically go out and beat the streets by way of protesting or going door to door to advocate for the things that people need.

TR: 19:24
We’re talking about all sorts of things here from crises like that in Flint, Michigan, or Jackson, Mississippi, that deprive people of clean drinking water, health care, access to physical and online spaces. A lot of that’s happening through hashtags, some of these online Twitter spaces and Facebook groups.

Justice 19:43
This is important because that’s how knowledge is passed. So many of us are learning through the lessons of others and through the lives of others. And when you share that information, it positions people with disabilities as experts of their own narratives, but also of their own survival. And I think that’s really important.

TR: 20:01
When talking about survival, Justice stresses that it goes beyond the high profile weather events.

Justice 20:07
What you might not consider to be a crisis, I would! The fact that there are people who might be doing construction in your building, and they don’t tell the blind folks what’s happening, it’s not a crisis for anybody else moving around that building, except if I hit that ladder.

People with disabilities have additional considerations that we’re thinking about on a day to day basis, it may not be a crisis as someone else, oh, I just have a scratch. But for me, it could take me out for days, or it could take me out for much longer than that. I think about that and I affirm those experiences for people.

TR: 20:37
Okay, now check out this example of mutual aid, Justice knows neighbors, and they know her. Even more than that, they look out for one another. So when Justice isn’t around, a neighbor will say something to a construction worker, like…

Justice 20:50

“You cannot leave that ladder here, you can, you cannot leave all of these tools in the middle of the floor because the cane may not catch it.”

TR: 20:58
Then I think it’s solely about themselves, but rather, each other, community, like a time a man with a knife tried to enter the building.

Justice21:06
The neighbors came together and supported one another and they made sure he did not get in here.

I had another neighbor who was locked outside of our building, the door knob literally came off, so we couldn’t get out. And he could not get in. What was my solution? My first solution was not to call the police because all of us were black. Two of them were black men. And there’s some additional considerations that you have to take into account in that way. The first thing that I thought of though was to go grab this neighbor of the black men, he came down, he literally undid all of the joints to get that thing undone so that we could all get out of the building. And so this guy could get in.

TR: 21:39
Together, they took action that would prevent such a crisis in the future.

Justice 21:43
We advocated that a new door be put on to the building, we advocated that the construction crew close the windows at night, so that different people didn’t have access into the building, which created another safety concern.

TR: 21:54
The lesson here, any conversation about disaster preparedness must be about advocacy.

Justice 21:59
I encourage you to start talking to the people around you making community with the people around you. I encourage you to start looking around you and assessing kind of what are the things that you can do if you are spending your time at a workplace and eight hours out of your life, every single day, Monday through Friday. And then okay, I think we need an evacuation chair, where is it because how am I going to get out and it’s not just acceptable that everybody else can leave except me. That’s not cool. I’m not okay that that is our plan, or that our plan is this only one person knows how to use the evacuation chair, and nobody else knows how to use it. So if Rob is not at work today, then it’s just too bad for me if a crisis happens on that day,

TR: 22:36
Justice recommends thinking about all of the places you spend time, community centers, public parks and malls for all sorts of crises. In 2022, the reality includes acts of insurrection homegrown terrorism, thinking about mass shootings, do you have an escape route, or no have a way to shelter in place? These are just some of the questions we should be asking ourselves.

Justice 22:58
How can we use things like vocational rehabilitation services, assistive technology organizations that say, Hey, I think I need this piece of assistive tech because it’s going to help me in a crisis. I’m going to use it for dual purposes. I’m going to use it on my day to day but it’s certainly going to be useful as something to support me during a crisis as well.

TR: 23:14
How does geography play into preparation? Specifically, I’m thinking about those living in rural environments far from their nearest neighbor.

Justice 23:22

I think sometimes that gives you the illusion that there’s no community because people aren’t close. And that’s an untruth. Many of them have way more survival techniques that any of us would even understand because they have had to live on their own. And because they haven’t had easy access to just go down the street and get to someone.

Listen, when the cold snap happened down in Mississippi, it was 2020 or 2021. All the years are running together. When the cold snap came into those areas. A lot of black folks who lived in very rural areas mentioned how “Listen, we didn’t have any running water,” “our generator started to go out,” “there was no one around us for miles, we had to figure out how we were going to get from point A to point B.”

What ended up happening, you still have people who ended up driving in, you still had people who ended up starting to bring people over to their homes so that they can have baths. You had people who were doing carpools that make sure that people had access to food and water. People showed up for one another.

