Kimberly talks with Roving Reporter Keith Hosey and newly-named Disruptor In Chief Carissa Johnson about disability identity and representation. They grapple with the idea of being proud of themselves and their community while at the same time acknowledging that having a disability really sucks. Archinect News - With no wheelchair ramp, Tony Award winner Ali Stroker couldn't join her cast and crew on stage to celebrate their win - By Justine Testado Episode 51: Who gets to decide what is reasonable? Thanks to Chris Ankin for use of his song, “Change.” The book "A Celebration of Family: Stories of Parents with Disabilities." is available from Amazon here. Be sure to follow the Advocado Press Facebook page Visit Moving Forward, the Advocado Press blog. Send comments and questions to demandanddisrupt@gmail.com Demand and Disrupt is sponsored by the Advocado Press and the Center For Accessible Living. Email demandanddisrupt@gmail.com to request a higher quality transcript. You can find the transcript in the show notes below when they become available. Transcript You're listening to Demand and Disrupt, the podcast for information about accessibility, advocacy, and all things disability. Welcome to Demand and Disrupt, a disability podcast. I'm your host, Kimberly Parsley. And I'm your cohost, Sam Moore. Now don't tell anybody, Kimberly, but I am as we speak on my, not second, but third cup of coffee. Wow, listeners, you're, you're, you're in for a, in for quite a show here. Let me tell you, we're bringing some different energy to the show today. Yeah. So y'all will just find out. You'll just find out. You're just along for the ride. Whatever happens. My interview today is a fascinating interview I had. It's a Cal conversation that I had with Keith Hosey, roving reporter, Keith Hosey and Carissa Johnson, who we have newly designated to be our disrupter in chief. Disrupter in chief. Yes, yes, yes, yes. She's got an official title now and somebody's got to be, there you go. It's her, it's her. And we are going to talk about disability identity and representation. And you know, Sam, you and I are going to talk about that some here in a minute too. But you know, I think next time that we do a Cal conversation, I'm going to kind of rope you into getting on there with us. What do you think that sounds good to me? You know, we could have a little, a little four way pow wow. And you know, I have had the last few times you've talked to Keith and Carissa. I have sort of had the FOMO thing going on. You know, poor Sam, poor Sam, you know, it's, it's four people too many. It, it, that's not too confusing. Is it for like, so I mean, you know, like I was telling you off the air, you know, we wouldn't want like 20 or 30 people on the zoom that would create chaos. But I think, I think we can pull off four. I think we can, I think we can pull off four. I think we'll, we'll have you join us next time and we will have some, some super fascinating topic that you can contribute to in some way. It'll make me feel real official being on a quote unquote panel. There you go. Yes, yes. The, the demand to disrupt panel. We'll have an important conversational topic, like have you had any skittles yet for Halloween and if we were doing that conversation today, Kimberly, that would be an answer would be no, no skittles yet. I'm craving them. And I'm definitely, but the closer we get to Halloween, the more skittles I will intake or inhale, I guess is a better word. We, I had just decided that we were going to not buy, cause in our neighborhood, many of the kids have grown up, so we don't have that many trick or treaters. So a small, you know, bag of, of candy would suffice and yet I still buy the, you know, big three pound bags of, of candy for just in case. And it never goes to waste. I'm sure. No, it's not just in case it's just for Kimberly. So yeah, and Michael is diabetic. And so I thought, you know, we're just not going to get any candy this year. We're just not, we're, we're not going to get any, it'll be fun. It healthy or all the things. And then this was yesterday and the very day Sayer comes in from school and she says, mama, we're selling candy bars for the band. I got to sell 30 candy bars. You hate not to help your daughter, but you really, you know, Michael being a diabetic, he's trying to steer clear of the whole chocolate thing. So there are 30 candy bars in this house. Oh, you just went ahead and bought 30. No, they're just here. She's just got to sell them. Oh, but they're here. She's got to sell them. You're going to buy at least a few of them though. I'm sure they're, Michael said, can we just buy them all? So we don't have to fool with trying to sell these things and we just buy them all. And she said, well, they're $2 a piece. Oh, that's a $60 investment, but I, which I would feel compelled to eat. If you pay $60 for it, you got to eat it. And then I don't know that seems wrong. Last time we talked about