Disability Visibility

Alice Wong: Disability Activist, Media Maker, Consultant

Conversations on disability politics, culture, and media.

  1. 04/04/2021

    Ep 100: Podcasting

    Today’s subject is this podcast because it’s episode 100!! Whether this is the first time you’re listening or if you’re a longtime listener, this podcast is co-audio produced by three people and myself: Sarika Mehta, Geraldine Ah-Sue, and Cheryl Green. I’m proud to work with all three of them since the podcast started in 2017. You’ll hear us talk about the lack of disabled voices in radio or podcasts, our collaborative process, and the future of the podcast. And this is a supersized episode! After the conversation, you’ll hear some feedback from podcast listeners. In this post you can also find more such as a downloadable list of all 100 podcast episodes you can share as a resource (coming soon) and another document with responses by students from Mid-Peninsula High School in San Mateo, California (see below).   And now for a very important update. Friends, this is the last episode of the Disability Visibility podcast. I’ll talk about how I came to this decision in the conversation with Geraldine, Sarika, and Cheryl. I hope you will continue to subscribe because I may still produce other audio stories in the future, just not regular podcast episodes. It has been an absolute joy to create and collaborate with so many awesome people. In addition to Sarika, Cheryl, and Geraldine, I want to thank Mike Mort for creating the logo, Wheelchair Sports Camp for allowing me to use 2 of their songs as the theme music, and Lateef McLeod for the introduction. I also want to thank the 100+ guests for sharing their wisdom and time and for trusting their story with me. And most importantly, I want to thank YOU. This is not the end, but the beginning of new adventures. Thank you for being in community with me.  Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links Disability Visibility Podcast Resource Guide  [Google doc]    [PDF] Reflections on Disability Visibility podcast by students from Mid-Peninsula High School students Follow and check out these amazing disabled podcasters! Down to the Struts podcast with Qudsiya Naqui Contra* podcast with Aimi Hamraie Power Not Pity podcast with Bri M. Reid My Mind with Thomas Reid No End In Sight podcast with Brianne Benness Pigeonhole podcast with Cheryl Green AAC  Town A treasure trove of learning, stories, and wisdom. Thank you for this podcast! https://t.co/cFd0mnsT21 — Jen Bokoff (@jenbo1) April 6, 2021 Just listened to latest episode of @DisVisibility podcast & teared up to learn it's the last (regular) one. Will miss it! The podcast was so important to me in embracing my disabled identity & useful for teaching DS. Thank you @SFdirewolf & team for all your amazing work! — Dr. Elizabeth Patitsas #BlackLivesMatter (@patitsel) April 6, 2021 I waited to listen to this episode b/c I thought it might make me sad — no more @DisVisibility pod regularly in my feed! — but it filled me w/ hope & excitement for the future. I remain so thankful to Alice Wong & her collaborators for bringing these conversations into my life. https://t.co/57NO02ykei — Karen Tani (@kmtani) April 7, 2021 This is a loss to disability culture. However, it won’t be a loss really, because @SFdirewolf will definitely offer more things in other ways. And ending the podcast intentionally is good modeling for others in the disability community who hesitate to exit or switch gears. https://t.co/Ui7DQFoAV2 — Andrew Pulrang (@AndrewPulrang) April 6, 2021 About Portrait photo of an Asian American woman looking directly in the camera with a slight half smile. She is wearing a light blue button-up shirt and a long earring on her right ear. She has a lip ring, dark eyes, and dark hair that is tied up with bangs that are cut in a diagonal line, slanting to her left. She is set against a silver background. Geraldine Ah-Sue is a cultural activist and independent radio producer primarily interested in stories shared by BIPOC communities about culture, community, and love. She has produced stories for outlets such as KALW’s newsmagazine show Crosscurrents and APEX Express on KPFA. She was the producer and host of the second season of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s podcast Raw Material, which focused on the intersections between art, community and social justice. Currently, she is enjoying working on her independent creative project Playing with Food: The Place where Food Comes to Life, and loving on her inquisitive, song-filled toddling daughter. Twitter: @geraldineah_sue A white woman with olive skin and long, dark brown, curly hair stands outside by a red wall that vanishes behind her in the distance. A line of enormous running horses are painted in a mural on the wall in black and white, their manes blowing in the wind. Cheryl stands with her arms folded in front of her, forearms chiseled from too many years typing, staring off in the direction the horses are headed. She has a solemn crow tattooed on one arm and wears a black t-shirt with white text, “No More Spoons” and a row of knives and daggers. Cheryl Green, MFA, MS is a multi-media digital artist, captioner, audio describer, a 2017 AIR New Voices Scholar, 2020 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader, and Digital Operations Lead and a Member-Owner at New Day Films (through July, 2021). She brings her lived experience with multiple invisible disabilities to creating media that explores politically- and culturally-engaged stories from cross-disability communities. She reported and produced one episode for the Peabody-nominated Season 2 of 70 Million and has audio described and captioned many films for Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival and Superfest International Disability Film Festival. Her audio and written blog, transcribed podcast, and documentary films are at www.WhoAmIToStopIt.com Twitter: @WhoAmIToStopIt A brown woman with long, curly, black hair, stands smiling while playing a ukulele. She is visibly pregnant, wearing a dark purple dress. The background shows a green wall with small paintings of flowers hanging. Sarika Mehta, originally from Chicago’s suburbia, loves things music, dance, and all that jazz. She’s been a producer with APA Compass radio collective, founded and hosted the podcast Intersections Radio, anchored the KBOO Evening News, and of course served as a producer for Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility Project Podcast. Currently she is the host and founder of Diaspora Blues Radio where she nerds out with her favorite artists. Her fascination with languages led her to the worlds of Sign Language Interpreting and journalism for the ears. She’s a busy mama with two little beautiful boys and she’s been known to make stuffed animals out of excellently patterned socks. Keep up at sarikadmehta.com.  Twitter: @sarikadmehta   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Cheryl Green, Text Transcript Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Song: “Hard Out Here for A Gimp” Album: NO BIG DEAL Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music electro-pop 01 loop by frankum, November 24, 2013. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.   Synth Pop Loop 01 by RokZRooM, March 21, 2021. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 License. Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  2. 21/03/2021