TR: 24:19
Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone. Justice encourages organizations to really think about this, especially when making new purchases.

Justice 24:27
If we’re getting new vans, if we’re getting new buses, are they wheelchair accessible? Those very same church buses, vans, these things are also becoming evacuation vehicles in a crisis. Are they equipped with a wheelchair lift? If they not, we have a problem. We’re not planning for everybody. You’re saying that everybody else can get on this bus that we have repurposed to be you know, an evacuation, but we’re gonna go up this road and we’re gonna get everybody who want to come. Wonderful. What if I want to come and I can’t because there’s no way for me to get on this bus with my power chair. You can’t just put me on there and then I have no means of moving around once I get to my location.

TR in Conversation with Justice: 25:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Justice 25:05

When I first started to lose my sight, and I started taking courses that were related to activities of daily living, my instructor was also a blind woman. And she said that the difference between a problem and a crisis is time.

TR: 25:14
Remember that situation where the door to Justice’s building couldn’t open. That was a problem. But when you add fire and smoke, it becomes a crisis, the tenants working together that makes that building a community. Churches, social organizations, and even chapters of consumer organizations are all opportunities for mutual aid organizing.

Justice 25:35
I would also beg the leadership of those entities to consider how they are thinking of their whole community, how they’re thinking of people with disabilities, because like I said, we will make investments in certain things. But are those things accessible from the onset? Is it something that we have to complain about or somebody gets hurt or somebody gets left out, then we start to consider it. “Oh, wow, we had to leave Miss Jenkins at home, hope she’s okay when the waters was rising, because nobody had a vehicle that could get her out.” But this is our community, we love it. But yet we didn’t plan for Miss Jenkins.

TR: 26:06
For those who may think they don’t have any access to community, that online access can prove to be helpful in various ways.

Justice 26:13
Even by listening to a podcast like this is cultivating a connection with different streams of thought from other people. That also helps to decrease isolation, and also helps you kind of just learn different patterns and different practices that might be helpful for you.

I could get on these types of platforms and talk from sunup to sundown, and I still wouldn’t be able to give you a fraction of all that goes into doing disaster justice and Disability Justice work.

What we could do is build together and create a relationship so that we can stretch out as much as we can in terms of helping people to understand what will be the most useful for them. What is necessary for me as a blind woman is not going to be the same for somebody with a different type of mobility disability, we have to individualize our responses a bit more, as opposed to just saying people with disabilities need to do a better job of packing a bag and going.

TR: 27:08
This episode began with the idea of becoming more prepared in the event of an emergency, it evolved into a broader understanding of a more holistic approach to mitigating disasters. That is disaster justice.

Justice 27:21
Thinking about all of the different ways that people are impacted by disasters across a disaster cycle. So it’s not just during response, but it’s also during the preparedness stage. It is during the mitigation phase, it is during response, during recovery. It’s long term recovery. Recovery does not end when the cameras school, when

Are we thinking about this in terms of people who are the most directly impacted, also having lines of impact in terms of decision making authorities? Or do we only ask the people who are the most impacted? What are their thoughts in kind of a town hall setting and then we go back into our private conference rooms and people who don’t live in these areas make all the decisions, or people who live in these areas, but don’t necessarily represent the priorities that the people have go forth and make those decisions. Are people of color with disabilities being disproportionately impacted by such decisions?

I encourage folks to read the work of Alessandra Jerolleman who has a wonderful text out there about disasters through the lens of justice. She has kind of these four principles around what constitutes a just recovery. But you can apply that to nearly every phase of a disaster cycle, and really gain some in depth understanding. So what it means to do this work in a way that is far more equitable, but also far more effective in terms of centering the groups on the ground, who are directly impacted by these crises on a day to day.

Music begins – a synth and sounds of nature that opens into an uplifting Hip Hop groove.

TR: 28:48
Examining disaster through a justice centered lens requires an understanding of disability justice. Unfortunately, I see it used as a broad term that disregards his origin. Disability Justice is specific to the 10 principles articulated by Patty Burns and Sins Invalid. I’ll link to these principles on this episode’s blog post at ReidMyMind.com and encourage you all to read further.

Among the various resources Justice shared with us today, I’d like to make sure you point your browser to JusticeShorter.com. Here you can access some of her past speeches, as well as getting in contact with her. These conversations about disaster preparation can be heavy. So I had to find out how justice unwinds and takes care of herself.

