Reid My Mind

TR in Conversation with Andrew
sort of a silly question. But I guess you know, you could go somewhere with this. If blindness were really a country, who are you voting for President.

Andrew
You’ve got my vote Thomas.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
Oh, no, I don’t want that.

TR
That’s the last time I ask a silly question. My guest today is Andrew Leland.

Andrew
Writer, Editor, Producer, Teacher, my pronouns are he him, I am a white guy with glasses, short brown hair, wearing a sweatshirt.

There’s certainly people who I think would nominate themselves. You want me to name like a particular human being?

TR in Conversation with Andrew
You don’t have to if you don’t want to. What are the qualifications that you would think would make a good president of The Country of the Blind.

Andrew
the people that I’m drawn to, generally speaking, these are people who probably don’t want to be politicians, and wouldn’t take the job. But, you know, I really love blind people who are creative and who aren’t rejecting their blindness, but they’re also not really defined by it. And they’re sort of using it as this sort of creative aspect of themselves. So it’s sort of like, not for it, not against it. But like with it.

I can pick out a number of people who I write about in the book too.

TR
Well, you’re going to have to read the book, The Country of the Blind, to find out who else can get Andrew’s vote.
I’m Thomas Reid, this is Reid My Mind Radio, and I approve this message.

— Reid My Mind Radio Intro

TR
Whether you’re blind or disabled, or in any way, identify as someone in a marginalized group, chances are you thought about what life would be like in a place where you are accepted, and your needs are centered. Maybe even just considered?

Andrew Leland’s first book, The Country of the Blind isn’t a fictional place, but rather, it’s about something much more real.

Andrew
I have a degenerative retinal condition called RP, retinitis pigmentosa. I knew that I was going blind since I was a teenager. But for a really long time, it felt abstract, distant and not worth thinking about. Another way to say not worth thinking about might be like I was sort of in denial, as I think a lot of people are with our P is very easy to be in denial about it, because it’s like, well, sure, I might be going blind. But I’m like driving a car and scoring the winning goal over here. There’s no blindness anywhere near here. And then it caught up with me.

TR
Over the years of doing this podcast, and even prior, I’ve spoken to a lot of people experiencing blindness, low vision, vision loss, no matter what you call it.
or , the reason for the loss, denial is commonplace. And so too, is the fact that it will catch up.

Andrew
I’m about to turn 43 And I would say was about 8, 10 years ago that I really started noticing blindness, intruding into my life, into my day to day in a way that I couldn’t ignore. It was around that time that I started using a white cane full time in public. As soon as I started using the white cane in front of my partner, in front of colleagues, walking down the street in front of strangers, It made me blind in the eyes of other people. It forced me to think of myself as blind. And that was really the beginning of the writing process for me.

TR
He began first exploring blindness as a journalist

— Audio clips of Andrew hosting or reporting from The Organist” and “Radio Lab” respectively.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
Can you talk about the art of writing in general, and maybe how important it is and has been in your life?
Andrew
It’s one of the most important things in my life. There’s this phrase that I think about sometimes, which we usually think about in terms of like technology, which is a word processor. Microsoft word is a word processor, the computer is helping you process words, there’s something in that idea that you’re processing and kind of a lot of different ways when you’re writing emotional processing. I use the word metabolizing a lot too. There’s something that happens like an experience and the experience is a little bit just like this meal that you just swallow down but like, you’ve got to digest it. For me like writing is such a crucial part of that process of metabolizing what it is that I’m feeling and experiencing in the world.

TR:
This probably sounds familiar to those who journal and not only gives you an opportunity to purge all of the things running through your mind But literally, it enables you to process those thoughts and emotions.

Andrew
I had some ideas about what blindness meant to me. But now that I’ve written the book, I’ve kind of given myself a little bit of a map to my own feelings and my own thoughts about it that I would never have arrived at without the work of writing.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
To be a good writer, you have to be a reader. And I’m assuming you’re a big reader.

Andrew
Yes, I love reading. So when I started writing the book in 2019, I still was kind of hanging tough with print, I couldn’t even imagine a life after print is such a deep part of my life. And I was very, very unwilling to let go of it. The tricky thing about RP is it’s not like you just wake up one day, you can’t read print anymore. It’s the kind of thing where literally, it will happen over the course of a decade. And at a certain point, you have to just sort of decide like, Okay, this is actually more trouble than it’s worth

TR:
a decision, each individual has to make for themselves. Yet, there are some real world things to consider as a guideline,

Andrew
I had a Kindle, and I just like kept on cranking size up and up and up, had started to meet enough blind people and talk to enough blind people, the writing was on the wall. They were like, text-to-speech, man, it’s where it’s at. You’ve just got to listen. I just sort of went all in and kind of made it like a project for myself. Like I’m going to learn how to read text to speech. It took me a while until I found Voice Dream Reader. That app was a game changer for me. And Bookshare, which is a online library for blind and print disabled folks, which has millions of titles, those two tools in unison. That’s the power combo for me. Over the course of the last three years, while I was writing the book, I was also kind of training myself to be a blind reader.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What about Braille? You mentioned that in the book you were headed that direction?

Andrew
Yep. Yeah, I’m holding tough with Braille. I mean, it’s incredibly frustrating to be so slow, after so many years, I think I started in 2020, maybe, or 2019. Even. It’s been a journey.

TR:
In the book, Andrew discusses first learning Braille with a sighted instructor, then a season Braille reader gave him some strong advice,

Andrew
that guy’s teaching you bad habits, like get rid of him. And I was like, Oh, right. Blind people know how to read Braille, like that guy was sighted. And I don’t think he knew what he was doing. And then I found the Hadley Institute, amazing service. It’s a free mail order correspondence course, for Braille. If you hang with it, do everything they tell you to do, you’ll come out the other side with Braille. I’m still super slow. I tried to touch Braille at least once a day just to like, keep it in circulation. Last night, I tried to read a book to my kid, my father’s Dragon is a great kids book that we’ve read before. I’ve read that book a bunch of times with him already. So I sort of know the sentences, but still, I just sound like, (reading very slowly)then… he… said, hey… guys…, how long can I expect my son who’s 11 Now to like, roll with me on that. And he’s sort of like patient because he knows I’m like trying to get better. But it’s a struggle.

TR:
Every aspect of our lives are affected by disability. Jobs or our careers. Our real concern, is the way we make money, feel a sense of purpose. For many, it’s how we identify, it’s often the first thing we ask when meeting someone new, “So what do you do? ”

Prior to reading The Country of the Blind, I assumed a writer experiencing blindness would have an easier time moving forward in their career, magnification of screen reading software, along with word processes and access to the internet, chances are they can perform the work. But actually being able to perform the work is only part of the struggle

Andrew
for the kind of writing that I like to do most, which is going out into the world hanging out with people that I want to write about taking notes, and then doing research, reading articles, and so on. The heart of it is that reporting process where you’re out on the scene, long form narrative nonfiction, you gather facts, but you also gather sensory data, like any creative writer has to have sensory impressions. If you think about literature, or the novel, it’s all about these visual descriptions of people. And those are sort of these windows into their character. And so I think about that a lot, both on the level of like, just being an artist and having artful sensory descriptions that convey this kind of mood that I want, but also as a journalist, am I going to be reporting somewhere and miss the story because I can’t see it.

TR:
That’s understandable, especially if you’re new to disability and unfamiliar with an adaptive way of thinking or creating accommodations, but this is 2024. And there are lessons to be learned from those who blazed trails before we ever set foot on a new path. Andrew tells us about one such example.

Andrew
Ved Mehta, who moved to the United States from India when he was a kid. He ended up becoming a staff writer at The New Yorker, which is one of the premier places to publish that kind of narrative nonfiction. He was there during the celebrated William Sean era, writing nonfiction was one of the greatest nonfiction editors of all time.

TR:
Mehta, who was totally blind and on staff still had to deal with questioning around aspects of his Writing,

Andrew
he would write these dispatches from different places where he would talk about his subjects twinkling wintry eyes set against the mahogany Brown of his study and so on. He would have an assistant often with him, met who was doing the interview and, and he was doing the writing, but he might say to the assistant, describe his eyes for me, and use that.

TR:
precede just about any occupation with the word blind. And I’m pretty sure a version of this conversation exists, questioning the blind person’s accommodation, blind accountant, blind programmer, blind orientation and mobility instructor, blind, audio description Narrator or writer. Hmm,

Andrew
maybe if I’m using the Be My Eyes, virtual volunteer five years from now, if I’m reporting and I use that to gather some details about somebody’s pronounced cheekbones or their tousled hair, I think that that’s a totally legitimate way to report, you can look at that as an accommodation. Ved Mehta needs an assistant in some context to fully do the reporting he needs where I might need Be My Eyes to finish the job. People look at that as like almost a disqualification. You didn’t run the race unassisted, you had this help.

TR:
The unfairness, the hypocrisy, makes my blood boil.

Andrew
But, I think if you take a step back and you look at technology, or even just like tools, in general, we’re all getting assistance all the time, from each other from other people and from technology. disability might mean you need different kinds of tool, different kinds of technology, different kinds of personal assistance, but it’s not categorically different. If you think about any journalist, any writer, if they’re sighted, don’t need assistance in gathering visual details. But they certainly are reporting things that they haven’t seen with their own eyes, almost any piece of nonfiction writing will have a reconstruction. If I’m writing a story, and I want to talk about when you first became a podcaster, I might interview you and say, okay, describe the scene for me, where were you? What was the day like, what were you wearing? Tell me all of it. And then I write that scene as though I were there even though it was 20 years ago, and I was 100 miles away.

TR:
The same people questioning accommodations, go gaga for AI.
Ableism is real.
Ableism isn’t just an external thing done to those who are disabled. In The Country of the Blind. Andrew bravely shares an experience where he attends a local chapter meeting of the NFB in Missouri. Here’s an excerpt from the book with Andrew narrating.

— Andrew as Narrator
I had noticed the blind woman in a wheelchair using a strange device that looked like it somehow converted the text on a laptop screen into metallic Braille. I had noticed the other people with multiple disabilities and the modest scale at which the group was operating, arguing over how to spend their tiny publicity budget. If I had gone to the meeting to find other blind people whom I might commiserate with, or learn from or befriend, the first impression was more off putting than I had expected. Part of it was surely just geographical culture shock, but a greater part was a different kind of culture shock, or discomfort with disability.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What do you think your experience would be like? Now knowing what you know and feeling how you feel? If you went to that meeting for the first time? How do you think it would be different?

Andrew
Just to preface, it’s me being super open about the, I guess you could call it internalized ableism that I felt where I’m just looking at this group of blind people, like, what do I have in common with any of these people, like, get me out of here,

TR
Andrew receive some real criticism from blind people about this part of the book.

Andrew:
Today, in retrospect, going to that meeting now, like I know, Gary wonder was there. He’s the editor of the Braille monitor, somebody who is more engaged with blind intellectual life, which is something I’m deeply interested in, then like, most people in the in the world, that guy alone is somebody I should have, like, grabbed and had a long conversation with, but at the time, all I could see was a group of disabled people who felt very different from my image of myself. So having the patience to spend longer than I did spend at that meetup, having the courage to actually like, talk to people as people rather than just look at them through this sort of other engaged the way I do

TR in Conversation with Andrew
I get it. For folks to get mad at that, I don’t think they realize what’s really going on like you being honest about that, is that process of checking your own ableism. You can’t get to a point without doing that work.

Andrew
Totally

TR in Conversation with Andrew
putting that in the book is inviting other people to do that, too.

Andrew
Thank you for pointing that out. Plenty of blind people said to me, just what you’ve said, where they’re like, that was me. And these are people, some folks who have been blind their whole lives. It’s not like it’s only somebody who’s like, has this site privilege or somebody coming at it from the outside. I think any blind person can have that perspective, and many of them do. And I’m with you that it felt important to take that risk of making myself seem like a real jerk in order to expose some of that ableism that a lot of us carry around.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
That’s the other thing too, that you, you included your wife? Did you talk to her before you include? Because I was like, oh, yeah, I don’t know if I could do that.

Andrew
I think she’s within earshot listening to me talk to you right now. So you know, you might hear the door burst open. And you know, she might

TR in Conversation with Andrew
Come on in.

