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SMNTY Classics: A Brief History of Women and the ADA · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you a protection of iHeart Radio and
0:18
Speaker 1: welcome to a classic that I could have sworn we'd
0:21
Speaker 1: already brought back a long time ago, but I guess not.
0:24
Speaker 1: Time is weird and fluid. We do a lot of content,
0:29
Speaker 1: but we wanted to bring back our classic on the
0:32
Speaker 1: American Disability Act a the ADA four Disability Pride, but
0:37
Speaker 1: also because we talked about it recently and our kind
0:41
Speaker 1: of update on what's going on in Disability Pride this year,
0:46
Speaker 1: so I thought we'd bring this one back.
0:49
Speaker 2: Yes, please enjoy.
0:56
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
0:58
Speaker 1: I never told you protection of iHeart Radio. And July,
1:10
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned, is Disability Pride month, and while it's
1:14
Speaker 1: not recognized on a federal level, it is celebrated across
1:17
Speaker 1: the United States and has been since nineteen ninety, in
1:20
Speaker 1: part as a celebration of the passing of the ADA
1:23
Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act. On July twenty sixth of nineteen ninety,
1:27
Speaker 1: the first Disability Pride Parade was held in Boston, and
1:32
Speaker 1: the Disability Pride flag was designed by Anne McGill, who
1:36
Speaker 1: herself is a woman with a disability. And so if
1:38
Speaker 1: you've seen it, it's a flag that's got like a
1:41
Speaker 1: black background and multicolored stripes on it and from Stonybrook University.
1:46
Speaker 2: This is what the flag represents. The colors.
1:48
Speaker 1: The blackfield represents the disabled people who have lost their
1:51
Speaker 1: lives due to not only their illness, but also to negligence, suicide,
1:55
Speaker 1: and eugenics. Each color on this flag represents a different
1:58
Speaker 1: aspect of disability or in paer red physical disabilities, yellow
2:02
Speaker 1: cognitive and intellectual disabilities, white invisible and undiagnosed disabilities, blue
2:08
Speaker 1: mental illness, and green sensory perception disabilities. So for this episode,
2:12
Speaker 1: which is going to be a bit of a shorter
2:15
Speaker 1: episode and is related to a project.
2:17
Speaker 2: We're work on.
2:17
Speaker 1: This mysterious project we keep so mean, so you know,
2:24
Speaker 1: we love to be mysterious, but we did want to
2:26
Speaker 1: talk about it because the ADA largely came came to
2:32
Speaker 1: be because of women and largely women of color, who
2:36
Speaker 1: were active in the disability movement and the feminist movement.
2:40
Speaker 1: And yeah, they were just huge and getting this done. Uh.
2:44
Speaker 1: And so in this month, while we're celebrating the passing
2:48
Speaker 1: of that, we wanted to highlight some of the people
2:52
Speaker 1: in the movement and some of their accomplishments. But for sure,
2:56
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different paths we could go
2:59
Speaker 1: down in future episodes, and a lot of amazing people
3:01
Speaker 1: we could talk about, and a lot of amazing things
3:03
Speaker 1: that have been accomplished.
3:04
Speaker 2: So just put that out there.
3:06
Speaker 3: Right, And of course there's a lot of things that
3:08
Speaker 3: needs to be addressed, but we won't talk about that
3:11
Speaker 3: because we're going to talk about the history, not negativity.
3:15
Speaker 3: So the women have long been foundational to the disability movement.
3:21
Speaker 3: We're going to start in the nineteen seventies, which is
3:24
Speaker 3: when we see a lot of women really coming together
3:26
Speaker 3: around disability rights. And this was the time of a
3:29
Speaker 3: lot of social turmoil and change, like the civil rights
3:33
Speaker 3: movement and the women's liberation movement, but a lot of
3:36
Speaker 3: it was siloed. A lot of the people involved in
3:39
Speaker 3: these movements weren't quite intersectional yet, and a lot of
3:42
Speaker 3: these movements weren't accessible and very exclusionary, which is something
3:45
Speaker 3: we're still talking about today. As a part of this,
3:48
Speaker 3: early women's disability rights often focused on taking feminist resources
3:52
Speaker 3: and activities and increasing accessibility, like recording feminist materials for
3:56
Speaker 3: the blind or visually impaired, and making feminism more inclin elusive.
