Disability Talks: Don't Dis My Ability
Disability Talks: Don't Dis My Ability
Showcasing Disability with RespectAbility
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In this episode, Shelly interviews Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, President of RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community. Jennifer regularly works with disability organizations, national, state and local policy leaders, workforce development professionals, media, employers, philanthropists, celebrities and faith-based organizations in order to expand opportunities for people with disabilities. Learn about the ways RespectAbility is influencing media representation and leading the way in promoting universal accessibility.
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Welcome to Disability Talks, a podcast produced by Abilities in Motion. I'm your host, Shelley Houser. Join us for real conversations and no nonsense talk from everyday people with disabilities living their most independent everyday lives. Tune in for the latest news surrounding disability, accessibility, and independence, where conversations aren't dissed and stories that need to be told aren't missed. So let's talk!
ShellyWelcome back, everybody. I'm your host Shelly Houser, and this month we have Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi. She is the Executive and President for RespectAbility, and that's a nonprofit located in Rockville, Maryland. So welcome, Jennifer. How are you today?
JenniferHey, Shelly , it's so great to be with you and your audience today. It's really delightful to be a part of this.
ShellyTell me a little bit about what RespectAbility does.
JenniferSure. Well, first of all, I, myself, I'm dyslexic. I have ADHD. I'm also a parent who knows what it means to parent on with multiple disabilities, lots of friends and family with disability. And if there's one thing I know about people with disabilities, it's that every single one of us has something to contribute, something positive, contribute ideas, energy, heart , talent, innovation. RespectAbility fights stigmas and advances opportunities for people with disabilities so that we can have a better future. That's really us. We're the opportunity agenda showcasing the talents, innovation, and success of diverse people with disability.
ShellyHow long have you been doing your nonprofit work?
JenniferSo we started seven years ago , um, recognizing , um, some key things. A major report had come out from Senator Tom Harkin, hearing a very major committee in the U.S. Senate, the health committee. And they looked at the issue of employment for people with disability since the Americans with Disabilities Act had come out , um, then it was less than 25 years. And what they showed was that there'd been very little progress and they outlined some of the issues. And so we started , um, with several core principles. One, the idea that the disability community needs to lock arms in a bipartisan way b ecause when the ADA was passed, it was very b ipartisan. You had from Tom Harkin to, y ou k now, President Bush and you know, everyone in the middle that it needed to be across all the different disabilities. It couldn't just be the down syndrome community or the blind community or the autism community, that we really needed to lock arms across physical, u m, psychological, mental health, cognitive, sensory, and other disabilities because together collectively we make up one out of every five people. Um, as we g ot into it, we really discovered how important it was to be much more intersectional because right now in America, the majority of school children with disabilities are also members of the BIPOC community, Black Indigenous People of Color community. The majority of school children with disabilities are part of t hat BIPOC community. And frankly, the disability community, It is led largely by white two-parent f amilies, a relative privilege i n a number of ways. I, myself a m white and I'm part of a two parent family, and I recognize though that that is not the case for so many people with disabilities and that f or students of color and English language learners with disabilities, frequently, they're in a very under-resourced school b ecause o f structural racism. And it's really important to have the cultural competence of people who have expertise in those communities, who have lived experience in those communities, and hence half of our board, um , and we have about 32 people on our board, half of our board are people of color, a significant number of t he, the people on our staff are people of color, any large portion of our national leadership follows, because really the future has to be incredibly intersectional when we think about leadership for the disability community.
ShellyAnd , and just what you mentioned, persons with disabilities It touches every type of life. It doesn't matter on your race, your sexual identity, your age, your wealth. I mean, it can hit every single one at any given time. They can join this big family, right?
JenniferAbsolutely. People can join our community at any time, but you know what? The way that they're impacted varies tremendously based on the circumstances , um , of race in many cases. So if their disability is non-visible like I, myself, maybe in dyslexia, it might not get diagnosed. They might not get an IEP. They might not get that early intervention. And then they get frustrated. They drop out of school and they wind up in the school to prison pipeline. Hence we have this situation where there are at least 750,000 people with disabilities who are currently incarcerated in America. It's just a, a horrible, horrible situation that, you know, for example, America's largest mental health institution is our prison system. So we as a community have a long way to go on a broad range of issues.
