Transcript of episode 005 -

#DisabledAndCute

Bridget Todd (00:00):

This episode is dedicated to the memory of my friend, Michael Brooks, a brilliant podcaster, and even better friend, rest in power. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd. And this is, There Are No Girls on the Internet. This week marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with disabilities act. And even though the World Bank estimates that 15% of the world experience is some form of disability, sometimes it can feel like our world is built for able-bodied people alone. But even in a world that isn't always accessible or inclusive people with disabilities still love themselves, love their bodies and are worthy of desire, love, and joy. And when that kind of self love isn't represented in the media, they change the game to make sure it's included anyway.

Writer Keah Brown

Keah (00:59):

My upbringing was very typical black girl upbringing. My mom was very much a Christian. He was like, "I'm raising you Keah like I would raise your twin sister [inaudible 00:01:16] or your older brother, Eric." There was never anything where it was like if they got scooters or bikes or rollerblades or whatever, we would figure out a way for me to get that too. We'd figure out a way for me to be able to do those things as well. She was very keen on making sure that I knew that I may have had to work a little harder, but I was going to be able to do what they were doing, because she wasn't going to take me using disability as an excuse for anything.

Bridget Todd (01:52):

In 2017 writer Keah Brown created a movement on social media to celebrate the fact that having a disability doesn't mean you have to hate your body. Her debut book, The Pretty One, chronicles all the things she loves in life, Hollywood, football and being born with cerebral palsy and learning to love herself and her body. But she didn't always feel this way. In your book you write about yearning to be what you call normal and yearning for refuge for the steady stream of hate society strengthened inside of you. How did society make you feel that way?

Keah (02:24):

Really through messaging with, advertising and like representation in media. And the only time I would see someone who looked sort of like never like me completely, because I've never had that. But whenever I would see someone, it was because of those like very exploitive telethons and people were always staring when I would enter public spaces. And even before I realized exactly what disability meant. I knew that the stares that I would get from people who didn't know didn't care to know me, didn't love me, were always negative. They always looked at me with this sort of like pity or with this like inherent disgust. And even as a child, I picked up on that very easily.

Bridget Todd (03:15):

This lack of representation really impacted Keah. "If people who look like me, aren't getting shown love," she thought, "Then I must not be worthy of it at all."

Keah (03:24):

The people that we're getting the happily ever afters, the people that were getting the love or the attention or the excitement in their lives were people who didn't look like me. [inaudible 00:03:36] really did [inaudible 00:03:37] in my own self hatred because I was like, "I must not be worthy enough if I'm not being represented."

Negative Self Talk

Bridget Todd (03:45):

Do you ever have that little voice in your head that says mean things about yourself? "You're worthless, you're ugly, you're lazy. You don't deserve love. You don't deserve good things." It can really get us stuck in a loop of negative self talk where we start to really believe and internalize those things. To get to the other side, Keah had to untrain her brain out of negative self talk, to go from self hate to self-love. She started out each day by saying four nice things about herself. Breaking the cycle of negativity, took a lot of work. So how did you get to the other side of that, to feel like someone who was worthy of love and desire and all those good things?

Keah (04:20):

Yeah. I mean, I always say too that it's a constant effort. It's like every single day I have to still do that work. And for me, I mean, it took a lot of crying and a lot of promising myself that like there was something worthy on the other side of it. And it just took this sort of like exhaustion with beating myself up. And so for me, it was like every single day, I would say the four things that I liked about myself, of course, in the mirror. But I would also actively try to stop a negative thought in my brain. So my brain would be like, "Oh, you're worthless." And I would counteract that with examples of when I wasn't "worthless" or when someone needed me, and when they cared about me or did something just because they wanted to.

Keah (05:13):

So I really had to actively train my brain to reroute itself from my inherent negative thoughts about myself. And I mean, it's not easy work. Like I said, I'm still doing it every single day. And it wasn't necessarily as simple as saying four things in the mirror, but those four things in the mirror were a catalyst to me, allowing myself to then work to retrain my brain, to stop itself from saying things like, "Oh, you're not worthy of love. You're this, you're that." To saying you are worthy of love just as you are. You are worthy of care and kindness and joy as much as anyone else.