Andrew:
She might jump on the mic. But, uh, yeah, I mean, like, there were definitely moments where I was like, I want to write an interesting book. But I also want to be married for the rest of my life. And I don’t want to jeopardize that. So there were a lot of tough conversations that we had. A journalist should never give their source a copy of the text to change. You can fact check it by saying like, is this true or not. But with Lily, it was a very different situation. Like, we just sat down with the book in front of us multiple times, like and did sort of a find, for her name. And then just like, read every sentence of what do you remember about this, and a lot changed in those conversations.

TR
You can’t overstate the importance of good communication. having these conversations, no matter how uncomfortable is so important to a relationship.

Andrew
It was like a way for us to talk through some of those issues. Even though a lot of that stuff was difficult. And like, I’m sure she would have been happy to see all of her name just like completely scrubbed from the book. I think to her credit, like she recognized the importance of including for the same reason you just said about the picnic scene. I don’t think I had read a book that was really honest in that way about how difficult the partners journey can be to and the trickiness around the way that your partner is entering blindness at the same time you are, it was worth the difficulty and the risk in order to start that conversation, not just in my own family, but maybe in others as well. Then

TR:
there’s the ableism we experienced through our society. In The Country of the Blind. Andrew writes about a poem read during a service at a synagogue.

Andrew
The refrain that the poem says over and over again, is fall to your knees and thank God for your eyesight. You just sort of have to sit there with your family, as like a whole room of people just sort of appreciates that they aren’t blind. I certainly still encounter it. I think one thing that’s changed is that that moment marked the kind of beginning I think for not just me, but for my family to sort of have a politics around it. It was kind of wild to me that Lily found it annoying. And then it wasn’t just me.

TR:
Everyone in the family is adjusting to disability. The question is, will that be done alone, or together?

Andrew
My son, I feel like I’ve sort of trained him to be a critical thinker about it. I will be watching something and he’ll sort of perk up when there’s like a disability reference that seems off. He’s in fifth grade. And at the beginning of the year, they were doing this exercise about guidelines for how to be a good community for each other. And one of them was like, be respectful. Even if the person has a disability. The line that caught his ear was even if they have a disability. He raised his hand and was kind of like I don’t know about like, even and the teacher was like, oh, yeah, that’s good. Like something was bothering me about that. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. To me that shows that he is really internalizing some of these critical disability thinking that I’ve sort of come to that makes me feel really proud and excited.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What’s your son’s name?

Andrew
Oscar.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
Is that like a head nod to your grandfather?

Andrew
It is. It is.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
Oh, very cool. (Laughing)

Andrew
He was a playwright. His name was Neil Simon, one of his best known plays that got turned into a TV show and a movie was “The Odd Couple”.

— Music begins Theme song from The Odd Couple
— Narration from the opening of the Odd Couple
On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife.

Andrew
my wife, Lily, when we were trying to think of baby names. She said, Well, what about Felix? My first thought was the odd couple because Felix is the sort of more fastidious neurotic member of the odd couple. I was like, No, it can’t be Felix. Oscar, that’s who you want to name a baby after.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
A hearty laugh!

Andrew
. She wasn’t even thinking of “The Odd Couple”.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
I hope he’s not like Oscar though. He’s not pulling out sandwiches from the bed?

Andrew
He’s got a little bit of both, I would say.

— The Odd Couple theme music comes to an end.

— Music begins A funky baseline opens to a smooth mid tempo R&B groove.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What was your experience, if any, with disability arts prior to 10 years ago, when you opened up your cane?

Andrew
Hmm. That’s a good question. I think I’d encountered it in the art world. When I first learned about the work of Christine Sun Kim. She’s a Deaf artist who does really interesting work around like sound or like representations of sound, interesting stuff with captions. That would have been on that level, or certainly, like mainstream blind musicians, that would have hit me on that mainstream level. That movie, like I think Sound of Metal, but really, it was not on my radar.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
If they’re in the mainstream, I don’t consider that disability culture. That’s just me. Are they making the art from a disability perspective? I think that’s the way I draw that line.

Andrew
My book is a mainstream book, you know, like it’s with a commercial publisher? Does that mean that like what I’m doing is not from a disability perspective, it’s kind of a bigger question about identity. Does your work fall under the category of the identity just by virtue of your having the identity? Or does the work have to like, be about the identity for it to be included? I think it’s kind of a spectrum.

TR
What qualifies something as disability art? disability culture? What makes someone a disability artist. Questions really worth exploring. I’ll do some of that in the ongoing self portrait episode.

Andrew
That’s the question that I’ve been wrestling with really like through the whole process of writing the book and figuring out my own identity as a blind person is like, is it supposed to be central? Or is it supposed to be incidental? When is it Central? When is it incidental? I read an interview with this bio ethicist who was blind named Adrian ash who died a couple years ago, she was very adamant that blindness was totally incidental. Her friends joke that she was 20, before she realized she was blind, because she just was like, it doesn’t really affect my life. But then when she applied for a job, and it was pretty obvious that she didn’t get the job because she was blind, because the person was basically explicitly like, I don’t know how we would hire a blind person, that’s when she became blind. That’s when it became a central part of her identity, that kind of politicizes it in a way that I don’t totally track with. If we’re talking about disability arts, I do want to center blindness as a writer, in some ways. There’s other times when, when I want it to be totally off to the side.

— Music comes to a close.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What has the response been like today? And I’m wondering if there’s any difference between blind and non blind readers?

Andrew
Yeah, it’s been great. I’ve gotten some criticism. But over my overwhelming experience has been one of people really responding positively to the book, it seemed safe to assume that like people whose experience was close to mine, would be like, oh, yeah, I recognize that like the first time I used a cane, stopping driving. But one of the things I learned in writing the book is that blindness is such a diverse experience, not only in the ways that people experience blindness, but also all kinds of other life experiences intersectionality’s that can inform one’s relationship with disability. The cool thing for me, after the book has come out has been just seeing folks whose experience is very different from mine, also resonated with a book that makes me feel like I captured something about blind culture Blind politics in 2023. The experience that extends beyond my narrow experience of it,

TR:
the response Andrew hears the most from those who are not blind?

Andrew
“I learned a lot.”

It’s shocking sometimes how little people really stopped to consider the experience of blindness. And so I think one thing that book has done is really just like cracked that world open a lot more for a lot more people

TR in Conversation with Andrew
What was some of the criticism you mentioned that you receive.

Andrew
One of the things I really tried to do in the book is like not just have it be a memoir. I think the parts that people respond to the most are like me writing about my relationship with my son or with my wife are very emotional, personal moments. And I understand that, I think it’s important to include those, but I also get pretty nerdy. And talking about history of audio description, or the history of Braille history of the organized blind movement and NFB versus ACB versus AFB. Plenty of readers who didn’t know anything about blindness pointed out that it’s wild that there’s like these ancient beefs between blind people. Why are blind people fighting? Are they supposed to be in solidarity with each other fighting the fight to raise Blind people up. there are certain readers who are like, dude, enough of the alphabet soup? I don’t care, let’s move on.
That’s one criticism.

TR
You should judge for yourself. Get the book.

Andrew
The book is on Bookshare. It’s on barred I read the audio book myself. Every blind person who hears the audiobook is like how the hell did you do that? The short answer is Rp. 5% of my visual field still hanging in there.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
You did a great job reading that book. Part of that I’m sure was from your podcast experience and narration and stuff.

Andrew
Totally. Yeah.

TR
You can learn more about Andrew, his work and find him on social media by visiting his website AndrewLeland.org.

There really is something for everyone in this book. But here on Reid My Mind Radio, we’re especially interested in those adjusting to disability. while Andrews experience is specifically about blindness. I want to strongly encourage those new to disability to read The Country of the Blind, you’ll see yourself, your family, you’ll hopefully confront your own feelings about what it means to be disabled. And don’t worry, the final say is always up to you.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
So what’s your current citizenship status for the country of the Blind? Are you a citizen? Are you just visiting? What are we doing?

Andrew
I’ve applied for a green card. It’s been approved and now I’m just like waiting in the mail for it. So I’m like technically a citizen but I don’t have like the full papers yet.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
I can’t give you those papers, but I can tell you that you are an official member of the Reid My Mind Radio family sir.

Andrew
That’s much better news. That makes, that makes my day. And I have to say, you know, I didn’t want to I didn’t want to like mess things up by flattering you too much, but, you know, if we’re really talking about blind President? It’, you got my vote, it’s all you Thomas.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
(Laughing) Well, I appreciate that, but I am not running.

Andrew
Alright, well, I’m still gonna write you in. Gonna get my slate and stylus and braille you right on to the ballot.

TR in Conversation with Andrew
There you go. All right. Well, if I get enough, I’ll think about it.

TR
You know, I really do appreciate Andrew’s vote. But even more than that, I appreciate all the effort put into the book, sharing his experiences and time with the Reid My Mind Radio family. Sharing the art of adjustment.

I’m very hopeful that Andrew will come back and share some of his experiences around audio description. We of course, had a little conversation about that, but I think a future episode on what we were specifically talking about would be nice. That’s all I’ll say for now. Well on that topic at least.

— Music begins Hail to the Chief.

— Tap on microphone

TR
— Over exaggerated clearing of throat.

(In a presidential style speech )
. My fellow citizens, as we move forward together united as one, no matter where we land on the spectrum called blindness. We should ask, not what the blindness has done to us. But rather, what is it that we will do with our blindness?

We should also remind ourselves… to rock with Reid My Mind Radio wherever you get podcasts. Transcripts and more are at ReidMyMind.com.
Just remember, 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!

TR in presidential mode
And may God Bless Humanity!

Hide the transcript

TR:
Last time on Reid My Mind Radio

— Audio Transition
— From Flipping the Script on Audio Description: NO ONE WILL SAVE US

TR:
Now that we heard from someone quite familiar with captions, do you think that’s the bar we as advocates for audio description should be striving to reach?

Think about that while I bring on our next guests

— Music begins, a bright mid-tempo beat!
Eric
Hi, my name is Eric Wickstrom. I am the director of audio description for international digital center. pronouns are he him?

Rhys
Hi, my name is Rhys Lloyd. I’m the studio head for Descriptive Video Works. My pronouns are he him.

TR:
When anyone asks me for examples of quality audio description tracks for networks and streaming platforms, IDC and DVW are the two I tell people to check out.

Are their others? Yes. But they don’t check off the boxes that these two do.
Let’s keep it real! IDC helped kick off the inclusion and hiring of Blind narrators. Their not the first, but to my knowledge they’ve done the most. If I’m wrong, please educate me – ReidMyMindRadio@gmail.com.

DVW also is doing the same and employs Blind QC.

— Audio Transition
TR:
Welcome back to Reid My Mind Radio.

We’re in the final episode of the Flipping the Script on Audio Description season or part two of No One Will Save Us.
We’re taking a look at the current state of audio description in order to determine how
we can best advocate for improved quality and a wider adoption.

If you haven’t listened to part one, pause here and take a listen. We’ll wait!

Ok, you’re back? Let’s get it!

— Reid My Mind Radio Intro

TR:

When I invited Eric and Rhys to join me on the podcast,
I asked them each to bring three to five issues that most threaten the future of AD and some thoughts as to what we can do about them.

Eric:
I mean, there’s a few things that stand out. Obviously, TTS synthetic speech, however you want to phrase it, I think that’s a problem.
It impacts our voiceover folks. But it also affects every area downstream for audio description.

A lot of companies that have no business being in this space are in this space. And they’re in it in major ways.

I don’t have access to enough quality writers day in and day out. Sometimes I feel like really, truly great writers. So if I don’t have access to it, these companies definitely don’t. But somehow they’re managing to crank out absurd amounts of audio description, with people that have no business writing it or being involved in it.

The quantity is more than it’s ever been. And because of that the quality is lesser than it’s ever been, which is a sad reflection on it.

TR:

While there’s definitely a relationship between TTS and the influx of companies less concerned with quality, we’ll consider these as two separate issues.

Eric:
And then we have ongoing problems, in my opinion, with a lack of folks of color, being involved in the writing process, and in the voice over process.