ShellyAnd they become very marginalized. Unfortunately when they are a minority with low income, and it's just all these layers that keep pushing them down to get the help and the care and the services that they they need and that everybody should have equal access to. So for our viewers out there, could you describe what you look like and how you would describe yourself, you know , as a person what are you like ?
JenniferRight. So I am extremely tall for a woman. Um, I'm a little over 5' 10". I stopped growing when I was 12. So I've been 5" 10' plus since I was 12, which is , um , before I started really learning how to read. So as a person with some learning disabilities, I really started to read , um, around that same time. Um, so I think I really learned , um, to really listen well and to try and use my verbal skills because , um, I had such a challenge with literacy and I'm always the person in the room who asked the most questions. I'm a really inquisitive person, but I also have right now a really bad sort of self done haircut. We're trying to stay safe. We're trying to do the right thing, but I spend a huge amount of time on Zoom, connecting to other people in the disability community. The majority of our staff, the majority of our board at RespectAbility, and our fellows are people with a variety of disability, and I'm on Zoom with them all day, you know, learning what's going on, how can we make a difference, who can do what, what groups we can partner with. Uh , you know, and I know the independent living movement is such an important movement for the disability community. For example, you know, so important to ADA and so many other things. Um, you know, that's one of our many partners as we look for independence for people with disabilities.
ShellyAnd that's what I wanted to , um , talk about next, the ADA turned 30 this year and we're so excited. And as you mentioned earlier, we've come so far with technology and accessibility and employment, but we are still the most marginalized group, I think, in the world. And, you know , under misrepresented in Hollywood and the media underrepresented in employment , um, inequality with inaccessibility for accessible housing and the list goes on and on. But I wanted to hear from you more about the panel speakers that you had, you had some, many of them over the , the celebration for the week, how you celebrated in this challenging COVID times virtually and more about your panelists that talked about inclusion.
JenniferSo thanks for asking, Shelly. Um, you know , uh , you started off by talking about the challenges of the disability community, and I'll just say right up that I'm not a big fan of the oppression Olympics about talking about who's the most marginalized, and who's the worst off. I'm a real big fan of talking about the talents of people with disabilities . So we had , um , over 85 speakers, majority of whom were people with disabilities, the majority of whom were women , um, a third of whom were people of color and they're talented, talented people doing innovative things. So we had dozens of people working in Hollywood to really make a paradigm shift. And if your listeners are, are , um, to get the New York Times, there's going to be a major spread in the New York Times, Sunday magazine about , um , disability in Hollywood, actors that are championing , um, and making a difference there. And some of the people who spoke at our conference are going to be featured in Sunday's New York Times magazine. Um, but we really, we had , um , you know, people who've been doing shows on Netflix, on Disney, on NBC with Sony, from The Good Doctor. I'm a huge fan of Sophie Kim, who is , um , 13 year old Asian girl who happens to use a wheelchair who stars in The Healing Power of Dude, which has incredible disability portrayal of a young woman of color, who's a wheelchair user, who is exceptionally kind and talented and fun. And, you know, everybody would want to be her friend, played by a person who is genuinely, you know, that kind of person, has lived experience. So it's really important to see just how much is starting to happen in Hollywood to show people with disabilities, you know, for what we can do. Key ways that we're working in Hollywood is that we have a lab program and our Hollywood lab program, takes 30 people a year through a very special program to enable them to meet very important studio executives, movers, and shakers to help advance their careers. So they're getting good skills. They're getting good networking. They're working with each other, they're creating projects . Couple of the alumni have done very well with Sundance and a lot of other things. We're really focusing a lot on the, behind the camera because the people who write the stories, you know, if they include disabilities in the story in the first place, then you can have an opportunity to cast someone with a disability , um, and to have that story be authentic and true. So one of our moderators with Jonathan Murray , he literally invented reality television with his first show , um , which was Real World on MTV but since then has brought forward Autism the Musical, which won an Emmy award, and then its follow-up sequel movie. And then Born This Way won multiple Emmy's, starring seven diverse people with disabilities. Then he did the series, Deaf Out Loud. Currently he's working on a great new series that I'm super excited about that's not on the air yet, but I'll keep you a little secret preview, which is it's about people with disabilities who started their own businesses, a reality show about entrepreneurs with disabilities. And I could not be more excited about this new series that is still being shot. It's going to be fabulous.