Keah (05:54):

And so, yeah, it's been a journey because I think with the #DisabledAndCute, a lot of people were like, "Oh, well, you fixed yourself. You're happy now." But I mean, it is in every single day constant battle to remind myself, especially now in these current political times, to remind myself that all of this work that I've put in is worthy work. And that work just means that, even though I have to keep doing it every day, that just means that that makes it that much more important because it's necessary to work at so that I can wake up every day and be the best version of myself. Not only for myself, but for the world at large, for people who don't see people like me every single day, and I'm their window in.

Bridget Todd (06:43):

When Keah first tweeted a few selfies using the #DisabledAndCute, she wasn't expecting to start a movement, it will be a call for people with disabilities all over the globe to celebrate their bodies. She was just looking at selfies of herself and thinking, "Damn, I look good." Walk me through how you were feeling on February 12th when you first tweeted a selfie using the #DisabledAndCute.

Keah (07:04):

I felt like a bad bleep. I really felt so good that... I felt so good that day. And I was looking at those pictures and they were pictures that I had taken before the 12th. But I was looking at them with this like excitement and this renewed sense of self worth. I was like, "Oh, you didn't even know it. But first of all, Keah, that outfit that you have standing up by the door in one of the pictures slaps, you look fantastic. Your skin looks clear." Like all these things that I didn't see when the pictures were taken, I just woke up that morning and I was like, "We still feel so good about ourselves. It's time to celebrate." Now if you know anything about me, I'm very online. And so I was like, "I'm going to celebrate on Twitter and I'm going to do so with the idea that I'm both Disabled And Cute."

Keah (08:06):

So I was like, "Ooh, I like the way that sounds, Disabled And Cute. Not either or." So I picked the pictures that I thought I looked my cutest in and then I posted it thinking like, "Oh, couple of my friends would retweet it because they love me." And like I wanted other people to use it. And I'm pretty sure [inaudible 00:08:24] thought I was like, "I hope that people use this." And then by the end of that week, we had went viral. And then the end of next week it went global and people were like, "Were you expecting that?" And I was like, "No, literally I was expecting five people to retweet it and be like, girl, you look so cute. And I would be like, love you. Thank you." And that would be the end of it. So it is interesting the way that it sounds so cliche to say, but I wasn't expecting to go viral, and maybe that's why it happened.

Bridget Todd (08:54):

After hashtag went viral, Keah says magazines that she previously didn't feel pretty enough to ever see herself in, we're calling to interview her. But more importantly than that, other people with disabilities were able to share their stories online and feel connected. The internet helped her have that thing we're all looking for, a sense of community and belonging, and a chance to feel seen. If not for social media, that might not have happened.

Keah (09:19):

I think without it, it wouldn't have been possible. I just think that we live in a world where if I didn't have the internet, I wouldn't have the career that I have or the opportunities that I have had. And it's like, I've worked hard for them. Let me be clear. No one's handed me anything. But the reach that comes with social media is not to be discounted, you know? And so much of the work that I've done has been so much about me sharing my personality along with the work.

Keah (09:50):

And so people will be like, "Oh, I want to work with Keah because I think she's funny and she's talented." Like, "I want to work with Kia because this tweet made me laugh." And like, "I didn't know she wanted to talk about this and now I'm going to give her the opportunity to talk about it." It's very interesting the way that social media works because I tweet and Instagram as though nobody's actually looking at them and then you find out that they are, and they're like, "Hey, I want to help in any way I can." There's that sense of community, that feeling of belonging in a way that I never had before.

"Twitter is like a trashcan on fire, but it has all the things you love inside the trashcan."

Bridget Todd (10:27):

You have one of my favorite quotes of all time, "Twitter is like a trashcan on fire, but it has all the things you love inside the trashcan." Can you tell me more about that?

Keah (10:35):

But that's really what it's like. It's like, yes, this place is a mess. There are so many things wrong with it, and some days you're just like, "This is the worst place. Why am I still here?" But you stay because first of all, you have people that you care about. You can talk freely about so many things. I can jump from talking about a TV show to a movie to talking about how attractive, like Kiki Layne and Idris Elba are, or to talk about like politics or disability issues.