Justice 29:29
I’m happy that you brought up this question because I think people need to have their own resilience rituals. And listen, that word resilience has really thrown a lot of people off because people in power tend to use that as a way of not giving people the type of support and material things that they need to meet their critical needs.

Oh, you’re just so resilient. We’re resilient because we have to be it’s out of necessity. It’s because you have refused to direct funding towards this neighborhood. When I talk about resilience rituals, I mean, the things that keep me getting up and going, and don’t get me wrong, there’s some times that you need to stay down, because rest is essential.

I have learned over the years what I need to pour into me in order to get greatness out of me, and that is not something that can be predefined by anybody else except me. I had to learn that because sometimes people will look to their supervisors or look to mentors, what do I need to do? What do I need to do?

TR: 30:25
Sounds like what we’ve been talking about, an extension of the conversation around safety, who really knows more about what’s best for you than you. For Justice it’s about gospel music, walks on her treadmill, family and

Justice30:39
Just hang out with my girlfriend and have a good dinner. We travel, we do all types of dates that are fun and spunky. And you already know, I love reading, there’s always a book that’s queued up for me that I’m excited to get into. Every time I travel to do a speech or to do things that are related to my job, I try to bake in some time for living life and going and exploring that city and seeing what communities of color are doing there. What are they eating? What are they listening to? How are they having a good time? I try to at least embed myself in the city or in the culture just a little bit while I’m gone.

TR: 31:13
This was a true honor to have justice on the podcast. And you all should know there’s only one way to make that clear.

TR in Conversation with Justice:

It’s a very simple way and it’s by letting you know that you, Justice Shorter are an official member of the Reid My Mind Radio family. So I appreciate you.

Justice 31:27
I appreciate you. Thank you so much. It was a joy.

TR: 31:30
There’s so much in this episode. I honestly think this is one to hold on to, refer back to. It’s a resource for real. A resource that will be right here for you. Wherever you get your podcasts.
Remember transcripts and more are at ReidMyMind.com.

And now, in case of an emergency, I need to make sure you know that’s R to the E, I, D!
— Sample: “D! And that’s me in the place to be!” Slick Rick

TR:
Like my last name.
— Reid My Mind Radio Outro

TR:

Peace

Hide the transcript

Audio:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fjtp3f1mwxog5gb/Draft-Nefertiti-001.mp3?dl=0

TR:

One Two! One, Two!
Greetings, beautiful people. And welcome back to another episode of Reid My mind radio where we continue with our second season of 2022. Flipping the script on audio description.

[drum beat fades in]

If you’re new here, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Thomas Reid, host and producer of this podcast. And I’m glad you found it. If you’ve been rocking with ReidMYMindRadio Let me say sincerely and from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. And I truly appreciate you.

Have I ever told you how much I enjoy hearing from listeners? Sometimes it’s just finding out how you learned about the podcast. Some people like to let me know they enjoy it, and why. Others tell me a bit about who they are just let me know they support what we’re doing here.

All of that is fantastic. And I truly appreciate it. If you ever want to reach out please reidmymindradio@gmail.com is the email address. Feel free to holla at your brother.

I don’t know if y’all notice. But the Reid my MindRadio family is truly around the world. We’re not just in the States. We get some love in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa. That’s right. We on the motherland. Oh, yeah, and I’m definitely not forgetting my people up in Canada. I truly rock with y’all Canada.

I’d love to hear from more of my Caribbean brothers and sisters.

[shouting over a beat]

Puerto Rico! DR! Jamaica! Trinidad! Haiti! Come on. I know y’all out here. This is a podcast so we don’t deal with boundaries. We deal with energy. And there’s no border patrol for that. We don’t need no stinking passports.

Reid My Mind Radio family! Come on! Have you told friends about this podcast? What kind of friend are you just holding all this goodness to yourself? Sharing is caring. Baby girl. Tell them what time it is.

audio clip of TR’s youngest child:

Let’s start the show. One, two, three, four.
[RRMR intro]

Nefertiti

Hi, I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares, I am a bilingual voice talent and professional audio description Narrator quality control specialist and writer. I also do a lot of work in museum accessibility. Everything from writing scholarly articles, to representing my Latino heritage at the first of its kind, Molina family gallery, at the National Mall, the Smithsonian Latino Center. I advocate a lot for health care, assistive technology, Braille literacy. These are our lifelines on a lot of cases.

I spent a long time teaching folks sort of helping them, even the playing field in their own lives a little bit through technology too. I keep busy,

TR [singing]:
She’s a hustler, baby, she just wants you to know. It ain’t where she’s been, it’s where she’s about to go.