    Ep 99: Online Activism

    Today I’m in conversation with my friends Andrew Pulrang and Gregg Beratan. The three of us are co-partners in #CripTheVote, an online movement encouraging the political participation of disabled people that we started in 2016. You’ll hear us talk about the origins of #CripTheVote, the differences between the 2016 and 2020 election on disability policies and engagement, and looking ahead with the Biden/Harris administration. Please note our conversation took place in December 2020, a few weeks after the Presidential election.  Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links #CripTheVote blog Recap from #CripTheVote candidate chat with Sen. Warren, January 7, 2020 Recap from #CripTheVote Twitter town hall with Pete Buttigieg, January 17, 2020. “What’s Next For Disability Policy? Here Are Four First Steps,” Andrew Pulrang, November 27, 2020, Forbes. About Andrew Pulrang, a white, clean-shaven man with glasses and black hair, wearing a blue shirt. A tracheostomy is visible around his neck just above the shirt collar. Andrew Pulrang is a disability-focused freelance writer, online activist, and former Center for Independent Living director. He is a contributing writer for Forbes.com. Andrew is also a co-partner of #CripTheVote, a nonpartisan online movement encouraging the political participation of disabled people with fellow disabled activists Gregg Beratan and Alice Wong. Twitter: @AndrewPulrang   Gregg Beratan, a white man with brown hair and a brown beard. He is smiling and wearing a white shirt with narrow gray stripes. Gregg Beratan is one of the Co-founders and organizers of #CripTheVote. He is the Director of Advocacy at the Center for Disability Rights. He has been involved in Disability Rights and Disability Justice efforts in the United States, the UK, Poland & India. Twitter: @GreggBeratan   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Cheryl Green, Text Transcript Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Song: “Hard Out Here for A Gimp” Album: NO BIG DEAL Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music EDM Drop by DaveJf, March 5, 2021 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  3. 07/03/2021