Keah (11:09):

And so for everything that's bad about social media or places like Twitter, there's 100 things that are good about it. The fostering of community for me, meeting people who have become such inherent presence of my life through social media first, and through Twitter first, and now these people I talk to every single day, these people I trust with so much of my life. And so Twitter is a dumpster fire, but there are so many good things about it. And so even when it's on fire you can go to a corner of the internet that's not. And you can find solace there. And so it's special in that way because like all things, nothing is perfect.

Keah (11:53):

But so much of what I find keeps me going back to Twitter is the relationships that I've made there, and the ability to be able to say what I want to say and not apologize for the space that I take upon the internet. And to not apologize for having an opinion. Because I think a lot of black women, and particularly to like black disabled women, we don't have offline spaces where we're as heard or as seen as the internet makes us or allows us to be.

Bridget Todd (12:33):

Let's take a quick break. And we're back. It's funny how in the time of COVID workplaces at events and activities are all making it so they can be done remotely. But disability activists have been calling for the role to be more accessible for a long time. And it seems like everyone else is just now catching up. This is a huge problem. When spaces aren't accessible, voices get shut out. Keah says that's one reason why the internet can be such an important space for people with disabilities. In an IRL world that isn't always built with them in mind, online, [inaudible 00:13:11] can build their own little corner of the web to find community and connection.

Keah (13:15):

A lot of places are inaccessible. And so when we talk about the specificity or specific, whatever. The specifics, I can't say the word. Specificity of things like disability, places aren't accessible, there's no places to sit, elevators don't work, railings are broken. There's just no place to rest. Whereas like if I'm out on the internet, I can be on the internet from my bed or from a chair in my house. Or I can show up and be like, "This is who I am, and this is what you're going to get." And I'm not apologizing because it feels like that meme of Sheree being like, "Who going to check me boo?"

Living out loud and being happy

Keah (14:03):

Because like you have trolls and people who say negative things, but at the end of the day, like, who's going to check me? What are you going to do that I... Like be living out loud and being happy, and sharing my stories and manifesting things and talking about my experiences. Like, what are you going to do about it? You can't be like, "Oh no, you can't do that on your platform." Because I'm going to be who I am regardless. And in places where I feel like black women in particular are shut out by white voices, whether that's male or female, we can go on the internet into our own profiles or whatever, and we can say the things that we've wanted to say in those spaces where we're often shut out or just ignored, or we never get the chance to speak.

Keah (14:59):

There's no one going before us in our own spaces that might take up too much time, or we just ran out of time to hear from you. On the internet, there's never someone running out of time to hear from you. You get to be your opener and the main act. You don't have to be like, "Oh, well, I'm just waiting my turn. Just biding my time." No, you just get to be able to be your full self, whatever you want to share with the world. And no one's going to be like, 'Oh, let me speak for you." Which I think makes the internet that much more special because like they can't be like, "Oh no, you're talking too much."

Keah (15:44):

I mean, people do, don't get me wrong. They'll be like, "You're talking too much about disability. You're talking too much about queerness." Or, "You're talking too much about blackness." But I can also be like block, block, block, and block the block, block. And so it's nice because you are really able to share your full self without having to be like, I don't have to tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, et cetera on my page in this community that I've created. And there's nothing you can do about it. Like you can be mad, but you can't stop me from trying to create a space where the people that I care about, my people and myself feel comfortable.

Bridget Todd (16:28):

Like all of us Keah is a multifaceted person with a wide variety of interests, things she's good at and things she likes talking about. On Twitter you can find her talking about disability rights in one moment and lipstick in the next. This shouldn't come as a surprise to you. We're literally all like this. But there's an underlying assumption for folks who have disabilities that that's the one thing that defines them. Do you ever feel that people expect you to only write about disability and disability activism online as if that's like the only thing about you?

