KPFA - Pushing Limits

Vilissa Thompson of Ramp Your Voice joins us to talk about the twitter storm she raised with her hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite. Many people of color with disabilities tweeted about the barriers they find in the movement. White people joined the conversation too.

Is the Disability Movement Too White? And, more importantly, if it is, what can be done about it?

We’ve got a few other topics today as well:

–The current boycott of the movie “Me Before You” which hits more theaters this weekend,

–A recent release of the 2015 Best and Worst Cities for People with Disabilities. Where do you think your city should rank on this list?  Among the best?  Among the worst?

Eddie Ytuarte and Adrienne Lauby host.

The post #DisabilityTooWhite – Call In appeared first on KPFA.

We’re high on poetry this week… stories of disabled people told to the beat of the heart.

And, we’re focusing on black and brown people with disabilities because we’re hosting Leroy F. Moore Jr., and his new book, Black Kripple Delivers Poetry and Lyrics.  Listen in as we follow the founder of Krip Hop Nation into a discussion of history, police brutality and the life of a black activist with a disability.

Leroy Moore is the co-founder of Sins Invalid, a disability performance project, he writes the “illin n chillin” column at Poor Magazine, and he’s put out two poetry cds.

Here’s just a few of his other projects:

While we are in the studio with you, Leroy will be out on the streets leading the Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Redistribution, Decolonization & Community Reparations Tour in Oakland, California.

“As we humbly and peacefully walk into “wealthy” neighborhoods across the “U.S.”, we will be offering land and stolen resource hoarders a chance to begin the very serious work of Decolonization by redistributing one or more of their hoarded and bordered stolen indigenous territory, buildings, homes, stocks, bonds, cash or trust funds to landless and indigenous people in the form of what we call community reparations.”

In early June you can find Leroy Moore in L.A. for the opening of Lynn Manning’s play, IT’S A KRIP HOP NATION (where are my crippled homies at!)  Playing June 3, 4, 10 and 11, at the Rosenthal Theater in L.A.

Late this year, Leroy Moore will be touring South Africa with Simon Manda Editor and Co-Founder of THISABILITY Newspaper.

“November 2016 to December 2016, Disability Month in South Africa, Krip Hop will traveling to the major cities of South Africa to film, record and write on the voices to give a multimedia reflection of what the situation is on the ground as well as engage stakeholders on the needs of persons with disabilities in the creative space.”

The post Black Kripple Delivers Poetry and Lyrics: Leroy F. Moore appeared first on KPFA.

We all know what someone who lives with an eating disorder looks like:  Young, white and skinny!  Right?  But. . . hold on just a minute.

In actuality, research says that black girls between 11-14 may have a higher rate of eating disorder behavior than their white counterparts, especially when it comes to binge eating. The National Eating Disorders Association quotes a study that found that Hispanic and Asian girls in the 6th and 7th grade were more dissatisfied with their bodies than white girls their age. And, one study of Native American teenagers found that between 20 and 30 percent of the girls and the boys were purging.

Yes, boys and men live with eating disabilities too.  Adult and aging women are almost never in the studies so we don’t know how many are also living with these disabilities.   We do know that 50% of adult women have engaged in weight control that either causes or may cause disease.  And, that studies have found the same level of dieting and disordered eating in both young and old.

All these people, who don’t fit our stereotypes of people with eating disabilities, are under-represented in the research so we really don’t know how widespread anorexia, bulimia, food addiction and other chronic eating disabilities are.

Today we spend the program talking with Parinda Wanitwat, a 24 year old woman from Thailand who lives with bulima, a condition she has learned to control enough to call it Food Addiction.  She describes how she slowly accepted that she had a problem and how she has constructed her life to keep herself healthy.

Untreated eating disabilities are dangerous.  They can kill you.  If you are struggling with unhealthy eating, if you feel ashamed and out of control, you are not alone.  Many others who share your gender, ethnicity, age and other characteristics are walking this road right now.   You can have a better life.