4:00
Speaker 2: Yes.
4:01
Speaker 1: Also around this time, Marilyn Hamilton invented the first lightweight
4:06
Speaker 1: adjustable wheelchair called the Quickie. Compared to previous models, it
4:09
Speaker 1: was highly adjustable and maneuverable, and this improved the lives
4:14
Speaker 1: of numerous wheelchair users and changed the world of wheelchair sports.
4:18
Speaker 1: But now it is time to discuss Judith Judy Human,
4:21
Speaker 1: one of the most significant and impactful of these nineteen
4:25
Speaker 1: seventies disability rights activists. Human contracted polio when she was
4:29
Speaker 1: a baby. As a child growing up in Brooklyn, she
4:32
Speaker 1: was forbidden from going to a local public school because
4:34
Speaker 1: officials declared her use of a wheelchair made her a
4:37
Speaker 1: quote fire hazard, and this wasn't the first time she
4:40
Speaker 1: heard that excuse either. It was also used to prevent
4:43
Speaker 1: her from obtaining a teaching license in nineteen seventy, so
4:46
Speaker 1: she sued the Board of Education of the City of
4:49
Speaker 1: New York and won. She became the first wheelchair using
4:52
Speaker 1: teacher in the city, and later that year she started
4:55
Speaker 1: her own disability rights group named Disabled in Action.
4:58
Speaker 3: And soon after that she moved Berkeley California. Alongside other
5:01
Speaker 3: activists like Kittie Cone, Brad Lomax, and one hundred others,
5:06
Speaker 3: Human helped lead a twenty five plus a day sit
5:09
Speaker 3: in at a federal building in San Francisco in nineteen
5:11
Speaker 3: seventy seven, protesting the government's inability to consistently enforce Section
5:15
Speaker 3: five oh four of the Rehabilitation Act. Basically, the Act
5:18
Speaker 3: prohibited federally funded programs from discriminating against people with disabilities,
5:23
Speaker 3: and it was something that Human was instrumental in as well.
5:26
Speaker 3: It was one of the first legislations protecting the rights
5:28
Speaker 3: of people with disabilities on the federal level, and this
5:32
Speaker 3: was an instance of some intersectionality. For instance, the Black
5:36
Speaker 3: Panther Party made sure protesters had warm food, right, and.
5:41
Speaker 1: That wasn't the only reason why this was a huge deal.
5:43
Speaker 1: It was also intersectional in the sense that a united
5:45
Speaker 1: folks with wide spectrum of disabilities, people that may have
5:48
Speaker 1: previously been separated out from each other. On top of that,
5:52
Speaker 1: this sit in was broadcasted nationally, which really raised awareness
5:55
Speaker 1: around disability for others who may have otherwise not known
5:59
Speaker 1: too much about it. When asked about this event, Human
6:02
Speaker 1: would later say it empowered us. Simply put, we were
6:05
Speaker 1: slowly moving from being a ragtag, unorganized group of disabled
6:08
Speaker 1: people to a cross disability movement. We were really recognizing
6:12
Speaker 1: that it was possible for us to envision a day
6:14
Speaker 1: when barriers of discrimination could be torn down. Without the
6:17
Speaker 1: voices of disabled individuals, we would not have gotten five
6:20
Speaker 1: oh four the way it ultimately came out, nor would
6:23
Speaker 1: we have been able to get the ADA. In nineteen
6:27
Speaker 1: eighty three, Human co founded the World Institute on Disability,
6:30
Speaker 1: served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and was
6:34
Speaker 1: the first advisor on disability and Development for the World Bank.
6:38
Speaker 1: At the time of the sit in, many companies had
6:40
Speaker 1: an unwritten understanding that they weren't going to hire people
6:43
Speaker 1: with disabilities, and some local governments outright prohibited it. To
6:47
Speaker 1: make things worse, accessible housing and buildings weren't really a
6:49
Speaker 1: thing either, and as we've discussed before, there was a
6:53
Speaker 1: really ablest and fantilizing attitude that it wasn't safe for
6:57
Speaker 1: people with disabilities to live alone. Mary lu Breslin, a
7:01
Speaker 1: disability activist with Polio, said that the mindset at the
7:04
Speaker 1: time was don't ask for accommodation, fall down the stairs
7:07
Speaker 1: if you need to pretend that you're not disabled.