Keah (16:58):

Yes, they do. They absolutely do. They're like... Like the ADA 30th anniversary is coming up and I've gotten so many articles like, "Will you write about it? Will you do this? Will you do that?" And these same people, some of them I'm like, "Heck yeah, I'll write about it. Like, what do you mean? I care about this thing." But so many other people would not have reached out to me to write about it for... Write about anything else for that publication just the disability stuff. And I think for a while that really bothered me because I was like, "Why can't you see that I have other interests? Why can't you see that I am a fully realized human being that isn't just always your disability liaison." And then I got to a point where I was like, "I'll tell these stories, but remember Keah, you can also say no."

Keah (17:56):

And saying no for me is really hard. I'm like inherent professional people, but just like professionally, but like I can say no personally, but I never can say no professionally it seems. And so I'm working on that. But also it's just like, if somebody gives me the opportunity and they're like, "Hey, I want you to touch on disability." What they don't understand is they're going to get a Trojan Horse. I'll touch on disability because you want me to. I'm going to do the requirements of the job, but I'm also going to talk about other things, because I've decided that... Especially in writing The Pretty One, so many of those essays were me talking about things that I was never going to get the opportunity to and freelance [inaudible 00:18:38], and me talking about religion, and talking about music, and talking about pop culture on a deeper level.

Keah (18:46):

That was my Trojan Horse. I was like, "I'll talk about disability. We'll talk about the hashtag. We'll talk about what it means to be disabled. We'll talk about CP and exploitive telethons, but I'm also going to talk to you about [inaudible 00:18:58] war and general [inaudible 00:19:00]. And I'm going to talk to you about cheesecake and The Wild Thornberrys. And I'm going to talk to you about clothes and these other things that I never ever, ever get the opportunity to talk about in this book."

Keah (19:13):

And then it took the book being published to people to be like, "Oh, so you do like clothes, and you do like TV. And you do like this thing that me, this person who is not disabled also enjoys." I said, "Wow, isn't that something the way that happens, how we all have things that we enjoy, whether we're disabled or not? That disabled people are actually people and not just the disability magic." So it's been interesting now because I feel like I'm in a better place where I can say no to things, but also I can assert the fact that there are certain things that I want to talk about and that I'm going to talk about, and it's like, either you come on that ride with me or you get left in the dust.

Bridget Todd (20:04):

So how do we get to a place where the assumption is, of course this person is a multifaceted, complex human being? How can we get to a place where that's the default, and that's something that you have to trick people into understanding?

Keah (20:14):

Yeah. Ooh, what a question, because I think-

Bridget Todd (20:17):

May be it's too big of a question.

“it really does take effort on their part to ensure that they're willing to learn, and they're willing to see people who don't look like them”

Keah (20:20):

... I mean, it kind of is, but I think it really does take effort on their part to ensure that they're willing to learn, and they're willing to see people who don't look like them in some way as human beings inherently. But you can't just be the job of disabled people or queer people or black people or other people of color to say, "Hey, I'm human. Hey, I'm a fully realized person just like you." That whole thing about reaching across the aisle exhausts me. Because reaching across the aisle for somebody who's holding a gun to your head. Well, you know what I mean? I think that it's inherent societal thing where it can't just be the marginalized people begging the oppressors to see our worth. It has to be a fully collective willingness for the people in power, specifically for me in terms of representation on TV and in film to show aspects of live realities that aren't so steeped in trauma so that the only time that you see someone who's different than you is so based in trauma and death and pain, that you don't see them as real human beings.

Keah (21:39):

You see them as these sort of objects, that take nothing but constant pain and trauma and torture like black people, no joy, disabled people, no joy, queer people no joy. And some of us at those intersections of all three or four, five or six or whatever, we experience happiness. And so why is it that the only time we're valuable is when you can mind our pain for entertainment? And so I think a lot of it will really start with representation, and I think that of course representation isn't the issue, is not going to save the world, but it's a start.

Bridget Todd (22:18):

More after this quick break. And we're back. Now for marginalized people, representation isn't the end all be all, but it is something. And for as many Americans experienced some kind of disability, disability representation is pretty dismal. In most movies and TV shows, either a character with disability is shown hating their body and hating themselves. Or maybe if they're lucky, they experience a fleeting temporary love before dying and finally being "free of their disability." In a piece for Teen Vogue, Keah wrote about the way that people depicted the late Stephen Hawking after his death as finally being free of his wheelchair in the afterlife. But here's the thing, as Keah points out in her piece, Hawking didn't really have a big problem with having a disability.

