Challenging Stereotypes and Cultivating Empathy in Disability Conversations

When Jamie Shields joined us from Northern Ireland, little did we know just how much his journey through the labyrinth of disability rights would both educate and inspire us. His personal transformation from battling disability to leading global advocacy efforts, and co-founding Unlearning Ableism, sets the stage for a profound discussion on the intricacies of ableism and the silent barriers it creates. Jamie's story is one of triumph and tenacity, and it lays bare the impact of ableism on mental health and social inclusion, revealing why our understanding of this issue needs to evolve.

The word 'ableism' might seem straightforward, but as Jamie eloquently uncovers, the layers are many and the implications far-reaching. This dialogue takes you through the complexities of a world where pity and stereotypes have constructed systemic barriers, often invisible to the unaffected eye. We tackle the sensitive subject of ableism as a global issue, where language and cultural nuances can lead to misunderstandings, and emphasize the power of patience and the critical role of intent to navigate these waters. It's an eye-opening revelation about the psychological toll of ableism on individuals and the collective responsibility to unlearn and address these behaviors.

Communication, the cornerstone of advocacy, is a delicate dance, especially within the disability community. Through personal anecdotes, Jamie and I contemplate the fear that often accompanies the potential for misspeaking and the resulting stilted progress in diversity and inclusion efforts. We underscore the significance of empathetic communication, the readiness to ask questions, and the importance of focusing on actions and intentions over words. By bridging the gap with education about ableism and the social model of disability, we aim to foster a more inclusive environment, encouraging listeners to join the conversation and contribute to dismantling ableism in all its forms.

Transcript

0:00

AXSCHAT Jamie Shields

NEIL: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Axschat. I'm delighted that we are joined today by Jamie Shields, who is trainer, advocate, speaker, on social media other places and ambassador for Billion Strong as well. So welcome, Jamie.

JAMIE: 0:14

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, Twin.

NEIL: 0:18

Thank you for joining us today.

JAMIE: 0:19

Thank you so much.

NEIL: 0:20

Debra obviously didn't get the memo. But let's strap in. It's going to be a fast ride through, you know a number of topics. So Jamie, tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be in this space, advocating for all of the things that you do?

JAMIE: 0:37

Yes, so I am from Northern Ireland. Hence the really strong messed up accent. I am registered blind and autistic, I'm ADHD, I collect disabilities like Pokémon cards. Apparently, the older I get, the more I acquire. But I have struggled most of my life because of inaccessibility, because of the ableism, because of not accepting who I was, I hated being disabled. And fast forward to like five years ago, I landed a job, in recruitment after struggling to gain and retain employment. I then was promoted quite quickly and became their accessibility and kind of their advisor, the tester in all things to do with using a screen reader and things like that and became a global ERG lead, won lots of awards, don't know how. Helped the company became a lot more inclusive than they were. And then, I kind of, in corporate, I loved working in corporate because I had that itch, because we know there's a particular time in corporate to get things to get done. So I started a side hustle which was, Disabled by Society, because that was exactly what I was all my life and then if that wasn't enough, I was like, let's just through another thing in there and I also co-founded Unlearning Ableism, which is a kind of social movement along with a lady called Celia Ars, She just got married.

NEIL: 2:00

Excellent. And I've often come across your content in LinkedIn and you know, it's really graphical and makes people stop and think. You used a word there that a lot of people are uncomfortable with and that's the ableism word; right? And I think that there is a lot to unpack in the word Ableism and before we came on air, for example, Debra was talking about it and saying, it's a word we use it. The community use it. It is a word. So Oxford English dictionary, ableism is there. What it says is you know, and this is the best bit, is ableist in its language of how it describes ableism because it talks about able bodied people and actually, if you think about how we want to conceptualise you know, social or models of disability or you know, the bio psycho social model of disability, you don't talk about able bodied people verses disabled people, you talk about people who don't have disabilities or whatever. So it's really interesting that we are using a word that is built upon ableism in itself. So language is complex.