I think the fourth thing that’s problematic right now still is the lack of involvement from members of the blind community in the process of creating audio description, whether it be voiceover writing, QC, what have you. I don’t think many companies are doing a good enough job still involving folks in the community.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
Cool. Rhys?

Rhys:

Ditto!

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:

Laughs…

Rhys:
The only thing that sits outside of that, that I would add to it is that we still haven’t solved this devilish problem of accessibility content, traveling with the content and moving from service to service

I feel like this is my sort of, DaVinci Code like I’m trying to solve this, this and solvable mystery, and I think the answer is that there that that is really, really straightforward. because it’s so straightforward, it’s remained unsolved.

And then maybe one other thing I would throw in is that I don’t think there’s enough people in prominent positions in audio description that are thinking about what it could be, who are pushing the industry forward. I think there’s Eric, there’s the folks at DVW that I work with, but I don’t sense pressure coming from behind to make me go, oh, I need to be even more on it. Because there’s other people who are like really pushing the envelope out there, both whether it’s creatively, or whether it’s like looking at the broad reach. We’re really, at a really early stage of audio description, if you think about how visual our world is, and how inaccessible that is, including all the video content that exists on the internet that is untouched.

TR:
Let’s start with the problem of the pass through or the idea that audio description should travel with the content.
This would eliminate the problem of turning on one channel to watch a film that you know had AD in the theater or on a different streaming network,
but it’s not available on the current platform.

Eric:
This is my opinion, Rhys , you can correct me if you think I’m wrong. Unlike captioning, which is mandated federally to be on everything, everything has to have captioning, we’re still picking and choosing based on I don’t know what criteria is, what has to have audio description, and what doesn’t. So it’s only when that content comes into the worlds of the big top cable networks at the top streaming services, places where they’re being legally mandated, where they have to commission those files. So those files, then live at that individual streaming service, or that individual network, instead of living with the content from inception, like it should. Like the captioning does. captioning has to live with the asset before it goes anywhere.

So if we can get audio description being mandated on every asset level, like captioning, that would solve that problem entirely.

The other way to solve that is networks communicating.

TR:
Doesn’t that seem like a simple solution; communication?

Eric:
I think the simplest answer is, it’s too much still left to the individual networks to deal with, instead of having it being, you know, inherent to the assets at inception every time.

Rhys:
I would totally agree with you on that.

I sort of see the solution to the pass through being that instead of it being a pull, it has to be a push instead of the downstream content rights holder, remembering to ask for it. It should be pushed with all the other assets, it should just be automatic. If those who have the asset and are licensing it to someone else, we’re just to go, Hey, here’s the AD track. I mean, I don’t know what happens in those negotiations. But I can’t imagine the cost of that being exponential given the investment. I do see a push model works better than a pull model in this case.

TR:
With all of the technology available to us today, communication shouldn’t be an issue.
It’s such a quicker fix compared to enacting legislation.

Rhys:
I’ll take a slightly more optimistic view.

I don’t think it necessarily requires the legislation to be enacted, I think people like to get ahead of legislation because they don’t want to be slammed by the requirement and have no idea what they’re going to do. And because I think this is a relatively simple problem to solve, I think it any hint that this is going to be included in future legislation would probably Unbreak that dam.

I’ve had this dream of like getting everybody in a room and going can we all have a grown up conversation. There are impediments, but none of them are insurmountable, and just require somebody at each of these organizations to focus on it. And, and then however we up making that happen, as an industry remains to be seen.

Eric:
The other issue is, quantity is important but we need to focus on quality because, you know, if we mandate that every network has to have audio description, I can promise you, Rhys and I are not going to get much busier, but there’s gonna be a bunch of companies that are going to be slammed with work and doing a very poor job.

It’s important that everything is accessible, but it needs to be properly accessible.
There has to be a quality product otherwise why are we doing it in the first place? Take some pride in it.

TR:
Next up, let’s talk about getting more Blind people involved in every aspect of the AD production process.

Rhys:
I go a step further. It’s not just about the production aspects of this. I think that there’s all too many people involved in the creation of audio description, whether that be our clients or the companies that produce audio description, who’ve never met a blind person, never had a conversation with a blind person about audio description.

It’s also I think, incumbent on companies like ours that specialized in this field, to elevate the voices of the community and to put people in positions where they’ll interact with the clients. And so that that is an opportunity organically, to start to hear from the community.

I’ll just say that I think it’s shameful in our industry, how few companies are actively trying to hire, Blind talent. The impediments not significant, and I think both, I don’t want to speak for Eric, but I know that he’s been open about sharing information with me and with other companies, I’ve been the same in terms of like, the talent that’s out there, the approach the how we work in the recording booths, how we work with blind QC talent, and, and so it’s not like there’s this like, secret sauce, that we’re all keeping hidden. We were both out there talking about it. Because we want other people to do it.

TR:
I think the secret sauce is the understanding that the impediment is not significant. It’s the willingness to go beyond the current process and consider accommodations.
That goes beyond anything Blind talent can bring to the table.

It’s almost understandable when you consider how from it’s start, the production of AD has closely aligned with a charity model. Like rehab or social services where the so called experts who studies blindness
determine what Blind people need with little to no involvement FROM THE COMMUNITY.

Rhys:
I will say that I think more blind involvement raises the quality of the audio description, simply because it getting that voice into the creation. And it’s making sure that perspective is represented in the creation. And if you don’t think that’s important, then you don’t think quality is important.

Eric:
100%. What I’ve said many times is that I don’t think there should be anything proprietary about accessible workflows, I think that that if you figure something out, share it.

Actually, Thomas, to your credit, if we’re going to go even one step further back through talking to you and onboarding you, and working through our first project together and developing the workflows to work with blind voice over talent, I learned a lot. And then I worked with other folks, and they wanted to do a different way. So you know, over the course of the first year and a half, we had four to five different workflows that we just developed. And Reese called me up, and he said, tell me what’s up. And so we did, we got on a call. And we talked and I made that same offer to half a dozen other people and only one other person has ever taken me up on it.

TR:
While not many companies reached out to Eric, there were some who were still interested in working with Blind talent.

Personally, I don’t want my accommodation to remotely approach being an over burdening task for someone.
Then again, over burdening is in the eye of the beholder.

Remember, during the pandemic, the workflow changed for everyone.
AD Narrators were scrambling to setup home studios.
Scripts and voice files were being delivered via the internet. Whether that was through some secured proprietary system or via cloud services like Drop Box, the workflow was similar.

Here’s the thing, once a company realizes it’s process is inaccessible to assistive technology
and refuses to adjust or accommodate for that,
that company is making a decision to exclude Blind professionals. Period!

Eric:
just three weeks ago, Thomas I had a phone call or an email from another company seeking to work with a blind talent. But telling me, they’re not set up for it. They’re not planning on getting set up for it. So would I mind doing all of the work to record the talent, s them the raw stems, they would then take credit for the project and put it out there like look, we’re working with Bline people, but they didn’t want to do any of the legwork to actually set themselves up to do the work.

They wanted me to do all the work so they could take all the credit this happened like within the last month, and
This is a big company. I’m not going to name names But I could, but it’s a big, much bigger company.

The conversation was embarrassing, but they felt no shame having it with me.
I don’t know if it’s coming across that it’s frustrating. I’m annoyed by it.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
A little bit.

TR:
I appreciate that frustration.

This conversation is specifically about audio description, but as we approach National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October, we need to consider that whatever is at the core of keeping Blind people out of AD is applicable to every other industry.

What can be done to change this?

Eric:
I engage on social media. But it wasn’t really until you and I connected Thomas, where like, it started becoming this, this really accelerated workflow, to try to get people involved in the process, But in fairness, that’s because Liz Guttman and I had that conversation, hey, we think this is important. We need to start doing this.

And then as soon as we started doing it, I think Rhys kind of around the same timeframe. He was like, Yeah, us too.
I thought that after we did it, everybody will be like, Yeah, let’s all do it, and not the case, which is incredible.

Rhys:
To that point, I think part of the reason we would have had that expectation is I think it coincided with an increase in the quality of work that both our companies are producing. I don’t know if that’s coincidental or directly related, but I think that’s true. And also, I like to be perfectly blunt, it’s more interesting and more fun to do it this way. And why wouldn’t you try to make the work you do more interesting and more fun, and more meaningful?
It’s a little bit of additional thought. Your thoughts are free, so spend a bit of that thought.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
The lack of BIPOC writers and narrators.
How does this get resolved?

Rhys:
I think anyone with a conscience and a sense of things can step back from AD and recognize that we have a representation issue is industry. I think that the vast, the overwhelming majority of speaking only about English audio description, but the English audio description that’s being produced is being written by white people.

I know that every AD writer strives for some level of objectivity. But the reality is that everybody sees things through subjective lens.
I think we are getting homogeneity of description, just demographically.

In terms of what can you do about it?

That’s a little bit more complicated. It requires a little bit of investment, and willingness to spend some time digging, willingness to find allies willingness to push harder, and to call out that it’s a problem and then do something about it, instead of just calling up that its a problem and walking away from it.

TR:
When it comes to this issue of representation, if we really want to fix it, it can’t be a patch work approach. It needs to be a part of the foundation.
And with all do respect to those who laid the AD foundation, cultural competence was never a part of that core structure.

Rhys:
I’ve been asked why it’s important. What is the value of having culturally appropriate casting in a show?

One aspect of it is not discord for the audience, that’s important. But the thing is, the actual work done is going to be done better by somebody for whom the content is meaningful. And the experience of working on that project for everyone involved is going to be better if the content is meaningful to the people who are working on it. You actually elevate the product. Not only are you not doing something wrong, you’re doing something better.

Eric:
As far as the writers, Rhys and I are gonna have some cross pollination on this one.

So there’s a film festival out of Philadelphia called the BlackStar Film Festival, that we’ve worked with at IDC for a couple of years now doing some tracks for them. And last year, they did a Writing Lab, where we were not involved with. But then after the festival, I reached out to the organizers of the festival and Liz Guttman , and I talk to them.
So this year, Liz did level one training with them. And then I got wind that the next step was going to be Rhys , taking them in the fall and doing a level two.

Rhys:
We’re launching an initiative to train some writers from underrepresented communities in the AD scripting community where that’s happening in September.
It’s an internal initiative. We’re doing it on our own dime. These AD writers will come up with strong training and be available for anybody to hire. There’s no like, they’ll become DVW employees so that there’s opportunities for Eric to benefit from that for any of the other AD providers to benefit from that.

It was something where I tried to figure out this problem was like how do I like leverage this for my Helping companies benefit for years. And then I realized, you know what the rationale is? I don’t I just need to do it for the services benefit. So we’re trying to increase it, or at least we DVW are. And I know IDC are very much aligned with us on, from this perspective, trying to increase the number of different voices that are allowed to participate in this conversation about AD.

TR:
Meanwhile, IDC continued to work with the BlackStar cohort of writers. They even received some level 2 training from IDC head writer Liz Guttman.

Eric:
And they got to work hand in hand with Steven Christopher, one of my writers, and one of the best QC guys in the business and did really in depth feedback on all the scripts.

some really took to it well, others obviously needed some more work, like anything, but it was really encouraging. I think there was eight to 10 people we got to work with. And I think the vast majority are going to be going on now to DVW and continuing on into more training. I actually onboarded one of them this morning officially to write something for Netflix for me, which is super exciting.

And coincidentally, a documentary based around the black experience in America in the history of racism. So like timing wise, it’s exactly the kind of project that we’ve been clamoring to have folks from the community available to write to reach this point. Today, because it’s important for the perspective and the point of view.

It’s been something that I know I’ve been personally frustrated about because we’ve tried over the years we have tried outreach, we’ve on boarded folks. This has been an ongoing pursuit for the last couple of years. And I think we finally found a pipeline through Blackstar to do this.

TR:
I for one am excited about growing the AD space to include more representation. But let’s be clear, that’s not a replacement for cultural competence.

Eric:
just because you’re white doesn’t mean you can’t write something that’s sensitive, and proper that focuses around black issues, you just have to be curious enough to want to do a good job.

There was a movie a few years ago called The harder they fall on Netflix, that Liz wrote. And she spent a lot of time researching the clothes in the hairstyles and reaching out the people and saying, How would you like that to be described?

