Welcome to the Pigeonhole Podcast


Listen to this post:

[The podcast episode is at the bottom of the post.]

Here we are! The new podcast is alive. It’s a Pigeonhole, and this is just a brief promo episode to say hi.

Music in this episode: “Refraction” by Podington Bear. (Source: freemusicarchive.org. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.)

Downloadable transcript for Pigeonhole podcast #1.

Transcript

Pigeonhole Episode 01

[bright ambient music]

CHORUS OF VOICES: Pigeonholed, pigeonhole, pigeonhole, pigeonhole, pigeonhole, pigeonhole, pigeonhole, pigeonhole.

CHERYL GREEN: Coming soon: Pigeonhole. Here’s what we’re talking about on this show: disability as part of your identity, not as a health topic or a curiosity. And we’re gonna be interrogating the way we make media and do activism around disability topics. It’s not medical, not about inclusion, and it’s not about overcoming. People organizations keep trying to pigeonhole stories from disability communities and pigeonhole the people telling the stories. They want us to inspire but keep it comfortable. Stay one-dimensional. Only talk about disability in certain ways. Pigeonhole is about holding onto that truth that we’re complex and complicated.

[mellow electronica]

SABINE REAR: “You could just call yourself ‘blind’ and use whatever language you want. I’m sure people are referring to you as visually impaired in your experience with medical professionals, but that’s not your only option.”

RICHARD BANDY: I would like to say there’s always hope, but I’m not sure there’s always hope. I know there’s a tremendous amount of effort, and a lot of it goes unnoticed or unheralded.

VILISSA THOMPSON: Society wants women to be quiet, to be docile, to be easily controlled. So when particularly women, and if you add that other intersections as being of color, being disabled, we are fierce in our message.

ERIN SCHICK: I absolutely hate person-first language um and the the role that it has come to play in in discourse about disability and about people.

CHERYL: The artist Jeff Chang says that for equity, people need representation, access, and power. In this podcast, we’re gonna shake up the representation that always gets the most attention: That’s non-disabled outsiders or “experts” speaking for disabled people or at least sometimes letting us talk but then sneaking in their commentary and getting in the last word.

[bright ambient music]

Every episode is transcribed. Links, guest info, and transcripts are all at www.WhoAmIToStopIt.com, my disability arts blog. I’m Cheryl, and…

TWO VOICES: this is Pigeonhole.

CHERYL: Pigeonhole: Don’t sit where society puts you.

[bright ambient music]

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