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A Conversation with Demystifying Disability Author Emily Ladau [TRANSCRIPT]

DEREK THROLDAHL: Hello, and welcome, everyone. My name is Derek Throldahl, and I’m the Director of Realtime Captioning for Captionmax. As we’re getting started, we’d love to have you introduce ourselves in the chat box. Throughout today’s conversation, you can ask questions you may have in the Q&A. And that’s located in the tab next to the chat. And then we’ll get to those at the end.

We’d also encourage our registrants today to view the live captions which will be streaming at the bottom of your screen. They should be available and visible by default, but if you cannot see the caption player underneath the video window, try zooming out of your browser to see them. There are controls at the top of the caption player to change your caption display settings for improved visual accessibility.

Today’s webinar is captioned by Laurie. So a big thank you to Laurie for her services. I’m excited to introduce to you our special guest speaker today, Emily Ladau. Emily is a disability rights activist, a writer, storyteller, digital communications consultant, and now an author. So welcome to Emily. And moderating our discussion today is Brigid Ling. She’s the Director of Marketing with Captionmax. And with that, I will turn it over to you, Brigid.

BRIGID LING: Thank you, Derek. And hi, Emily.

EMILY LADAU: Hi.

BRIGID LING: As Derek mentioned, I’m Brigid Ling. I’m director of marketing with Captionmax. For the purposes of accessibility and for those with vision disabilities, I am a white woman with long brown hair, and I am seated in an office.

Emily, we have looked so forward to this day and having this conversation. We’re really grateful to have you with us today.

EMILY LADAU: I am so, so excited to be here. I’m really looking forward to engaging. I’m looking forward to chatting more about disability, which I am so incredibly passionate about. And I’m just glad to be in conversation with you.

BRIGID LING: Yeah, absolutely. We first met Emily several years ago at the Disability:IN conference. Emily, you were a moderator on a panel on disability etiquette. And as Derek mentioned in the intro, you are a disability rights advocate, a communication consultant, and now a published author. This is Emily’s new book, Demystifying Disability– What to Know What to Say and How to Be an Ally. Congrats.

Emily’s career began at the age of 10, where she appeared on several episodes of– what else– Sesame Street to teach kids on life with a physical disability. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times, Salon magazine, Self magazine, and Huffington Post. She has spoken before numerous audiences, such as the US Department of Education and the United Nations.

Central to your work, Emily, is a focus on harnessing the power of storytelling as a tool for people to become engaged on disability and social justice issues. So we welcome you today. Let’s start by talking about the language around disability, which is so central to your book. Can you offer us a framework for language and terminology?

EMILY LADAU: Absolutely. And first, I want to make sure that I am also ensuring accessibility, so I’ll give a quick visual description of myself. I am a white woman. I have brown curly hair, pulled to the side in a ponytail, big black-rimmed glasses, and I’m wearing a maroon shirt with white stripes.

What you cannot see is that I am a wheelchair user. I always like to make sure to give that context for people. Usually, when you meet me in person, it’s the first thing you’ll see, but now I disclose when I’m giving presentations.

So on that note, let’s talk about the word “disability.” And that is a very big and broad term to start out with. But it is so important that before I immediately lose people who are concerned that saying the word “disability” might not be OK, let’s get that out of the way right away. It is OK to say the word “disability.” I know that there’s hesitation sometimes. It has a negative connotation. We feel as though it’s taboo, we shouldn’t say it, we shouldn’t talk about it, but that is just not true.

So throughout today’s conversation, you are going to hear me vary my language. I am going to go back and forth between saying “person with a disability” and “disabled person.” Neither one is wrong and neither one is 100% right.

Language is such a deeply personal preference, and my priority is honoring that preference. So when I say “person with a disability,” that’s representing person-first language, which is putting the person before the disability in sentence and in thought. And the reasoning behind that is because, in so many cases, people with disabilities are not seen as people, they’re only seen as one-dimensional. They’re only seen for their disability. And so person-first language stemmed from the urgency of reminding people of the humanity of disability.

