You First Podcast

Episode Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to "You First ‑‑ The Disability Rights Florida Podcast."

Keith Casebonne: Greetings. I am your host, Keith Casebonne, and thank you for listening to the You First podcast. If you haven't already, please subscribe. You can visit disabilityrightsflorida.org/podcast to listen or to find links to our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and more.

In Episode 23, we talked about the representation of people with disabilities in the media, how that has evolved over the years, improving in some ways, but more often still faltering with poor and inaccurate portrayals of people with disabilities in popular media.

A great point that was brought up was that one of the best ways to combat these issues was for people with disabilities to create their own content to control the narrative and help to create platforms where their stories in their words can be shared. My guests today, Elizabeth Wright and Jennifer Price, are doing just that.

Elizabeth is a writer, activist, keynote and TEDx speaker, and an Australian Paralympic medalist. She is also the Founder and Editor of "Conscious Being" magazine, a publication for disabled women by disabled women, and the Editor of "Disability Review Magazine."

Jennifer is a special education and disability rights attorney, and author of "EmpowerEd ‑‑ Using Real Case Examples to Look Deeper into IEP Management." She is also the founder and CEO of Disability News Report, a TV streaming service that features content created by and for people with disabilities.

Hi, Elizabeth and Jennifer. Thank you so much for being my guests today. I appreciate it. I want to start with you, Jennifer. Tell us a little bit about yourself, why you started Disability News Report, and what it offers for people with disabilities.

Jennifer Price: Hi. Yes, thanks for having me. I am a disability law attorney, who found myself in different spaces at different points in time having conversations with people with disabilities. Some of the frustrations or complaints that people would talk about concerned media representation.

I would see them maybe either in town hall‑ish type events, where the media would be invited and no one would show, or even at conferences and events like that. As a Black person, that resonated with me because I understand the representation and authentic representation on top of that. I saw this as an opportunity that should be addressed.

I did some research, and I realized that there is a wealth of content out there that's being created by people with disabilities, but for one reason or another, distribution was not happening or wasn't happening at the scale that maybe people would like for it to happen. I saw this as a void and decided to address that need.

Keith: That's great. Thanks. Liz, also, please introduce yourself. Tell us why you launched Conscious Being magazine, and how it can benefit people with disabilities?

Elizabeth Wright: Hi. Thanks, Keith, for having me on the podcast again. [laughs] I'm excited to be here. I started Conscious Being purely because it was something that I wanted as a disabled woman myself. Growing up, I've always loved magazines and stuff like that.

You look through "Vogue" or you look through even some of the more Indie magazines and there's just not enough representation, or if there is representation, it's quite tokenistic in the way that it's done. The community that we're all a part of, I know that there are so many interesting stories, perspectives, life experiences that are not being heard.

Even within the disability community, we're not being given the opportunity to hear those stories even from within our own community. The reason I started Conscious Being was for myself, but it seems to have resonated so much with so many women and non‑binary folk that we're starting to represent. It's starting to grow into something really special, which is nice. [laughs]

Keith: Absolutely. I want to get the conversation started talking about your processes for selecting either pre‑existing material or creating new and original content for your platforms. How do you find content, talent, collaborators, and so on? Jennifer, let's start with you.

Jennifer: I will say, I don't have my process down to an exact science, that's for sure, but I, 100 percent, have become a lot better with Google.

[laughter]

Jennifer: I consider Google to be my best friend. I loved it before. I love it even more now. I went through Google to look for the talent. In terms of content ideas, some of the content ideas came from shows that I watched that I thought, "I think that would be a great show to have, but the actor has disability."

I've also taken cues from some of the other network channels. I've done some research and subscribed to say Peacock, for instance, and I've ordered Tubi TV. I've looked to see some of the content that they're creating, and where they're lacking, and where content can be created, but inserts a person with a disability as the actor in that role.

That's where it's come from, either from watching content myself and seeing what I'd like, or seeing what's being offered on other network stations that needs to be there. Then I will go to Google [laughs] and see who's out there. Also, I will say, it's been incredibly nice how helpful other people have been.

