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Here is a beautifully done short documentary that looks at intersections of race and disability! Here’s Keith Jones using music (including krip hop), public speaking, humor, and total honesty. He raises awareness of disability discrimination in many forms: doctors saying he’ll never amount to much, folks on the street thinking he’ll never amount to much, people forgetting that a set of stairs and non-power door are what prevent him from getting into a building, NOT his disability….
He points out in this film that the Disability movement is “about valuing the human.” Once told that he was “too crippled to rap,” just take a look. Because this documentary shows him rapping. So there!
10 responses to “Check out Keith Jones: Un-rapping Disability”
I really appreciated this film. I related to Keith’s discussions about the challenges of publicly advocating for disability rights without falling into the stereotypes of “overcoming.” In other words, the challenges of facing the reactions of people who believe that you are successful because you deny your disabilities, or that you are “amazing” because you can perform everyday tasks, but just in a different way than others. Keith explained for this audiences well the realities of environmental and social restrictions that disabled people face, not because of our bodies, but because much of public life is still inaccessible. In other words, architecture, public spaces, and society must accept disabled people equal members of society. Keith is an inspiration to me, and not because I have low expectations for him, but because he successfully communicates about his identity as a disabled black man and musician, and the intersections between these aspects of identity.
Cheers, Ann! Yes, yes, and yes. I just started reading your book, “The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art” just today! And I had to stop when I got to a description of paintings that depicted disabled people doing regular daily activities as an everyday occurrence. I had to stop to reflect and revel in the concept. The more often disabled people get to do everyday things without being labeled as “special,” “courageous,” or doing “not bad for a disabled person” the better our whole community will be.
Yes, those kinds of labels are problematic. They often depend on context, which isn’t always easy to decipher. For example, I saw a physical therapist this week who I had never met before because she had to complete some insurance paperwork for me to get a new scooter. She was very impressed by activities and range of motion, which flattered me. She called me “amazing,” but this determination was based on her knowledge and experience with other people. On the other hand, I was told once at the grocery store that I was “amazing,” and then the women told me that if she were like me, she wouldn’t want to leave the house. Obviously, this was offensive. But then again, it said a lot more about her than it did about me, Often, the context in which I hear such comments can determine their meaning, but I can’t always determine whether such comments are based on my impressiveness or on very low expectations of what disabled people can and should do.
To clarify, I should explain that I am a congenital amputee with no hands and only one knee. My other leg is a few inches long/.
People sometimes call me courageous for sharing my personal story of disability. Secretly, I often think to myself: “What? I’m just being self-centered and making you listen to me ramble about me. That’s just immodest, not courageous.” But as long as segregation is the norm in education, leisure, work, and just general going about your business, some non-disabled folks will find disability and capability a strange mix. The more folks come to realize that you, Ann, go to the store to buy groceries because you eat–and not to win a gold medal–the more these barriers can be broken down. On the other hand, I dislike crowds and noise so much that it often is amazing when I go to a grocery store. But see, it’s all individual! 🙂
Sometimes, it definitely takes courage to go to the grocery store 🙂 I wrote a lot about how the meaning of such exchanges can depend on context, but I should also say, my react to these comments depends on the mood I am in. Sometimes, I just don’t want to respond or talk to people, even when they have good intentions. This was a point I tried to make in my book, that when you are visibly disabled, you can feel like you are already on display and your daily life can seem like a performance.
Oh yes, you’ve earned the right to have moods just by being alive. I think Kevin said something about it in his documentary here. Just because folks want us to be special, grateful to be out and about, and wise beyond our years (!), doesn’t mean we have to take it with a smile every time. Your mood is part of the context too. Just listened to a cheeky role play on Ouch! podcast #21 where Liz plays a chippy wheelchair user, and Mat is an inquisitive, non-disabled passenger who lives on a street where a disabled person lives. It was a perfect compliment to what you wrote. Mat asks her, “Are you special?” and proceeds to ask her about her nurse and the institution he assumes she lives in, and he grabs her wheelchair joystick against her protests. It’s quite funny and probably the most painful thing I’ve heard on that podcast yet!
Have you ever watched the show Scandal?:
http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/scandal
In the last couple of episodes, the president was shot in the head and in a coma. In the trailers for the next episode, there is a reporter’s voice talking about how the president has traumatic brain injury. It will be interesting to see how it is portrayed. It’s an excellent show, but the way.
Oh, thank you Ann. I haven’t heard of this show. I agree it will be interesting to see how they portray his TBI. It’s a tough one because the media has to decide which impairments to emphasize and which to ignore and then how soon they need their character all better and impairment free. I was pretty sad with the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books and movies how her TBI from a shooting resulted in no symptoms at all. Well, she had terrible symptoms from being shot in other parts of her body, but once she finished physical therapy she was up and out of that hospital, no rehab needed! (My first hand experience is of being offered physical therapy for my back injury but no advice or suggestions or anything related to the brain bruise I had gotten on the same day.) Someone has a stroke in that book series too and also has an unrealistic recovery. Oh, sigh, popular media. 🙂
Thanks for you previous comments about my book. I am thrilled that you are interested in it! May I ask, what caused you to have brain injury?
Bike wreck, no helmet; huge kick in the head and fall to the gym floor head first in capoeira class; bike wreck that broke helmet; bike wreck that shattered helmet; and a couple crashes with walls and furniture due to poor balance, vision, and judgement after the bike wreck that shattered the helmet. Plus all the whiplash, “sub-concussive” hits and hits that made me feel sick for only a matter of minutes or hours that come with playing soccer, mountain bike riding, doing gymnastics on asphalt….I am not proud of it, but I have to laugh now. I cheekily call myself a collector at this point.
I love your book.