Black Power Lunch Hour

Kimberly Drew w/ Haben Girma

Writer and curator Kimberly Drew gets to know disability rights activist and the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, Haben Girma, for her ongoing series, Black Power Lunch Hour.

Kimberly Drew: Um, hello everyone! My name is Kimberly Drew. I am an author and art person based in New York City. I am so excited to be joining you today for a very special edition, a Social Studies collaboration with a project that I’ve been working on called the Black Power Lunch Hour. I was invited by the Social Studies team to interview anyone of my choice and my first guest is the inimitable Haben Girma. Um, and so, before we begin, Haben, I wanted to just start, um, with a question around access. Um, in many different conversations I think in this Zoom world we are all adapting, and of course with adaptation we’re thinking a lot about access, and I wonder if, um, we could talk about just maybe ground rules or access goals for this conversation. Should we do descriptions, um, what-what feels most comfortable for you?

Haben Girma: Hi everyone. This is Haben speaking and I absolutely agree, let’s start with visual descriptions. I am a Black woman with black hair sitting on a black sofa in my living room, and over to you, Kim, what’s your description?

Kimberly Drew: Yeah. So, I am also a Black woman, very proud to be so. I'm wearing a white shirt with black text that says “Black is Beautiful.” Um, from time-to-time my screen will be occupied by one of two cats, and I am sitting in my kitchen. To my left is my refrigerator and then to my right is my kitchen sink. So let’s start with just an introduction. Can you tell anyone who doesn’t know who you are and what you do, can you give us a brief introduction into who you are, for those who aren’t lucky enough to know you?

Haben Girma: My name is Haben Girma. I’m a disability rights lawyer, speaker, and author. I wrote the book Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law. I chose that title because I want people to know I didn’t overcome my disability, I’m still deafblind. It was Harvard that I conquered. And deafblindness is a spectrum of different kinds of vision and hearing. For me, I am using Braille to do this interview, to have this conversation. I’m holding up a Braille computer with dots along the bottom, and as Kim speaks I have an assistant here who is typing up what Kim says. I’m reading it in Braille and then responding back with my own voice. There might be some delays between when Kim speaks and when I respond, and that’s ‘coz the communication is coming through, and part of access is being mindful and patient of all the different ways people communicate.

Kimberly Drew: Thank you so much for that clarification, and then also one clarification on my side, I actually go by Kimberly.

Haben Girma: Kimberly will do.

Kimberly Drew: Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Great. Well, that actually answers my second question. Um, I wanted to talk a bit about communication because I have seen a lot of TED Talks or conversations that are orchestrated by deafblind people, but not very many interview conversations. And, um, I think for anyone out there who wants to communicate more effectively, it’s so important to do the job of doing the research on how to interview different type of folks, um, and making sure that you set up the access accommodation for everyone, and that should really be the first step in any interview process I would say, no matter what walk of life or where someone is coming from. It’s so essential, um, to do your very best to make sure that it’s a communicative process that hopefully makes it more comfortable for everyone involved.

Haben Girma: And in this time when we’re having a lot of virtual conversations everyone’s home is different, everyone’s technology is different. It’s a good idea to start each conversation by asking, are there any access issues you’d like to address or any type of conversation issues we should cover before we get started. Even those outside the deaf and deafblind community may have things they need to highlight regarding communication that will make things easier for the rest of the conversation.

Kimberly Drew: Absolutely. Can you tell me a bit about your education background, and when and how you decided to become a lawyer?

Haben Girma: So I was not born wanting to be a lawyer. It happened over time. There are many barriers for-for someone who grew up in a sighted hearing world that was not designed for a deafblind person. And there was an experience in college that finally inspired me to be an advocate for disabled people. I went to a school called Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon, and the cafeteria used only print menus, so blind people could not read the menus. And at the beginning I told myself, big deal, it’s a small thing, it’s just a menu, at least the school was giving me my books in Braille, at least I was getting an education, just deal with it.

