The Way We Roll

In her recent Guardian article, Dr Frances Ryan raised concerns that ‘Remote working has been life-changing for disabled people, don’t take it away now‘  As we come out of lockdown, we know that some companies are expecting employees to be back in the office 9 to 5, seven days a week. Ryan also flags up concerns regarding cultural events. Is there a new risk that organisers might say disabled people can watch it online rather than making the event or venue accessible?

When two of Simon’s neighbours react differently to an on the street altercation he has, what should they do? What’s the difference between supporting versus defending? Can you tell when a disabled person is struggling but ok, compared to floundering and not ok?

Cultural Corner has us singing and getting the lyrics wrong after Geoff tells us about BBC’s Soul Music. We’re laughing when we hear of Jenny Eclair’s latest radio show, Little Lifetimes.

Links

Remote Working by Dr Frances Ryan 

Cultural Corner

Little Lifetimes by Jenny Eclair  On Audible and On BBC Sounds 

BBC Soul Music

Song Exploder 

Africa by Toto

One person, many facets: disability, ethnicity, mental health, being a woman and youth.

On this month's show, we are delighted to welcome Doaa Shayea. In her 22 years, she has packed in an extraordinary amount.

Doaa talks frankly about her mental health challenges and what she's learned about herself and the world she lives in. Energetic, resilient and determined, she faces the future with optimism and confidence. She also believes as disabled people we mature much more quickly that others as we become aware of others around us ands their reactions.

Born in Yemen with spina bifida. She and her family settled in the UK when she was aged 6. Attending a special school in the UK, Doaa quickly learned how to survive

At the age of 11, she was spotted as a potential wheelchair track star (Simon is so jealous) and still trains twice a day, every day. Doaa set up her beauty business in 2019 and has added disability advocate to her working portfolio.

As a young woman of colour with a disability, as you will hear, she has faced all sorts of difficulties.  She missed out on the qualifying time for the  Rio Paralympics by half a second.

It’s a compelling story, from someone who appears to have so much on her shoulders whilst maintaining her self-belief. Her motto: "In order to be the best you've got to fail hundreds of times and be strong enough to keep getting up."  

BBC article on Dooa

Dooa Shayea Socials 

Instagram 

YouTube

If you use the word ‘disabled’ with something you’re promoting, do people switch off? If you create a product to assist a disabled person but ignore this, are you authentic? Are products created for disabled people only used by disabled people…except the telephone, electric can openers, electric windows, pre-cut fruit, voice dictation, automatic doors…but other than these…? 

Does the word ‘disability’ point to a history, to culture, to shared experience?

Is using the word ‘disabled’ appropriate when talking about someone who has a long term or chronic health condition?  Where do ‘Energy Limiting Impairments’ fit? Does the social model struggle to get going when an individual struggles to get going? 

All these questions provide a rich source for Phil and Simon to discuss and debate. The questions come from new research into energy limiting impairments and Nike promoting their new Go Fly Ease trainer. We have a contribution from Lawrence Carter-Long, Director of Communications at DREDF (In California) and #SayTheWord evangelist. We wrap with your letters and emails. 

We don’t profess to have all the answers, and we know there are gaps. Let us know your thoughts [email protected]

Links

Slate Article - Nike’s avoidance of the word Disabled 

NPR Article - Disabled - Say The Word

Twitter feed - Peeled Orange Phenomenon 

Nike Fly Ease Shoes 

Research reports recently published about, Energy Limiting impairments 

People we mention

Catherine Hale Twitter 

Chronic Illness Inclusion Twitter 

Katie Elizabeth Twitter

Marie Pye Twitter

Kay Allen OBE Twitter

Lawrence Carter Long Twitter  

Ross Hovey YouTube

Ross Hovey Instagram 

Russell Silver Syndrome Podcast 

Dope Black Disabled 

Finally, Deaf people have to endure jury duty… ahem, can fulfil their civic duty like everyone else. After many years of campaigning Deaf people who use sign language, will be able to serve on juries. Common law rules ban the presence of a “stranger” in the jury deliberation room, but this will now be changed, allowing a BSL interpreter in. 

Wow, last month’s show was popular! We heard from so many of you so we bumped Listeners Corner to the middle of the show so you might get to hear it for a change.