Really trying to do a good job to the point where it actually got written up on a blog for being so well done in terms of representing skin tones and hairstyles and being called out for members of the Black community for being so culturally proper or sensitive or trying to do a good job in those regards.

Now, at the time, do we wish we had a writer of color to write that script? We absolutely did. But that doesn’t mean that we can take the excuse of like, Oh, we’re just white folks. No, you have to still try to get in there and honor the material and be proper and respectful of it.

TR:
It’s worth taking a look at how that curiosity works to strengthen the final product.

Eric:
I always credit when I hired Liz, to write for me, I had a great base of writers. But that’s really when we took the next step to becoming what I feel like we’ve become one of the leaders in the field.

A lot of what made Liz great and makes her great now, is her curiosity. She’s constantly going to workshops, she’s constantly talking to members in the community. She’s constantly reading research papers and things that I can’t even my brain, I just glaze over.

She’s always digging deeper and figuring more stuff out.
How do we make it better? How do we get to the next level.
And again, it’s never good enough for us, we want to be better.
We don’t always get there when we try.
If that’s not your goal every day getting up going to work. Like if you’re not taking pride in your job every day, like I’m going to do a great, I’m gonna do better today than I did yesterday, then you should find something else to do that fulfills you in some way, because clearly this is not it.

Rhys:
I think there’s a dearth of people in our field that are driven by curiosity. I think we need more people who are looking broadly at like, what can be done, or is the industry ready for this? What little steps can I take today to get the industry ready for that tomorrow?
And so whereas I think, and justifiably so to some degree, the vast majority of people who work in our field are very production focused. We are because the production deadlines are intense. The expectations of our clients are quite substantial. And there’s contractual obligations that we have to hit. But at the same time, sometimes, especially in a field like ours, which is still really in a nascent stage, the ability to step back and go, oh, like, I wonder about this. I’m curious about this. I want to find out more about it. We need more people being able to do that. We need more people driven by the interest in doing that.

TR:
That’s writing AD. What about cultural awareness when it comes to narration?

Rhys:
There’s just no excuse, like.
The reality is that there’s a vast array of voice talent that’s out there. It’s not all equivalent, right? There’s some really kick ass scenario, here’s and there’s some less skilled ones. But there is no excuse not to find a narrator that’s a appropriate cultural match for the content that you’re describing.

You can get really, really down in the weeds about it, if you want to, we’ve gone to great depths to try to find somebody who’s very specifically aligned with that skill set. And we’ve had some successes and some where we came up a little bit short, but that’s because we try we pushed it out there as far as we could.

Could I find a Kurdish narrator in the UK who’s deaf to just do the narration for this track? Well, no, but I did find a Kurdish narrator in the UK. And so that was a win in that respect. We found somebody who’s culturally appropriate for the content that we were describing. And that was the first very specific project.
Thoughtful casting cost you nothing to think about.
And not every show requires thoughtful casting, there are very generic shows that can just be relatively generically assigned, but there are shows that demand it. And if you as an AD provider, don’t take that responsibility seriously. Why not? What is your impediment?

Eric:
I mean, come on. It’s at the point now where it’s, it’s literally embarrassing.
I had well over a dozen narrators of color on my roster. I probably posted 20 At this point between Latin and black backgrounds in Caribbean and you know, down the line, East Asian.
I have a wide collection of narrators. Again, anybody listening? They’re available, you just have to email me.
Rhys has called me before and hey, is this person available? And then I s the email address and he reaches out and they go from there.
These are freelancers, they are available. So if you’re stuck and you need somebody, call me.

It’s now August 2023. And there are no good excuses. There was no good excuses five years ago for this and now it’s pathetic.

If your basis of diversity in your voiceover roster is still man woman, the end, you’re a clown.
If you’re justifying that to anyone that that’s good enough, you’re a clown, and you deserve to be called out for it.
I would be embarrassed to do some of these things that some of these companies are doing. It’s shameful. And I hope more people shame them publicly, because I don’t know what it’s gonna take just to do the minimal right thing. I don’t get it.

Rhys:
By the way, this being an audio format, there was some vigorous nodding.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
So far, the quote of the day is you are a clown!

Rhys:
we needn’t stop it like culturally appropriate casting of people of color.
People of color can narrate the generic stuff too.
Eric:

Oh a thousand percent!

Rhys:
You won’t find those great narrators if you don’t work with them.

Eric:
That’s a great point Rhys . Thank you.
If you’re a narrator of color working with me, you will work it’s like the stuff that is meant to be voiced by people of color. That’s the stuff exclusive to that part of the roster.
right, like people like me are not going to narrate things, you know, from the Black community. But, yes, you can cross pollinate to any other generic content.

TR:

Eric shares some additional advice for voice over artists who traditionally
choose not to disclose their various identities in hopes of having their voice judged on it’s quality alone.

Eric:
Don’t be afraid to put a picture on your website, or put a little thing in your bio, about your background, whether it be your nationality, LGBTQ we’re looking for that.

Make it easier to find you. I think more companies are now scrambling, pathetically, to try to catch up a little bit. Now standing out is actually I think, a good thing in some cases.

TR:
We reached our final two categories;
the influx of companies less concerned with quality or as Eric so eloquently described them,
Eric:
You’re a clown.

TR:
And then there’s the dreaded TTS.

Since the clowns and TTS are so closely aligned, we’ll discuss them as one.

The clowns are companies that first, saw the need for audio description production as an opportunity.
While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, based on their actions and quality of production,
it’s apparent, that’s their greatest concern.

So they look for cost cutting like hiring anyone to write the scripts and
skip parts of the process like quality control.

All of this to undercut competitors and offer below market rates for AD production.

Eric:
it’s a free market, right.

The issue you run into is that companies come in and throw a wide net out there, and they say, Hey, give me bids.

And then you have other companies out there, streaming services and stuff that’s coming online recently, that don’t really put any effort or any, any research into trying to identify the good providers. They don’t try to narrow it down to five or six providers that do good work, and then set a rate. In a perfect world, that’s what would happen, every company would have a set group of providers they work with, they would set the rate internally, across the board. So nobody can undercut anybody or has any real incentive to undercut anybody. And that would be it. But we’re in a free market. And we live in North America.

— “And now it’s time to play everybody’s favorite game show, Say the Word!” Audio from Sesame Street

TR:
Can you say capitalism?

The truth is, everywhere you look, there’s someone trying to make a fast dollar by cutting costs and sacrificing quality.

Remember Economics class? Caveat Emptor or Let the buyer beware. Consumers of all types should be educated enough to know the value of what they’re buying.
In this case, we’re talking about large companies, networks and streaming services that frankly have no experience with audio description. So, how can they even begin to define quality AD? Yet still they’re procuring millions of dollars in AD for old and new content.

RHYS:
They’re being misguided, misled because they’re talking to the clowns. They’re talking to people who are trying to sell them on something. They’re not necessarily talking to the audience.

I always encourage them, Are you sure, have you spoken to anybody about this? Has anybody told you by the way the audience doesn’t like this.

But the other part of this is an AD providers. If you’re confronted with that conversation, what do you do? Do you just go? Yes, sir, we can do it? Or do you go and take that opportunity to talk to them about what they’re asking for, to take that opportunity to go? Are you sure that the experience you want your audience to have of your content? That is your precious, precious item is a subpar experience? Because it doesn’t need to be.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
Wow, so you telling me that companies come to you? And they say we want TTS?

Eric:
100 percent.

Rhys:
Yeah!

TR:
So it’s not just that these platforms are being sold TTS,we’re in a place now where they’re actually shopping for it.

Eric:
There’s this thing with some companies that are starting to divide what they think is important content, and what they don’t think is such important content.
A lot of kids programming is being thrown into that not as important pile where synthetic is being used. And that, to me is a complete bummer. Because if anybody needs a real voice to engage with, and if anybody’s gonna get turned off by a computer voice, it’s a kid, and especially kids on the spectrum, kids with ADHD, they’re immediately going to just walk away from that content.

TR:
Too often , I hear members of the community who seem to feel these distinctions are warranted.

Just because you may not have an interest in specific content, that doesn’t mean it’s less important.

And quite honestly if you’re not of the intended audience and don’t require AD to consume visual content,
perhaps you should speak less on it and pass the mic so the community can speak for it’s self.

Eric
There are people out there that are pretty big in the industry in terms of visibility, saying TTS is okay, for certain things for backfill or movies that are more than 20 years old. And we should just be happy that things are getting described.

I don’t think anybody should be happy getting scraps and crumbs to make up for the fact that they weren’t fed 30 years ago originally.

TR:
I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry! And I know I deserve a full hearty delicious meal.

Eric:
There are clients coming to us that have produced some of the great, I’m talking some of the greatest content in the history of television in North America. And they’re talking to me about synthetic.
And I’m like I would feel bad putting a synthetic track on this.
I feel bad, you should feel worse, because it’s your content, you should have more pride in getting this described properly.

The cost difference for companies like us to do synthetic versus real Voicing is minimal.
for Rhys and I, companies that really care, the cost difference between TTS and real voice. It’s not worth it. It’s not a huge number, where the cost saving is so extreme that a client should even really want to entertain at this point, in my opinion.

Rhys:
We spent so much time in this conversation talking about diversity of casting and thoughtful casting, and then you give me a computer program that has three usable voices. Well, what am I supposed to do with that? How thoughtful can I get about the casting of A, B, or C voice? I can’t.

Eric:
Now, they’re starting to do this TTS stuff where they have black voices, quote, unquote, you know what I mean, and it’s just this, like, over the top, almost character voice.

This idea that like, black people sound the same, white people sound the same.
There’s dialects and there’s accents, and there’s nuance.
It’s like this generic voice, it’s quasi racist in all ways. It’s silly.

Rhys:
And it goes beyond just the sound of the voice, right? Great narration track is often done by somebody who’s connecting to the material. Well, you know, who doesn’t connect to material? TTS doesn’t connect to the material, there’s no lived experience of being LGBTQ for a TTS voice. Whereas you get the human narrator, skilled, who’s doing content of that type, in the connection that they come through, it’s not performative, but it’s subtle, but it’s there, and it’s present. If you’re an adept listener of audio description, you can hear it, that person gives a crap about what they’re doing. And
we stand to lose all of that.
Does TTS serve a function in audio description? 100%.
How to videos on YouTube, go for it. That’s an entirely reasonable application for TTS. But if you’re taking premium content, what is it you’re trying to achieve by doing that?

Eric:
The answer all your questions in life is money. That’s the old cliche.
It’s a pathetic thing that I have to say, but that’s really the answer. It’s always comes down to money.

For some reason, no one’s been able to figure out how to make money on AD at this point, which I don’t understand. There’s still a very big void and lack of audio description in commercials, which I think you know, how we never as a business came around to like, Procter and Gamble sponsoring this AD track.
Figuring out a way into product placement into the AD track, kind of like they’ve done in movies over the years.
There should have been a more thoughtful approach to monetizing this art form years ago, and that would have solved a lot of these problems, but were the horses out of the barn and made a left and it’s for four farms over at this point.

Rhys:
I liked the idea here Eric of an AD narrate or drinking a grimace shake while narrating mentioning that that’s what they’re doing.
sponsored AD track, I like this,

Eric:
It sounds a little silly and out there, but McDonald’s is gonna want a high quality product to go with their product.

Rhys:
We see that in live audio description, a lot of the times we’ll have a corporate sponsorship, whether it’s the Olympics or an award show, there’s no reason that that couldn’t trickle down.

TR:
It sounds like a natural fit, especially for network broadcasters who already have relationships with advertisers.
But I’m sure the streaming services like Netflix, Max and others could make this happen.
Then just leave it to the accountants to identify other financial benefits for the company.

From the consumer position, we’re already used to sponsored ads and programming.

With all of the issues we identified and discussed today, it’s extremely important that we as consumers are fully aware of our power.
And we shouldn’t be scared to flex or put it to use.

Eric:
Thomas, the first time I was on your podcast, I talked about this. Streaming companies, businesses in general, yes, they are forced to respond to negative things, but they would much rather not deal with negative things. And the best way to not deal with it, is to just give the consumer a product that they just enjoy, and that they’ll just be quiet about, right.

