A conversation featuring Alice Wong (Disability Visibility) and Sky Cubacub (Rebirth Garments), with Advancing Leadership 2020 Fellow Derrick Dawson (CROAR).

[captions provided by the CART captioner of this live event]

ASL version here: https://youtu.be/ZCd1o8VUpxM

MISSING SECTION (transcript):

DERRICK: I am Derrick Dawson, I am African‑American with a bald head and a short beard. Alice, I want to start right away with you. I happen to have a copy of the book early, so I have been able to read it. I know many of us have not been able to read the book, so I'm going to ask you to start by telling us why you wrote the book, who you wrote the book for, and if you could describe the book a little bit, so those of us who have not read it can understand a little bit about what we're talking about in Disability Visibility.

ALICE: Thank you, Derrick. Hi, everyone. This is Alice. I am an Asian‑American disabled woman. I have short black hair, a dark blue shirt. The background is a dark background and there is a mask over my nose connected to a gray tube over my ventilator. I'm delighted to be with you today, and this is a conversation with my friend Sky, who is a fabulous contributor. And I want to throw a shoutout to the Chicago area. So this is an anthology that I edited. And I wrote the introduction, but really the book is about each individual contributor, an amazing cross‑section of this incredibly rich and diverse disability community. And I really believe that in last 15, 20 years, we've seen a huge growth in work by disabled people, whether it's stories, whether it's artwork, whether it's activism. It's just really picking up in all fields, but at the same time, it's really not enough, and this anthology is basically a snapshot of the here and now. We are only 20 years into this new century. So I really wanted to present a sampling of what I consider important stories and issues that disabled people have. But also it's a chance to look ahead. So a lot of the stories is about really a conversation with the past and the present, but always looking towards the future. And I'm excited about the future, even though these are very—things are very horrible right now here in 2020. But I think we also have to think about what we've achieved and also the potential, and there is so much potential within the disability culture and power and activism.

DERRICK: Thank you, Alice. One of the things that struck me about your book is you have stories and essays from such a wide variety of people with such a varying amount of experiences and I read in your book that you believe that representation is very important. Could talk about why representation is important, and where does representation fall short?

ALICE: It's a very complicated issue because I'm pretty tired of—I think when we have right now are, especially with the mainstream media, and popular culture overall, disabled people are really getting the crumbs, and we're expected to be excited and grateful for these crumbs of representation. We still have a lot of TV shows and films featuring disabled characters, but they're played by non‑disabled people. Many of these shows are written by, directed or produced by non‑disabled people. None of the radio stations have shows produced by disabled people. Cough cough, WBEZ. Also, I think there's a lot to be desired and a lot that's missing, and we deserve as 1 in 4, 1 in 5 on this planet have some sort of disability, and with just the numbers, we are close to parity, and we deserve to be seen. And I think wha needs to be understood is intersectionality. I was born in the mid 70s and I grew up in a virtually isolated existence as a disabled person. And I think that even today, even with the Internet and all these things, there's so many non‑disabled kids that are proud of their identities. There's still a lot of people who don't feel welcomed in the disability community who are disabled. So I think there's a lot of work yet. I think representation is part of that process. It's not the end all, but I think it's part of the process of seeing yourself reflected, and I think it's preceded with so many other communities of color, queer community. There's such a hunger for representation, because that is really a part of the process of being connected and being able to claim all your identities and fully being yourself. And that's like a marathon. It takes time for every person. There is still a typical arch. It's still a process. So I feel like a book like this will hopefully make people feel a sense of joy and comfort and also just learning from other disabled people. They may not have your exact disability, but the experiences of feeling different and be creative and be innovative, because let's face it, in spite of what disability you have, we live in a non‑disabled world and that fact itself is the commonality in how we respond to that. There's such poetic brilliance in that. So that's kind of what I wanted to share.