7:09
Speaker 2: Shoe everyone with a disability right.
7:12
Speaker 3: And the sit in prompted the Carter administration to sign
7:15
Speaker 3: five oh four, but again it wasn't always enforced, and honestly,
7:19
Speaker 3: I don't think it's still enforced completely today. This was
7:22
Speaker 3: a big part of the fight to pass the Americans
7:24
Speaker 3: with Disability Acts or the ADA in nineteen ninety. Like
7:28
Speaker 3: with pretty much everything we talk about, this was the
7:30
Speaker 3: result of the tireless work and efforts of numerous activists
7:34
Speaker 3: and was built off of other legislations. So we're going
7:37
Speaker 3: to talk about a few of them, including Patricia Wright,
7:40
Speaker 3: a legally blind woman who was so instrumental in.
7:42
Speaker 2: Getting the ADA passed.
7:43
Speaker 3: She was called the General and she'd long been in
7:46
Speaker 3: this movement and served as Human's assistant at that sit in,
7:50
Speaker 3: and she was inspired by her to continue in her
7:52
Speaker 3: legacy and advocacy.
7:54
Speaker 2: M hmmm. I love that. I love that.
7:56
Speaker 1: And this brings us to another huge event in the
7:58
Speaker 1: fight for the ADA off and called one of the
8:00
Speaker 1: biggest turning points in the push to get it past
8:03
Speaker 1: the so.
8:04
Speaker 2: Called Capital Crawl.
8:05
Speaker 1: On March twelfth, nineteen ninety, over one thousand protesters participated,
8:10
Speaker 1: including at least sixty who left their wheelchairs, crutches, and
8:13
Speaker 1: other mobility devices to crawl up the capital's eighty three
8:16
Speaker 1: steps to demonstrate the lack of accessibility. One of the
8:19
Speaker 1: faces of that protest was an eight year old girl
8:22
Speaker 1: and named Jennifer Keelan. Kilan, who had cerebral palsy, told reporters,
8:27
Speaker 1: I'll take all night if I have to.
8:28
Speaker 2: I love it.
8:29
Speaker 3: Did you ever see any of the clips of the crawl,
8:31
Speaker 3: because it's inspiring.
8:33
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god.
8:34
Speaker 3: The level that they went to in order to be
8:38
Speaker 3: heard is said that it has to get.
8:40
Speaker 2: To that point.
8:41
Speaker 3: And also even now, I know, I've seen many activists
8:43
Speaker 3: going to the Capitol, sitting in front of the Capitol
8:46
Speaker 3: asking to be heard. And that was just recent. Yep, yeah, okay,
8:52
Speaker 3: I'm okay. So the ADA was signed with bipartisan support
9:09
Speaker 3: on July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety, making it illegal to
9:12
Speaker 3: discriminate against people with disabilities in areas like school, employment,
9:17
Speaker 3: and transportation. It transformed public spaces, requiring things like automatic doors,
9:22
Speaker 3: rail on signs, jury ramps, lifts on sea buses, and
9:26
Speaker 3: a curb cuts. With its passage, the US became the
9:29
Speaker 3: first country in the world to guarantee by law the
9:32
Speaker 3: protection of civil rights for people with disabilities, and it
9:35
Speaker 3: impacted it something like forty three million people. And again,
9:40
Speaker 3: as we mentioned in our episode on invisible Illness that
9:43
Speaker 3: we did with Eaves, a lot of people are unaware
9:45
Speaker 3: of the full extent of the ADA and what it covers.
9:48
Speaker 3: And here's the definition of a person with a disability
9:51
Speaker 3: that they work off of quote has a physical or
9:54
Speaker 3: mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life
9:58
Speaker 3: activities of such an impairment, or as regarded as having
10:02
Speaker 3: such an impairment, and this includes invisible disabilities. And as
10:06
Speaker 3: we've often discussed, it's really damaging how our media has
10:10
Speaker 3: historically portrayed disabilities in one way or the other that
10:13
Speaker 3: has led to toxic, layered prejudices on how we believe someone
10:17
Speaker 3: with a disability should look. And again see our episode
10:21
Speaker 3: with Kate for more discussion on that and our book
10:23
Speaker 3: club with Kia Brown's The Pretty One.