[talking]

If hustler has a negative connotation for you, and swap that with entrepreneur, go getter driven, motivated, for Nefertiti it’s rooted in the quest for more access.

Nefertiti:
I live and breathe this sort of thing every day, the accessibility of a world that was not built for me, and having to constantly make my own space, just about everywhere I go. I believe in my innate worth as a human being. I know that I have a lot to offer. I claim my power and my value and I take that with me everywhere I go, and hopefully make waves so that other people behind me can trump on into the river to and get what they need to get out of this life and be their best selves. As cliche as that may sound.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
Can we talk a little bit about early life experience within accessibility, if you want to mention anything about your blindness.

Nefertiti
I was born fully sighted and everything was okay till around three and a half years old, I started exhibiting some odd behaviors. I had an astrocytoma, a brain tumor, and it was stopping the blood flow to my optic nerve. They were able to remove it ultimately, but it came at a price.

TR:
The result was blindness and no other complications. Growing up in New York City. Nefertiti attended schools for the blind through high school.

Nefertiti:
I knew there was a world outside of that. I have a sister and I have cousins and I knew there was mainstream stuff, but I kind of enjoyed being a big fish in a little pond. So I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything in the blind schools. Plus, I could be in sports in a way that I knew I was never going to be allowed to be in a mainstream school. In the schools, I was able to be a cheerleader and Run, track and be on the swim team and all these things. Then college came around. And it was a very different experience, I had to really reckon with my blindness now that I wasn’t protected anymore now that I wasn’t around everybody else being like me.

TR:
Unfortunately, this story is not unfamiliar, leaving the comfort and generally accessible environment of the School for the Blind, and answering a college, Mount St. Vincent’s about an hour and a half from home. Nefertiti first realized not everything is built for her.

Nefertiti
By the time I got to college. Braille wasn’t a thing. This was a private school, they barely had any funding for a disability office, heck Thomas, the first year I was there, there was no disability office, it came into play because me and another blind student joined. And then there was a student who identified as having a learning disability. And so they had to put something together.

TR:
She was forced to largely find her own way

Nefertiti:
To figure out what technology would scan my books for me, learning screen reading technology, more than I already had in high school, upping my typing speed, I had to do that pretty drastically because I was doing a lot of papers and even just the campus itself. It was some such Rocky, hilly terrain. And at that time, I was refusing to use my cane. I never used it in the blind school because in the blind school, I was considered somebody who had some sight. But in the real world, I’m blind. In a setting like that one. In the dark, especially, I had some really close calls, and some really kind of dangerous situations I found myself in. But because I was too proud, and too embarrassed, and too ashamed. I didn’t use my cane while I was in this school.

TR:
Living on campus, not using a cane definitely still has some valuable lessons.

Nefertiti:
That stress I put myself through just because I refuse to put that cane in my hands and how much easier it would have been for me, if I had accepted myself as a blind person back then.

TR:
Then the image of Nefertiti that I have is one of a strong, confident, proud woman

Nefertiti:
That finally did come. But I put myself through quite a bit. Before that happened. I had internalized a lot of ableism in my life, I just decided something had to give. And if this is the body, I have, and these are the things I have to put up with.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
Things like additional health challenges and relationships.

Nefertiti:
And that’s when I put myself in therapy and went back to school and got myself in better shape. I was a triathlete for a time, there’s got to be better. And if there’s going to be better than I’m the only one that can make that happen for myself. That’s really what has transformed my life and to what it is today.

TR:
Today, Nefertiti is playing a role in flipping the script on audio description. That’s both on this podcast and more so by using her voice in various ways, as far as AD goes.

Nefertiti:
And then pandemic, that’s what happened, the pandemic happened. I’m not unique in this, a lot of people had found themselves rethinking and reevaluating situations in their lives, and I was no exception. And one of the things that I found myself really thinking about was my job at the library and the fact that I was there already for seven years.

TR:

That’s the Andrew high scale, Braille and Talking Book Library, a branch of the New York Public Library over in my old stomping grounds on 23rd Street, shout out to Baruch College, City University of New York.

Nefertiti:
I was teaching blind people mostly but anybody with a disability and mainstream folks to how to use technology. In the case of blind people and people with low vision, it was teaching them how to use the accessibility features in their mainstream devices like iPhones and things like that. I would also teach screen reading technology.