Bridget Todd (23:10):

In fact, he says if anything, they helped him in a way by shielding him from lecturing and administrative work that he would have otherwise had to have been involved in. So why are people so quick to erase disability or assume that people that have disabilities hate their bodies and their disability. Keah wants to open us up to more nuanced and complex depictions of disability. Even if it's something she has to create herself.

Keah (23:33):

I want to create things, TV or film that showcase people like me in the lead, but let us go the idea of like, "Oh, we hate ourselves. Life sucks. Why don't you just like, let me die. How could you love me? This is what I'm missing out by being disabled. This is the life that I had before." Because right now this video representation is so caught up in this idea that people come with disability and they lose so much value or joy in their life. And it's like, "Well, what about us? We're born this way." I've been disabled since 1991, okay. And I've never known anything else. And I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I feel like this is who I am, and I am allowed the full spectrum of human emotion. And it's about time that I see a movie where the disabled girl gets the love interest and she doesn't die.

Keah (24:37):

And sure I had to write it, but hopefully... You know what I mean? But hopefully it'll get made and I have all these ideas for this medium that I love so much to be more inclusive and to be broader, and just more fun. I think that like, what I always say is we critique the things we love the most, right? I'm very much a person who critiques Hollywood because I love Hollywood. I love the idea of creating something that people can watch in a theater, or creating something that they can watch from their computer on Netflix or Hulu or any sort of streaming service. And because I love it so much, I'm like, "Fine, if I have to be the person who creates the representation, great. Because I know [inaudible 00:25:31] be good. I'll re watch it."

Keah (25:34):

I have faith in whatever it is that I'm creating, but it's also that it's hard because you get these moments where things happen and they're like, "Oh, we're looking for this." But I want it to not be so much of a moment and more of a movement to have it be a thing that propels forward and not just this one off thing where like, "Oh, you get to be the one in the room, just the one." Because nobody wants to be by themselves. I don't want to be the only one in the room, which is a podcast that I love, but I want to be among people that look like me, not just me being the person that's like, "Hey, I'm speaking for X, Y, and Z delegation."

Bridget Todd (26:18):

Right, yeah. I mean, it's so it's so easy for marginalized folks to be pigeon held or pigeonholed in that way where, "Okay, we have the one who is going to check that box and now we can say we've achieved a diversity or something like that." Like as opposed to really being interested in building out an inclusive room or an inclusive space or an inclusive audience, or what have you.

Keah (26:42):

Right. And it's like, it's just frustrating because it's like that onus is so often on us. Like it's so often on us to be the ones to be like, "Let us in." And I think Gabrielle Union was the one that said like, "I don't want to sit at your table. If I had to bend to get in the room, I'm going to create my own table." And I think what has to happen is that like, we are going to have to create our own tables. We are going to be able to be the ones that create our own tables and try our best to populate them with people that we think are worthy because I don't want to be the person that's like, "Oh yes, you chose me. Yay." I want to be the person that's like, "Here's me. Yes. But also here's five other people. Here's six other people, here are people that you should be listening to."

Bridget Todd (27:41):

It's funny that you mentioned Hollywood, there's this movie that I loved growing up, like loved in college when I was sort of a artsy-fartsy college kid Amelie. And there's a scene in the movie... Have you seen the movie Amelie?

Keah (27:53):

Yes, I have.

Amelie and the Blind Man - Inspiration Porn

Bridget Todd (27:54):

So there's a scene in the movie Amelie. So Amelie's meant to be this like quirky, sweet French girl. And there was a scene where there's a man who is blind and she takes him by the arm. And it's played as if it's this like very sweet thing that she does for this man who was blind, where she takes him, and she describes all the things that he can't see because he's blind. And looking back now as an adult, I realize how fucked up that is that... And how it was played to be like, "Oh, like she's so she's so in touch with humanity that she does this." And how insulting it is that she swoops in and like runs this guy around town. And it sort of, the audience is meant to think that it's a sweet gesture. It's so clear to me that Hollywood needs voices like yours, who can actually tell authentic stories about what the experience of being a person with disabilities is actually like, and when I watched that movie now, I'm like, "Well, clearly they didn't have anybody in the room who could speak to that experience."