Then you’ll hear me say “disabled person,” which is indicative of identity-first language. And that is based on the fact that disability has a culture and a history, that it’s something that people identify as. And I choose to identify as a disabled woman because I see my disability as a part of me and not as something that we need to separate in order to indicate my humanity. So for me, I would not say I am a person with Jewishness, right? I would say I’m a Jewish person. And so disability is a part of me in the same way that Jewishness is, and so I say disabled person.

But again, I just want to make sure that I’m reminding people that there’s not a right or wrong answer. And I know that is a necessary foundation before we dive further into these conversations. And I know there’s so much more that we can talk about about language. And I can keep going. I don’t know if you’d like to pose another specific question or if you want me to share a few more tidbits on language. So I’ll turn back–

BRIGID LING: Maybe talk a little bit about how people’s preferences may change, from person to person or even over time, and how to balance that.

EMILY LADAU: Absolutely. The thing about language is that it shapes how we think and how we think shapes how we talk. And language is constantly evolving based on how we feel about ourselves, how we perceive ourselves, the media that we consume, the people that we engage with, the people around us, the cultural and environmental and social circumstances. And so that’s why I’m very careful to say that there isn’t one right answer when it comes to what language we use because people may even have different preferences at different times.

And so I try to vary my language to honor those preferences but also recognize that my preferences are not indicative of the whole of the disability community. I am one person who has a disability. There are more than a billion disabled people worldwide. That means you’re going to have a billion-plus different experiences and opinions and ways of referring to yourself. So there is no one right answer when it comes to language.

BRIGID LING: Interesting. And there’s also some terminology that is just used in mainstream language and in culture that really is harmful. In your book, you talk about the use of words like “crazy,” “lame,” those types of things. Talk a little bit about that.

EMILY LADAU: It is so easy to slip into words that are ableist because they’re so common in our vernacular, in our conversations. I will fully admit that I am guilty of using words like “crazy.” But did you really mean to say that? Why can’t you say, that’s wild, that’s bonkers, that’s bananas”?” It has the same meaning, but you’re not using a term that’s harmful to people who have mental health disabilities, that’s used to stigmatize people.

The same thing goes for words like “lame.” We say, oh, that’s so lame. Or someone’s driving, and they cut us off, and we say, ugh, what a moron. And to us, those are just words that we use, but what we forget is that those words are embedded in disability history and were often used as medical diagnoses, and have become derogatory terms that refer to disability, that use disability as an insult.

And so I really encourage people to be conscious of the words that we’re using. If you meant to say, that’s wild, that’s bonkers, that’s ridiculous, say that. We don’t need to say crazy. We don’t need to say lame.

BRIGID LING: And another distinction you made is around the use of the term “special needs.” What is special about– in our media accessibility world, what is special about wanting to access media?

EMILY LADAU: It’s a great question. So I want to give the caveat, again, as I did before, that I am one person. And I am speaking specifically about my preferences and from my perspective. There are people with disabilities who prefer terminology like “special needs” or “differently abled,” for example, but many disabled people ask that you stay away from terminology like that because it’s essentially a way to avoid or erase saying “disability.” And the question that I always ask people is why do we need to avoid “disability.” What is so bad about saying “disability.” And the answer is usually, well, I’ve understood it as a bad or a shameful thing. But it’s not– it’s just part of the human experience and what makes people who they are.

And then, when we use terms like “differently abled” or “special needs,” they kind of cancel themselves out because aren’t we all differently abled? I can write, but I cannot do math. And there are people who can solve Rubik’s cubes, and there are people who can do acrobatics and ride a unicycle. Everybody has different abilities. So “differently abled” doesn’t make sense.