There are lots of small barriers in our community and they add up, over time this was a big barrier I was dealing with everyday, three times a day. I was a vegetarian back then. It’s hard to eat vegetarian when you don’t know which of the stations is serving vegetarian food. So it was one more thing I had to deal with on top of all of the other struggles at college.

After several months I finally decided to do something. I did my research and then I went to the manager and I said, “The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against students with disabilities. If you don’t provide access to the menu I’m taking legal action.” I had no idea how to do that; I was 19, I couldn’t afford a lawyer. Now I know there are non-profit legal centers that will support students with disabilities, but back then I didn’t know that. All I knew was I had to try, I had to do something. The next day the manager apologized and promised to make the menus accessible. They started emailing the menus. I could read the emails on my accessible computer, I could use my white cane to navigate the cafeteria and go straight to the station serving vegetarian food. Life became delicious.

The next year a new blind student came to the college and he had immediate access to the menus. It taught me when I advocate it helps all the people who’d come after me. There are many small-small barriers that we put up with every day as women, Black people, people of color, disabled people, and sometimes we tell ourselves, “Oh, it’s just a small thing. There are bigger things to worry about.” If you take the time to address a small barrier you build up the scales to tackle the larger obstacles.

So from that small barrier of dealing with the cafeteria I was moved to become a lawyer and go to law school and become an advocate for disabled people.

Kimberly Drew: I love that, I love that story. I love, you know, life becoming more delicious because it’s-it’s so true. We, I think, especially in the society that we live in, spend so much time trying to make ourselves easier to deal with. We shrink ourselves in what we might need because we don’t want to be inconvenient. Um, but the thing at the end of the day is that disability justice and disability activism makes it so that no one has to bear that burden alone.

Haben Girma: It’s always a community. There are many, many people who will benefit if you do the work of removing that one barrier. And it-it’s surprising how that happens. At the beginning of my college experience I was just thinking, “Oh, it’s just me. I should just put up with this. I don’t want to inconvenience the cafeteria or inconvenience the college.” But over time I realized what am I paying for, why am I here if not to learn and grow. So I decided to-to take a stand, and it was terrifying and difficult, but over time advocating became easier.

Kimberly Drew: I love that. Um, Christina Mallon who is, uh, one of my favorite people in the fashion world, um, often says that she isn’t -- she identifies as disabled, but she isn’t necessarily disabled as a person, she is really disabled by the world. And I feel like that’s such a good kind of framework for people to better understand this journey that we’re on in that it’s not, you know, a lack or, um, you know, because you’re different. It’s -- no, it’s because this world is set up for one way of living and we have to make these types of changes. And on that note I wonder, especially with your legal background, for anyone who is not familiar with the ADA, if you could talk a bit about its history briefly, um, especially because this year marks the 30th anniversary.

Haben Girma: I also want to get back to the definition of the word disabled. There are a lot of disabled people who are not comfortable with the word. It carries a lot of stigma, and there are all these assumptions that disabled people are incompetent, not capable, so many nots, a long list of negative things. But as your friend pointed out, uh, I’m-I’m not even remembering if you said it was a friend or someone you admired in the fashion world.

Kimberly Drew: Both. Friendly, both I hope.

Haben Girma: What was her name again?

Kimberly Drew: Christina Mallon. She works on a project, um, along with Grace Jun called Open Style Lab.

Haben Girma: Christina?

Kimberly Drew: Mallon, M-A-L-L-O-N.

Haben Girma: So, as Christina highlighted, the biggest barrier is usually the environment and society. So when I’m at home I’m not disabled. When I’m dancing salsa and swing and waltz I’m not disabled. I’m disabled, I’m deafblind when I’m in environments and situations that are not inclusive, when I’m in cafeterias and restaurants that won’t provide accessible menus, or I’m at workplaces where employers assume I’m incompetent and dismiss me and don’t give me an opportunity to prove my talents. So the biggest barrier is really societal. These barriers that come up, not the body, and advocates have argued this for a long time, and that’s what sparked the creation of a civil rights law to give disabled people equal status to non-disabled people. We were tired of being second-class citizens and we wanted a law that would help affirm our right to go to school and get jobs and be treated as equals.