Here’s a few places to begin:

National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA)

Overeaters Anonymous

The post Parinda Wanitwat: Living with Food Addiction appeared first on KPFA.

Catherine Kudlick visits Pushing Limits to discuss “Telethons,” a book by the late Paul K. Longmore. There have been several disability-related, day long fund-raisng extravaganzas in the latter part of the 2oth century; but these faded away from the pop philanthropy/pop culture scene, to the relief to some and the disappointment of others.

What was the essence of these telethons? What was their message?  And, why was there such strong opposition to them, especially the one sponsored by the Muscular Dystrophy Association?

Catherine Kudlick, editor of “Telethons,” will talk with host Eddie Ytuarte about some of the main characteristics of telethons and how disability activists confronted these widely-seen television events. Kudlick succeeded Longmore as director of the Paul K. Longmore Institute, based at San Francisco State University

Listeners can get a sense of these telethons from the many examples on You Tube.  Most of these edited or selected examples are presented in a favorable light.

The post “Telethons” with Catherine Kudlick appeared first on KPFA.

Bored with the election talk?  Here’s a discussion you won’t hear on pop news media outlets or NPR.

Edie Hallberg from the Peace and Freedom Party and Laura Wells from the Green Party join us to talk about disability election issues.

Given the extreme absence of discussion of these issues in the Republican and Democratic election bru-ha-ha, should people with disabilities vote a third party ticket?

Pushing Limits host, Eddie Ytuarte, asks this question and leads us into a thought- provoking discussion.

The program includes Josh Elwood, who lives with a developmental disability, talking about why he votes and how he sees the election.

Laura Wells is a blogger, and a former Green Party candidate for California Governor and State Controller, advocating for a State Bank, reforming Prop 13, and taxing the rich.  She is an organizer with the No corporate Money Campaign, and resides in Oakland.

Edie Hallberg is a disabled senior who is active in the Peace and Freedom Party and the Grey Panthers.

The post Elections and Disability from a Third Party Point of View appeared first on KPFA.

[Transcript]

Attorney Haben Girma works to increase access to technology for people with disabilities. She helped achieve victory in National Federation of the Blind v. Scribd, one of only two decisions to hold that the ADA applies to virtual businesses. In 2013, she came to Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) as a Skadden Fellow. In 2015, she became a DRA staff attorney.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Haben Girma has given a Ted Talk, (Transcript) introduced President Obama and Joe Biden at the White House 25th Anniversary celebration of the ADA., (video collage with Pres. Obama and Disability Visibility founder, Alice Wong)  …and, talked with Pushing Limits host, Sheela Gunn-Cushman.

Their conversation ranges from the need for accessibility in technology to the best way to flavor drinking water. Meet Haben Girma. Read her her ADA story here.

Produced and hosted by Sheela Gunn-Cushman with editing assistance from Adrienne Lauby.

The post Blind Woman with One Working Hand Interviews DeafBlind Lawyer (wink) appeared first on KPFA.

Corbett Joan O’Toole’s new memoir, Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History, is arguably the best history to come out of the Disability Rights Movement of the past four decades. She joins us in the studio for a lively discussion.

We are offering copies of Fading Scars as a thank you gift for your $60. membership in KPFA.   Call (510) 848-5732 or toll free at 800-439-5732.

Arriving in Berkeley among the first wave of people with disabilities, Corbett O’Toole experienced the creation of the west coast Independent Living Movement first hand.  In this book, she brings those early days to life.

And, that’s just the beginning.  With O’Toole’s signature intelligence and humor, she takes on the major issues of our disabled lives.  From violence to crip dancing, her analysis is often surprising and always illuminating.

Published by Autonomous Press, a new press devoted to disability, O’Toole’s book establishes the life-saving necessity for the disability rights movement as it points out the many places we have yet to go. Today, we speak with her about the current landscape and the path we seek to our full membership in society.

Find out more about Corbett O’Toole here.

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