We start the show with travel. In the UK, a disabled woman who was left stranded on trains and station platforms more than 30 times by a rail company, has been awarded compensation of £17,000. Meanwhile in the USA, Uber has been ordered to pay $1.1m (£795,000) to a blind woman who was refused rides on 14 occasions. We discuss both the tiresome lack of inclusion of disabled people on transport as well as the disparity between compensation awards in the UK and the USA. 

Can Artificial intelligence think, and feel, and one day replace humans? What is the journey a bag of drugs takes from source to user? Both questions are asked in our Cultural Corner with Geoff. 

Links

Uber payout, class action, blind people. 

Train payment for bad service 

Deaf Jurors allowed 

Electric Vehicles Charging Points Disability Survey

Cultural corner 

Klara & The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hardcover 

Audio 

ZeroZeroZero 

Trailer 

IMDB Listing 

Amazon Prime / Sky Atlantic / Now TV

Paperback book 

Audio book

This month we explore outer space or more specifically the opportunity that some disabled people might get to become an astronaut. Clearly, the European Space Agency see disability as a positive in their quest for new talent. However, when it comes to vaccines and ‘do not resuscitate’ notices and learning disabled people, there’s evidence that they are not a priority or perhaps worse. 

Would you date a physically disabled person? It seems The Disability Unit want to know why. But we can’t work out why they need to know. As Phil and Simon are both physically impaired people, we explore our thoughts when it came to dating.  

However, we start with Simon’s exciting shopping spree in Walthamstow and how a Pound Shop, Aldi and Asda can be heaven.  Geoff Adam-Spinks gives us two cultural recommendations - a book and TV series.   Wrapping up Listeners Corners has Mik Scarlett drop in with his thoughts on the ‘affirmative model' of disability.

Links

Astronaut with a disability

Frances and Jo Whiley 

Guardian changed headline

UK disability questionnaire

Disability Unit

Dating a Disabled person is great 

How to Date When you have a disability

BBC Ouch speak with Lucy Webster, who tried to sign up with the dating agency 

Buzz Aldrin on depression 

Mik Scarlett

Cultural corner recommends No One Is Talking About This – Patricia Lockwood. 

Print 

Audio 

TV show Rake

Guardian review of Rake 2016 (spoilers) 

A considered show this month with Phil and Simon. We review the deeply unsettling BBC documentary ‘Targeted - the truth about disability hate crime’. You can watch it on iPlayer. On YouTube, we've posted a video of us discussing the documentary. (links to both below)

Simon recently attended some equality training called Beyond Bias, delivered by Guilaine Kinouani from Race Reflections. Two elements struck him as relevant to disability equality, so we try and see if they apply. First was the concept of intergenerational trauma, and the second, a quote from Audre Lorde (pictured below) ‘There’s no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we don’t live single-issue lives".

Listeners Corner is a bumper one this month, and we finish with Cultural Corner, a new addition to the Show, where we recommend a couple of items you might be interested in. It could be another podcast, a book, a tv show, film, blog or article. Geoff Adams-Spink provides the suggestions.

Links

Targeted - the truth about disability hate crime  BBC iPlayer

The Way We Roll YouTube channel

Beyond Bias training from Race Reflections

Intergenerational trauma

Audre Lorde No such thing as a single-issue struggle because we don't live single-issue lives

Guilane Kinouani on Twitter

Adam Buxton podcast with Stewart Lee

Fall - The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston Hardback link

Fall - The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston  Audible audiobook link

Our thanks to Geoff Adams-Spink - Twitter @GAdams_Spink

You can find us in Apple Podcasts or Spotify 

If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, please email us at [email protected]  

We hope you enjoy it.

Two jabs Phil has had both vaccinations to protect him from Covid-19. How has it changed him? Is he wild and free at last or staying in with the windows closed? 

Never one to miss a debate about one of the models of disability, Simon asks Phil what does he think of the ‘affirmative model’. Is this the answer to the charity/tragedy model of disability? If it’s valid, how can it become useful? Stick with this one as it gets a little silly at the end. You can also watch us discuss this, with extra material edited from the podcast, via our YouTube channel, link below. 

Phil is parroting on about those pesky parakeets again but feels vindicated now BBC Radio 4 have started talking about them too. There’s also another look at what life might be like post-pandemic and what will we relish returning to our lives. 