And then “special needs,” I have never understood that, because when you say “special needs,” you’re implying that my needs are somehow extraneous or extra, that my needs are somehow separating me or othering me. I’m a human being who has needs to thrive in a particular environment. That doesn’t make me special. Wanting captioning so I can understand what’s going on doesn’t make me special. It just makes me someone who needs a particular means of access.

And I also noticed, in the chat, a question about avoiding the terms “neurodiverse” or “neurodivergent.” And no, not at all. “Disability” is just one broader umbrella term. And we can’t reduce an entire community of a billion-plus people to one term. So it’s so important you recognize that there are people who prefer “neurodiverse,” “neurodivergent,” “autistic,” “disabled.” Preferences vary. We respect those preferences. And “disability” is just one collective community term.

BRIGID LING: Yeah. So this reminds me of how I was first connected to you, Emily. My colleague, Maggie McDermott, sent me a news interview that you had done on a television news station where you talked about the curb-cut effect. And this really resonated with me. Can you share with our audience today what you mean by the curb-cut effect and how that is so applicable.

EMILY LADAU: Absolutely. I’m really passionate about talking about the curb-cut effect, because I think it’s something that, once we have that visual and that concept in our minds, we can apply it more broadly. So when you are trying to go from the sidewalk to the street, if you have a curb without a little ramp or a curb cut in it, not everybody can use that. If you have a curb cut, it suddenly becomes more easily accessible to go from sidewalk to street, from street to sidewalk.

And that’s not just for people who are wheelchair users. That’s for people who have luggage. That’s for people who are on skateboards, roller skates, pushing a stroller. Whatever the case may be, everybody can use a curb cut. So essentially the curb-cut effect is pointing to the fact that when we create more curb cuts for people, we’re creating access that works not for some but for everybody.

And I’ve been talking a lot, since everything is really started with the pandemic a few years ago, about not just thinking about curb cuts in the physical sense, but also the virtual sense, creating virtual curb cuts for people, creating access for people. And unfortunately, we got a crash course in that process because of the pandemic, when everybody realized, oh, we need to pivot. We need to go virtual.

And now a silver lining– if we can say that, because the pandemic has certainly taken an immense toll, especially on the disability community– but one positive that has come from it is recognizing the value of virtual curb cuts and recognizing the value of offering these other methods of engaging that aren’t just in person. And captioning happens to be a huge part of enabling virtual curb cuts to be a reality, because without captioning, the virtual world wouldn’t really be accessible. We wouldn’t really be creating those virtual curb cuts. So I’m a big proponent of reminding people that what we need to continue doing when we move forward is finding those solutions that allow everybody to engage in a way that works for them.

BRIGID LING: Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s talk about why diversity and inclusion is so important. For instance, we know that a more diverse and inclusive workplace creates better products and ideas or better products and services because they have the input and perspective of all different kinds of people. So talk about why doing this work is so important.

EMILY LADAU: I think a lot about the fact that we need to make the business case for disability inclusion, to remind people that it’s not just the right thing to do but that it is good for business, that you’re going to make your products and services accessible to more people, that you’re going to have a better internal corporate culture. So there’s a lot of business benefits.

But I also think we need to take a few steps back sometimes from this business perspective and recognize that the reason that doing the work of Diversity and Equity and Inclusion is more than just saying, DEI, and letting it be the buzzword of the day, is because we want our work and our companies and our communities to accurately reflect the world around us.

And if you are leaving disability out of the conversation, you are quite literally ignoring 15% of the global population. So it’s not even just about a better end user experience, although accessibility is crucial and vital and should be baked in from the beginning of a process. Yes. But more than that, you are quite literally just saying, well, we don’t care about 15% of the population. We are ignoring the fact that they are part of the fabric of our society.

And so when people throw around the term DEI, I say, oh, great. Great. I’m glad that you care about diversity and equity and inclusion. Now my question for you is what are you doing to apply that meaningfully to your work? Are you fostering open dialogue and conversations in the workplace? Are you engaging in ongoing learning processes? Are you recognizing that, statistically speaking, there might even be people in your company already who are disabled but don’t necessarily identify as such?