Thirty years ago the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. We’ve had a lot of progress since then. There’s still a lot of barriers, there’s still a lot of work to do.

Kimberly Drew: Absolutely. I mean, even today with the Supreme Court ruling, um, on, uh, what is it, ah, the curbside voting in Alabama, um, wherein they decided to completely eliminate curbside voting even though it so would help the elderly and disabled to be able to vote -- it would help everyone really, I mean let’s just be honest. Um, but it specifically really limits the ability of those who are more at risk, especially for COVID in this time, to be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Um, one of the things that I find most interesting in the conversation around voting is that oftentimes people, um, there’s a lot of guilt and shame associated and not nearly enough conversation about the suppression of voting. And I wonder for you, especially since voting is the topic on so many Americans' minds right now, if you could talk about the relationship between disability justice and voting, either from your personal experience or some of the things that you’ve observed in your work.

Haben Girma: What is the guilt and shame you speak of? I don’t feel guilt and shame when I vote, so, I’m-I’m curious about this.

Kimberly Drew: Yeah, it’s a great question. I-I see on my kind of social media feeds, a lot of, our ancestors died for the vote, you have to get out, get out and vote, stand up, make your voice heard, all this language that I immediately read as very ableist because it's more about individual choices and not really focusing on the broader issues that prohibit those who are unable to vote to actually go out. You know, there are so many, especially in the last election there were so many votes that weren’t cast or weren’t counted because of the limited amount of access to voting. And so I-I ask because I-I was curious if that was an observation that you also shared or if, you know, just -- because I think there is not enough conversation about the relationship between disability justice and voting or at least that I’ve observed.

Haben Girma: There are a lot of people who would like to vote, but can’t due to access issues, maybe it’s ‘coz they’re at-risk of-of the virus and-and medical discrimination, maybe it's physical access barriers. A vast majority of voting places are not physically accessible for people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices. Then there are accessible polling machines, but they’re broken or the staff don’t know how to use them properly, so there are many access barriers. That’s work that needs to be done. Those barriers need to be removed. Everyone should have the right to vote.

Kimberly Drew: Absolutely. Um, in light of this summer’s uprising, um, and the resurgence and, um, I guess a louder echoing of conversations related to the Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve seen a lot more visibility in general, and new and exciting ways, um, around disability justice. And of course Alice Wong just released the anthology on disability justice, and I wonder for you as someone who is, someone who I’ve learned from over the years, and I know many people look to, um, what are some ways that people can begin their journey to learn more about disability justice?

Haben Girma: You can learn more about disability justice by following and reading and listening to the work of disability justice leaders. You mentioned Alice Wong. She is a great leader to follow. There are many, many others. When talking about police violence and disability justice, the first thing that comes to mind is Talila Lewis and HEARD, which is an organization based out of DC advocating on behalf of deaf and deafblind and deaf disabled communities.

About half of those killed by police are disabled people, and many of them are Black and Brown disabled people. So disability justice, racial justice are very closely connected, and it’s my hope that more people who work in racial justice will also become more aware of ableism. Ableism is the widespread assumption that disable people are incompetent. We’re not, we have many talents, but there are so many assumptions. When police officers walk into situations they usually assume the people are non-disabled. So if a person doesn’t immediately respond to a spoken command or a visual command, the officer assumes it's non-compliance rather than thinking this person might be deaf or this person might be blind, and-and that -- that leads to a lot of death. So it’s really important for these conversations on disability justice and ableism and racial justice to-to happen more often so more people are aware.

Kimberly Drew: Absolutely. On a lighter note, um, speaking of talents and interests and the incredible abundance of life, um, I was watching a couple of your interviews and, um, I noticed that you have such an incredible sense of humor, and I wonder if you could talk about some of your favorite bits of culture to take in. Um, how, I mean I guess also, and then more broadly, like, how have you been spending your time in COVID, um, I know so many of us have been reading or binging shows, um, I just wonder what your-your cultural appetite looks like right now?