JAMIE: 3:31

And the definition is so wrong as well. Every decade you go through in effect, the less favourable treatment of disabled people is like, it's like everything in disability, we have such sugar-coated soft language around it. If you hear racism, you're like, I know what that is, if you get sexism, you know what it is. You hear ableism, it's like, what is that? So it's like, we don't have that same reaction, because it's not defined strongly enough.

DEBRA: 3:55

Yes, yes.

NEIL: 3:56

I mean, I think that's it and people are like, what is this? Oh I don't like this, or you know, we see a lot of metaphor as well.

JAMIE: 4:06

Mm hmm.

NEIL: 4:07

You know, when someone deploys the metaphor you know, you know that they have got a level of discomfort with the word disability. So obviously you're out there, you're talking, discussing stuff on social media, what do you find in terms of the reactions to the stuff you post? Is it positive? Do you get push back?

JAMIE: 4:37

It's a bit of everything, so it does. Like there will be people who will argue back because, you're so woke, you're so sensitive and I'm like, let's call it about the fact that you want to call me because I'm talking about something that makes you uncomfortable. You do that. But for me I find that when we don't talk about something that's uncomfortable it gets buried and then it becomes a big, massive dramatic thing. Whereas I have always, not always but after years of struggling with disability, I tend to say actually, talk about this uncomfortable stuff and getting comfortable doing that is actually so beneficial because from that we're able to ask those questions that we are afraid to ask. So I think for me, in terms of the community, the disabled people, neurodiverse people, the response has been incredible, you know, people messaging me saying, I feel validated. You know, I didn't know what the term ableism was until you start speaking about this and it's oh my goodness, if I would have done this ten years ago the impact it would have had on me as a person would have been phenomenal. I can see it now happening for others and I'm like these are conversations that we need to have. And of course then from our nondisabled peers, sometimes as I said, you get called woke, you get called sensitive you get called angry or just another angry person. But they're all ableist narratives because you don't understand what ableism is. As much as I get the push back from it, it kind of motivates me because you're just like, you just left something ableist my post. I'm going to go and do another post and teach others why that was ableist. So it's a cycle. It's a joy. It's fun. It's educational. But for me, it's that impact, when that person reaches out and says I now know what I think this is, thank you. I have connected to somebody in a way that I wish I would have had years ago.

DEBRA: 6:14

Yes. And I want to say welcome to the programme, Jamie. I am a big fan. I love your work. You know I love your work because actually I found it very interesting that one day I did a little tiny post that was just quoting something you said, I could not believe what happened to that post. Most of my posts which I think is really good get about 3,000, 4,000. This got over 96,000, just this one little post that I did of something you said. It was so interesting, the conversations and, I will be honest with you, I've been trying really hard to be the nice girl for years. I was just trying to be nice, be nice with sugar, be nice with honey, blah, blah, blah. But then I started seeing your work and other people's work and when you sort of get under somebody's skin or say something to them that annoys them and they come back and it produces, it can if we allow it, really, really powerful conversations. And so I was shocked that every time I talk about ableism, my channel explodes. It just explodes. And with a mostly 99% of it is very positive. But then I do have some in there that want to argue with it, and I find what is interesting to me is that often they want to attack the corporations in a way, to explain their point of why I don't understand ableism or why blah, blah, blah. And so, I do know Jamie that this makes corporate employers nervous, these words.

JAMIE: 8:02

Yes.

DEBRA: 8:03

Especially here in the United States. I mean it really freaks people out and also I think people are a little bit still confused by the meaning it of it because ableism, does that mean okay, it's just interesting to watch people try to unpack it and I just wanted to thank you for just boldly, bravely just jumping in there. And also, I want to thank you for also talking about your other identities because the intersectionality of diversity and these conversations, it is so powerful. Like you said, when we are talking about you know gender issues or race issues, a lot of times we pretty much talk understand about what you're saying, but you start talking about this and people do not understand. They get confused.