One in four people in America are disabled. And that means you or someone you know is disabled. Why aren’t we creating environments that are more accessible, more open? If we’re doing that, we’re making a better workplace for everybody.

BRIGID LING: Yeah, absolutely. So on that note, there’s this growing need and consciousness of the need for allyship as we diversify our workforces and expand our communities globally. Companies are focusing on disability, inclusion, equity. It’s become a common focus, allyship, for companies. But how do we turn that phrase, the need for allyship, into meaningful action?

EMILY LADAU: Something that I think is incredibly important to remind people is that allyship is not a badge or a gold star that we can give ourselves. And I know that that is our inclination, to slap a label on ourselves and say, I was a really good ally today.

And believe me, I’ve been there too. I have felt like, oh, maybe I can pat myself on the back because I was a good ally today. But that’s not quite what allyship is. Allyship is really about recognizing that you are on an ongoing journey and learning process to be as supportive as you can be of people whose life experiences are different than your own.

And for me, yes, I am disabled, but I’m also a white woman with a physical disability, and I communicate verbally. And that means that even though I am marginalized in some ways, I also occupy places of privilege. So I’m not somehow absolved of the responsibility of also being a good ally, especially to people who are marginalized in ways that I’m not.

And so allyship, to me, is using the platform that I do have to speak up when I can, but also to know when to really take a step back, to pass the microphone, to amplify other voices, to bring other people into the conversation.

And I like to think about good ongoing allyship from the metaphor of asking yourself who’s at the table. And it’s not really just asking yourself who’s at the table. I have a few more questions about that table. I want to know, is that table accessible? How are you getting to that table? I want to know, once you’re at the table, who’s leading the conversation?

I want to know what’s happening after people leave the table, who’s continuing the work and the conversation. So it’s not just about bringing people as tokens or as figureheads, it’s about recognizing that allyship is ongoing and knowing that sometimes it’s not about centering yourself, it’s about making sure that you are doing the work to bring other people into the conversation and make sure that their perspectives are represented.

BRIGID LING: And what about when you mess up? What about when you just don’t get it right? How do you recover?

EMILY LADAU: I’m glad you asked, because I think we need to have some real talk about that. The reality is nobody is perfect. I am not a perfect ally. I do not think that of myself at all. I think that, as I’m urging everybody else to continue learning, I’m doing exactly the same thing. I’m continuing to learn. And so if you make a mistake, I’m going to say it’s OK. I recognize that everybody is going to respond differently and I recognize that there are certain things that may be a little bit more egregious. But if you use terminology that may be incorrect or if you make a little bit of an etiquette faux pas, these things happen because we are human beings and we are all trying to figure out how to navigate this world and our interactions in it together.

And so when you make a mistake, the most important thing that you can do is learn from it, because when you know better, you do better. But make sure that you don’t turn it into this whole big thing, for lack of a better way to put it. I notice that, so often, people are like, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry. I’m the worst person ever. How could I make it up to you? What can I do?

And you know, sometimes, just let’s move on. Let’s move forward. Apologize, learn, and do better next time. And that’s how we be a good ally, by recognizing that we’re going to mess up but we can learn and we can do better moving forward.

BRIGID LING: I love that. I love that. Our question queue is getting really full, but I want to ask you one more question before we jump to our questions.

For the people participating in this webinar today, most are probably asking themselves, what can I do to be a better ally? In our conversations to prepare for today, we talked about, like you mentioned, who is at your table. How can we pass the microphone to the disability community in ways that are meaningful? What are ways, action steps that we can take, especially in our workplaces, to ensure that we see action?

EMILY LADAU: It’s a great question. And I think the most important thing to remember is that we can sometimes grapple with power dynamics and power imbalances that can make it challenging for people to feel like they can show up as their whole selves in a workplace, as though they can be open and honest about their disability experiences.