10:26
Speaker 2: Yeah mm hmm.
10:28
Speaker 1: And there are so many pieces of this conversation. For example,
10:31
Speaker 1: many in the disability activism space argue that everyone is
10:34
Speaker 1: temporarily able bodied or tab tabs perhaps, which means that
10:40
Speaker 1: the disability community is quite possibly the largest and most
10:42
Speaker 1: diverse minorities in the world. If you are an able
10:46
Speaker 1: bodied person and you fall and you break your leg,
10:48
Speaker 1: you're gonna be really happy for those ramps.
10:50
Speaker 2: For instance.
10:51
Speaker 1: As with everything we talk about, the ADA is not
10:54
Speaker 1: without its problems. One of the big ones is that
10:57
Speaker 1: it mostly depends on someone filing a complaint if an
11:00
Speaker 1: entity isn't complying with the ADA, and that means time
11:05
Speaker 1: and resources that not everyone has.
11:07
Speaker 2: So essentially like now you.
11:09
Speaker 1: Could sue, but you have to sue, or like now
11:12
Speaker 1: you have to go through that thing and you're legally
11:14
Speaker 1: protected to do it, but you still have to take
11:17
Speaker 1: that step.
11:18
Speaker 3: Well, so yeah, you have to get a lawyer more
11:21
Speaker 3: often than not, because the civil suit is really hard
11:23
Speaker 3: to fall without knowing legal ease. And we understand that
11:27
Speaker 3: hiring a lawyer can be expensive because not often that
11:30
Speaker 3: whole pro bono thing doesn't all work out.
11:32
Speaker 2: Like you think it will.
11:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it's a whole it's a whole process
11:38
Speaker 1: for sure. And I know, like in Atlanta, in my neighborhood,
11:42
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing battle about the sidewalks because there are sidewalks,
11:45
Speaker 1: but they suck like they're white, broken, don't work, and
11:49
Speaker 1: I've heard people complaining about like you know, I've had
11:52
Speaker 1: to file for this and nothing gets done, So that
11:57
Speaker 1: is certainly a problem. Some activists think that the ADA
12:01
Speaker 1: shouldn't be the primary focus of the disability rights movement
12:05
Speaker 1: because it reinforces the narrative that the value of a
12:08
Speaker 1: person comes from what they can or can't contribute to
12:11
Speaker 1: a capitalistic system, a system which is already set up
12:14
Speaker 1: to punish those who can't succeed in it, even though
12:18
Speaker 1: it's set up so everyone can't succeed. Others rightfully point
12:22
Speaker 1: out that by focusing on physical accessibility, it potentially leaves
12:26
Speaker 1: out those with severe impairments and chronic illness, and visible
12:30
Speaker 1: disability is a part of that as well, like even
12:32
Speaker 1: though it's protected, kind of the focus of it, Like
12:35
Speaker 1: I was surprised when Eves told me that that it
12:37
Speaker 1: was protected under the ADA, because you just don't hear
12:40
Speaker 1: about it as much.
12:43
Speaker 2: And so some activists believe.
12:44
Speaker 1: We should be doing more work to raise more awareness
12:46
Speaker 1: around things like that, and also intersections of disability and
12:50
Speaker 1: sexual oppression and denial of rights when it comes to
12:53
Speaker 1: things like family, and these are all important and ongoing discussions,
12:57
Speaker 1: and there are some really amazing people that we founding
13:00
Speaker 1: the research for this one, and the art worlds especially
13:04
Speaker 1: stood out to me who were really pushing these conversations
13:07
Speaker 1: forward and definitely want to check them out more in
13:09
Speaker 1: the future.