TR:
She facilitated workshops on HTML code, working with Google products, like docs and calendar, iOS apps, and even more lifestyle centered workshops on getting more active. Oh, and by the way, that’s an English and Spanish tambien.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
And you did one on games because I attended it.

Nefertiti:
Ah, that was a fun one on games that you could do on iOS, like accessible gaming.

TR:
Over her seven years working at the library, I imagined she was able to really directly contribute to helping lots of people not only learn their technology, and more, but really provide a foundation for their career and personal pursuits, but she was ready for something new.

Nefertiti:
Honestly, I really believe in making room and making space. I wanted someone else to have my job. I don’t believe in scarcity. I think that there is a myth around scarcity that once you have you need to hold on for dear life, or that you need to continue accumulating. I think there’s enough for everybody that goes for everything. I just got to a point where I felt like I’ve learned everything I’m going to learn here I’ve gone as far as I’m gonna go. I want to leave this open, hopefully even better defined than when I started and with more possibilities for growth for the next person to come in.

During the pandemic, I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of therapy. Therapy has been a constant thing in my life since I started taking it seriously. Accepting the fact that I wanted to do something else, I wanted to leave a space for someone else to be employed a blind person, a person with a disability, leave an employment opportunity open for someone else to come in with their own flavor and their own view on things to continue the work because it’s very valuable, very important, crucial, beautiful work. And I decided to pursue a passion. And that passion is specifically for audio description, but more generally, voiceover work.

TR:
I know what you’re thinking, leave a good job, you’re disabled 50 to 75, maybe 80% unemployment rate, anywhere on that spectrum is bad. She admits it was scary.

Nefertiti:
Again, the pandemic happened. And I was like, let’s get real here, you’re not really happy. And I didn’t want that to affect my patrons. And I didn’t want that to continue affecting me. So I did take the jump, I did leap. And I’ve been pretty fortunate that so far it’s working out really well. But it was kind of scary to do. But I think that a lot of things in life that are worthwhile are frightening, but still worthwhile

TR:
Pursuing a passion, you won’t get any argument from me on that. Since taking the leap. Nefertiti has been doing AD work on projects like Netflix original short film, Heartshot. New York Times, op docs selection, My Disability Roadmap, and several other projects, including the Jennifer Lopez documentary, titled halftime, currently on Netflix.

Nefertiti:
AD is a bit of a gig economy, unless you’re employed at a company, staff writer or staff narrator and they can make a living with that maybe as a nine to five but audio description in my life, it’s very much a gig economy. That’s something that I think is true for any type of arts job, you have some boom times and you have some downtimes. But I thought that audio description as my passion was a little too narrow. So then I decided to explore outward and sort of make myself even more employable by trying to do more generalized voiceover work.

TR:
The gig economy, in general is a hustle. You have to constantly think about and act on generating your next assignment. It’s far different from being an employee. You’re more like a farmer. You’re cultivating the land, planting seeds and watering them. You respond to nation and do whatever you can to assure a rich harvest. Not bad for city kid, right?

Similar to farmers, I’m not talking about those corporate conglomerates. The harvest doesn’t automatically mean a set payment. That often depends on other factors, many of which are bogus, but out of their control in the freelance environment, those seeds planted generate opportunities to work, which should lead to payment. I say should because well you might be surprised how often free or extremely undervalue labor is expected. Honestly, that’s another episode yo, if you have stories about being expected to work for free, email me reidmymindradio@gmail.com. I need to hear from you. Seriously.

Nefertiti:
Can I go here? Is it too sensitive? I don’t know.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
You go wherever you want to go.

Nefertiti:
Okay, the pay in the audio description space is so unregulated, you could work for four or five different companies and they have different methods of paying some pay by the minute, some pay by the hour, some pay by the project, and some pay, not a lot. Some others pay out of other countries. And so by the time you convert, it’s not a lot of money here in this country. Hopefully the audio description viewer gets a quality product and enjoys the show, and has all sorts of access. But in the meanwhile, the folks who made that happen, are not even able to make a living.

TR:
That’s why you have to be a hustler, someone who can find multiple opportunities to make use of their talents.

Nefertiti:
I had the real privilege of going to Montclair State University to present to our lecture/workshop for Professor Maria Jose Garcia Vizcaino. She is this professor of language studies. And she’s built into her curriculum, this entire semester of audio description. It is a beautiful example of what’s possible when somebody is really dedicated and believes in something.

TR:
Hey, stay tuned to hear more about Professor Maria Jose in a future episode.