    Ep 98: Disabled Students

    Today I’m in conversation with Alena Morales, who will graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Sciences with a minor in Disability Studies at UC Berkeley in Spring 2021. Alena is a queer disabled advocate of color and the former Chair and Co-Founder of the Disabled Students Commission, and through loving interdependence and collective labor with her fellow crips, she co-created one of the few Disability Cultural Centers in the country at UC Berkeley. You’ll hear Alena talk about developing her disability identity, finding community, and getting involved in community organizing at school. She’ll also talk about the importance of creating space for the broader disability community with the formation of the Disability Cultural Center and the years-long process that made it happen. Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links “I’m a Berkeleyan: Student Alena Morales on the fight for campus’s new disability cultural center,” Anne Brice, October 6, 2020, Berkeley News. “An Introduction to Disability Cultural Centers in U.S. Higher Education, Part I,” Kim Elmore, Toni Saia, Elizabeth Anh Thomson, November 2018, AHEAD. “Disability cultural centers: How colleges can move beyond access to inclusion,” Evelyn S. Chiang, Disability & Society, Volume 35, 2020, Issue 7, pages 1183-1188. “‘Ableism is real at Stanford’: Prospective frosh calls out insufficient OAE accommodations,” Kaushikee Nayudu, March 2, 2021, The Stanford Daily. Earlier this week, I talked to the Editorial Board at @TheHoya about why @Georgetown needs a Disability Cultural Center. Check out their article about it: #CripTheVote https://t.co/5aheQ679If — Anna Landre (@annalandre) February 5, 2021 About Alena Morales, a Mexican Filipina woman, sitting in her wheelchair among San Diego palm trees. Her long brown hair is styled down around her shoulders, and she dons red lipstick with winged eyeliner. She is wearing a white button up shirt with black polka dots, and her central line hangs out from the neckline of her shirt. Alena Morales (she/her) is a queer disabled advocate of color. She will graduate with her DPD BS in Nutritional Sciences with a minor in Disability Studies at UC Berkeley in Spring 2021. Alena is the former Chair and Co-Founder of the ASUC Disabled Students Commission, and through loving interdependence and collective labor with her fellow crips, she Co-Created one of the few Disability Cultural Centers in the country. After graduation, Alena hopes to combine disability justice activism and nutrition to ensure that people with disabilities are represented in key nutrition policy dialogues ultimately opening up her own disability justice organization that tackles socioeconomic and clinical nutritional inequities for the community she calls home.   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Geraldine Ah-Sue, Audio Producer Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Cheryl Green, Text Transcript Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music “Gathering” by Podington Bear (Gathering by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License) Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  4. 22/02/2021

    Ep 97: Disabled Refugees

    Today I’m in conversation with Mustafa Rfat. Mustafa is a graduate student in the Public Administration Program at West Virginia University. He’s also a trainee at Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) at the university. Mustafa came to the U.S. as a refugee from Iraq in 2011. You’ll hear Mustafa talk about his experience as a refugee and his adjustment to life in the United States. Mustafa will also describe the unique challenges and needs of refugees with disabilities. Photo of three people gathered around a white grand piano. On the left sitting on the piano bench, Nazli Khazirova, a woman with a purple head covering and a navy blue outfit smiling widely. Her arm is extended toward Mustafa Rfat on the right, a man wearing a navy blue business suit with a white shirt and red tie who is also smiling. In the center, laying on top of the piano is Defne Rfat, a little baby girl with a white flower-like headband and a white and pink tulle outfit like a ballerina Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links “Current Disability Laws Are Leaving People Behind,” January 3, 2020, ACUDTalk. Ep 32: Disabled Refugees with Mansha Mirza, August 27, 2018, Disability Visibility podcast. Refugees and migrants with disabilities,  Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN. Persons with disabilities, UN Refugee Agency. “7 refugees paving the way on disability rights,” December 2, 2019, UN Refugee Agency. About Photo of Mustafa Rfat, a man with short dark brown hair wearing a navy blue blazer with v-neck blue shirt. Behind him is a dark gray background. Mustafa Rfat is a graduate student in the Public Administration Program and a trainee at Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) at West Virginia University. Mustafa came to the U.S. as a refugee from Iraq in 2011. He is a passionate advocate for equal rights for people with disabilities and refugees/immigrants. He is in the process of applying for Ph.D. programs in Social Work to further his education in research and community work.   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Cheryl Green, Audio Producer and Text Transcript Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music Music for Manatees by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4102-music-for-manatees. License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Garden Music by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3796-garden-music. License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license. Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  5. 07/02/2021