JAMIE: 8:54

A 100%. I can't believe I am talking to you, Debra because I followed you for so long and you're like an idol to me. But for me, I don't want to sound selfish but I didn't talk about my disability for years and I got my job five years ago in recruitment, that's when I learned to articulate and when I actually started almost changing the narrative I had about myself and it was because of people like yourselves who would change the conversations who were changing the conversations about disability and for me it was like, I feel like mermaid. Somebody gave me my voice because I had lost my voice, and somebody gave me it back and now you can't shut me up. So I think for me it's like, I am making up for so much lost time now and I am trying to keep up with everybody else but ableism, we had such a fear of it because we are not educated, we just don't know what it is and we always fear the unknown, don't we?

DEBRA: 9:42

Yes. And Jamie what would you define ableism as. I know that Neil already talked a little bit about the real definition, but I would love that and then let me pass it over to Antonio, so I don't go on and on too much.

JAMIE: 9:57

Perfect. Well, with ableism, I will say one day, I will be contacting the dictionary to change that definition because it needs to be brought into the 21st century. So short term regarding ableism, it's been around since the 1970s. It was coined back then. It kind of disappeared. We spoke on this Podcast, the reason why people took it for granted. But for me ableism is not a one set thing. You can't define it as it's this or that. It's individuals, so each individual experiences it differently. But that ableism is in behaviours, it's learned behaviours, it's pitying disable people. It's putting us on pedestals because we did something amazing, like tying our shoelace. It's lays laziness. Accessibility is ableist because it's already treating a disabled person differently. It's already splitting from the offset. So it's behaviour. It's inaccessibility. It's bias, it's stereotypes, it's discrimination. It is a collective group of experiences and things that have become socially acceptable, and I think this is the problem. You know, when we talk about racism, which we talked about earlier. We know that's a cycle of oppression that exists within society. So ableism is a cycle of oppression that exists in society, against disabled people. And nondisabled people don't realise because they are not educated in school. We are not educated in school. And what happens as a result of is that ableism, yes, we get excluded and discriminated but equally, disabled people then have to manage the psychological impact of that, what comes through as internalised ableism, where we don't advocate, or we don't ask for adjustments. We don't share enough experiences. We become isolated. In my case you know, I was self-harming, I was binge drinking. I was struggling to be a person who functions in society because I couldn't gain or retain employment. So I think that when we talk about ableism, we have to acknowledge, it's not one thing. Everyone explains it so differently because we all have different ways to cope or manage. Our mental health is so diversely our own mental health. So it impacts us. So to have a conversation about ableism is if you don't understand anything about it is, accept that even with the best intent, you probably have been ableist at some point in your life. It's the unlearning and taking that accountability is how we see that societal shift. I hope that was okay. I went into a bit of rabbit hole at that stage.

DEBRA: 12:12

I loved it. Antonio?

ANTONIO: 12:14

So one of the things that I see here is that the word is also used by people who, English is not their first language and sometimes when they search learn online about the definition, they might end up in the wrong definition to search. So they might believe I'm saying this or that with a certain intention and they end up doing something that they were not really, that were not what they planned to do or talk about. So sometimes you can mislead people, who are not, who the language is not English as the first language. And on the other hand, they are translations of the word to other languages, who have different definitions of the English language. So it can be quite difficult to find a tune between different cultures when you talk about ableism, about what we are really talking about because sometimes even if people are all expressing themselves in English, on their own they might be assuming something different. So I think we need to be mindful of that. Particularly when we try to just go after and judge something, someone for something, we need, oh, maybe this someone from India, this is someone from Brazil. You know, we need to have that in mind before just jumping and commenting and doing something.