Rhys:
I want to keep encouraging people, hold all of us accountable. Like Eric and I are out here talking the talk, hold us accountable for walking that walk if we do something that you think is subpar, or could be done better.

Eric:
We make mistakes, we know, but we want to hear about them. That’s why we put our names on our tracks. That’s why we’re out there on social media. That’s why we’re reachable.
It’s telling, the circus providers, the clown shows, they don’t put their names on tracks.

continue to call out the bad stuff, and especially stuff that’s not being culturally appropriate because That’s disgraceful.

I think equally important, highlight the good, because it will matter, it will filter more that work to the companies that are taking pride in doing it well.

And that’s the goal. The goal is to get the product to be as good as possible. And so sometimes you just kind of have to shine a light and push the client towards that direction.

Rhys:
There’s sort of historically been the mindset of gratitude. Thank you so much for giving us audio description. And I get that because it wasn’t there. And now it’s more prevalent, but it’s not enough.

The focus on gratitude should shift into, what makes good AD. There’s different schools of thought, we’re not all going to agree on everything. That’s fine. But I think we all should have some accountability to producing that quality AD.

From a consumer advocacy standpoint, I’m glad people are grateful for the access that they have.
But access isn’t enough, it has to be better access.

It’s not much harder to perform this work well than it is to perform it badly. It’s not that much more of a time investment, it’s not that much more of a money investment, and the audience deserves better.

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
Has there ever been any conversation about the post production companies, the AD production companies coming together?

Rhys:
bringing everybody to a summit and saying, here are the problems? Let’s solve this?

TR in Conversation with Eric & Rhys:
Yeah.

Eric:
Yeah, that’s an idea! (Chuckles)

Rhys:
It’s a great idea. I’ve proposed it numerous times to numerous entities, that I thought it had more ability to sway that I won’t name them.
It’s problematic, but I think there are ways in which it could happen.

I think we’re nearing a point where more of these organizations, the content owners, the bigger studios have people who actually are focused on caring about the quality of their accessibility. Individuals within their company were tasked with it, not just project managers on a given title, but like actually overarching people who are looking at this within their organization.

The more that that exists, the more likely we are able to have productive collective conversations.

there’s a collegiality amongst this group, those who actually care about it, and those who are invested in it, to help elevate the product. And to push each other.

I pay very close attention to what Eric is doing. I support it. But I also want to know if he zigs, I want to make sure that we’re also zigging at the same time, because philosophically, there’s an alignment.
If he uncovered some awesome new thing I want to make sure we’re doing it too. And I think vice versa.
That’s where I’m also hoping others can join this idea and get behind us and start pushing Eric, and I to think in different ways, and I’m very open to that sort of level of competition.

TR:
Big thanks goes out to Eric Wickstrom and Rhys Lloyd and of course Michael McNeely from part one.
Gentlemen, I truly appreciate your time and honesty.
I’m not sure if you know this but you are each official Reid My Mind Radio family!

— Airhorn

If you want to reach out to Eric and or Rhys,
you can do that first via the formerly cool app known as Twitter now annoyingly called X.

Eric:
at IDC underscore, Eric, E R I C (Spelled out.)

Rhys:

RazLoyd R A Zed that’s my Canadian, or for those of you in the states are a Z Lloyd (spelled out)

TR:
Find them both on Linked In

Eric:
Eric Wickstrom

Rhys:
Rhys Lloyd R H Y S L L O Y D (Spelled out).

TR:
Or reach out via their respective companies.

Eric:
I DC digital.com is our corporate website and you can always send a message there, it will filter to me.

Rhys:
info at Descriptive Video works.com.
We do answer those emails.

TR:
After reviewing all of these issues and their proposed solutions,
it still feels like…

— “NO ONE WILL SAVE US!

TR:
But, if I modify that slightly, it can feel a bit more optimistic and potentially something we can solve.

No one, will save us.
So we all need to work together.
We! As in:
* AD consumers and their loved ones
* Anyone involved in the AD process (writers, audio engineers narrators etc. )
* Those in solidarity, no matter the access need
* Film makers, storytellers, producers – who want their creative work consumed and appreciated
* Broadcasters, streaming platforms

We, can each do something.

Broadcasters, streaming platforms

Hire a dedicated person and or team of individuals responsible for content accessibility. Preferably from the user communities.

Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer Beware
Can you imagine going to a car dealership and realizing there’s only a five percent difference
between the used beat up car with a hundred thousand miles, torn seats and a crappy mis match paint job versus a brand new shiny Mercedes Benz?

Unless you have a thing for hooptie’s , I’m pretty sure you’re leaving that dealership in the Benzo.

So why in the world would you purchase AD for your content that’s the equivalent of a hooptie, a lemon, junk?

How about getting together with other content platforms to assure you all play nice and share the existing AD tracks. There’s no reason titles with AD shouldn’t have AD everywhere.

Film makers, storytellers, producers – who want their creative work consumed and appreciated

Learn about AD. Consume accessible content. Consider it’s benefits to your storytelling process.
Make your content accessible, reach out to the community and increase your views.

Those in solidarity with others no matter the access need

Share! Experience AD for yourself, tell other people about it. If you have a platform invite others to talk about it.

Anyone involved in the AD process (writers, audio engineers narrators etc. )

Meet and talk to a diverse group of consumers who are Blind or have low vision. Reach out to a local organization of the Blind. Ask for input and feedback on AD. You never know, you might make a new friend.

Hopefully you are or have consumed AD.

Take pride in your work and like any career, keep getting better and don’t be scared to innovate.

— Sample “Say it with your chest!” Kevin Hart

Take the pledge – sign on to show your commitment to culturally competent AD.

If your organization isn’t currently or in the process of making space for Blind professionals in the production process,
I guess I have to just ask; how do all of you in those big red shoes fit in that little car?

AD consumers and their loved ones

First, I got a message from the gratitude gods. They said enough is enough. We deserve true access.

For those who want to accept sub par anything, that’s your choice.
But be quiet. Say less! Your not helping anyone.
Some of us know our value and we’re not lowering our standards.
Why in the world would you advocate for that.

Advocacy comes in so many forms. I know lots of folks who struggle because they feel there’s only one way.
For many, that’s through some formal organization.
Yet, some of these organizations aren’t equally welcoming
Some seem as though they exist to maintain their existence.

Some of you are great letter writers
Why not put that skill to use to seek support for the
Communications, Video, and Technology Accessibility Act.

Advocacy is taking place when we provide real feedback.
As Eric and Rhys said, that’s holding everyone accountable and sharing both the good and bad. Do it publicly, we have the tools.

Advocacy is keeping people informed. I think of Stanley Yarnell, the Sherrif of the Blind Posse.
If you haven’t heard of them, it’s a crew of AD enthusiasts who appreciate audio description in museums and galleries.
The Sherrif sends out email blasts at least monthly informing the posse of events online and in the Bay area.

Feel free to let me know what you’re doing in your area.

After hearing from Michael McNeely in part one, I’m convinced,
the state of captions are not what we’re trying to attain.
Yes, there’s a greater level of awareness, but the take away lesson to me, quality has to be the goal.

Hopefully, you can recognize that quality is something I try to pour into every episode of this podcast including
this season of Flipping the Script on Audio Description.
This is the last episode of the 2023 season and I already have some things I want to bring you next year.

Due to some existing commitments, I’m not producing another season this year.

But I truly recommend you stay tuned in because sometimes, I just get inspired.
And I’m hoping we will have more Blind Centered Audio Description Chats to share in the feed soon.

So make sure you rock with Reid My Mind Radio by following or subscribing wherever you get podcasts.
We have transcripts and more at ReidMyMind.com
Just remember, 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

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.

Hide the transcript

— Music begins, a piano chord with a vibes roll leads into a upbeat groove.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Hey, Toni, can you hear me?

Toni:

Yes!

TR in Conversation with Toni:

How you doing?

Toni:

I’m good how are you?

TR in Conversation with Toni:

I’m good

Toni:

we finally got to do the interview.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

yeah yeah I’m scared to say that, I’m gonna wait till it’s done (Laughs)

Toni:

I was just I had something else that came…

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Uh oh!I’m losing your connection I don’t know if you can hear me but I can’t hear you Can hear me but I can’t hear you.
Okay it says you’re unmuted, it says your video is on, try turning off your video and let’s see if that saves some bandwidth

Toni:
Thomas

TR in Conversation with Toni:

There you go.

TR:

Things happen when there supposed to

For example, maybe this is your first time listening to the podcast.
I don’t know what brought you here, but I’m glad you made it.

My name is Thomas Reid and I’m the host and producer of this podcast.

We’re in the midst of the Young Gifted Black & Disabled series.
This was inspired by an episode of the same name I produced last year with my brother AJ Murray.
I really encourage y’all to check that out.

While that episode along with close to 150 others are in the past, they’re not old or stale.
We add a bit of seasoning for flavor, but there’s no preservatives.
The dishes we serve up here are always fresh and good for your mind and body.

So you see, you’re right on time!

Audio: Reid My Mind Theme Music

Let’s get it!

Toni:

My name is Tony Hickman. I am a tall slim, melanin dominant black girl with long dreadlocks and yeah I am excited about this interview.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

So now I usually don’t start with this question, but where were you born Tony?

Toni:

I was born in New York City.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Can you be specific?

Toni:

I was born in the Bronx,

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Yeh! say that one more time for me…

Toni:

I was born in the Boogie Down Bronx. Morisanna Hospital. I was raised in New Orleans Louisiana.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

No doubt you can’t hide that.

TR:

Over the year’s, Toni’s been known under some other names.

Toni:

when I was on Suave House, which is a record label where I have done gold and platinum musical performances, my rap name used to be Slim Goodie.

Everybody in the industry that knows me they still call me Slim like everybody call me Slim so it’s crazy if I would have got fat right they’ll still call me Slim.

TR:

That really does sort of make you think about the importance of a name. It can be really about who you are at one particular moment in time.
Yet, it can also be about who you are meant to be.

Toni:

A lot of people like in the conscious community call me Alika. Some people in the conscious community come up with other names for themselves and I think that’s okay too because sometimes we have to define who we want to be in this world and When we’re given our government names it’s not always where we are you know, so I get it but yeah, Alika is actually my real middle name.

My dad gave me Tony and my mom gave me Alika.

Alika means beautiful warrior.

TR:

On social she’s known as the Real Ms. Toni Hickman. Perhaps there is an impostor out there, but I’m thinking it’s more like representing her ability to share her truth. Keeping it real! Namean!

An early sign of that is in her poetry which she began at 9 years old.

Toni:

I had went through a lot of things with my mom and my father’s splitting up and so I would write this poetry to help me. It was philosophy, even at a young age.

It was like, I wish I was a bird so that I could fly away, but I am just a child, so therefore, I have to stay.

TR:

When her school put on a talent show, Toni teamed up with some friends and started rapping.

Toni:

We was the Bally Trooper Adidas group, and we had a beatboxer and my home girl and me. And we won the talent show. And from there, I was just like, Oh, yeah, this is what I’m supposed to be doing right here.

TR:

That first performance was not really indicative of how Toni wanted to rap.

Her partner wrote the rhyme. Which was about Now & Laters.

Toni:

I was just like, Okay, I need to be doing this all the time. But I can write my own raps. And from there, I always wrote my own lyrics.

MC Lyte, Salt N Peppa. That was like my big influences at that time as far as female hip hop. But honestly, my reality was a little bit different.

I grew up kind of, like, always looking out for myself. I’ve been on my own since I was 15. I’ve been doing music professionally since 16.

TR:

Writers of any sort are encouraged to write about what they know. Toni wrote about her environment.

Toni:
My environment was watching people die, like right in front of my face, people getting shot and killed.

And so I started rapping on the negative side of that, like, I was T Capone, I was Al Capone’s daughter.
I was the gangsta hip hop. And I gradually started going into stories of like, why this wasn’t a good choice, or why even being in that environment can get you stuck.

TR:

With a rap name like T Capone, well you’d assume not all of the stories were positive.