Nefertiti:
I lectured for an hour, took questions and answers from some really engaged, excited students. We broke into a hands-on workshop, I brought a movie trailer, which only really consisted of some music and some drumming. And I challenged the students to break into groups and describe the first 30 seconds of the trailer. What we had as a fun thing was somebody of the group designated to stand up and do the description, with the trailer playing in the background. And once that was all done, and we discuss what was good, what can be improved upon, we watched the trailers which had been already described in both English and Spanish to give the students an idea of how did you compare to a professional rendering, and I’m happy to say that they compared pretty well, Maria Jose, you’re doing a great job with your students. And again, it was a real privilege for me to be able to do that.

TR:
In addition to workshops for those interested in AD she’s presented to film students and more.

Nefertiti:
I participate on panels, I moderate panels, I facilitate workshops, did it in my tech job and continue to do it here. It’s one of my favorite aspects of this field that’s getting more and more recognition.

TR:
And don’t forget, that’s in English and Spanish tambien.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
In addition to us both being blind at narrators, we both come at this from intersectional space. So, ¿tú eres Latina? ¿Dominicana?

Nefertiti:
Sí! Dominicana! Me gente!

In terms of my more Latino side, I actually learned Spanish before I learned English. Some people have a hard time believing me, but it’s true. I’m first generation born American but I’m very Dominican. So I’m very lucky, not something I’m very proud of. Unfortunately, though, there doesn’t seem to be much by way of Spanish audio description, quality Spanish audio description, it’s getting better slowly but surely. But historically. And still right now, at the time of this recording. Spanish audio description is nowhere near as buttoned up as English audio description is and some people have complaints about English audio description. So imagine the condition of Spanish audio description. It is nowhere near as equitable as English audio description, this idea of more Latinos being on screen in movies and in TV shows documentaries about us. And that’s fantastic. We’re proliferating the cultural consciousness. But wow, I hear a lot of white people describing this stuff. And it’s like white people. Hey, you got enough to describe where are my Latinos at.

[In the Heights trailer begins playing in the background]

Nefertiti:
In the heights. It is by Lin Manuel Miranda, he of Hamilton fame. This was his big claim to fame before Hamilton actually. And it’s a play based in Washington Heights right here in New York City. I’ve got family living in Washington Heights. The person describing it in the American version, because there is also a UK version, I believe is a white woman. And I don’t agree with that choice.
She has a lovely voice, very clear, her diction is beautiful. She does a wonderful job. This is not a reflection on her as an artist, a narrator. You mean to tell me there wasn’t a Latina woman or even a man that could be casted to have done that job. I have a really hard time with that. That speaks to the cultural competency. Like we’re seeing more diversity on screen. The audio description should also reflect that diversity. It should match not just the script to the vision of what the director is trying to make happen trying to engender in viewers but also the narrator who is saying these things. Being part of that community and yes, the writer should also be I think of that community.
If I may give an example of the harder they fall. Excellent. I think audio description down to the point where they describe microbraids. They describe the different skin color. A really good example there of writing that clearly researched everything from what to call the different skin tones to the different hairstyles, all things that are of important to blind people of color other people to I’m sure, particularly since historically we haven’t heard about us, we haven’t heard about ourselves, having people who match the content to make a quality, audio description script and narration is, I think, crucial, and really speaks to the cultural competency that is still lacking in a lot of ways in this field.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
Personally, I like to see more people in the blind community, more people of color, talking about this issue. Do you hear the conversation?

Nefertiti:
I really don’t. And I think that’s part of this idea of, well, let’s just be grateful to even have it at all. Let’s not stir the pot, because they know that audio description is a thing. So many people aren’t aware that audio description exists? I know I live in sort of in this bubble where everybody knows what audio description is, of course, right? I’m in the field now. And I’m a consumer and all this and all my friends know about it. My family knows about it. Everyone I talked to if media comes up, I talk to them about audio description. So in my world, it seems like everybody’s aware. But in the grand scheme of things, there are many, many, many who don’t even know that this is an option for them. And those who do a lot of them don’t even question the fact that they don’t hear details such as hair texture, or skin color, or different types of clothing, etc. They just default to this all must be a white narrative. Unless we hear like an accent or something like that. We may not know.

TR:
As consumers of audio description. It’s our place to provide critical feedback. That includes those things we like and don’t.