ShellyWhat is it, what channel is it going to be on? Can you say?
JenniferTo be determined.
ShellyOk, to be determined.
JenniferBut the interesting things about Hollywood is it. Sometimes you make the series or the show and then you shop it around, who's going to air it. And I will tell you then with Born This Way , um, that the major networks weren't interested, because they said, who's going to watch a show about people with Down Syndrome, that's a downer and they were so wrong, so wrong. So A&E network picked it up and, you know, they had a million fans, 22 episodes, won all these Emmy awards, I think half of the Emmy awards for that entire network , um, during the period, it was on the air, came from that one show. So it's , it really is a high quality show and it dropped through new fans to that network. So you think that disability really can sell because there's just a huge number of us out there, but many of them frankly, are still kind of, in the closet. You know, the way the LGBTQ community was 30 years ago or even 20 years ago, you know, if you have a quote unquote invisible or hidden disability, people are still in the closet because of the stigmas of it . There's a lot of us out there.
ShellyThat's right. One in five, at least. So I know the comedian , uh , Maysoon Zaid is coming out with another , uh , comedy. I saw her speak at the Pennsylvania Women's Conference about two years ago, and so she's been chopping away at that. So she's coming out with that very soon as well. So a lot of really good forward thinking , progressive things. And I really hope Hollywood sits up and takes notice of all the positive things and how it's going to just be, you know, show off our creativity and our talent and, and push that envelope so, so much further. So yeah. One of the things you guys did during your celebration of virtual ADA week was you celebrated different artists. Uh, some were known more like Frida Kahlo, but some who were some of the other artists that were highlighted that week?
JenniferYou know, Shelly, you do think, you know, a lot of people heard of Frida Kahlo, but they didn't know that she had significant physical disability. A lot of people heard of Vincent van Gogh didn't know that he had a mental health condition. There's a lot of different artists who are very famous, but disability was sort of erased from their story. Just like, you know, everyone in America learns about Harriet Tubman as a wonderful, you know, civil rights leader , um , freeing slaves, but how many people know that she lived with epilepsy and a seizure condition. So it's important to showcase talented artists who people occurred of and show their art and talk about their disability experience. Um , you know, we had a wonderful, you know, speaker , um , sort of curate that. And we did it in partnership with the Phillips Collection, which is a beautiful museum in the Washington, D.C. Community. Um , all of this is on our website for RespectAbility or on our Facebook, and , and Shelly it's been really interesting because historically we do a conference every year to celebrate the ADA, and actually our chairman, Steve Bartlett, was one of the lead authors of The Americans with Disabilities Act 30 years ago. And we used to do it in the U.S. Capitol and the room fills only 250 people. So we had 250 people. So for the pandemic, we said we're going to do it, put it on Zoom. And so 750 people came on Zoom, but then we said, Hey, we'll put it on Facebook live and see who shows up on our Facebook. Guess what? Over 10,000 people over 10,000 people. So it's interesting how in this pandemic, people who care about people with disabilities, people who are looking for solid content, they're getting online, and they're finding it. So, so we turned something that previously had a , you know, an audience of 250 , and now it had over 10,000, so hopefully that'll help move the story forward. I mean, there were some reporters who watched it online and it turned into some major , um , news stories, including several around our education session, which talked about the , um , issues for students with disabilities during COVID. And , um, you know, so it was just mentioned, our new toolkit was just mentioned in the LA Times, and it was just mentioned in the New York Times, and so all of it is sort of pushing the disability agenda one step at a time.