Keah (28:53):

Right. So I watched it in this, I think it was a film and cultures class. And like I argued this very point even before... It's so funny that I did, because in college I wasn't as vocal about what was going wrong in terms of representation as I am now. But yeah, even back then, I was like, "No, what is this? Why are we supposed to think that this is so great?" I mean, we had like sections and we were like, "Oh, it was such a sweet moment." And I'm like, "No, it wasn't. She just took this guy.

Keah (29:30):

He was minding his own business. And she was just like, let me show you all the things you can't see." Like it was just very, what I call inspiration porn. And it was very in this idea of her being this savior and doing this good deed for the day. And I just was like, "Ew, it's disgusting." Because that's what people think we want. And I think that that is a inherent part of representation being what it is, is that people think that we want them to save us, or "we want them to show us what we're missing," or love us if only temporarily and that's harmful.

Bridget Todd (30:19):

So if you're not familiar with what Keah is calling disability porn, you've probably seen it all over social media. Videos of kids with disabilities being asked to prom, or a kid with a disability joining a sports team. Videos that may seem harmless enough, but actually use a person with disabilities to make able body people feel better. But people with disabilities don't exist to make able-bodied folks feel good, or to be our inspiration. Keah says sometimes people who are otherwise thoughtful about marginalized voices sometimes share these videos with good intentions and in some ways that's even worse.

Keah (30:50):

Right, they do. And I mean, it's like it's even a little bit more frustrating because they get so many other things. But when it comes to that, it's like they use it as, "My life might be bad, but at least it's not that bad." Or, "Wow, look what they can do. You should be able to do that to," random person I don't know on the internet. Or like, "Hey, it's just so beautiful. It made me cry this morning." Because they love a good like for your Monday morning cry or like this will be so sweet and magical, and just 10 minutes of this will make you feel so good. And it's like, who is it making you feel good though?

Keah (31:32):

Because it's certainly not the person that you're turning into a spectacle for likes and retweets on the internet. And so yeah, it's harder I think when it's like, well, meaning people who get so many other aspects of lived experience, but don't quite understand how they're being harmful. And then when you kindly say as much they buck against it and they're upset that you would even infer that that's what they meant, because they know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who's disabled.

Bridget Todd (32:08):

So this podcast is about creating monuments to all the marginalized voices [inaudible 00:32:11] the internet. And when Disabled And Cute what's happening, I saw you really having to fight to make sure that you got credit for this creation. Did you feel like you had to be constantly reminding people that this was something that you started just to make sure your voice wouldn't be erased?

Keah (32:23):

Yes. So easy just last week, somebody messaged me and was like, "I had no idea that Disabled And Cute with your hashtag. I had no idea that you were the one who created it." Because it took that much work for me to be like, "This is..." I had to like ask people like, "Please..." Like any sort of affluent person that I knew were person with a platform I was like, "If you use the hashtag, please save it, it's mine." Because people were just using it and talking about it in podcasts and never crediting me, making t-shirts making enamel pins, all these other different things. And my name was never mentioned. And so it's funny because people will literally still message me to this day being like, "I didn't know that it was yours." Somebody said they listened to a podcast that I did, and that was the first time they had heard that it was my hashtag that I created. And I think that happens to a lot of black creators, not just me. It happens all the time when you create, like Blackout Day is by, oh my God Mars.

Bridget Todd (33:35):

Mars Sebastian. Yes, she was on the show just last week.

Keah (33:39):

Yes. So it happened to her and they... Celebrity attached themselves to it and they ran with it and she was completely erased from that narrative. It's not surprising when it happens, but it does hurt because you put in all this work for this thing that you created that was yours and your idea, and other people will jump on it and claim to be theirs just because they found it and thought that nobody was behind it. They never think to do the research of who is the person behind this hashtag that I happened to stumble upon or this thing that I created. It happens all the time specifically to black people, I think on the internet much more so because there isn't that inherent quest to credit them like there might be someone who is someone's peer and they don't want to seem like they're biting their idea.