So I really encourage people to recognize that we need to take both a top-down and a grassroots, bottom-up approach in the workplaces. This is not just about having corporate buy-in or executive leadership buy-in. And this is not just about having the people who have just joined the team and are entry level advocating. This is about everyone meeting each other in the middle and recognizing that the work of being a good ally and the work of creating a good culture for disabled people is something that requires every single person.

And we sometimes forget every issue is a disability issue because every issue affects disabled people. And disability is the only identity that can cut across any and all other identities. It’s also one of the only identity groups that anybody can join at any time, which is not a threat. It’s just a reality of the human experience.

And so these are things we need to be keeping in mind. We need to recognize that whether you are the CEO of a company or whether you are an intern, this is not about hierarchy, this is about humanity. And sometimes that looks like passing the microphone to people who are willing to be open to their experiences. Sometimes it looks like saying, I want to offer you a safe space to have this conversation. I acknowledge your humanity. That’s what this is about.

BRIGID LING: That’s so powerful. I’m going to get to a few of our questions. So if any of our attendees have questions, just drop them into the Question and Answer tab on the left side of the screen. So the first question is from somebody who says, “I am focused on creatives in the workplace. How can we make advertising and design agencies more welcoming to talent with talent with disabilities?” And I would just offer a separate tangent to that– not only just to the talent with disabilities, but to making sure that people with disabilities are represented in advertising and in media in general.

EMILY LADAU: I love that question so much because I think that we forget disability inclusion can be very multipronged. We often think, if we’re doing it in one area of our work, then that’s it, and we’re done, and we can wash our hands of it. But especially in the world of advertising and design, it’s both internal and external.

So externally, are you reflecting the values that you hope to create internally? Are you creating meaningful, authentic, inclusive work, which then sends the message you disabled people that you are a company that genuinely cares about disability inclusion, that you’re not just saying it, that you’re actually living it through the work that you do.

And also remembering it’s not just about disability representation in who’s in front of the camera, it’s who’s behind the camera. Who’s on your team? Who’s doing the work? Who’s picking shoot locations? Who’s creating the graphics and making sure that they’re accessible?

There’s multiple layers to these conversations, and it’s not any one factor. So it is great if you have somebody with a wheelchair in your ad campaign. But if that ad campaign was entirely created without any further input from disabled consultants, from disabled employees, if you don’t have disabled team members, was that inclusion or was that tokenization? That’s what my question is.

BRIGID LING: Yeah. That’s great. Our next question– How can I best be a voice for disabled employees and those facing health and health care challenges on a DEI council as a person of racial privilege?

EMILY LADAU: I think recognizing where your privilege comes in is already half of the battle because we can use our privilege to do good. We can use our privilege to amplify the voices and the perspectives of other people. I want to flip that question a little bit, because what so often happens is that nondisabled people or people with various forms of privilege assume that we can be a voice for the voiceless. There’s that sort of sense that we can speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And we forget that there is a multitude of ways to communicate, and that sometimes amplifying perspectives looks not like speaking for or on behalf of but speaking with.

There is a saying that the disability community often uses, which is “nothing about us without us.” And that is to say, if you are having a conversation about disability– if you’re having a conversation about anything, really– nothing without us. Have disabled people at the table. And if you can’t immediately bring disabled people to that table or if you’re not in a position to do that, then instead of saying, I am speaking for this community, say, I am bringing to the table the fact that this perspective is missing, and here’s what I think we can do to incorporate this perspective. And that is an excellent way to use your privilege to be an ally.

BRIGID LING: That’s wonderful. What is the best way to reach out to disabled communities to attract and actively hire at companies?

EMILY LADAU: I’m excited that somebody asked this question because it shows that they’re thinking about the whole process of employment. If we want to attract diverse disabled talent, that means we can’t just think about it as one part of the employment process. We have to be thinking about the entire lifecycle of employment.