ShellyAnd I think the one thing that COVID has taught a lot of us that is that employers can have people work from home safely and efficiently and things like you said. It went from two , 250 to over, you know , 10,000 or more. So it's just, it reached a wider audience and it , it could have included people that didn't have transportation to get there or were interested, but didn't know, you know , couldn't take off a full day of work to do it. So it just made it just more broadly accessible for everyone. So that's, that's phenomenal. So what was the main takeaway, the main feeling of your ADA summit celebration?
JenniferSo the thing that I was most excited about is I think a lot of the celebration's real focus on the historic role of some of the main players who tended to be , um, you know, white men who were allies of our community in many cases. And I think that what we really focused on was the contributions of people of color and women. And when I say people color, I mean Black, I mean Asian, I mean, you know, Latinx community, very, very diverse and very, very talented talented people, whether it's , uh, you know, singers who did original music and were , you know, talking about the future and leaning forward into progress. Whether it was talking about, you know, arts or Hollywood or finance or inclusive philanthropy, very new voices , uh , from very diverse of very talented individuals. And I think that's really working as we build out the strength of our community because they bring so much richness of innovation and ideas into the room or the Zoom. You always want to have them as part of the conversation.
ShellyYou had a singer at L.A.C.I., who I'd never heard of before. And I went and looked up her work and she had a gentleman who played the , he played the piano for her. She, after her song, her original song, she talked about , um, the importance of self-advocacy and encouraging us to stand forward. She talked about when you advocate for yourself, you're advocating forward to the next person. And that person that may have said a microaggression or an insult that they thought was being helpful, that really wasn't being very helpful, they'll maybe stop and take pause and stop and think next time, and that is so important. And our work is , is not done, you know, and , and it may never be done, but I think it makes it more interesting. It's something new, and it's fresh, and it's inviting, and it's exciting, so.
JenniferA hundred percent, I totally agree with you.
ShellySo you have a 2020 National Youth Leadership Program, and you're doing that with, I believe, 12 fellows and I wanted to learn more and I wanted our audience to hear more about how this program is working for you guys virtually.
JenniferYeah, Shelly. So we have a program that is from the core principle of nothing about us, without us. So the idea is if there is a public policy that impacts people with disabilities, and by the way, there's not an issue that doesn't impact our community. The people with disabilities should be in the room and at the table. You know, our philosophy is that you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So you want bring young leaders with disabilities, to be able to get those jobs, to be working on Capitol Hill or to work for Governor Wolf, in your case, or to work for, you know, the mayors of your communities, um to run for mayor, to run for Congress. You know, we always w ant t o see people with disabilities themselves in the policy arena, in n onprofit management. You're a person with a disability i n a leadership role i n a disability organization. Well, you know what, there are a lot of disability organization that are, you know, really well-intended, but they're all allies, you know, where's the person with a disability on their staff or their board? You know what? That, that's just not right. So we have to be sure t hat i f, y ou k now, it's an organization serving people with disability, X, Y, or Z, that people with disability, X, Y, or Z are a part of the room b ecause they bring the richness of their lived experiences and the solutions that they and their peers h ave found to the table to help make, you know, the whole system work better for everyone. So the idea is you take these young leaders and you upskill them, whether it is, you know, showing them, how do you use LinkedIn to make your resume look i t's best? How do you work on your writing skills? I must tell you, this is something that just drives us, you know, bonkers, which is that young people are not really taught how to write, and, you know, they might be taught how to do a 20 page term paper with all these footnotes. But when you go into the real world, nobody wants to read 20 pages, nobody. So people want to know, can you make a thesis? What are the three points to