Links

Affirmative Model - Disability Arts Colin Hambrook interviews Colin Cameron 2009  

Disability and Society - Towards an Affirmation Model of Disability -John Swain & Sally French 2010

YouTube video of Phil and Simon discussing the Affirmative model of disability. 

Simon’s ‘should have gone viral dwarf Giraffe’ tweet 

Minister Liz Truss hinting at the ‘only disability is a bad attitude’ trope. 

BBC ‘Broadcasting House’ show on parakeets 17.1.2021

With skill, talent, and application Nikki Fox has become a regular face on British television. She might be presenting a piece on the nightly news bulletins as BBC News’ Disability Correspondent. Or she’s reporting on a consumer issue on BBC's Watchdog and increasingly, she randomly appears on The One Show.  Last year she was named as the most powerful disabled person in the UK. How did she do this? 

Unsurprisingly she’s had to work very hard to get to the place she’s is now. Be it early starts at 2 AM for Cambridge Radio, wandering down Oxford St interviewing the public for a fashion show, and learning how not to be overly self-deprecating.

Nikki says she’s always had a relaxed attitude to being disabled, it’s just the way it is. However, she doesn’t have a full diagnosis, a name for her type of condition and she is interested in the impact this can have on people.

We managed to spend an hour with Nikki talking about her childhood, her sister, University, and the early days of her career. Nikki is a fantastic guest. Open, honest, a natural talker not surprisingly, and good company. We hope you enjoy listening to her as much as we did.

Links

Nikki Fox BBC Disability Correspondent 

Twitter 

Nikki Fox Wikipedia page 

The Disability Discrimination Act and Me - BBC Ouch podcast 

Welcome to our final show of 2020. Never missing a controversy, we start the show asking if Covid 19 and the move to home working, gave disabled employees an unfair advantage if employers prioritise and pay for their adjustments and not those of non-disabled colleagues.

Ex-BBC TV maker, Emma West wrote an article asking “Where are we now in terms of representation of disability in popular culture?” We discuss her article and the topic, wondering if this year it has got better. We explore whether quoting the 13+m disabled people in the UK is a useful tool here? 

We round off by considering three positives from this year: something we enjoyed, something we don’t miss, something we’ve done and how we have felt. Yep, we do feelings on The Way We Roll. 

Links 

Getting adjustments at home isn’t that easy

Representation of disability in popular culture in 2020 – where are we now?

Emma West

The Disability Paradox BBC4 Television

Moodflow app

My Fitness Pal for calorie counting 

Did you know… we have a YouTube channel? There’s clips edited from the podcast but worthy of keeping. Plus funny moments with guests. And a review of Netflix Crip Camp. Do take a look.

The Way We Roll YouTube Channel 

Have Zoom calls meant we’ve finally stopped using the landline phone? 

Crip Camp review with Phil & Simon

One last thing, Simon and the comedians from Abnormally Funny People will be performing on Sunday 17th January 2021 Zoom so Covid safe and to everywhere you are. It's an amazing line up and will be a fun, celebratory show. Tickets £10 & £5. Click to Southbank Centre to find out more. 

TV presenter, Alex Brooker started his career as a sports journalist at the Liverpool Echo. In 2012 he became part of a brand new comedy show, The Last Leg on Channel 4, now in its 20th series. 

He recently made a documentary for the BBC entitled ‘Disability & Me’ which we reviewed, Alex heard that show and now he’s our guest.  

We cover disability and identity, what the phrase ‘disability doesn’t define me’ might actually mean. About his family; his mum’s influence, his father’s suggestion that he use his brain not brawn, and being the eldest of many brothers. Alex tells us he pushes himself to exceed those low expectations some people have about disability. He talks about comedy and disability, that he might do more stand up and how some jokes are a risk.

Alex believes the disability aspect of his life is a work in progress. He went from not really talking about it to being named the No.1 most powerful disabled person in the UK in 2019.

He discusses society’s attitude towards disability and the difficulty of being a representative face, whilst also being an individual. He talks naturally, openly and our conversation is peppered with humour and insightful reflection.

Links:

Alex Brooker Twitter

The Last Leg 

Disability & Me documentary 

The Way We Roll show when we reviewed Alex’s documentary ‘Disability & Me’

Wikipedia Alex Brooker