Nefertiti:
Access access, access access to information. I want to hear about skin color. I want to hear about set design, I want to hear about lighting. I want to hear about steamy sex scenes. I want to hear about gender stuff that’s going on. If there’s space for it, I want to hear about it. It’s getting better. But historically, audio description has been very sanitized and in my opinion, almost infantilized. I don’t know if it’s because there’s this image of like, oh, protect the poor blind people. I don’t quite understand why that’s the way it’s been. People are waking up and people are listening and taking note to the fact that we are well rounded individuals, we are of this world. And so race does matter. representation matters.

TR:
Back on the professional side of AD networks, Nefertiti and I got to work together on multiple projects, including an appearance right here, where she provided the audio description in a YGBD episode featuring Latif McLeod. She was the AD narrator during the ACB Awards Gala, which I had the honor of hosting, and I had the privilege of narrating her AD script for a film by Syed Dyson titled Say His Name: Five Days for George Floyd.

Big shout out to Steven Lentinus, one of the films composers himself an AD consumer. He got the buyer from both sides to produce an AD track for the film. He contacted Roy Samuelson who curated the all blind scenes to produce the track.

Nefertiti:
This was a really fascinating opportunity. I as the writer, Serena Gilbert as the quality control specialists, the one and only Thomas Reid as the narrator, a combination, I believe, a team effort between Byron Lee and Chris Snyder, as the engineers, all blind folks, we have the opportunity to come together as an all blind team to make this documentary accessible by way of audio description. And I think we did that beautifully. It is something that I will always be honored to have been a part of, especially holding the role, the controversial role of being a writer, while blind.

TR:
It’s not the first time we talked about this here on the podcast. I think I’ve been talking about this idea before I even knew of a blind person writing AD. It’s understandable that some people, especially those who are not blind, would be curious as to how this is accomplished. I can see how other blind people would be interested to. What’s not cool is the fact that it became controversial.

Nefertiti:
Controversy came from both sides from the sighted folks who I totally expected to get some blowback from, but also my fellow blind people who couldn’t fathom how it was done. When you don’t understand something, I guess it’s human nature to question it or to maysay it or doubt it, or what have you. But through the use of technology and a sighted assistant and my skills as someone who writes, I was able to do it. And I’m very proud of the job that I did. Blind people, yes, they can write visual experiences.

TR:
I would think it would hurt when it comes from inside the community.

Nefertiti:
Yeah, when your own community, the community, you’re trying to represent the community, you’re trying to uplift the community, you are trying to model what’s possible for, says to you, you can’t do that. When your own community turns the ableism that the whole world slaps you with every day. That is very hurtful. And that is very discouraging. But for one thing I had already committed to it. And when I commit to something I see things through. I mean, there has to be a real tragedy for me to not follow through on something I committed to, like, My word is my bond. That’s true. I wasn’t going to let you and the rest of the team down. And I wasn’t going to let myself down. Yeah, it hurt. It hurt. There were Facebook posts and things on Twitter, and even people in my own life questioning and the like, and I just I decided I was gonna turn it around.

TR:
From my conversations with Nef. I don’t think she has a problem with questions. It’s more of the assumption and the insinuation or downright claim that she can’t, which by the way, you know, translates to we can’t.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
You were getting negativity before you even did it?

Nefertiti:
Yeah.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
I didn’t know that.

Nefertiti:
Yeah. Ableism is real and internalized. Ableism is real. I got a lot of positives too. But the aspect of all this, that hurts is the negative coming from your own kind, if you will. Very sad. It was a bit of a rude awakening for me. I’m glad I had it, because I’m definitely awake now. But at the time, yeah, it was bewildering. Honestly.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
Yeah, sorry, I didn’t deal with that. But at the same time, it’s one thing to deal with it when it’s done. But when you’re going in, like you going into the fight, quote, unquote, and everybody thinks you can’t do it, you can either start to believe that and it messes your whole stuff up. Or you can take that as fuel. Let’s see, I got this, I’m gonna show yall.

Nefertiti:
Belief itself I think is is a big part of it. The thing is that it was published early on to Facebook. And I was alerted to do you know, what’s going on on Facebook? And there are these comments available in. I log on, and I see this post and I see these comments. And I’m like, Okay, I’m in the fishbowl. Now, I guess I had to deal with it. I was fielding these questions and these negative comments and dealing with a lot of anger as well that I didn’t want to let show because that’s just not professional. I’m not about making enemies or what have you, a lot of keeping it to myself and venting to family. And having a quality product. At the end of it all. People out there if you have the opportunity, don’t squander it. Check this documentary out. It’s really beautiful work and a real example of what’s possible when folks come together with a shared passion and skills and a dedication. And we just happen to be blind. Big deal.