Toni:

It wasn’t just about killing. I can only remember one song I did that and they went platinum, but it was about killing. And that didn’t sit well with me. Like, during the process, it was dope, the song was called armed robbery. But then afterwards, when I listened to it, like my soul was just like, no, Toni , this is not your path, you have to correct and that’s something that happens in life, like, you know, we don’t come in this world knowing exactly what we need to do or what direction we need to go. And it’s only from these harsh lessons, that we get to learn our true purpose.

TR:

Telling stories with messages, was her thing.

Toni:

Like Scarface or Tupac. They used to actually call me a female Tupac because that’s really kind of how I related to the world.

And then even after that, I started going into Slim Goody.

Slim Goodie had messages in her music and that was very important for me Even then, even though I didn’t even know my whole way. I just knew that it had to have something that somebody could learn from.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Being compared to like a Tupac and Scarface, where do you think you got that? Were you reading as well as writing at a young age?

Toni:

My mother raised me as a reader. She was putting books in my face, like, As a Man Thinketh”, “Back to Eden”.

My mother was like this person who everybody would come to if they were sick or had an issue, and my mother would be the one to give them a solution. Like, she was known as the medicine woman in the church.

Now I do that as well.

TR:

During the time she was rapping under the name Slim Goodie,
Suave House moved Toni from New Orleans to Atlanta.
The record label however was experiencing their own change as their premiere artists 8 Ball and MJG were leaving the label.

Toni:

When you put your project in somebody else’s hands, and it’s no fault of anyone, but if you put your project in somebody else’s hands, you have to wait on their hand and move right. So if something happens with their hand, their hand get cut off or something like that thing, you’re stuck because you’ve put your dreams in somebody else’s hands. That situation happened to me. And so I eventually got out of the label legally, and started doing my own thing and started working with big artists like Jagged Edge, Petey Pablo

TR:

That got the attention of the infamous Suge Knight.

— Audio from the 1995 Source Awards…
“Any artist out there want to be an artist, want to stay a star, don’t want to have to worry about the Executive Producer trying to be all in the videos, all on a record, dancing, come to Death Row.” Suge Knight

TR:

Yes, that Suge Knight, from Death Row Records.
He liked what he heard and reached out to Toni.
Of course she was aware of his reputation which includes
allegedly hanging rapper Vanilla Ice off a balcony during let’s say contract negotiations.

Toni:

He called my phone personally right That was still huge for me that I was on the phone with him.
He was like yeah, I want to fly you out to Cali and you know we’re gonna do this because I love this song. This is a dope song.

Then three days later, I had my first brain aneurysm.

When I look back at it now its like, you definitely was not supposed to go out there.

TR:

Toni recovered from that aneurysm and moved on with her career.
About a year later, while celebrating the release of a new project back home in New Orleans, she felt ill.
It was another aneurysm.

Toni:

But this one actually burst in my head. Most people die when that happens. But they rushed me to the hospital. I had to wait for my mother to come from Atlanta and give them permission to operate on me. They told her I had a 5050 chance of living or dying.

When she gave them permission, they went in my head and started operating. But while they were in my head, I had a stroke on the table because my body went into shock, and it pushed my pressure up.

When I came to, which was a minute, I think I was out for a couple of days. But when I came to I couldn’t speak. And I couldn’t spell water. I couldn’t say water. But I noticed what I wanted.

TR:

She wanted to live! Even if she didn’t realize it at that time.

Eventually she was moved to a rehab facility in Louisiana.

Toni:

I had this song playing in my head, (Toni sings …)feels like I’m hopeless.

And every time I was thinking in my head, I just burst out crying because that’s what I felt. I just felt hopeless. Like, I had no hope. And I have been doing music all my life. And so I was like, What am I doing now?
Okay, now, the industry definitely is not focused on people with disabilities. And so, like, What am I supposed to do?

— Music begins, an eerie menacing slow Hip Hopbeat

One of my nurses came in and she said, Well, what you need to ask is, how did you have two brain aneurysms and a stroke and you’re still alive?
So that’s the real question you need to ask yourself. That stuck with me for the rest of my life.

TR:

Toni describes herself as very stubborn during this period.

Toni:

I had this energy on me that was like, I’ll be damned, that’s the only way I can describe it.
I just never gave up on myself. I had to either be hopeless, or I’ll be damned. And I chose the I’ll be damned.

I just had this energy where I was like, this cannot be my reality, I have so much more in me, this can’t be it.

I have so much more in me, like, just can’t be it.

TR:

She made her own rules.
Like refusing to remain in bed even when she couldn’t walk.
Eventually she began walking with a cane and was transferred to the Shepperd Center in Atlanta.
A rehabilitation facility that helps young people with brain injury.

Toni:

There were people in there and they were just like giver uppers, and I hate that that can happen. But some people when they fall or something has happened seemed to defeat them, they travel in that energy, they choose to stay in that energy of just being defeated, instead of fighting. And for me, I just didn’t see the being defeated, being my option, I wanted to fight for my life.

TR:

The physical, that was just part of her fight.

Toni:

I had to deal with the outside world and walking differently and not being able to wear heels or being self conscious about what I look like, and being judged by what I look like.

Before I was this six foot model type looking girl.

— Music Begins, a bouncy up-tempo, high energy Hip Hop beat!

“I got a little a, a little something I want to lay on y’all.” !”

TR:

Hey did you know; Reid My Mind Radio, is on Facebook and Insta Gram. We’re going to do some things on these platforms so stay tuned. You can find us on both FB and IG @ReidMyMindRadio.

On Twitter I’m at tsreid

Don’t forget you can also ask your smart device to play Reid My MindRadio by T.Reid on your preferred podcast provider.

Make sure you say that full statement including, T.Reid.

— A hint of “This Christmas” by Donny Hathaway

The holidays are among us. If you’re looking for a way to give yourself a present while supporting what I’m hoping is your favorite podcast… one of your favorites? A podcast you’re kinda diggin’?

Anyway, go on over to ReidMyMind.com and hit that link that says Shop.

Purchase a shirt, hoodie or any item to show your rockin’ with Reid My Mind Radio! Or maybe you want to show your support for Flipping the Script on Audio Description. or of course, Young Gifted Black & Disabled.

All support is truly appreciated.

You can find Reid My Mind Radio wherever you get your podcasts. That’s the perfect place to follow or subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

Tell a friend to do the same. Let them also know that we have transcripts and more at ReidMyMind.com. Just make sure you tell them; That’s R to the E I D

“D” and that’s me in the place to be. Slick Rick) Like my last name.

Now back to the episode. ———-

— DJ Scratch leads into
— Crippled Pretty, by Toni Hickman

Lyrics:

I was kind of wishing I was dead
They shaved off all my hair to do surgery on my head
And then my eyes turned dark and my world got black
I never thought my life would take a turn like that

My world is Cripple Pretty

I’ve seen the sun and…
I’ve seen the rain and…
Life is beautiful
I can’t complain, man
… song continues under the conversation.

TR:

Toni didn’t want to be seen in public

Toni:

A friend of mine, he was just like you done lost your confidence What happened? And then I was like, I didn’t lose anything. I’m telling him that but he was right. I hated that he was able to identify that with me that pissed me off. I’m supposed to hide it.

— Music begins, a melancholy ambient piano melody

I had to get all my hair shaved off during this process.

I went and got braids in my hair so I can just feel beautiful.

One day I was in the mirror and I was taking the braids out. And I had this energy that came over me, and it was just like, I love you. And so I’m looking in the mirror, and I’m crying to myself. And I’m just I love you, I love you just how you are like, I love you. And even to think about it. Now it’s bringing tears to my eyes, because that was the moment when I decided that I had to love myself internally. Before I can really reflect that in the world. You know?

TR:

Yeh, I do.

In fact, I think a lot of us do.
What I think could be helpful is figuring out how to access that energy.

Toni:

I think it’s in all of us, but we have to tap into it.

When I was in the mirror, and I was crying to myself, and I had to tell myself, I love myself. That was definitely God energy. And that was definitely learning what self love really means. Because everybody talks about you got to do the self care and the self love, but self love really comes in when you are down at your bottom. And you can’t even figure your way out and you have to find your way of understanding what self love means. That was my turning point.

TR:

She took the braids out.

Toni:

I put my two palm palms in my head naturally. And I was like, Look, this is me, you gonna have to accept me as is. I started going to the gym, the local YMCA in Atlanta. And I was working on myself so hard that they put me on the wall is like just being so determined to grow and succeed.

I don’t care what your issue is. You feeling like you need to go Get your nails and your toes done, whatever makes you feel beautiful. It’s okay to, to go in that energy because that inspires the same energy that makes you feel that self care and this self love.

I do it because it makes me feel better not for anybody else. I do it for me.

TR:

While she says her gate is off, Toni became strong enough where she no longer needed a cane and was able to return to the studio.

Unrelated to disability, today she chooses to record from home.

Yet we know, disability can introduce some change into our lives.

Toni:

Oh everything changes. As a melanin dominant person, or black person in our world, there have been so many ways to see how, as black people, we have been discriminated against, but disability takes it to a whole other level.

I’m not saying that it takes away from discrimination as black because if you’re black and disabled, like that’s a double whammy.

What I realized is this community of people with disabilities First off, is so strong, like there’s so many strong spirits , disabled activists.

I was kind of just trying to figure out my way, and Krip Hop came to me.

TR:

The Krip Hop Nation was started by Leroy Moore and Keith Jones in 2007.
It’s a worldwide association of artists with disabilities campaigning for equality through concerts, tours, workshops and much more.
Leroy reached out to Toni on the early social media app, My Space.

Toni:

When Leroy came to me, I was just like, yes. I have spoken at different events with Leroy. We’ve just done a lot of great things.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

There are many people within the world of hip hop who have a disability, but they don’t all identify it as such. So I’m sure Leroy has approached some people. And their reaction was probably not like yours, right? Like, no, I’m not disabled, you know what I’m saying? So what is it? How did you come to identify as disabled?

Toni:

I’m not gonna hide it. That was one of the things of like, self love. I can’t hide what has happened. I didn’t feel like I needed to, like, I felt like I needed to speak for this community versus hide.

I know rappers in the industry right now. They’ve never shine light on it, because they know how the industry looks at that. And it’s unfortunate, because this is something that needs the light. The disability community needs inclusion.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

Do you think that can change within hip hop, specifically?

Toni:’

I’m not sure.

At first, my goal was to be a part of the industry without being like, an activist.

I just wanted to be that slim girl that was rapping. But now my goal is not to be a part of them, my goal is to be a part of change. And even if my voice can redirect, to change them in some kind of way, then I’ve still fulfilled my purpose. Because at the end of the day, all Hip Hop artists have some form of duty.

I told you, I started with the poetry. And it’s always been philosophical. So we’re channeled,

Nipsey Hussle talks about this too. We get this energy that comes through us, we don’t know where these lyrics come from. They come through us and that is how we express. Those that channeling for negative, that is not helping our environment, but if we choose to channel and help our environment, then we are really being what we’re supposed to be on this earth.

TR:

There’s real purpose in sharing stories about disability and our experiences through
lyrics, musicianship, dance, art!
So it’s really great to se Toni and fellow Krip Hop artists
George Tragic and co-founder Keith Jones, receive recognition for their work
in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix.

Toni:

The documentary is about the Paralympics, and all of these amazing people who have stories.

it is a story of just pure, I’ll be damned. I’m gonna do this.
TR:

Daniel Pemberton, the music director for the film wanted to make sure the project included disabled musicians.
That first just meant hiring disabled orchestral instrumentalist.

Toni:

Then he decided that he wants to have like, a hip hop song attached. And so they got in touch with Leroy, who is the founder of crip, hop, and Leroy got in touch with us. And they kind of wanted me to add the energy of the singing into it, because they had listened to our projects.

I speak from the heart always, and I work on people always being able to feel that emotion that I have and so they wanted me to add the energy of the song.

I had more than what was there. And then the director came back, he’s like, Well, you know, maybe we take this off and just use this. And that’s how we ended up with the hook.

I’m a Rising Phoenix, I’ll rise above you.

— Song mixes in with the lyrics…

Toni:

And that is pretty much the story of what you have to do when you have a disability, you have to gain this, I’ll be damned attitude, and fight for your equality.

TR:

Not only is Toni singing the hook, but she drops a verse as well.