When I've reached out to someone, they've either agreed or said, "I can't do it now. I just have too much on my plate, but I can refer you to someone else." The referral process has been amazing, I will say. Whether people can do it, and then they say, "...and this person can do the editing or whatever," or someone cannot do it, but have referred me to someone who is able to.

Keith: Liz, how about you?

Elizabeth: [laughs] Obviously, we've touched on Conscious Being that I edit, but I edit two other disability‑led‑and‑focused magazines as well, Disability Review Magazine and "Not Your Monolith." Certainly, each magazine has its own framework, has its own focus and niche area. It does mean that the way that I find people, it can be very wide open and varied.

Quite often, I do put calls or call out for pictures, especially for Conscious Being and Not Your Monolith specifically around certain themes that we might be exploring.

For example, in the launch issue of Not Your Monolith, the theme is I Am, and for Conscious Being, this issue, which is a bit delayed, but hopefully, by the time this podcast is out, issue too [laughs] will be out, is around climate change and sustainability.

I'll put out specific pictures out on social media. Social media is my best friend [laughs] when it comes to getting writers and stories to end, and use forms and that for people to get some processes in place that I'm not being overwhelmed in my email box or anything like that. Sometimes, stories can come off the cuff and magically appear.

Even yesterday for Disability Review Magazine, I needed a particular story for a particular section of it. I put a random call out on Twitter, in the hopes that someone might know someone with an interesting story. Off the back of that, I got a response from a woman whose husband is blind, and he's a wood turner. I was like, "Oh my gosh. That's brilliant. Let's go with that one. It sounds cool."

It's one of the things that I love about being an editor is these amazing stories that you can happen upon and these amazing people with lived experience who are backing the stereotypes in the sense around what disability is. If I can give them a voice through the publications that I edit, then I will do it as much as I can to my capability. [laughs]

Keith: Both of your answers between Google and social media gave me the impression that it's not so much that the content's not out there, it's that the platform to share the content isn't always there. It seems you guys are finding a lot of great content, and now giving it a place to be shown to other people, or read by other people, or so on. That's great.

Jennifer: Yeah, and then Google can help you with the contact information.

[laughter]

Elizabeth: True. It's true. [laughs]

Jennifer: Even social media for I definitely reached out through Instagram especially...

[crosstalk]

Elizabeth: ...Fridays into those DMs, you're like, "Hello, there?"

[laughter]

Keith: That's awesome. Tell us about your perception of disability in the media, which we touched on, but let's talk a little bit more about that. Where do you see it now, and where do you hope to see it go in the future? We'll start with you, Liz.

Elizabeth: Certainly, [laughs] my impression is that in the past few years, things have been improving a little bit. Off the back, we've just had the Paralympics. Obviously, whenever the Paralympics are around, disability gets a bit of a boost in the media.

Again, that's only talking about very specific experience or group of disabled people because as I say to people, "As every non‑disabled person doesn't want to be an Olympian, not every disabled person wants to be a Paralympian." There have been improvements, but for me, it's certainly not fast enough for, or deep enough, or richer enough, in terms of its experience.

You watch TV shows or you look through magazines, or blogs, or newspapers, or listen to radio, or stuff. It's still, again, a lot of the time, disability is connected to specific experience such as wheelchair users or amputees or something like that.

There's not that full rich breadth of representation that is needed that would through media help to educate the non‑disabled community around what disability is, and how we engage with disabled people and the wider disabled community. There's been improvements, but there's still a very long way to go.

This is why I hope that the work that Jennifer's doing, the work that I'm doing, would help be part of that pushing forward of that disability representation in the hopes that what Jennifer and I are doing and so many others are doing will become more mainstream and will become more part of that non‑disabled people will watch and read this content as well as disabled people.

Jennifer: I totally agree with Liz. I like that she brought up the lack of depth to some of what you see in the media. Some of the problems definitely include the lack of depth, maybe sometimes the lack of the stories. As Liz mentioned, the tokenistic aspect of some of the stories at times. I think that it's changing.