TR:
I have to tell you, I respect the way Nefertiti handled this situation. She’s classy. Word to the wise, be careful what you say on social media. Not everyone is as classy. Just saying.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
What did you take away from the experience?

Nefertiti:
Sometimes when you are trying to like maybe break a wall down or, or do away with a barrier or do something unorthodox. People who are in this field, who you would think are less encumbered by ableist thoughts and ablest ways of carrying themselves, a superiority complex. There were a couple of people who showed their real colors, I think throughout that situation of what, a blind writer That was a lesson for me to that just because you’re doing something that doesn’t mean that you are necessarily of that thing.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
You and some folks created a Twitter group for AD. What’s that all about?

Nefertiti:

It’s called the audio descriptions Twitter community. If you use the website and the Twitter app, you can participate in communities and these are spaces where people come together who are of like mind and I and my partner cofounded the audio description Twitter community and this is a pretty rapidly I’m very proud to say growing place for all things description, audio description, image description, self description, we want to know about all the panels the latest what we call #ADNews. Some companies announce oh we just did this, we just did that now on Netflix with audio description now on Amazon without a description etcetera and so we post that we post reviews of audio description that we’ve seen. We talk about the quality of audio description everything from mono audio to surround sound, all that sort of thing, jobs as well, in audio description, get posted on there, classes. It’s for all things ad and it’s on Twitter. Please join us. You just search for audio description.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
I’ll link to the group on this episode blog posts at reidmymind.com.

Nefertiti:
Whoever you may be professional consumer, it doesn’t matter we want you.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
continuing with that energy of sharing. Nefertiti offers advice for other blind AD enthusiasts interested in pursuing opportunities in the field as well as for advocates.

Nefertiti:
Be aware of what you’re getting into. It’s beautiful work. But like with anything, it does have its pitfalls, prepare yourself for those. But also really focus and celebrate your successes and improve on your craft. If you’re a voiceover artists coming into this, keep studying, keep learning. If you’re a writer coming into this, study other people’s work, and if you’re a consumer, consume as much as possible, let these companies know that you’re out here. Let them know what’s going wrong, but also let them know what’s going right. Remember, accessibility is a human right and part of accessibility is access to visual content. And audio description is one of the best ways to make that happen for us. We need to advocate for it. We need to through our collective voices amplify our cause. We are here and we are worthy.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
Where can people learn more about you follow you, find you.

Nefertiti:

You find me on LinkedIn. I’m Nefertiti Matos Olivares. I’m on Twitter at Nef Mat Oli. Email me if you’d like to NefMatOli@gmail.com.

TR in Conversation with Nefertiti:
That stands for Nefertiti Matos Olivares. All right. If there’s anybody out there who doesn’t realize this, let me let you know right now. Nefertiti is an official member of the Reid My Mind Radio family do not get it twisted. She is official!

Nefertiti:
And I got the t-shirt to prove it!

TR:
In addition to freelance work, Nefertiti is a part of the social audio description collective. Thats a group of diverse individuals who write QC, narrate, record and mix audio description for a variety of projects.
You can check out the episode featuring social ad from the 2021 flipping the script season, which I’ll link to on this episode’s blog post.

We’ve grown since that episode. Yeah, we. They had rule for our brother, and I’ve been wanting to hang with them for a while, a bunch of go getters. I’m just really honored to be a part of the collective.

I hope you all really felt the vibe of this episode. I’m sure many of you are contemplating breaking out on your own moving forward with your passion. Of course, be smart about it, but also be brave. That doesn’t mean you won’t have fear. It just means that you’ll do it anyway. On that note, I want to send a big shout out and thanks to my guy, Tony Swartz. For the audio editing assist with this episode.

I’ve been a bit nervous about finding a team to help with some production but Tony honestly made the process fun and easy. What the heck was I scared about. You know, it’s nothing to be scared about subscribing to read my mind radio. We’re available wherever you get your podcasts. In fact, we’re even available where you may not get your podcast. I’m talking about YouTube. For those who like to consume content on that platform with no visuals just the podcast artwork and the audio.

We’re available via your smart speaker too just ask it to play Reid my mind radio by t Reid on your favorite podcast app transcripts and more over on reidmymind.com. Well actually this could be the scary part you have to make sure you spell it correctly that’s R to the E… I… D.
Audio sample: (D! And that’s me in the place to be. Slick Rick)

Like my last name.

[outro music]

Peace.

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