JAMIE: 13:52

100%. I think that when you are a global citizen, and we are all global citizens in this world. And I think when we look at disability through a global lens, we see so much disparity between each region. There is so much good being done in one reason and you're like, why can't you do that where I live. There is so much work being done. But technically around the language itself eventually. In the UK we wouldn't use the word and I am sorry if anyone doesn't like the word, we don't use the word handicapped, but in other parts of the world, they still use that language and they find it rather empowering. And if we look at it through that lens, I would say is, things get lost in translation all of the time and it's about that intent. I say this to everybody. Whether somebody is maliciously, you know when someone is being malicious to you, you can feel that intent. So you know when somebody has said the wrong thing or acted the wrong way, don't automatically go in on the attack. See it as a moment to educate. Because again, if you're a disabled person and you didn't know what ableism was until later in life or at some point in your life you had to learn, how do we expect a nondisabled person to know it and more importantly, how do we expect somebody who, English not their first language, to know the origins or meanings of this word, if it does get lost in translation, you know we are expecting everybody to know what ableist is. So I think that we as a community need to get better, not just becoming better global citizens, but equally have a more collective response to understanding, do you know what, yes, it is kind of, I was going to say a bad word there, it's kind of crappy sometimes that we don't get the support we don't get the acknowledgement. But do you know what, it's not everyone's intent to hurt us, people just don't know because they aren't aware.

NEIL: 15:28

I think Debra, you had a comment, but I've just got one little thing I want to get in while I don't forget.

DEBRA: 15:34

Well, why don't you go and then I'll go.

NEIL: 15:37

So you're talking about the word handicapped and I remember a thing we did years ago with one of our guests and he said and he's in the States and he said, actually I quite like it. I like the golf analogy, you know. Everybody can play golf at different skill levels on the same course and your handicap enables you to play with people on those levels. It just acknowledges the fact that some people are you know are able to do different things. And I thought that was a really interesting way of reframing it. And the other thing is yes, you're right, if the word is used, you know particularly in France, where I've just spent the last few days and came here from work today, but what is interesting is the each with the use of that word, there is a reframing of it. So instead of saying, you know handicapped person, they are talking about persons on situation handicap. So even there, there is a reframing. And so language is evolving all of the time. Yes, I sort of see it written and have been conditioned, being in the UK, to think, handicap is a bad word and I think that yes, we have to open eyes up. And one last thing, our friend Bianca Prince, said she really dislike the term persons of determination, which, yes, we are all squirming here.

DEBRA: 17:22

Well.

NEIL: 17:23

But if you're in the Middle East, it's viewed very positively by the community of disabled people.

DEBRA: 17:33

By the community, right.

NEIL: 17:35

Or they actually prefer persons of determination. And so, yes, it really is those cultural differences and being aware of them and not having a sense of cultural imperialism, UK, USA, in terms of imposing our norms on others. I think is really important. And we need to understand that. And sorry, Debra, I did totally ride across you.

DEBRA: 18:01

No, no. Well, but I agree and it's interesting because it just happened to me on one of my posts, Nabil, who has done so much work in our field and he does our newsletter and so, what he does in the newsletter, he'll also do the little introduction of the newsletter for me and you know. And so he was using the word, he used the term, the autistics. Okay, now, the autistics is definitely not a word I would use. I would be afraid to use the autistics, but it is actually considered in the Arabic language, it is not a negative term. But my audience, I said, one girl I think Cathy Bowers, I've actually talked to her about it. She put, really, Debra? Come on. And so, I saw that, I actually saw her note before I realised that I had said the autistics. And so, I looked at it and my first impulse, being in the United States was to correct it and to go into his work and to correct it. And then I was like, what are you doing, Debra? His voice matters. Even if he's in the Middle East, his voice matters as much as your American. So I am like yelling, I do this stuff sometimes to myself. So then, I thought all right, what we are going to have to do, we got to talk about it. We got to talk about it and so, because I don't want to disappoint the audience because this audience is my community, I love them. But at the same time we have to be strong enough to be able to have these conversations and people of determination, that's a perfect example because I know so, and I don't want to speak for the UAE but I've talked to them a lot and what they have said this was a terminology they came up with but to be fair, remember they, there are some big‘theys,’ we are talking about here, in all countries. So they also were moving forward to bringing the Special Olympics to the UAE at that time. They were going to do a big event. So most of the community they were making those decisions were actually community members that had intellectual disabilities, like my daughter with Down Syndrome. Whether or not, the people that were blind, the people that were, the other neurodiverse people, people that are deaf, all got together and say, no, here in the UAE, let's use this word. So that's also to me interesting because we'll say, well they chose to use it. But who is they? So I still think we have to have these really dig into conversations. What does it mean? How dare you but at the same time we got to be kind as we are walking this. Because they have the right to use language that works for their own language. Like, and I say one more thing, James, one time Antonio says to me, totally unfair Antonio, okay, you're right, darn it. He said to me, I notice Debra everything, that some of the brands like Twitter, it's all based around the US, even though they are supposed to be global, all US/US and then Twitter, Elon Musk came in and started stomping all over Twitter, X whatever and I saw it play out in a way that I had never seen. And I was sort of shocked and Antonio was like, I have been telling you this Debra. But he's right. But so much of it is favouritism towards English speaking, your first language, English speaking. And then once again, as I'm throwing this all at you is identity matters, once again talking about the other intersectionality’s too. What if you identify as a man with disabilities and then a man is part of the LGBTQIA? How does that change your language. So just throwing complications at these topics. But this is what we're all dealing with.