So when we first begin recruitment, where are you posting? And are your posts accessible? Are you ensuring that if you have a video that accompanies a post, that it’s captioned? Are you ensuring that if you have an image that accompanies the post, and that it has an image description? Is the software that you’re using for people to apply accessible? Is it usable to them?

You know, once people make it to the interview process, are you ensuring that accommodations will be put in place if need be? Are you creating messaging that says, we welcome disabled people to apply, and not only that, we encourage and we celebrate diversity in the workplace?

There’s so many different factors. I think that what happens is we assume that we just can’t find any good talent with disabilities if we don’t have disabled people who are out in the open in our workplaces. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Turn that back on yourself and say, what am I doing to make that recruiting in that hiring process welcoming to disabled people?

BRIGID LING: So and on that note, another question– As a hiring leader, how can I ensure I am inclusive of those who are disabled? For example, I would never ask, do you have any disabilities? I don’t want to make assumptions. So how can we be inclusive in that hiring process?

EMILY LADAU: Yeah. So the important caveat that I need to give is I am not a legal expert, and there are specifics as to what you can and cannot ask and engage in regarding disability at different points in the hiring process based on the Americans with Disabilities Act. And so rather than give any information from a legal perspective, I will say, from a perspective of being more inclusive, as a hiring manager, what’s most important to me is how you are communicating with me as a person.

There have been times when I have gone for an interview, for example, and I can immediately see that somebody is caught off guard by my visible disability. Or I have maybe heard them say something that comes across as a little bit ableist. And for me, because my disability is apparent, that can sometimes be a barometer for the experience. But not everybody has a disability that’s apparent.

So the best way that you can be inclusive is by making conscious choices in your communication, making conscious choices in how you engage with everybody, recognizing that while people certainly don’t owe you specifics about their disability, the best thing you can do is create an environment where people feel open to have these conversations with you, so that no matter what the person’s disability may be, whether it’s apparent or nonapparent, they feel like they have a safe place to share that information with you.

BRIGID LING: That’s wonderful. Another question– I love the quote “‘nothing about us without us.” I agree. In the corporate world, this is a very difficult message to get across, especially when it comes to higher level D&I and disability-related conversations. Do you have suggestions on how to convince those leaders and teams that disability representation is so important?

EMILY LADAU: Yes. It is really challenging when you still have to convince leadership to recognize humanity and to recognize disability as a valuable part of the conversation. But what I always suggest is, rather than coming with the vague comment that we should be including disabled people in the conversation, be armed and ready with some tools and resources that you can point to, whether it is consulting from a local organization, whether it is a book or some short video clips.

I am a big fan of coming having done my homework. So it’s not just saying, hey, you should really think about including disabled people, but here is a resource. I recognize that your time is limited and valuable. I want to share this one specific resource with you in the hopes that you will recognize that disabled people have a lot to bring to the conversation and to the table.

And for me, I so often find myself pointing to– there’s the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion, and they have an Inclusion at Work framework, which is very, very helpful to get people started.

I like to point people to read a memoir, to engage in the humanity of disability. I know I keep bringing up that word, “humanity.” But I think, when we can point people to the fact that this is not an abstract population or a niche population, but that there are local groups, that there are activists all over the world who this work is relevant to, it becomes more real.

BRIGID LING: Absolutely. This is a fun question for you. I love the cover of your book and how persons with disabilities are represented as having visible and invisible disabilities. When I see an accessible parking sign, it makes me want to redesign this universally accepted sign to include persons with invisible disabilities. If you had to redesign the sign, what would it look like?

EMILY LADAU: Oh, gosh. I have been thinking about this for years because there was an effort, probably almost a decade ago now, if not more, to recreate the universal symbol of access so that it wasn’t just this very stagnant wheelchair user, but it was more of an active wheelchair user who was pushing themselves. And I think that was a little bit of an improvement, but I have always felt that it’s unfair to call that the universal symbol of access when, in fact, it’s actually just representative of a wheelchair user.