back up that thesis? What's your summary? S o y ou h ave that piece, you know, how can you be super compelling in one page, right? They don't want 20 pages. S o teach people, y ou k now, skills they need that are going to help their e mployers, and then connect them to those employers, u m, support them as they start with those employers. And these a re knowledge, k nowledge-based jobs. These are not physical jobs. These are, this is, these are knowledge jobs in particular sectors, Hollywood, communications, n onprofit management, and public policy that can help people with disabilities have a better future. So, so we recruit around a dozen young leaders at a time for the program that our office in Maryland, guess what? Nobody goes to our office in Maryland. We haven't been there in almost six months. So yeah, so now w e're recruiting people from everywhere. So anyone who's listening right now, listen up, listen up r espectability.org, National Leadership Program. We pay people to upskill from their homes online. So everything is done on Zoom. Everything is done online, talented, super talented people. They have to have at least a junior year of college under their belt. A nd frankly, a lot of our fellows, u m, you know, they already finished a college degree and then they went out into the workforce and then t hey boomeranged back into a job search because you know, over a million people with disabilities lost their jobs since this pandemic started, and so we're trying to help place them in jobs. Now the fellowship can last up to six months. That doesn't mean six months. That means you want to get a job. We're g oing t o work on getting you a job, and i f y ou get a job in two months, we really enjoyed having you, and let's watch you succeed in that job. If it takes you six months, we're not going to abandon you. We understand that mental health issues around being unemployed and isolated in a pandemic, and that it's important to keep you engaged, e volving your skills while you're going through your job search. I think a lot more people should be doing these k inds of programs with cohorts because these young people, they become friends with one another, they support each other, um , you know, they help each other through the process. U m, you know, we've seen a lot of g reat relationships with friends w ho go on to become roommates together or, you know, seek jobs together, um, you know, b ased on the relationships that they make. N ow, these are extremely high functioning individuals in terms of their academics and their knowledge base, right? So it's a certain subset of t he, the disability community. So they might be blind or deaf o r use a wheelchair or, you know, whatever their disability issue is, it is a knowledge-based job. And they may have never met somebody who was as, y ou k now, talented academically a s them who had such a significant set of disability challenges and they felt isolated and, so when they're in this program with other people who are around the same age, who are also super talented, who also have significant disability issues, you know, we're talking about people who in many cases are quote unquote, twice exceptional, highly gifted, and have a significant disability. A lot of people on the spectrum, for example. These people are fabulous, but they need to network with one another so they're not so isolated.
ShellyAnd these are all important basic skills that every youth at that age needs to have. So this is a wonderful program. So with that, I think we're going to take a short commercial break and we'll be back on the other side.
Ad.Abilities in Motion is a Pennsylvania based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities live their lives on their own terms. Abilities in Motions strides to eliminate psychological stereotypes, physical barriers, and outdated attitudes that prevent social and civic inclusion, as well as promote the independent living movement to empower, educate, and advocate for individuals with disabilities. For more information about programs and services Abilities in Motion provides ,call (610) 376-0010, or visit our website at www.abilitiesandmotion .org .
ShellyOkay. And we're back with Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, as our guest today, and we are talking about the ADA turning 30, their national leadership program, and the next thing I wanted to talk about was during this COVID time, which has been so challenging , uh, earlier in the program, we talked about how persons with disabilities, including our youth really need to connect with each other. How are you guys virtually educating and supporting not only the students, but the families that you know are locked in at home with these children, without these programs and services that they can't get out to right now?