MS O'NEILL: 22:18

100% and I think you can't have these conversations without having a conversation around intersectionality, because it does, it impacts on how you identify. Particularly around words around like queer and things like that, I would have heard those as a young person. And I'd be like, oh my God, don't call me that. When I was younger and I was like, don't say the word disabled, because it's terrible. I have now rephrased the word and I will use the word queer and I will use the word disabled because again, it's not a bad word and it's about the context. It's how we it's learned around this. You hear people say, you should not say that, and I'm not going to say that. But we also have lateral ableism, or I prefer to call protracted ableism where disabled people are telling disabled people well, you should not say this, and you should not say that, but we don't think of the context. And I think this is why we see so much reluctance at times, in this space and companies because they are like, well this does not seem right. This seems like, if you can't get together and form an opinion, we are just going to come in and trample all over it and you're going to eat us up and spit them out online. I always love what Meryl Adams said, it's that progress over perfectionism. We have to look at the progress as yes, it's not perfect right now but are we ever going to get to a perfect place because with accessibility or inclusion is about continuous improvement. It is not about the end goal. It's about, how do we get to a point where everyone is included but how do we continuously improve in that. So, it's continuous improvement I think and always I think understanding with empathy and leading with empathy because a pure disabled person being told by another, a person with a disability, a person of determination, whatever they are using and this is the angle you're taking to go at somebody else who has their own lived experience and like, do we not have better things to be abdicating for without ripping each other apart for a choice of language.

NEIL: 24:02

Yes.

DEBRA: 24:03

So true.

NEIL: 24:04

100%. I mean I spent quite some time doing similar things to you, in terms of posting, you know, doing posts that would hopefully make people stop and think. And one of the most popular ones that I had was one that actually said you know worry less about the language people use and more about their actions. We should be judging people on their actions and their attitudes because and on their intent because as you say, you can feel the intent. Even if people using words that you're not necessarily comfortable with. If they are doing it in a well-meaning way. We should not go in there and bludgeoning them. Just because they have inadvertently used a word you don't like but that might be socially acceptable in the social context that they use.