it being, and it's still October, uh, national disability employment awareness month. I've been thinking, same, if you weren't disabled, would that have changed your sort of career trajectory? Well, you know, I can see myself having a similar interest in, um, of course, podcasts weren't a thing when I was growing up, they hadn't even been fathomed yet, but the whole radio communication, running my mouth type of thing. I, um, I think I still would have, uh, had an interest in that as I, as I did being somebody who, uh, was, was blind since seven months old, but, but I will say this when I was, when I was four years old, I was at, uh, a, uh, I was at an arts and crafts festival for people with disabilities over in Evansville across the river and it was at Angel Mounds. And I remember, uh, channel 14, one of the local news stations was there doing a feature on it and they interviewed me and my mom and some of the other kiddos and parents that, that were there. And, uh, at the end, they asked me what I, what I wanted to be when I grew up. And you know what I told them, Kimberly? What I told them that I wanted to be an astronaut. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, that sounds good. So I guess, you know, I, I just had the, uh, I just had the crave of adventure at the time and wanted to get as high up in the air as possible. But, uh, now that's, that's a fairly common, you know, thing for a kid to want, so do you think that would have, did that stay with you at all? Um, no, when I was in middle school, high school, I don't remember, uh, the desire to go into space as much, but, um, at least, or maybe I, maybe I just heard one of my fellow preschool peeps say astronaut and that just sort of. Inspired me to say it, but looking back, I still laugh at that because, you know, there for a while, we even, we had a DVR of it because we taped it that night that mom and I were on the news and me saying that we don't have the video anymore because, uh, pretty sure when we upgraded to the DVD player, that was one of those we got rid of. But, uh, of course we could have converted it to a DVD. I guess if we were just dead set on keeping it, but we, mom and I still laugh about that to be saying that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was four. Wow. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I don't know where, I don't remember. I mean, I've always wanted to write. I've always liked writing, so I think I probably would have done that. You know what I would do now? Is I really would, I would have liked to have been a barista. A barista. Yeah, I would have liked to add no one. I mean, I, there may be people who are blind who do that. Yeah, I'd have to look that up. You know, I bet there, I bet there are, and I bet they do it well. I do not think I would do it well, especially not with, you know, uh, the other, you know, the balance issue and, and thing like things like that. Well, and I always feel sorry for the, the, uh, the Starbucks folks because they have to, you know, they have to listen to so many specific instructions on the drinks, like, you know, sweet cream, four pumps of sugar-free vanilla and. You know, soy milk and low fat milk. Yeah, they have all those specifics to remember for people. And I can see where that would get real confusing real quick. Um, now I'm pickier about coffee at home, actually. I'm pickier about when I make coffee at home. I'm pretty picky about how that gets done, but that's probably just because it's me or Michael making it more control over the house. I feel free to, to, you know, fuss at my husband about, you know, I believe what I said the other day, did you use coffee that was out of date? He was like, no, I didn't use coffee. And I was like, I'm pretty sure you did. I have a refined sense of taste. Okay. I don't think this is a blind thing. I think it's just a Kimberly thing. And I was like, a little stout, like it was old. Yeah, it just tasted stale. It just tasted stale and he was like, you know, he wasn't going to admit it at all. He was a good, of course, how would he know? He's like, you know what? I opened a bag of beans, I put the beans in the grinder. That's how I make the coffee. I, yeah, he probably didn't even bother to check the expiration date. You know, because why would you? Why would you? And yeah, he just trusts that if it's in the cabinet, it's still acceptable. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I think that we bought this coffee cause we, you know, have our groceries delivered, I think it was just bought and it was out of date and no shade on the person who, I mean, who thinks to look at that, you know, who, if you're the shopper for us, you know, who thinks to look at that, but yeah, he looked on the bottom of it and the expiration date was August, 2025. Oh, so two months ago. Yeah. No, which is two months too long. Let me tell you, you were reminded of that the other day. It was bad. And he w