JenniferIt is such a challenging time for families. I mean, you know, I'm a working mom and there are so many working moms. How do you try and do the best for your child while your child is expected to learn on a computer with so little support frequently from the school system? I mean, we've saw it come completely crashing down for our child with a disability when they move to remote learning. And as I went around the process, trying to figure out what are we going to do for my child, I realized, wow, every other parents of a child with disabilities pretty much going through the same thing. And so we put a lot of energy in putting together a free tool kit to find out who's doing what, where can you find resources online? Where can you find entire curriculums online? Because frankly , um , our school system didn't even offer , um, you know, classes. They basically would work on a website and expect a child to independently pull that work down and teach themselves and then produce content on their own. It was , uh , it was a nightmare. And so we had to find what's out there from everywhere and can use it , um, you know, all over the country. And so we created this tool kit , um, an education tool kit, which you can find on the RespectAbility website, under Educational Resources, with all kinds of resources, primarily for parents to use of kids with disabilities. But for the older students with disabilities themselves, they can check out the resources as well. At the same time, we also did a brand new toolkit for job seekers during this pandemic. Too many people with disabilities lost their jobs, and now they may have to go into a new field because the , you know, they were working in a restaurant, maybe that restaurant isn't going to hire them. If they were doing retail, it might be going out of business. San Francisco, for example, literally the majority of storefronts in downtown San Francisco are closed. All the people who work those jobs, they have to find new jobs. So we have , um , tool kits for job seekers and on the education issue, you know, for free for people on the RespectAbility website,
ShellyIt's , it's more inclusive. And I think we've become more forward-thinking about this. And I hope this is our new normal, because now that you know that you can do it and you've made all these changes, why would you stop? Because you can just reach, like you said, so many more people. The one thing I wanted to talk about was RespectAbility's work with the Ford Foundation and wonder how the project came about, and it's fighting ableism. I wanted you to first explain what ableism is, is for our listeners and then get into the Ford Foundation's work with you folks.
JenniferSo ableism is, you know, is prejudice against people with disabilities. And, you know, there's, there's things like, you know, you can watch Stella Horn's video on Ted Talks about, you know , inspiration porn, and , and how, you know, people will essentially want to give a blue ribbon to someone with a disability because they got up and brushed their teeth in the morning. You know , you can still celebrate when people with disabilities do something extraordinary, but when they do something that's just ordinary living themselves, you know, you don't need to have a street parade. So it's all about low expectations. But in terms of the Ford Foundation, the issue was this, they announced a billion dollar equity initiative to help marginalized people. They announced this billion dollar charity initiative in a tweet that was not accessible. So people who are blind, because it wasn't screen reader accessible. They went instantly to a video with no captions . So anyone deaf or hard of hearing could not absorb it . In a huge building in New York City that was not ADA accessible, so that wheelchair users couldn't get in, and then to apply, you had to apply under certain marginalized categories, like being a person of color or part of a caste or part of the LGBTQ community, and disability wasn't one of the , um, one of the groups that you could apply under. So if you were white and you had to say, you had a disability, no way that you could apply. And if you were black and you had a disability, you could apply as someone who's black, but no attention to the fact that you might be deaf or blind or use a wheelchair or whatever. So there was no way to be included in a program. So I reached out to the CEO there and I said, Hey, you're all about equity. What about this aspect of equity? And you know what, Darren Walker, their president, is amazing. And he understood it instantly. And he and his team have really been working on fixing it. And there's a lot of people in philanthropy across the board in a lot of foundations trying to learn about this. Now President's Council at different presidents of philanthropies that are working on this, but we did a major, major study through nonprofit times and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. We found that 75% of nonprofits want to include people with disabilities, actively have a policy to include people with disabilities, but have absolutely no clue what that means. And my litmus test is sort of this: only 14% are putting captions on their videos. And this for me is a litmus test because as I'm sure, you know, if you take your video and you put it on YouTube, YouTube instantly, automatically, and for free puts captions on. They might butcher my last name in a terrible way. But you know what? I can live with that. There's captions on the video instantly for free. So if a nonprofit won't do something that's instant and free, they're certainly not going to fix the fact that there's no access into the building and no accessible bathroom when that costs actual money to do. And so we've been working very actively with the nonprofit community, which is very well-intended on these issues because they just don't know what they don't know. All of these training videos are on our website so that they can learn, and we're constantly doing webinars to help them learn how to do things like put captions on Zoom, like put captions on videos, that sort of thing.
ShellyAnd I'm so excited because in this day and age we should have that kind of accessibility. And I think this whole COVID thing has really pushed that envelope and ADA turning 30 has opened that envelope and pushed it a little further. And I'm so excited to see that companies, large corporations, small corporations, are getting it and at least wanting to have us at that table, to have our voice heard, to bring our ideas and our unique perspectives of how we do things. And it, you know, what's the saying, you know, when you design for everybody, everybody wins.