DEBRA: 25:03

Yes, I love to throw something at you, Jamie in that, I talked about this On Air before, apologies for repeating my stories, one time I did a post, because here in the Virginia where I live, our governor had done a new legislation that said that employers were not allowed to discriminate against women's hairstyles and I believe it specifically said, I think it referred to black women. I forget how they said it, but you're not allowed to discriminate against a woman because of her hairstyle and I remember thinking what? Wait, are we discriminating against I mean I was surprised and so I said something, I posted it and I said, I'm surprised at the way we find, to the creative ways that we discriminate against each other. I was just really and this black woman in the United States attacked me and she said, well that's because you just didn't if you had taken the time and she went after me and I remember being discouraged that she did that but more than anything, I hated it because we had started to have this conversation, multiple people were engaging, she came in and said that and it stopped. Everybody stopped talking and that to me I thought was sad. Because even if you don't like what somebody says, can we have a conversation so we all can learn from it. And that is one I always admired about the work that you are doing, Jamie because I can say something that you disagree with but instead of like, chopping me up into little pieces and throwing me away, maybe there's an opportunity to learn from each other here because these, once again, these bad corporate brands are actually really trying to include us. They are trying to be accessible. They are trying. But I also understand people get sick of waiting. But I just wanted. How do we make sure we don't stop the conversation dead in its tracks, and we still can be able to have some conversations about this to learn from each other.

JAMIE: 27:14

So, I tagged into one of the biggest worries, at the moment, in this space because I think the DI spaces or EDI or JEDI, is my personal favourite because Star Wars because whatever you're calling the space, we know that disability is part of the conversation, but it's only now started to be actually included. We have only seen it in the last few years we've seen it actually brought to the table. Accessibility is not an add on. It's actually stuff that helps disabled people. So we are seeing that shift. But also we are seeing the shift towards DEI must die and it was actually Elon Musk who did the post about it, the Tweet about it and seeing the post, it's because of people's reactions, it's because that people take to the point where, if you say the wrong thing, people are afraid to say the wrong thing. They don't want to get involved. They don't want to support these initiatives. Again, it comes back to that intent. Because for me, I had a disagreement with somebody online, but it doesn't mean I am going to hate this person or shun this person, or I am going to shun them or block them. Like I'll only block them if they are personally attacking me, and I am going let's stop this. I got a message there yesterday, for example, and the person was like, we disagreed online, I'd love to get a call and discuss, and I was like, listen, if I had a call with everybody I disagreed with online, I would be getting no work done and I would be still busy. We wouldn't need to because I know your intent was not to have the thing, we are learning from each other. But it was come from that place where people should have empathy at all times because people don't know and I always bring back to basics, if I think about my education, I was never thought about racism. Growing up I was never taught about sexism. I learned about those through societies. I learned those through workplaces, the training we got in workplaces. Ableism, we are still not quite a way there yet because workplaces don't actually get about it or disability training typically comes from that risk factor, oh, if you don't hire them, we are going to get in trouble or if we don't get adjustments, we are going to get in trouble. It's always the risk. Whereas when we look at disability through the ableism lens and educate through that we are really focusing on the person. We are focusing on that social model. I always think that it's actually these barriers and these attitudes that are disabling these people because when we see them back to what we said earlier, as individuals and abilities, we wouldn't be tip toeing around and thinking, we can't do this. So always think about the intent. Think about the intent. If you aren't sure what the person's intent is, ask them. Sorry, this sounds this way to me. Did you mean this way or can you explain this again. Because likelihood is, they don't know this as much as you did at one point and if we are all going to jump at each other for not knowing, we will be very busy.

DEBRA: 29:38

Very busy.

ANTONIO: 29:41

Well, in the kind of a joking a little bit and bringing some humour to this, I think we are all, we all know that in some appliances that we have at home, they have a scale about the energy consumption. Okay? So that just imagine that you would apply that to disability, okay? From A, B, C, D, E. Do you think it would be fair to for us to have conversations on disability with people based on the kind of the scale of their disability as similar to the scale of energy? How energy efficient is an appliance?

JAMIE: 30:36

I would not, I would not do it that way. I know you're joking about it, but I think companies never treat us like a thermostat, please.

NEIL: 30:47

But when you play with a thermostat you get turned on. Sorry.

DEBRA: 30:52

Right.