Toni:

I was just happy to be a part of the movie because just that alone was so powerful.

We had no idea that it was gonna win an EMMY.

I was just floored.

— News footage…
“A lot of people online are criticizing the award show with the hash tag #EMMYsSoWhite, trending on Twitter. No Black actors won big awards despite a record number being nominated. 49 by the way.”

Toni:

This goes back to that inclusion thing. This song was so amazing that it won an EMMY.
That’s the statement that I want to make because, I’m Black.

TR in conversation with Toni:

Mm! Yeh!

Toni:

We won because of this song so don’t say that we were not include it you need to think about us you need to understand that we are included

TR in conversation with Toni:

Yeh, that’s that “well they’re not Black they’re disabled.”

Toni:

That’s what i’m talking about!

TR:

Sometimes y’all, when you’re Black and disabled, It feels like well, am I not Black enough for ya!

— Sample from Billy Paul “Am I Black Enough”

TR:

Despite all that, Toni has an EMMY. And naturally, it’s in her studio.

Toni:

it’s beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful.

TR:

Toni’s working on a new project right now!

Thakur>

Toni:
Thakur is definitely a project that I must confess is confrontational. But it is focused on I guess, bringing in the deep thinkers and, and also helping people understand that, like, in the process of us looking outside of ourselves, for someone to save us, we also have to look internally and tap into our God’s self and work on saving ourselves.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

What’s the controversy though?

Toni:

Well, the controversy, I mean, even in Christianity, we’ve been taught to pray to a white God, and look for white gods to save us.

And so in that process, we have given away all of our power. For us to access who we truly need to be, we have to redirect how we look at God.
God is everywhere. God is in the trees, the grass. God is energy. But we also manifest that energy. And so we have to also just see how looking at a white God, who has also been the same image as our slave master has damaged our psyche.

TR:

The Cure , spelled T H A K U R is Toni’s new group.

Toni:

It’s just me and my homeboy.

I was doing a lot of big things before I went in the hospital. And he was one of the people that just kind of came in and was there before and after. He’s a really dope artist, he’s a dope producer. But also a person that has just been influencing me to just keep going regardless of the standards that the music industry tries to put on artists, like age, disability or whatever. He was one of those people that just was always in my corner and encouraging me to you know, live my greatest life.

He’s Big Yo!

TR in Conversation with Toni:

When we’re talking about disability. I love to hear about the friends in the family who really were holding people down, before and after. I always feel like they deserve a real special shout out. So shout out Big Yo, for real!

Toni:

Yes, shout out to Big Yo!

TR:

You can check out Thakur’s first release titled Telepathy right now on YouTube.
By the time this episode is released, their second single Daylight should be available and an album soon to follow.

Toni:

it’s just really to enlighten and that’s what my whole journey has been about. Understanding my own truth while I can relay My message to others.

TR:

Krip Hop and rap in general is just one vehicle Toni uses to improve her environment through positive change.

Toni:

I started speaking for the American Heart Association, and this other organization called young stroke. And young stroke focuses on people with brain injury, aneurisms, that happen at a young age.

TR:

She writes books.

Toni:

The doctors told me to keep chemicals out of my hair for at least two years. And so when I researched why I found that you know, a lot of these chemicals can lead to cancer, aneurysms, all kinds of things and we don’t even think about it because as melanin dominant people, for so long we have just tried to fit into the status quo of what America or the world in society portrays as beauty and so we’ve been putting these perms and stuff on our hair and that understanding that our roots are definitely supposed to be out and that’s what we’re supposed to wear. I wrote a book called Chemical Suicide.

TR:

She has another titled ” A Man’s Cry for Health”.
It’s a response to a lack of information and attention placed on men’s health.

Toni:

It’s hard for them to focus or even bring attention to their health issues because society makes it look like they are less than a man if you have issues or you’re weaker or something and that shouldn’t be the case we need to pay attention to our men as well.

It doesn’t just help men because it talks about all ailments that us humans have but we’ve even raised our boys to think like you never cry you’re never supposed to cry you’re never supposed to shed tears and the reality is yeah you know one of my spiritual teachers he’s like you know if we weren’t supposed to cry we wouldn’t have tear ducts.

You don’t dwell in that energy but it’s okay for men to cry. It’s okay for you to let out that emotion.

TR:

She’s even working on the story of her journey. Toni:

I started on it. And then I stopped and I started again.
It’s my book. Just everything that I have been through and going through the changes of loving myself

My goal is to eventually get it turned into a movie or a series.

TR:

I’ll spare you all my audio description lecture and my selfless pitch to narrate.

Music, poetry, writing, Toni’s about creating.

Toni:

I paint, I’m constantly working on stuff just trying to see where I’m supposed to be. You know my purpose.

TR:

It’s why she shares the lessons she continues to learn throughout her journey. What she calls Alika Lessons.

Toni:

The Alika lessons can vary.

I don’t really think about direction. I just get on there with lessons that I constantly learn to help me grow. And I understand that whatever can help me grow is probably going to help somebody else.

TR:

The content she shares on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube isn’t tailored to any specific identity.
However, I think it does center the experiences of women.
And fellas, you may want to listen to learn a thing or two.

Toni:

The importance of loving yourself, but also the importance of understanding that it is okay for you to be properly pleasured.

This is not a disabled thing. Women have a tendency to kind of Like fake an orgasm because they are not truly being pleased because their spiritual connection is not there with their partner.

They’ve just bypassed that to please their partner instead of focusing on pleasing themselves.

TR:

Pleas ing oneself begins with seeing that inner beauty.
Being comfortable and loving that person in the mirror.

That first poem she wrote as a child;
choosing to be true to herself and write meaningful honest lyrics;
healing on her terms;
embracing her disability;

All of these things, on her time.

You should take some of your time to check out Toni’s music, purchase her books and art; Visit
ToniHickman.com

Toni:

that’s T O N I H I C K M A N.com

My social media is the real Tony Hickman except for Twitter on Twitter, I’m just Tony Hickman

TR:

Oh, no, she’s never [emphasis on just ]just Toni Hickman!

She is the real Toni Hickman, which happens to be the name of her YouTube channel.

TR in Conversation with Toni:

So since I got the real Tony Hickman online not that fake imposter running around out there you know say we got no time for that fake one so since I got the real one on that I just want to let you know that because you were so open and you shared everything and when folks do that right here with the family, with the Reid My Mind Radio family we let you know that you miss real Tony Hickman are now an official member of the Reid My MindRadio family

— Airhorn!

Toni:

Happy to be a member

TR in Conversation with Toni:

I really do appreciate you and you know I’ve been looking forward to this for a while and I’m glad we finally did it Tony we got this done Congratulations, to us!

TR:

Yes, congratulations to us as we celebrate… Young Gifted Black & Disabled

Audio: Reid My Mind Outro

Peace

Hide the transcript

Sound of Vocal booth closing.

TR:

Geez, this idea of trying to open the podcast with something different or catchy is just starting to get to be too much.

If only I had help. If only I had help, If only I …

Sound of Dream Harp!

The Great Kazoo:

(Yawning!) You called?

TR in dream sequence:

Yes, oh great Kazoo. Didn’t you hear me calling you?

The Great Kazoo:

When? Of course not I’ve been sleeping.

TR:

Bruh! Isn’t that your job. To be there to look out for a brother.

The Great Kazoo:

My dear fellow, I’m not only undependable, but I’m a bit of a Kook… That’s why I’m hear remember I’m being punished.

TR:

Really, punished? You act like I call you that often. It’s been a minute since I actually needed your help Bruh. Plus I looked out for you that last time. I sent a very nice email to your supervisor.

The Great Kazoo:

Why don’t you try counting on yourself.

TR:

Oh, it’s like that son? Aight, forget you. I’ll just do the regular intro myself with you, nahmean!

Drop the beat!

Music begins with a Hip Hop Kick drum & bass.

What’s up Reid My Mind Radio Family! My name is Thomas Reid. I’m the host and producer of this podcast featuring compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. I should clarify that a bit because I think it may get lost. People impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability? This includes all those experiencing disability directly. A person new to blindness for example. But it also includes their family members and friends. The teachers of the visually impaired, O&M & Rehab instructors who teach the white cane for example or other daily living skills. There are also those in supporting industries from technology, accessibility & of course Audio Description. I consider all of this to be summarized by impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. For the record, I think our entire society is all impacted by disability, but we don’t all happen to realize that or even feel that way. But don’t worry y’all eventually they’ll catch up with us. That’s on them. So let us just keep doing our thing!

The Great Kazoo:

(Yawning) Oh look, I don’t wish to stay here forever. And since I am supposed to serve you I will try. But take heed, don’t ask for more than you can handle, you may get it.

Sound of reversing Dream Harp…

TR:

Maybe I don’t need help. I think I have an idea after all.

The Great Kazoo:

(Yawning…) Well, see you tomorrow. Maybe. Laughs. Sound effects signaling his disappearance.)

Audio: Reid My Mind Theme Music

TR:

Today I’m bringing you excerpts of some conversations I had over the past few months with multiple Audio Describers. Specifically writers and narrators, each bringing their own perspective and background.

AD is still new. There’s no one “right” way. With there being so much more to Audio Description than what we hear, it’s past time we hear from a more inclusive set of people involved in the process.

So, this is the first in a series I’m calling Flipping the Script on Audio Description. You know, sometimes you just need to hear from another side.

Now let me introduce you to my guests.

Alejandra:
My name is Alejandra (American English accented) or Alejandra Ospina depending on your audience.

TR:

That’s what I’m saying! The Reid My Mind Radio Family like our world is diverse. And that’s how we roll!

(Music begins)

Alejandra:

My business cards have a long list of things, but I like to consolidate it into what I’m calling a Media Accessibility Provider. I do Close Captioning and I do transcription and I do translation and Audio Description and so I like to imagine the things I’m doing all sort of promote access to content. I don’t consider myself as often a content creator but I like to facilitate people getting to see or hear or know what they’re watching.

TR:

That makes me think Alejandra’s introduction to media access is personal.

Alejandra:

Having close friends and chosen family members that are visually impaired and I’ve spent a lot of time describing things for them so it sort of was a natural progression.

Related sort of anecdotally growing up as the primary English speaker in a Spanish speaking family I spent a lot of time explaining things to so the concept of explaining comes naturally to me.

TR:

That sort of hits home for me. My mom played that role for much of her family. One thing I know is that can be a great way to develop an advocate’s spirit.

Alejandra:

I was one of those folks that got on my high horse which isn’t very high, about having people on social media describe images and photos that they post. So I spent a lot of time in the last five years gently shaming or encouraging people to describe the things they post on social media and over time that has caught the attention of folks in disability community and communities of people that are doing this kind of work. And it was sort of a natural progression.

TR:

Next, one of the first Describers to provide a visual description of themselves. This prompted me to not only begin asking other describers to do the same but really to think about incorporating that going forward with all interviews.

Here’s Liz Thomson, who is currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in Disability Studies.

Liz:

(Spelling her name)
Liz Thomson. I would visually describe myself as a dark skin 5 foot 2 person with black eyes and black rimmed glasses. Currently I have a mostly shaved head with a band of 2 inch short black hair. I identify as someone who is disabled, also bisexual and queer. A Vietnamese adoptee. Mostly grown up and worked in the mid-west. I use they, them they’re pronouns.

TR:

you can say Liz had a fast tracked introduction to AD. Learning of it and experience it all in the same evening.

Liz:

One of my good friends who is Low Vision, he invited me to go to a Disability Cultural Program. At the very beginning of the program they ask if anyone needed headsets for Audio Description. He’s used to that and I think he typically takes advantage of that accommodation, but I had never heard of that. And so I was like hey you know I’ll try it out. So I got my headset. I believe this was kind of like an open mic performance.

TR:

It included things like poetry, dance or movement and other artistic expression. probably not the most traditional first experience with Audio Description.

Liz:

So that really got me hooked!

Chanelle:

My name is Chanelle Carson. I am a Freelance Audio Describer out of Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m also the Senior Audio Describer at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Las Vegas.

I’ve been working with the Smith Center for actually 8 years now. About 4, 5 years ago actually, during one of our pre shifts they just asked if anyone was interested in learning how to do Audio Description.