And I also like to joke that, in many ways, I am exactly what people think of when they think of disability. I know you can’t see my wheelchair, but I’m a white wheelchair user. What is the universal symbol of access? A white wheelchair user. But that is not the only disability experience.

In terms of how I would redesign it– I’ll be very honest– I don’t have the right answer, because I think that it’s really challenging to demonstrate or to illustrate a nonapparent disability. I’ve thought, sometimes, that maybe we could have the letter D, but I recognize that then that would be very English-centric.

So I don’t know that there’s a good answer there, but I do know that someone who is much more design-minded than I am needs to do a little bit of thinking about how we can move beyond just this wheelchair user, because that’s not at all representative of the whole of disability.

BRIGID LING: Yeah, absolutely. We have just a couple minutes. There are still questions in the queue. We will keep all of these questions and we will try to respond back to people who we just do not have time to get to the questions for today. Do you have recommendations for people who are trying to get accommodations in their workforce and are facing an uphill battle?

EMILY LADAU: That’s a tough one because the reality is that, while accommodations are something that are legally provided for, it’s much more difficult on an individual level to advocate for yourself and to feel like you’re being put in this position of having to reveal certain pieces of information about yourself.

But my best advice is to consider the framing and the angle that you’re coming at this conversation from. Remember, you’re not asking for something because of a deficit, you’re asking for something because it’s the support that you need to help you thrive in your working environment and do your best possible job, and be productive, and be efficient. I think that, when we talk about accommodations, we look at it as special treatment or we look at it as providing something above and beyond for someone, but that’s not it.

What we’re doing is we’re leveling the playing field. That’s the true definition of equity, is providing people what they need to thrive in a situation. And so if we can start from that place of reframing and recognize that asking for accommodations is not a weakness but actually a strength, because it means that what you need to do your best, and framing it like that, as you’re requesting those accommodations, I think that that reframing can sometimes help how the conversation will go.

BRIGID LING: That’s amazing. This has been such an amazing conversation. I don’t want it to end. I’m so grateful that you have been here with us today.

In addition to your wonderful book, which we talked about, we have posted, in the Featured Content tab, right next to Question and Answer, a list of resources that you’ve provided to us that are just great resources for those who are interested in learning more. Do you want to just touch on a couple of those?

EMILY LADAU: 100%. I would be happy to. So I cannot recommend enough checking out the Crip Camp documentary on Netflix. It’s got a really great overview of the history of the disability rights movement. And it’s just a really powerful documentary, a fun thing to watch too.

I’m also perhaps a little bit biased here, but I’d like to recommend Rooted in Rights. I used to be their editor-in-chief. Passing the torch on that now so that somebody else can have the opportunity to help amplify stories of people with disabilities, but I spent quite a few years there supporting disabled people to share their stories and their experiences.

And I think that’s the heart of what I hope to leave everyone with, is that the best thing that you can do is seek out disabled perspectives and make sure that you are learning, that you are listening, and that you are applying and amplifying what you have learned to the work that you’re doing. And so the resources that Captionmax is sharing, they are great starting points, but don’t stop there. There’s so much more to be done.

BRIGID LING: Just a start. That’s right, that’s right. Emily, we want to thank you so much for having this important conversation with us today. And for everybody who joined us today, we are so grateful. This webinar will be posted on the News page on the Captionmax website in just a couple of days. We will also send it via email.

As we mentioned, Emily, we love your book. I love your book. It has been just a transformational book for me and my team. You can get yourself a copy at EmilyLadau.com/book. And we look forward to hosting more events like this. If you want to get on our events list or if you’re interested in learning more about the accessibility services that Captionmax can provide, just send us an email at [email protected]. We’d also welcome your feedback on today’s conversation.

Emily, thank you so much for being here today with us. We are so grateful. It’s been a wonderful, wonderful conversation.

EMILY LADAU: Thank you.