I know organizations here in the United States, such as RespectAbility, have become very fierce advocates in connecting with Hollywood to get better representation in the media, a better authentic representation especially.

I think the study came out in 2020, so it included research up until 2019. The Annenberg Initiative indicated that only 2.3 percent of the speaking roles in the media are going to actors with disabilities. It's definitely changing with Netflix coming out with all these statements. Disney Plus coming up with all these statements. [laughs] It's going in that direction.

However, the point was made about the lack of depth. Sure, everyone with a disability doesn't want to be a Paralympian. Then the Paralympics only highlight or showcase people with physical disabilities. What about people with intellectual disabilities? Our network has partnered with the Special Olympics of Pennsylvania. We're out here in Pennsylvania to highlight some of those athletes as well.

Then what's nice about the Special Olympics of Pennsylvania is that they also will do feature content on some of the athletes themselves. Then if people are interested in how they're doing or what they're doing today, then they can follow them through some of these interview‑style shows as well. That's important to show people in all respects as well as maybe cooking.

Our network shows has series called "My Shaky Life" where someone with cerebral palsy is cooking. You can find out how to make some spaghetti and meatballs, or he did one with vegan chili, but the chef has a disability. I definitely think that that's what's lacking. I definitely think that's the direction it should go.

It makes me think of a conversation that I had with someone who stated that one thing that he gets tired of is when people want to cast someone with a disability, they also feel the need to cast someone who doesn't have a disability for fear that, using his words, "That would be maybe too disabled of a cast or too disabled of a show."

Maybe that's the direction we can go where there's not this negative perception on an entire cast having the disability. It's just, "This is the cast, and this is who we choose to be. If everyone has a disability, then that's just what it is." [laughs]

Keith: Jennifer, I know that you've got a big project in the works. You've got your first film in post‑production right now called "The Anxiety of Laughing." Tell us a bit about that, and when you expect it to be released?

Jennifer: We are very excited about this one. [laughs] This fell into my lap, and I said, "Yes. We would love to help produce and distribute it." The film, Anxiety of Laughing, was written by someone Andrew Justvig who is a recent graduate of UC Riverside Sibelius School. He wrote it and had it, I guess, in his room sitting.

I reached out to him for other content. Then he brought this up, and we've decided to produce it. It's about a couple. He's playing the role of a husband who has a disability. Andrew has cerebral palsy, and he is married to a woman who does not have a disability.

It goes through the dynamics behind that relationship as well as dealing, using my word, with the mother/mother‑in‑law, and all of her meddling, and unsolicited advice, and comments.

All of a sudden, there is an unexpected event that happens in their marriage that would require the audience to challenge and question, "What does disability mean? What does it look like? Out of all these main characters, who really has a disability" because it just might not be Andrew.

Keith: Interesting. When you're expecting it to go out? What's it looking like?

Jennifer: The release is going to be in October. We're looking around mid‑October for the release so in about six weeks or so.

Keith: That is exciting. Very cool. Now, Liz, I know you mentioned earlier, you've explored the need for women with disabilities and non‑binary people with disabilities to be better represented in the media, and how it feels to see your lived experience in other people's stories in print or on‑screen or so on. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Elizabeth: For me growing up, I grew up in a very non‑disabled family and non‑disabled community. I was born with my disability limb difference. I went to mainstream school. I never saw myself anywhere at any point. For listeners that don't know, I was a Paralympic swimmer as well.

Until I went to the Paralympics and was seeing other people who were limb different like myself as well as having other impairments and conditions that enabled them to be at the Paralympics, there had been no representation at all. I never realized how much that impacted me or meant to me until I was part of the Paralympic movement.

Then, moving on from that, when I went to university and was studying fine art and I came across disabled artists who were doing amazing work around visual representation of disability and stuff like that, I realized that there is real power in seeing your experience reflected in not just your community or education or workplace, but also the media.