13:10
Speaker 3: Right Yeah, And I think we need to come back
13:13
Speaker 3: and look at once again what it looked like during
13:15
Speaker 3: the pandemic, because we've talked about it a little bit
13:17
Speaker 3: and we've only like did a blip on the fact
13:20
Speaker 3: that this was such a huge, huge able list conversation
13:25
Speaker 3: for people when it came to COVID and masks and
13:27
Speaker 3: pandemics and accessibility and who does what, and it brought
13:31
Speaker 3: a big spotlight on it, but the reaction wasn't what
13:34
Speaker 3: you would think. It wasn't with empathy. It was literally
13:36
Speaker 3: just a survival of the fittest. And we need to
13:39
Speaker 3: have more of that conversation because we know we're not
13:41
Speaker 3: over these viruses coming through. We know that seasons are
13:44
Speaker 3: going to happen, and we need to make take a
13:46
Speaker 3: better look about why we're so quick to say people
13:49
Speaker 3: are expendable instead of truly being for life and advocating
13:54
Speaker 3: for that as well as we remembering that, yes, a
13:58
Speaker 3: lot of these things seems really nice for the able
14:00
Speaker 3: bodies working from home, all these things may not be
14:03
Speaker 3: the greatest for those who have a disability. So yeah,
14:07
Speaker 3: I think we need to come back and revisit and
14:09
Speaker 3: do a spotlight on that. So recently, the ADA has
14:12
Speaker 3: been under attack, as have protections for those with the
14:14
Speaker 3: pre existing conditions here in the US. Again we talked
14:17
Speaker 3: about this is one of those things that we need
14:19
Speaker 3: to talk about when it comes to things like pre
14:21
Speaker 3: existing conditions and insurance. Renewed conversations around things like eugenics
14:25
Speaker 3: during the COVID nineteen panic has risen too, as we
14:27
Speaker 3: heard stories of hospital workers instructed to dole out limited
14:30
Speaker 3: numbers of ventilators to able body people over people with disabilities. Yeah,
14:35
Speaker 3: there's this whole level of choosing again and who they
14:38
Speaker 3: think is worthy of surviving. And it's kind of this ugly,
14:42
Speaker 3: ugly look and precedent that's just over the top. And
14:44
Speaker 3: then if you have agentsm played in, we have racism
14:47
Speaker 3: played in. There's so many things, and you know, having
14:51
Speaker 3: this conversation on a bigger level, bigger scale, because it's
14:54
Speaker 3: only getting worse, especially as we look at overturning of
14:58
Speaker 3: things in the Supreme Court. It can't impact accessibility and
15:03
Speaker 3: the right to get compensation and civil suits as it's
15:07
Speaker 3: been under attack recently.
15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we've also talked a lot about the you know,
15:13
Speaker 1: sexism inherent of doctors not believing women. And then if
15:17
Speaker 1: you get the ableism on top of that, and the
15:19
Speaker 1: racism on top of that, are even the homophobia on
15:21
Speaker 1: top of that, like all of those things. So I
15:24
Speaker 1: feel like during the pandemic we got it was exacerbated,
15:29
Speaker 1: like it's always been there, it's not new at all,
15:30
Speaker 1: but it was like really seeing this attitude of like
15:36
Speaker 1: you're just exaggerating, I don't believe you, or like change
15:41
Speaker 1: your diet, like really condescending stuff from professional rights.
15:47
Speaker 3: I mean, it seemed this whole is good for you,
15:50
Speaker 3: but it's not good for me. Type of mentality. And
15:51
Speaker 3: what I'm talking about specifically is masks this whole idea
15:54
Speaker 3: like we'll just stay home, which is such an ablest
15:57
Speaker 3: idea and such an ablest privileged mean to anyone who
16:01
Speaker 3: is susceptible or compromised. Again, this goes into every level
16:05
Speaker 3: of anyone. I would say, like I was upset for
16:09
Speaker 3: my parents. But that is that same skill of I'm
16:12
Speaker 3: worried because they're going to be compromised, and no one's
16:14
Speaker 3: willing to give a little bit to help others. And
16:16
Speaker 3: it's this whole idea of like, well they can they
16:19
Speaker 3: can't take it, oh well until it actually affects them,
16:23
Speaker 3: And it's just a whole level like that was a
16:24
Speaker 3: whole level of privilege that you didn't understand that was
16:26
Speaker 3: already existent, especially in the world in the disabled community.
16:30
Speaker 3: Who's been screaming this is a problem.
16:33
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, and I couldn't find any like really
16:36
Speaker 1: good numbers, but based on what we know about women
16:42
Speaker 1: and mental health and diagnoses in that area, and that's complicated.
