The Game Plan: A Disability Rights California Podcast

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This time on The Game Plan, it’s a very special voting episode, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections! Eric is joined by Dora Rose, the Deputy Director for the League of Women Voters of California. Dora brings years of advocacy to this conversation, breaking down how California runs elections and what people with disabilities should know before they vote. Dora brings her spunk and deep knowledge to encourage people to make their votes count. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

Links:

• The League of Women Voters

• Vote411

• Undistracted podcast

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

Antoine Hunter is our guest in this episode, who brings Antoine’s passion for dance and D/deaf culture to The Game Plan. For Antoine, dancing isn’t just Antoine’s career, or passion; dance is how Antoine finds a place in the world. Antoine is the founder and artistic director of the Urban Jazz Dance Company and has been a force of creative leadership in the Bay Area for years. We hope you enjoy this special conversation with Antoine, just in time for Deaf Awareness Month!

Links:

• Urban Jazz Dance Company
• Book: White Supremacy Is All Around
• Bay Area Black Deaf Advocates Western Regional Conference

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

Happy 1st anniversary to The Game Plan! In honor of this special occasion, we flipped the script and put our host Eric in the interview seat. He sat down with DRC’s Chief Executive Officer Andy Imparato to talk about his experience as a wheelchair basketball player, his early introduction to the world of politics, and the future of the disability rights movement. Whether you’ve been listening or watching from the start, or this is your first episode, thank you. We’re excited to continue uplifting perspectives in the disability community!

Links:

• BORP Adaptive Sports and Recreation

• Eric Harris’s Instagram

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

This time on The Game Plan, Eric sits down with two distinguished elders in our movement, Tom Olin and Anita Cameron, who detail their lives and activism, especially around the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This July marks 36 years since the ADA passed, so we wanted to look back to push forward. First, Eric speaks with Tom, a photojournalist who documented history, photographing protests like the Capitol Crawl. Then, Eric is joined by Anita Cameron, who participated in the Capitol Crawl and other disability protests with grassroots organization American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT). Tom and Anita have so much disabled wisdom that we’re honored to share.

Content warning: Some explicit language

Links:

• ADAPT

• Tom Olin’s biography

• Anita Cameron’s biography

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

This time on The Game Plan, Eric interviews Brittanie Hernandez-Wilson, a powerful advocate for people with disabilities to live independently and the Lead California Homecare Organizer at Hand in Hand. The two talk about the power of telling your story, which is the focus of her exciting new venture, Our Stories Our Care, a project funded through the 2026 AAPD Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award. She and Eric reflect on disabled wisdom, her path to California, and Brittanie even offers some musical stylings. We’re sure you will be uplifted and enlivened by the great Brittanie Hernandez-Wilson.

Content warning: Some explicit language.

Links:

• Hand in Hand

• AAPD Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award

• BORP

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

In honor of May Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re proud to present Eric’s conversation with Jason Robison, the Director of Advocacy at SHARE!, the Self-Help and Recovery Exchange. SHARE is a very special and impactful peer-run organization in Los Angeles County. Together, the two discuss Jason’s 30-year journey in recovery from drug abuse and mental health, they talk about how the peer-to-peer model is an antidote to shame, and break down how the CARE Act is a step in the wrong direction for California. Jason brings his sage-like energy to everything he does, from mental health and recovery advocacy to gardening, creative writing, and surfing. This episode is one big wave, and we hope you enjoy the ride.

Links:

• SHARE!

• Disability Rights California’s Peer Self Advocacy (PSA) Unit

• Other mental health resources

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

It’s a special election episode on The Game Plan! This time, Eric is joined by Michelle Bishop, the manager for voter access and engagement at the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). The two talk about what California gets right about accessible voting, and how to prepare for our state’s upcoming primary election on June 2nd, 2026. Michelle discusses how the 2020 pandemic election shifted voter accessibility for the better, uplifts the need for people with disabilities be included at the start of any state's election plans, and shares her roots as a “voting nerd.” Get ready for practical voting tips, honest clarity, and good-natured humor.

Links:

• Michelle Bishop’s Biography

• California Primary Election information

• DRC’s voter hotline

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

This time on The Game Plan, Eric is joined by two incredible disability leaders. First, Eric speaks to intrepid self-advocate Lisa Cooley, who discussed her long and rich career advocating on a variety of disability issues and reflects on the role that family plays in her journey. Then, Eric is joined by Marisa Hamamoto - choreographer, advocate, and founder of Infinite Flow Dance. Infinite Flow is a renowned professional dance company with a mission to advance disability inclusion and innovative, disability-led choreography. We’re proud to showcase these conversations with two dynamic leaders in our movement.

Links:

• https://www.infiniteflowdance.org/
• https://thekelsey.org/stories/lisa-cooleys-housing-story/

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

Eric Harris is joined by his old friend Shay Arigbede, filmmaker and former competitive sled hockey player, to talk two big recent cultural events -- the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games and the 98th Annual Academy Awards. The two reminisce about their time as teenagers trying to find a channel that broadcast the Paralympics and reflect on how far the presence of the games has come today. They also discuss the Oscars, looking into some of the biggest wins, coolest allies, and some thoughts on disability representation on screen. It’s a conversation that sits at the cross-section of athletics and art, with disability square at the center.

Links:

· 2026 Paralympic Winter Games

· 2026 Academy Awards

· Paralympic sled hockey team

As a grassroots production, we greatly value your support. Please subscribe, comment, rate, review, and share The Game Plan.

This time on The Game Plan, Eric interviews an old friend-- Emily Ladau, national disability rights activist, speaker, and author of the incredible Demystifying Disability, the practical guide that has rapidly grown to an essential tome of our movement. Emily reflects on her childhood experience guest-starring on Sesame Street, advocate origin stories alongside Eric in the AAPD internship program, and serves some breaking news from the publishing world(!)

For those just coming to understand disability, how it lives in our culture and societies, and how to embrace it throughout your life with kindness, you could not find a better starting place than Emily’s work.

Links:

· Demystifying Disability

· Sesame Street episodes

· American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)

· Article: Wheelchair? Hearing Aids? Yes. ‘Disabled’? No Way.