When I see the representation that is out there or has been out there over the past couple of decades, it's very cringe‑worthy. Jennifer brought up about Netflix. How they've made a statement, and they're doing better. They are doing better. I've certainly watched a number of shows on Netflix, where I've been quite impressed with the way that they've done a disability representation.

Then I see that they have the movie "Me Before You" on there. I hate that movie. It makes me cringe. [laughs] It's not reflective of disability‑lived experience. It skews and biases non‑disabled people's ideas about what disability is and how disabled people feel about their impairments and conditions.

For me, we're doing the magazines. The reason I stepped into editing Disability Review Magazine, which was the first magazine I started on, was because I saw that as an opportunity to amplify the voices of the networking community that I was a part of.

I know of so many amazing activists, and advocates, and storytellers, and disabled people who literally have an interesting perspective on life that is never heard. Taking on board these stories and giving them a chance to be in one of the magazines that I edit, it means that I am seeing myself.

I know our readers are seeing themselves in it as well and that that is empowering for them. In terms of Conscious Being, I've had feedback from some of our readers. There was a woman in Australia called Hannah, she bought the first issue.

She messaged me and said, "I've never heard a publication before where I felt so seen and heard in every single page." That made me quite emotional. That is what I wanted for myself. That was what I was aiming for myself.

Being an editor, and I'm sure both of you know, when you're very busy and you are trying to get the work done, you can miss the emotional aspect of it that maybe if you were more separate from it, you'd be able to experience, but how do us always having that emotional response that I so desperately wanted respect for this magazine, for Conscious Being.

To hear her say that, in my mind, that was well job done. It was my aim. It's still my aim with that magazine. It should choose even better, and I think we've got even more diverse representation. Especially in terms of the theme for Conscious Being, this issue, which is sustainability and climate change, it's such an crucially important part of this world that we have to focus on right now.

I'm often asking myself, "Where is the disabled voice in this?" It's about providing these platforms where we can raise the voices of the disability community with their unique perspective on a lot of these topics and lived experience.

Keith: Question for you, Jennifer. Your service appears to cover such a broad range of disabilities and issues related to disability. I had a great time going through the entire platform looking at all the variety of shows. It was really impressive.

I imagined there was also a number of challenges along the way to get to that point, and maybe even things you wish you could have included, but weren't unable to. Tell us a little bit about the challenges to build this broad network of content?

Jennifer: Initially, when I think about that question, one of the challenges that I can think of is defining the word disability. Then also whether I want to allow other people to define it. When I say that, I mean when I hear the word disability, I include all disabilities. It doesn't matter what it is. Everyone has a story, and everyone should be able to tell their story.

I know when I've talked to other people, like me and my husband or whatever people that are close to me, [laughs] they may want to limit the definition on the theory that while it may be too broad or whatever. I think those have been some of the challenges.

Just being OK, especially in the beginning when I'm trying to feel everything out and feel out where the viewers are, and what they like and don't like, or are taken to using a broader definition of disability, which encompasses everyone, meaning mental health disability, physical disability, intellectual.

There is no limit on it because, like I said, in my opinion, everyone has a story and should have their story out there and should be seen. That was one of the challenges. I've gone with the broad definition for now because I don't see anything wrong with their difference. You can have a thousand movies and what difference does it make.

Then, I know another challenge also came up with the audio descriptions. We are going to be redoing the website, and part of the redo is to include audio descriptions.

Because once I watched the movie myself, I have to admit I was ignorant on this topic of audio descriptions until I actually watched a movie and had a much better appreciation for how much it can change the context and viewing experience for someone who uses audio descriptions.

That was another challenge that I came upon. Not initially having the audio description, so then making sure going forward to include audio descriptions for the content that's out there.

Keith: Was there any content or topic area that you wanted to have represented on the channel, but you weren't able to do so?

Jennifer: There's nothing that I am not able to do so. However, I am interested in making sure to include voices. I want to address the topic of the intersection of sex and disability because that topic I feel doesn't get discussed, or if it does get discussed, it send this demeaning way or whatever. I definitely want to address that topic.