16:45
Speaker 1: We've had that conversation before, but women are more likely
16:48
Speaker 1: to I think have something under that would be projected
16:52
Speaker 1: under the ADA, So it is it is a big conversation.
16:56
Speaker 1: It is complicated because we've also talked about part of
16:59
Speaker 1: that is maybe men don't go in to get things diagnosed,
17:02
Speaker 1: but women also have a harder time getting things diagnosed
17:05
Speaker 1: a lot of times. So it's yeah, it's a mess.
17:22
Speaker 1: And then when we look at numbers around race and disability,
17:25
Speaker 1: the numbers don't paint a good picture either. Several studies
17:28
Speaker 1: indicate that of Black Americans killed by police, somewhere between
17:31
Speaker 1: one third to one half have a disability and or
17:34
Speaker 1: are experiencing a mental illness episode. This is one of
17:37
Speaker 1: the reasons behind the Disabled Black Lives Matter March that
17:40
Speaker 1: took place. And if we look at the twenty seventeen
17:43
Speaker 1: Women's March, it fell short in terms of being inclusive
17:45
Speaker 1: and accessible in a lot of ways. And Sonya Huber
17:48
Speaker 1: and a few others organized the Disability March that same
17:52
Speaker 1: year and over three thousand attended. It still had some
17:56
Speaker 1: limitations for those who could attend, And this is part
17:59
Speaker 1: of an ongoing conversation too in the activism space of
18:01
Speaker 1: making activism an advocacy more accessible. So all of this
18:05
Speaker 1: is very important to keep in mind. Historically, disability activism
18:10
Speaker 1: has touched people of all experiences, and disability activists have
18:13
Speaker 1: been extremely significant in a wide range of issues from
18:17
Speaker 1: women's higher education access, sexuality, motherhood, equal opportunity, and political representation.
18:23
Speaker 2: So I think.
18:25
Speaker 1: This seeing what these activists, some that we mentioned, some
18:31
Speaker 1: that we saw in research, what they've done, and how
18:34
Speaker 1: intersectional in all the ways it's touched all these different movements.
18:38
Speaker 1: Is very powerful, and we just don't hear about it enough,
18:41
Speaker 1: Like we don't write about it at all.
18:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I know like as more and more advocates
18:47
Speaker 3: and activists and the disabled communities come out, they are
18:51
Speaker 3: getting so much backlash as well. It's just a sad
18:54
Speaker 3: result of so many conspiracy theories about who's saying what
18:58
Speaker 3: and coming after what. And it's an intersectional level because
19:01
Speaker 3: many of the disabled activists that I follow are intersectional level.
19:04
Speaker 3: They are queer, they are marginalized for people of color,
19:08
Speaker 3: black women, and they are attacked tenfold. So it's not
19:11
Speaker 3: just one, it's three things. And then it's so disheartening
19:15
Speaker 3: that they have to put so much fight in just
19:18
Speaker 3: to be heard and just to be able to say
19:21
Speaker 3: I want to be treated as human, point blank and
19:25
Speaker 3: that my disabilities is not a downfall, is the part
19:28
Speaker 3: of who I am, and this is who I am.
19:30
Speaker 3: And that's been a whole conversation in changing that look
19:32
Speaker 3: because as we were talking about earlier, the media has
19:34
Speaker 3: never painted a pretty picture. It's always been a sad,
19:37
Speaker 3: tragic case and or something that is to be mourned
19:40
Speaker 3: or hated or like wanting to change, and some man
19:42
Speaker 3: of these people are like, no, I love who I am.
19:44
Speaker 3: Kea Brown was a beautiful story in what she was
19:47
Speaker 3: saying and being confident in who she is because she's
19:51
Speaker 3: for told so long, told that she needs to think
19:52
Speaker 3: that there's something wrong with her when actuality that is
19:55
Speaker 3: not the case. This whole shaming has lasted so long
19:59
Speaker 3: and it's still there even with people's languages that need
20:02
Speaker 3: to be changed significantly for us to make any steps,
20:05
Speaker 3: And it's so sad that we have to just say
20:07
Speaker 3: language alone can make an impact. That's where we are
20:11
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two.
20:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, again, it's just very condescending in a
20:17
Speaker 1: lot of ways.