JenniferYou know, the whole curb cuts of how, you know, access for a wheelchair means access for a stroller or somebody pulling a cart or suitcase on wheels so-
ShellyEven a teenager on crutches, you know, that broke their foot playing football. It just helps everyone get through life a little easier and be safer. So that's really great. So one thing I saw was , uh , an author, Malcolm Gladwell, pointed out in a book called , uh , from David and Goliath, he had a quote that I wanted to talk about. He says, "people with disabilities can be the most innovative people on earth because their situations regularly require them to find new solutions to problems large and small." That's brilliant. And he's so right.
JenniferHe is so right. Mean think about the fact that Thomas Edison was deaf . Think all of his inventions, think about one of the largest firms on earth, which is Ernst and Young, E.Y. Um , Arthur Young was deaf and people wouldn't hire him. Um, so when he started up his firm, he hired a lot of people with physical disabilities who are really smart because he realized if he could meet their accommodations needs, they would always really succeed in his company. Now they have over 150,000 employees. Take a look at the TV show, Shark Tank. Um , I think almost all of the sharks on Shark Tank have the same learning disabilities that I have and they became innovators. Um, and so there's a lot of people out there with disability. You know, Stephen Hawking was unlocking the secrets of the universe from a wheelchair. Um , there's a lot of talents out there. One of my favorites is that , you know, when I go to turn on TV, there's so many channels and you don't know what's on what channels. So for example, I happen to like Law and Order, and it's almost always on some channel or another. So I take my remote and I just push a button and I say Law and Order. And if it's on a channel, guess what, it finds it instantly and automatically because of these new things for remotes that you can talk to it'll find your TV channel. You know, Tom, an engineer at Comcast who's blind, invented that because he couldn't find the channels he wanted to watch. And so now everybody, you know, if you're on your exercise bike in your house or you, and you turn on your TV set and you want to find the news or, you know, whatever, you can find your show by talking to your remote control. That costs like a $15 item by talking to it because somebody who's blind had a desire to make that happen for people who were blind and now everybody uses it.
ShellyWell, I think that is everything that you guys cover in a nutshell. And so for all of our listeners worldwide, I'd like them to be able to find you, find your resources, find your events , uh, see your events when they're live again. But you know, maybe jump on them virtually and stay connected with you. What is the best way our listeners can find you and RespectAbility?
JenniferRight. So go to respectability.org on the web and look at our events section. You can also look at Facebook or Twitter and fine RespectAbility there. Um, one of, the beautiful thing about our events is they're all free. We don't charge for any of them. Um , we do it as a public service. So no matter where you are on earth, they're always going to have captions and materials are always going to be accessible, and when the events are over, they're all online. So all the things we talked about, Shelly , in terms of those events, they're on our website that I think folks will enjoy them . So I hope they enjoy , um , and checking out respectability.org, Shelly it's been such a pleasure to be with you and want to thank you for the tremendous leadership that you offer to the disability community as an example of what we can do. So thanks for your extraordinary leadership and for inviting me to participate with you today,
ShellyI was so excited to promote and talk about all the phenomenal things that you guys have been doing and pushing that envelope. And it's just such a wonderful project , uh , with the Ford Foundation, and I'm beyond thrilled with that. And your leadership has just pushed and pushed and pushed in every aspect of our lives, and , uh , so when these new shows come on, that gives us something to watch in the fall. And I'm very excited to see all these new shows coming out. So keep up all the good work, keep going strong, stay healthy until we talk again, and for our listeners out there, thank you for joining us. This has been Disability Talks with RespectAbility this month. Thanks for joining us.
OutroThanks for tuning in to this episode of Disability Talks. Want to keep the conversation going? Then visit our website at www.abilitiesinmotion .org or connect with us on social media. And remember, don't diss my ability.