I would say that that subject might be a subject that I'm having a little bit harder time. Also, I do want to make sure that there's representation of people with disabilities who might be non‑binary members of the LGBTQ community. Those are stories that I am definitely looking to address, and I'm making sure that I am fully inclusive in that aspect as well.

Keith: Liz, challenges you faced?

Elizabeth: Definitely around accessibility. On across all of the publications that I edit, it's been a very steep learning curve because I might have an impairment myself. [laughs] I might identify as disabled myself, but in case you pointed the name of "Not Your Monolith," I'm not a monolith of disability.

I don't understand necessarily the access needs of someone with a visual impairment or hearing impairment or neurological condition or anything like that. I've had to go on a fast and steep learning curve. I'm not afraid to say I've gotten it wrong.

I've had to apologize to people before and work even better and educate myself even more because I am very passionate about inclusion, and I want to make all of these publications as inclusive as possible.

It's not even thinking necessarily about, "Is this publication accessible by a screen reader, or have we provided a plain text document version of the publication?" It's also thinking about colors. For someone who may be dyslexic, are we using colors that it's not going to affect them? Maybe someone with epilepsy, maybe if there's some...

Especially with the digital magazines, if we're using some video or movement or something, or whether social media or in the actual magazine, it's being aware of, "Is that going to negatively impact someone who has epilepsy?" It's very much an ongoing learning process, and one that I am enjoying going on because it's expanding and broadening my knowledge.

Sometimes you do worry and you panic like, "Have I done this right? [laughs] Am I missing someone? Am I missing someone's experience that I am now excluding them from this magazine or my social media because I haven't got the access 100 percent right?"

At the same time, I feel like I live with a certain degree of anxiety about accessibility buzzing underneath because I'm so worried that I've maybe have missed something or I haven't got something quite right. For me, that's been probably one of the biggest main concerns and aspects of being an editor and founder of magazines is making sure you're getting that accessibility right.

Jennifer: I have to piggyback real quick because I...

[laughter]

Jennifer: ...have that same paranoia also. I know we do the relaunch in a week. I keep thinking about that like, "Oh, my goodness. I think something is not going to be right."

Elizabeth: It's always the worst nightmare that someone's going to come to your launch event and go, "Why didn't you do this?" [laughs] You're like, "Oh, no."

Jennifer: I definitely live with that paranoia constantly. I remember talking to a filmmaker who said, "Look, someone is not going to be happy. Just learn to address their concerns in a nice way and move on. Don't let it sit and resonate, and don't ruminate over it because you're not going to get it perfect 100 percent of the time. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on."

That's easy to say, but there's still that paranoia. [laughs]

Keith: I can relate with this as well with not just the podcast, but any other media that we create here at Disability Rights Florida. Same thing, we want to make sure it's accessible to as many people as possible. With the podcast, we had people asking about captions. I'm like, "Well, it's audio‑only. Where would we put the captions?"

Enough people asked, and now we put it on YouTube, so we can have captions. If that's what people want, that's fine. We did it. It was an interesting question that I had to scratch my head a little bit, but that's fine.

Now, it's an onsite video. It's a still image, but at least there's captions there. One thing that I'll get asked a lot is, "Is this 100 percent accessible?" I don't know. Is there such thing? I'm not sure there really is.

Elizabeth: Can I say to you, Keith? One of my friends who is visually impaired, and she's an accessibility expert, and she did tell me once. She did literally say that. She was like, "No one can ever get accessibility 100 percent right because everyone, even people with the same impairments and conditions, will have different needs that maybe they need to have met."

She said, as someone is she's quite vocal about calling people out, [laughs] don't get her wrong, but she does accept that, "No one can ever get it 100 percent right all of the time," and that's what I do remind myself.

I did a tweet yesterday. Someone who's new and found Conscious Being. They're new to the community and the magazine, and now asking me, "Is this issue going to be fully accessible?" I went back to her.