20:18
Speaker 2: And also.
20:20
Speaker 1: When I was researching this, I was researching journal entries
20:23
Speaker 1: from people in the disability community about the ADA and
20:27
Speaker 1: why it mattered, And some of the big threads I
20:30
Speaker 1: saw were like, it was nice to know I would
20:33
Speaker 1: generally be able to get into a building or get
20:35
Speaker 1: out of a building, which wasn't the case before, and
20:37
Speaker 1: that they couldn't legally be fired or not considered due
20:43
Speaker 1: to their disability, and those are things that yeah, this
20:45
Speaker 1: should be basic ris like right, So it is seeing
20:52
Speaker 1: again there are problems with the ADA, absolutely, but it
20:55
Speaker 1: was a massive accomplishment. It was a huge deal, it
20:58
Speaker 1: was historic, and a lot of it was due to
21:02
Speaker 1: women and a lot of women of color who are
21:05
Speaker 1: still working, who are still doing this work and still
21:09
Speaker 1: trying to be heard, but also inspiring like a new generation.
21:14
Speaker 2: All right, So that's happy. I'm glad to see that.
21:18
Speaker 1: And there are certainly there's so many great activists you
21:22
Speaker 1: can follow online. And Kea Brown is that book, like,
21:24
Speaker 1: if you haven't read it, if you didn't do our
21:25
Speaker 1: book club one, go read it.
21:27
Speaker 2: It's excellent, right, And.
21:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we need to make sure that we're
21:32
Speaker 3: not shying away from these conversations, even though again we
21:36
Speaker 3: want to make sure that we are talking about these
21:39
Speaker 3: in the way that the activists have framed it. We
21:43
Speaker 3: need to make sure that we are following their lead
21:45
Speaker 3: and listening to how they go and things change. Things
21:48
Speaker 3: have changed over time, and we need to accept that
21:50
Speaker 3: and change with them. And that's what I think is
21:52
Speaker 3: one of the biggest keys, is to listen to the
21:55
Speaker 3: activists and make sure we're understanding what's happening, because they
21:58
Speaker 3: are the same one that says, yeah, the ADA looks good,
22:00
Speaker 3: but here are the reasons this is not working, and
22:02
Speaker 3: we need to make sure we understand why it's not
22:05
Speaker 3: working and come to that point and create correcting it
22:08
Speaker 3: because honestly, even though it was such a big impact,
22:11
Speaker 3: it's not being enforced in a lot of areas, and
22:13
Speaker 3: we see it. We see oftentimes, thank god to social media,
22:16
Speaker 3: how often that falls through, whether it's at clubs or
22:20
Speaker 3: airplanes or restaurants, how little they do to actually say
22:23
Speaker 3: they are a part of it, other than just to
22:25
Speaker 3: put it on their site to follow the law, but
22:28
Speaker 3: not actually following the law. And so we have to
22:30
Speaker 3: be on our toes to make sure that we are
22:34
Speaker 3: following and listening to the right leaders. And also I
22:37
Speaker 3: do want to I've not seen this film and I
22:39
Speaker 3: do want to see it because I know Judith Human
22:41
Speaker 3: had a big impact with the crypt camp. Have you
22:43
Speaker 3: seen this? Yeah, Okay, I feel like we need to
22:47
Speaker 3: bring it out as an extra uh huh feminist movie
22:50
Speaker 3: Friday soon because I definitely need to be I spend
22:54
Speaker 3: all my lesson I haven't gotten to it, but something
22:56
Speaker 3: to see and celebrate as well.
22:58
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely be behind that.
23:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this was just our quick rundown of the
23:05
Speaker 1: Ada and the woman involved, and as we said, there's
23:08
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff we could pursue based on this,
23:11
Speaker 1: and we.
23:12
Speaker 2: Would love to.
23:12
Speaker 1: But also yeah, if there are people you want us
23:14
Speaker 1: to shout out movements, whatever it is related to this,
23:19
Speaker 1: please let us know. You can email us Stuff Media,
23:21
Speaker 1: mom Stuff atiheartmeia dot com. You can find us on
23:24
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
23:26
Speaker 1: I Never Told You. Thanks as always here at super
23:27
Speaker 1: producer Christina, thank you and thanks to you for listening
23:30
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