Haben Girma: You know, accessibility comes into that conversation too. There’s a lot of culture that’s not accessible, and that means I can’t really participate in those conversations. For example, Tiger King did not have a transcript and I couldn’t watch it, maybe that’s a good thing, that’s probably a good thing, that would probably have been a total waste of time. But that’s an example of how a lot of these big cultural things that people are talking about are not accessible to-to many disabled people. And what I find myself gravitating to most is books. For me words are really central to-to my life, to conversations, to communication. Braille has been my gateway to information ever since I was a little kid, and the existence of Braille computers and more accessible digital content has-has been really important to me. So I mostly read books and then if TV shows or films come with transcripts, then I could access them and participate in those conversations.

Kimberly Drew: Thank you for that clarification. I-I agree. I-I skipped Tiger King and I think that we are both better for having missed out on it. Um, I also saw that you had made commentary about the Deaf U show that came out on Netflix and I wonder if you could talk, if you’re interested in it of course, um, if you’re interested in talking more about Deaf U because between the show and then also just the history of Gallaudet, in that some of their exclusionary practices, um, I’ve seen that you put out a few articles and, um, posted on social media about it.

Haben Girma: Deaf U is a TV show, a docusoap is what they call it, about deaf students at Gallaudet, a deaf university in Washington DC. Washington DC is very diverse and has lots of Black people. Gallaudet is diverse and has lots of Black people, but on this show there were no deaf -- there were no deaf Black women. It was zero deaf Black women featured on the show, and that’s shocking to me. There are also many deafblind individuals at Gallaudet University. About 40% of deaf kids have additional disabilities, that could be mobility, it could be invisible, but about 40% of the deaf population has an additional disability, but that doesn’t really get represented on the show either. So a lot of people are praising Deaf U for being inclusive and diverse. From my perspective it’s not really diverse. It just shows a tiny piece of the deaf community.

Kimberly Drew: Yeah. It’s so important for us to continue to hold all of these spaces accountable, because we just simply can’t settle for less. Um, we spoke about Alice briefly, but I wonder if there were any other folks who you’d like to shout out that people should either follow on social media or get their books or engage with their voice and activism.

Haben Girma: You know, I read so much I don’t always know how to pronounce names. So I could send you a list and maybe you can post it with the episode.

Kimberly Drew: That sounds great. We can do like show notes, um, okay. And so my last question, thank you so -- first of all thank you so much. You are such an icon and I’m so glad to have you in this conversation. Um, but for my final question, I know that you are widely known as an adventurer surfing, salsa dancing, maybe slaying tigers, um, I wonder for you, just to leave this on a -- on a sweet little note, what are you looking forward to adventure-wise, um, once we’re able to travel again safely?

Haben Girma: I wanna point out that because our culture rarely sees Black women surfing, it seems like such a big deal that I surf. I think it would not be a big deal that I surfed if we had more images of Black women surfing and disabled people salsa dancing and surfing. So that’s just something I wanted to put out there. I love connecting with people, and that’s what I miss the most right now. I’m looking forward to continuing to dance. When I traveled I always tried to go dancing wherever I’ve traveled, so even when I went to India I was salsa dancing in India, and I went salsa dancing in Dubai. I was surprised that they had that, but they did. So I-I look forward to going back to dancing once the pandemic is over.

Kimberly Drew: I love it. Well, I hope to see you on a dance floor sometime very soon, and I will only say I have tried surfing and it is very hard, and so I say that with all due props because getting up on the board is an experience, um, but, yes, that is a very good point. We do need more images of Black women doing everything because we can do anything.

Haben Girma: Kimberly, I’ll give you surfing lessons.

Kimberly Drew: Yes, I would love that. I’m like a little afraid of the ocean in general, but I-I’d surf for you. I think we can get there. Um, I know that you’re also a Leo and I feel like the Leo spirit is trying things that scare you, so I’m-I’m-I’m game.

Haben Girma: Yeah. We grow when we try things that scare us. Fear is an internal message that here’s an area where we have so much potential.

Kimberly Drew: I love that. That’s the perfect note to end on. Thank you so much Haben.