At the time I was 22 just out of college. I had been studying film with a focus on screen writing, I was thinking oh, this sounds like it’s right up my alley. I’m a writer and at the time I was very interested in learning how to do voice acting.

Didn’t hear anything for a few months then they sent me and another woman off to get trained at Joel Snyder’s Audio Description seminar.

[TR in conversation with Chanelle:]

Was it kind of hard to take what you learned and go right into the live stuff?

Chanelle:

Oh yeh! It was extremely difficult going from the training to doing live theater because the training was so heavily focused on TV and film that sure the basic stuff like;
Don’t talk over the dialog, Blind people aren’t idiots – don’t worry about being too tender or politically correct with your description. What you see you describe.

Of course with TV and film when you’re doing description for that you have the lovely pause button. You don’t necessarily have that for live theater.

(Music ends!)

You can’t go hey guys I screwed up can we go back. (Laughs along with TR) So it’s very much having to learn how to do things on the fly.

TR:

Like Chanelle, Liz too completed the ACB AD Training. Similarly, the application was less about TV and film.

Liz:

I’ve done photography ever since I was in middle school. I did photo journalism at my high school newspaper, in college. As a photo journalist I was realizing I wasn’t adding Alt Text. I wasn’t adding description in my captions to make it kind of more integrated. I would add a caption but I wouldn’t add that photo description.

TR:
Today, Liz can take up to 25 minutes crafting an image description when preparing to upload.

Liz:

Sometimes people are like how can you do that? Do the in their eyes the extra time and labor to do the Audio Description. My response now is how can you afford to not.

TR:

Even if you put aside making the world a more accessible place for all (boring!) there are some real benefits:

Liz:

It makes me look at my images more closely. It makes me reflect a lot more on images that I shot.

TR:

That reflection could lead to a better understanding beyond the pixels. Photography biases for example.
Liz:

Not taking images of people with disabilities. Taking more images of cisgender men.

TR:

It’s not just about description – Liz is thoughtful about phrasing.

Liz:

Language is also fluid and socially constructed and also has different meanings over generations and time. Like modern and traditional. Well that means something very different now than it did in 1940.

My first draft will be one way and then I’ll look at it later on in the day and then I’ll change it. If I say something like traditional, then I have to ask myself well what do I mean and also what did I really see.

It’s about writing and saying what you saw.

(Music begins)

Alejandra:

In addition to learning the sort of standard ways that one is meant to do Audio Description for video for things like Netflix and Amazon, I’ve also been thrown into the world of how do you break that open and describe differently in ways that are actually respecting the culture, respecting the art. becoming part of the art and not just being tacked on after the fact because somebody does not want to get in trouble for not providing access.

TR:

I find it very empowering to see a lot of that pushing of the boundaries around Audio Description coming from the disability community.

It’s no surprise that Alejandra has worked with Alice Sheppard and laurel Lawson who we featured here on the podcast. All sharing this way of looking at Audio Description as more than an access accommodation.

Alejandra:

I don’t have a specific background in writing, but I have a specific background in wanting to be right!
[TR in conversation with Alejandra:]

Hmm , hmmm! I like that. (Laughs)

Alejandra:

Laughs…

Given that I have a personal investment with my community and the people that I care about

TR:

That’s the Disability community. When you’re connected like that it’s more than a job.

For the record, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it being a job that you perform professionally.

Alejandra:

I have AD on for almost everything that I watch as well as captions. And there have been so many times where I’m like you know that’s not right, I don’t like that.

TR:

Word selection, maybe failure to fully describe what was on screen…

Alejandra:

We both know that a lot of it is in the timing. And again it’s because AD is added on after the fact. There’s some really interesting things that I’ve been able to consult with

I did a live Audio Description for a panel sponsored by the New York University Center for Disability Studies. it featured the short films of a film maker named Jordan Lord. They create autobiographical films but the AD is baked into the narration. It’s written in sort of a prose style and the shots sort of follow as it’s written. So it’s not something that you have to add on after the fact. The filming is informed by what the film maker has written. And it’s very interesting. I think more films should be made that way.

(Music slowly fades to silence.)

[TR in conversation with Liz:]

have you always identified as disabled?

Liz:

No, I haven’t. Four or five years ago I was in the Disability Studies program, another student was talking about her letter of accommodation and her relationship to disability and her own disability identity. She also had mental health issues and mental health things and I was like oh my God like I’m also part of this community and I didn’t even know.

[TR in conversation with Liz:]

How do those identities impact how you write description.

Liz:

I don’t think people are talking about this, the identity of the describer or the person who does the voice, who writes it. They’ve made a huge impact on how I think about Audio Description and describe.

TR:

While working on an art gallery project, Liz and a colleague each drafted what they refer to as positionality statements. This included their bio’s and a statement about how they became involved in description.

Liz:

If you’re going to read a book, you might want to know a little bit about the author. You don’t have to.

We are not in a post racial world. I think it’s very important and necessary to know if you’re in an art gallery or theater you definitely need to know who’s writing that book or that script or who’s doing the painting, where they’re coming from.

TR:

Liz who completed the ACB Audio Description project training, refers to one of the lessons taught.

Liz:

In Snyder’s training even in his book, I don’t know about other people’s training and workshops but there’s about two sentences about race and that’s about it.

Basically, just to kind of paraphrase it says to describe race if it’s important.

TR:

The guideline refers to importance in regards to the movie’s plot. But like Liz says:
Liz:

I would offer that it’s always important.

TR:

It’s especially important to those who are marginalized . those who have been under or misrepresented on and behind the camera. Important to those who care about equity & justice. Important to those who want to see the real world which includes so much more than just white men. (My words, not Liz)

Important is subjective. So who should make the determination when it comes to consuming content?

I propose the consumer. In order to do that, Blind consumers need that information.

Liz:

If you are describing race you need to do it for all the people or all the characters not just the people of color because otherwise it centers whiteness. So I agree with that. What I’ve experienced though, race is not described. Even in for example, Black Panther or in some movies or TV shows that is predominantly people of color.

Chanelle:

Traveling Broadway shows, they are so white. (Laughs) I’ll be the first to admit and I am about as white as you can get. Thank God more recently we have had a lot more diversity in shows.

(DJ Scratch… Music begins)

Hamilton is like the perfect example of this. Also Hades Town more recently.

I will absolutely go out of my way to make sure to point out that there are Black actors, Hispanic actors, Asian actors in a show just because I really want to celebrate the diversity of these shows going forward. I’ll do the same thing when I’m doing Circe Sol as well. The audience will always be very diverse as well so it’s great for someone who may not be sighted or may be Low Vision to be able to imagine themselves within that person in the show.

TR:

And if we’re going to change the way we think about race & privilege it’s just as important that non people of color also see and acknowledge & respect this diversity.

Like the saying goes, things are rarely black and white. There’s lots of shade in between. Those shades are important and often reveal other stories.

Liz:

If I do distinguish between someone who might be light or medium or dark skin, is that perpetuating colorism? I don’t want to perpetuate colorism. On the other side, probably when people in TV or film make casting decisions they are making decisions like that. Unfortunately!

TR:

Colorism or the practice of favoritism towards those with lighter skin has its roots in slavery and white supremacy. It’s not exclusive to the US or to African Americans but rather throughout communities of color.

Acknowledging a person’s color as description does not perpetuate colorism. A Blind viewer Wanting descriptive information about a person doesn’t make them a racist. Including editorial such as the prettier or menacing followed by color or racial identification, well that’s another story. It’s going beyond what’s required for Audio Description and providing opinion or analysis – which is the responsibility of the consumer alone.

Alejandra brings up an interesting point around identity.

Alejandra:

I’m Hispanic, but I have a lot of experience code switching and ultimately being very white passing, both in my physical appearance and in my voice. And whether or not I realize it or admit it in different situations that’s opened different doors for me.

TR:

And yet…

Alejandra:

The two things are very separate, AD script writing and AD Voicing, but I’ve done some AD script writing for some Netflix shows as a contractor. Not particularly things that I found super exciting but they needed somebody to write a script and then I didn’t get to voice those things because AD Voice work is like any kind of performance and acting work, they sort of have to want you for the part.

I think it’s important for the voicing of Audio Description to match the tone and the content and the intention of the work. And I don’t see that happening. Not very often anyway.

TR:

And then, there’s physical access for the creation of accessible digital content

(Music ends)

Alejandra:
At a practical level, places that are doing audio production, voice recording and audio books, even our local library that handles recording for the NLS, booths are tight. Wheel chairs are not. This is not an experience that these places generally have. They’re not generally expecting a wheelchair user to come in to record and it’s unfortunately like everywhere else I’ve had to have this discussion. Yes, I use a wheelchair, yes we’re going to have to make adjustments to booths so I can get inside, you can just barely squeeze into the booth and you need space to do these things.

And I’m also very interested in Spanish language content AD as well because there’s not as much of it.

TR:

This raises the question of non-English access in general. Something I fail to personally remember on my own when thinking about access.

Chanelle:
Each studio sometimes has their own rules of stuff that you can or cannot say. You can’t say that they point a weapon at someone. You can’t refer to anatomy in certain cases like you can’t say chest you can’t say butt!

TR:

I’ve heard this about Disney. At first, you may think well, Disney produces a lot of content for children. So they’re being sensitive to the viewer. But remember, it’s on screen. And it’s not just Disney.

It’s not just the censorship that annoys me, but even in terms of researching this, we’d need sighted help.

Liz:

If we as describers similar to people who do interpretation with like ASL, if someone swears, the interpreter should interpret that. I think the captioner should caption that. Because that’s what the person said. So similar to Audio Description, I think we also have that obligation.

TR:

Whatever the medium, television & film, live theater, video games, museums, art galleries and yes, you too right now uploading your images and videos to social media – getting all of these content creators to know and think about Audio Description needs to be a goal.

The benefits of AD extend further than the consumer. We all win!

Chanelle:

Regardless of what I’m watching now if it’s a TV show if it’s a movie if it’s another stage show, I find myself kind of mentally describing it like I would do it for an actual performance. So it’s very much changed my view point of media in general.

TR:

I know I’ve heard some conversation around what qualifies someone as an AD professional. A specific number of training hours? Certification perhaps?

(Music begins)

Alejandra:

Here’s the thing.

There are many folks who do this work because they have particular kinds of voices. Because they can crank it out because they’re smooth and more power to them.

I just am not that kind of describer because I have a very particular investment in my community and in the work that I am producing and that doesn’t mean that other folks aren’t doing high quality work. It’s just that what is informing their work is very different.

TR:

For an example of what’s informing her work, you can hear Alejandra narrating Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility: First Person Stories From the 21st Century right now on Audible. The book is available on Amazon and other outlets and it’s Alice y’all so it’s in a variety of formats because Access is love!

Alejandra does a great job narrating and I highly recommend the audio book.

Shout out to all of my guests for taking the time to speak with me;
Alejandra Ospina (Spanish accented pronunciation)
Available at SuperAleja.org that’s S U P E R A L E J A. O R G
The site Includes links to all social media.

Liz Thomson and Chanelle Carson.

You can find both on Facebook especially in the Audio description discussion group

Sound of News Breaking Segment…

This just in, it’s official! You are all a part of the Reid My Mind Radio Family!

I have a couple more episodes that I’m including in this Flipping the Script on Audio Description series. I’m not publishing them back to back so if you’re interested in the subject and want to make sure you don’t miss the next installment, please allow me to make a suggestion.

Subscribe wherever you get podcasts!
Transcripts & more are over at ReidMyMind.com. And yes, that’s R to the E I D
(Audio: “D and that’s me in the place to be” Slick Rick)

Like my last name.

Audio from The Flintstones:

Barney Rubble:

Do you think he’ll be back?

Fred Flintstone:

I don’t know Barn. Might be better if he wasn’t. Look at all the trouble he caused us.

Audio: Reid My Mind Outro

Peace!

Flintstones continues…
Barney Rubble:

He caused us or we’ve caused us? I wonder which it really is. Augh, I think he’ll be back.

Fred Flintstone:

Ah, looks that way. Goodnight, Barn.

Barney Rubble:

Goodnight Fred.

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