    Ep 96: Art and Technology

    Today’s episode is about art and technology featuring a conversation with Lindsey D. Felt and Vanessa Chang. Lindsey and Vanessa curated Recoding CripTech, a multidisciplinary art exhibition at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco in early 2020. You’ll learn about how their collaboration and friendship started, what it was like curating this exhibit, some of the disabled artists that were part of the exhibit, and why CripTech, disability culture, and accessibility is more important than ever in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links M Eifler, artist UC Berkeley Disability Lab, Dr. Karen Nakamura “Press Release: Leonardo/ISAST receives $500K for CripTech Incubator from California Arts Council Innovations + Intersections Grants,” Danielle Siembieda, October 29, 2020, Leonardo. Recoding CripTech,  SOMArts Cultural Center “Recoding CripTech Proudly Asserts Disability as an Identity and Culture,” Roula Seikaly, February 12, 2020, KQED. In “Recoding CripTech,” Artists Highlight the Vital Role of Hacking in Disability Culture, Monica Westin, February 19, 2020, ARTnews. About Photo of curators Vanessa Chang and Lindsey D. Felt standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a graffiti installation, beaming at the camera. Lindsey has wavy blonde hair and wears translucent glasses and a gauzy black and white dress with a black double buckle belt. Vanessa has a short dark brown bob and wears a gold choker necklace and a long sleeved white kimono top. A brown bag strap crosses her chest.   Lindsey D. Felt and Vanessa Chang curated Recoding CripTech, a multidisciplinary art exhibition at SOMArts Cultural Center in 2020. Their curatorial work has been profiled in venues such as Art in America, KQED Arts and DisTopia.  Dr. Lindsey D. Felt, a Bay Area native, writer and deaf scholar, is a lecturer at Stanford University, where she teaches courses on disability, writing, and technology. She received her Ph.D. in English from Stanford University. Her research focuses on disability innovation and technology in the postwar era, specifically how disability shaped conceptions of electronic communication; science fiction and disability futurity; access and assistive technologies; and disability rhetorics. Most recently, her writing has appeared in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, and she serves as the Disability and Impact Lead at Leonardo/ISAST. Twitter: @ldfelt Dr. Vanessa Chang is a writer, curator and educator who builds communities and conversations about art, technology and human bodies. She is Senior Program Manager at Leonardo/ISAST and teaches in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts. She holds a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where she was a Geballe Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. Recent exhibitions include Intersections at Fort Mason Center for the Arts and Artobots, a CODAME festival of art, automation and artificial intelligence. She has appeared on NPR’s On the Media and State of the Art, and written for Wired, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books and Noema Magazine, among other venues. Twitter: @vxchang   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Cheryl Green, Audio Producer and Text Transcript Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Song: “Hard Out Here for A Gimp” Album: NO BIG DEAL Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music “Bleeping Demo” by Kevin MacLeod. Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo. License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license. “Blippy Trance” by Kevin MacLeod. Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance. License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  6. 23/01/2021

    Ep 95: Black Doctors with Disabilities

    In today’s episode I’m in conversation with Dr. Justin Bullock (@jbullockruns). Justin is currently an Internal Medicine Resident in San Francisco, California. You’ll hear Justin talk about his experiences disclosing his disability at work, the process he had to go through to prove his fitness to serve as a physician because of his disability, the systemic ableism and racism in medicine and medical education, and the benefits and risks of telling your story and being visible. You’ll also hear Justin talk about article he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Suicide—Rewriting my story” which describes his battle with bipolar disorder and suicidality during undergraduate and graduate medical education. Please note our conversation took place in September 2020 and there will be discussions of hospitalization, death and dying, suicidality, suicidal ideation, and trauma. Disability Visibility is a production of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability media and culture. Text transcripts and links for each episode are available at: https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/podcast-2/ Twitter: @DisVisibility Support this podcast: patreon.com/DVP