JAMIE: 30:53

A good one. But I think if we, think about it, this is the thing about disability and I think this is where we are advocates, a lot of advocates don't even know what ableism is. We don't know what the lived experience is. I can't say, I'm expert at disability because I never will be. I am an expert of my experience of what it is like to be registered blind. But I am not an expert of being registered blind because I don't know what every experience of that is and what that feels like. So I always say that disability is diverse, and you know, there's no one size fits all. There is no one appearance and you're going to have so many different answers to you. And trying to work out how to take those answers and correlate it to what you are doing. It is always I always say where your market is. If you're working in the UK, use the language there. If you are working in the US, use the language most frequent to them if you are working in Asia, use that language. If you are an international company, like that is there full time for, you can't have a global disability policy, it doesn't work, you need to have those regional policies which then filter in together to help you get that sense of belonging, that inclusion and stuff like that. But I think it is, we have to until we get the point of disability where we have this global collective kind of understanding. We have to treat it at a regional level, and we can't be treated like a thermostat because not all of us want to be turn on. It's very cold here.

NEIL: 32:09

Okay. Just, before we finish I mean I think there was also some other you know nuances in what Antonio was saying because we all, in certain countries, there are different classifications of severity of disability and is that like, and benefits are attached to it and job prospects and how you're treated by society and employers are all effected by whether or not you're Triple A plus energy efficient or you're down in the red E's of the energy ratings but in all seriousness, it's also somewhat of the hierarchy of different disability types, where some disabilities seem to be treated much more seriously than others. And now a lot of that is down to the fact that some disabilities are pretty obvious, you know. If you're a wheelchair user, it's obvious that you have certain needs. If you're blind to the point where you need a stick to navigate around or a guide dog, it's obvious. People can understand it. But when it's, when you know, maybe you have a vision impairment but you don't need that or glasses, it's hidden, like with many of the neuro divergent conditions and Debra was saying before we came On Air and I've sometimes too, sometimes I don't feel disabled enough. Should I be commenting? Is it valid for me? But actually, yes, our experiences are valid, the barriers are valid, and we should not necessarily face a hierarchy. So I don't know whether you have got one last comment before we close.

JAMIE: 34:03

Yes, and I love that you mentioned that, am I disabled enough? Because I thought I always ask myself, am I disabled enough? I know you can't see me sitting down because my belly is below the camera but I always say to people, I don't use a guide dog, I don't use a cane, I have a partner who is very good at pointing out it's not a path or a person walking towards me, who guides me. But I'm coming towards somebody, if I come towards you and if I am coming towards you and then say, on, I can't see this, can you help me. It can intimidate someone, because the see this big strapping, I don't mean really good looking, but I'm a big guy. Do you know what I mean?

DEBRA: 34:40

A big good-looking guy.

JAMIE: 34:43

I'll take that. And they look at me and they see the disability but what they don't see is actually that everything is around me is like a cloud of fog and I am walking through this cloud of fog, and I am also ADHD and autistic and my brain is going, don't ask this person and my other part of my brain is should we ask this person about their life story, I wonder where they are from, and I am getting all these different things but you don't see that on the surface and we have companies that have tried to help us became more visible about our disabilities, like Lanier’s we wear around our neck or badges and I think, well that's well and good, unless you're registered blind and there's no way of knowing who is disabled. There is no way for us to know. Unless we go up to feel people's lanyards and that's being not felt up. But I think for me, it's very much that is where ableism comes, I think we get so caught up in the language that we don't think about the assumptions and beliefs and you have that internalised ableism, that question of, am I disabled enough. That's internalised ableism, only, as we know, there's no hamper about being disabled and nobody figures this out until later in life and it's actually do you know what, I am disabled enough because my experiences are uniquely to me. As I said, I'm only an expert on my own lived experiences. If you ask another disabled person, they'll have something completely different. That's why I think if we are going to educate about ableism, is, let's learn that disability is diverse. Let's start at lesson one and let's explain what that means.

NEIL: 36:04

Amen to that and I think that's a perfect note to say, thank you to our sponsors Amazon and to My ClearText for keeping us captioned and On Air. So thank you Jamie, we really look forward to you joining us on social media and to continue the conversation.

JAMIE: 36:19

Thanks so much for having me.