Bridget Todd (34:37):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Did you feel that when that happened to Disabled And Cute that the actual message was co-opted or whitewashed as well?

Keah (34:45):

Yes. Do we have the time? Yeah, it really was because what I found was like people would write about... Especially when it first happened, they would write about the hashtag, right? And my name would be there, like Keah Brown, never a picture of me, but always pictures of white disabled people using it. Like they would put... This is what would get me when I would see articles about it. And they would tell me like, "We wrote about your hashtag." And the person on the cover of it would be a person who used it, but it was never me.

Keah (35:20):

And so I would see slideshows celebrating the hashtag, never any people of color ever, just completely all white disabled people. And I started to call them out. I'm like, "You said my name, you wrote it down. But when you have a picture of somebody else as the head image, you're giving them credit for something they didn't even create, they just used." And so I would like implore the... I would like find the emails of the writers and say as much, or when they would reach out to me to do an interview, I would say, "Okay, I'll do the interview, but I want you to make sure that when you do a slideshow of the hashtag and the pictures there, it's diverse."

Bridget Todd (36:07):

The fact that you would even have to say that is so troubling. And I think really illustrates how deep the problem goes, because you're not shy about being a black queer person, right? Like that's a big part of how you show up online, and show up to the world. And so the fact that they would erase that part of the creator of this thing they say they want to write about, it just goes to show how deep the problem goes.

Keah (36:35):

Yeah. And it's funny because they... Like a couple of them pushed back. They're like, "Well, I'm only sharing what I see?" So I would go into the hashtag and send them pictures of disabled people of color to put into the articles because they couldn't see them from the hashtag. And some of them would be like at the very top. So I'm like, "No, you just scrolled past them because that's your inherent bias." And it was wild to me because I was like, "I'm doing part of your job, because you're uncomfortable with the idea of not only showing a picture of the person who created the hashtag, but showing pictures of people who look like the person who created the hashtag using it."

Bridget Todd (37:23):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I mean, yeah, it is... How you put it is so accurate, having to do their job. It's like, not only are you like, "First of all, you're like [inaudible 00:37:32], so really you should just be..." They're writing about you, but having to also curate their photos so that they're inclusive. Having to also educate them on why all of this unpaid labor that you're not really... It's not really your job to do that you're just expected to take on.

Keah (37:50):

Right.

Bridget Todd (37:52):

It's really sad. And I think a big part of this is I think that folks in the media need to be better, and take a little responsibility of the platforms that we're helping to create because it's... I don't know if it's laziness or not being able to see the full picture of what they're contributing to, but the standard [inaudible 00:38:11] just got to be higher. If we're going to tell these stories, either they need to be told thoughtfully and fully, or we need to not be telling them, right?

Keah (38:19):

Right.

Bridget Todd (38:19):

Like we have to do justice by these stories. And it's disheartening to hear the ways that folks in the media are just not prepared or not able or not willing to do that.

Keah (38:29):

I think it's really about not apologizing for wanting proper representation or not being cast aside as this being some silly thing that doesn't really matter because it matters. Because our culture is shaped by the things that see. How we view others there, that's our window into the world. And so if you're going to do the work, do the work. Don't go 50% on something that needs to at least be 120.

Bridget Todd (39:00):

If representation is the window to the world, then Keah is opening that window a little bit more. In the fall of 2022, she'll release her first picture book with Atria Books called, Sam's Super Seats about a little black girl with cerebral palsy, going back to school, shopping with her mom and best friends. So the next generation of little ones with disabilities can see themselves reflected in the ways she wished she had when she was a kid. Keah's learned that sometimes you have to write the books you want to read, and create the world you want to see. And even in a world full of people who can't see you, can't see your joy, or your dreams, you could always see yourself.

Keah (39:34):

Pretty much just trying to follow every single dream because it feels like now anything is possible in terms of me making sure that I always say yes to myself. Because somebody is going to say no, but I'm not going to be the one to do it.

Bridget Todd (39:49):

There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more podcast from iHeart, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.