  7. 10/01/2021

    EP 94: Healthcare Rationing

    It’s been over eleven months since the pandemic emerged in the United States and things are worse than ever. Hospitals across the country have reached full capacity and utilizing crisis standards of care, guidelines used when there is a shortage of resources and care. Today’s episode is about healthcare allocation in the time of COVID with Britney Wilson, a civil rights attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. This center, along with three other disability rights organizations, filed a class action complaint in October 2020 against the State of New York.  The lawsuit challenges the New York State Ventilator Allocation Guidelines as discriminatory. The Guidelines allow hospitals to reallocate ventilators from people who use them in the community. Britney will talk about her role in the case and how the case came about, how these existing guidelines are ableist and harm disabled people, and the goals are from the lawsuit. Please note we talked in November 2020 and I included a short update at the end of the episode. Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links   “NCLEJ Files Lawsuit to Protect Personal Ventilator Users,” October 8, 2020. Class action complaint, Civil Case No: 1:20-cv-4819, October 7, 2020. “Lawsuit Filed Challenges New York State Department of Health Guidelines Allowing the Reallocation of Personal Ventilators,” October 9, 2020, National Center for Law and Economic Justice. “Disability Rights Activists Sue Cuomo over Ventilator Discrimination,” October 9, 2020, Wesley J. Smith, National Review. “What the Chaos in Hospitals Is Doing to Doctors,”  January/February 2021, Jordan Kisner. “One Man’s COVID-19 Death Raises The Worst Fears Of Many People With Disabilities,” July 31, 2020, Joseph Shapiro, NPR. “As Hospitals Fear Being Overwhelmed By COVID-19, Do The Disabled Get The Same Access?” December 14, 2020, Joseph Shapiro, NPR. Ep 81: Bioethics with Joe Stramondo, July 20, 2020, Disability Visibility podcast. Ep 50: Disabled Lawyers with Hamza Jaka and Britney Wilson, May 6, 2019, Disability Visibility podcast. “I’m disabled and need a ventilator to live. Am I expendable during this pandemic?” April 4, 2020, Alice Wong, Vox. “I will not apologize for my needs,” March 27, 2020, Off-Kilter podcast. National Center for Law and Economic Justice Disability Rights New York  NMD United Not Dead Yet   About Britney Wilson, Black woman with curly natural, black hair and glasses in a blue chambray suit and white and blue polka dot top standing on crutches in an office.   Civil rights attorney Britney Wilson is a staff attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice in New York. Twitter: @labelleverite   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Cheryl Green, Audio Producer and Text Transcript Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music “Retro Metro” by Ketsa. (Source: FreeMusicArchive.org. licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.) “Smooth Lovin” by Kevin MacLeod. Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4379-smooth-lovin.  License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

  8. 26/12/2020

    Ep 93: Indigenous Disabled Creators

    Today’s episode features an interview with Johnnie Jae (@johnniejae) who is from the Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw tribes of Oklahoma. Johnnie is a journalist, organizer, creator, and futurist and the founder of A Tribe Called Geek, an award-winning media platform for Indigenous Geek Culture and STEM, and #Indigenerds4Hope, a suicide prevention initiative designed to educate, encourage, and empower Native youth. Johnnie will talk about her experiences accessing healthcare and staying safe as an immunocompromised person, the pandemic’s impact on disabled Indigenous, the systemic inequalities facing Indigenous communities, and the movement to remove racist imagery and terms in popular culture. Please note there will be discussions about hospitalization, genocide, settler colonialism, medical racism, racist mascots. Disability Visibility is a production of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability media and culture. Text transcripts and links for each episode are available at: https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/podcast-2/ Twitter: @DisVisibility Support this podcast: patreon.com/DVP

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About

Conversations on disability politics, culture, and media.

Information

  • Creator
    Alice Wong: Disability Activist, Media Maker, Consultant
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2021
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Alice Wong, Disability Visibility Project®
  • Show Website
    Disability Visibility