I tweeted straightaway, and I said, "We use a platform called Flipsnack which has different accessibility profiles, including for screen reader. It's the most accessible digital online platform that we could find for the magazine. We also provide a plain text document version of the magazine for people that need it." At the end, I put, "And, we also welcome feedback." [laughs]

If we don't meet your access needs, please feedback to us and we will try and do better next time. It's all you can say when it comes to access. You can try and think of everything, but it's guaranteed you're going to miss something.

Keith: Very true. Liz, a question for you. I noticed that a number of your writings on the Conscious Being blog, which we haven't really talked about, they talk about the experiences of women with autism. Can you talk about this intersection and how representation in that area is valuable?

Elizabeth: Yeah, for sure. Conscious Being started off as a blog when it's now become a magazine. We're not on the blog quite as much anymore. Certainly, I had a number of writers who are autistic approach me and really wanting to talk about their experience of being autistic. For me, I have a number of family members who are autistic, and I have a number of friends who are autistic.

I certainly feel an affinity, and I want to be a strong and supportive ally for autistic people. Again, I saw that opportunity to amplify that particular community's voices using the platform that I was creating.

One of my regular writers, Lydia, she comes up with brilliant ideas. In a way, it's through her writing, it's about not just educating other people who are reading her work, but it's educating me as well on how I can be a better ally and understand autism a lot better certainly.

In light of especially the past few where we've had not the best representation in terms of movies. Here, I'm thinking of "The Witches" with Anne Hathaway, where she portrayed the grand high witch. That's right, isn't it? [laughs] They made her up to look like she had limb difference that upset me and hurt me.

I am connected to a few limb different charities, where they support a lot of children with limb difference. I was seeing children who were in tears over this movie. It just broke my heart. I thought this is not the representation that we need. Then, literally weeks after that, Sia released her movie "Music," which again, was horrific and not great representation of autism.

Even though they're completely different conditions and impairments, and I can never say that I know what life is like for an autistic person, same as they can't say they know exactly what life is like for someone like me with limb difference, but I could understand their pain because I've literally just been through it with The Witches movie.

For me, it's very important that I can support the autistic community in getting the stories out about their lived experience, especially for autistic women. A lot of the time, autistic women get very late diagnoses because they learn as they're growing up how to mask perhaps their mannerisms, their thought processes, their behaviors. They learn how to mask that.

They don't necessarily have the profile or representation that autistic men have. Even though I'm not saying that any autistic representation is absolutely fantastic. Certainly, for autistic women, it's a lot more difficult to get that authentic representation out there.

Certainly, as Conscious Being, we're very much stand for intersection across race, across gender, across sexuality, across disability. I certainly feel like it was important, especially in the past 6 to 12 months, that I amplify voices of autistic women.

Jennifer: It's important. I mentioned at the beginning that I was a disability law attorney. I spent the bulk of my career as a disability lawyer representing kids with disabilities, handling special education matters when they're having issues with the school district complying with their IEP.

I've gone to a number of different CLE legal education credit type conferences and things like that and have learned that there is such a big difference in girls with autism versus boys with autism because of the masking component that Liz talked about. The representation is very important.

I interviewed on the network, someone who was Black and autistic, about her experience. I thought that was very interesting. I thought the interview was fantastic. She co‑authored a book with two other women, someone who's Asian, someone who's Latina, I believe. The book itself is written by all women, all with autism, talking about their lived experiences through different short stories.

Over the weekend, a Black woman watched the interview on YouTube because that part of the channel is on YouTube also and asked me about the book because she said she finally saw herself in someone who had the experience.

She was late‑diagnosed with autism at the age of 25 and she had never met any Black woman before who had autism, and that at least wanted the book to be able to read other's stories.

Sometimes people forget or underestimate the significance behind media representation, and how it can validate who you are or sometimes invalidate who you are. To try to get it right as much as you can, it's so important.

Keith: You mentioned your interview show, and that was one of the shows on Disability News Report that first caught my eye, and I went through a bunch of them. You certainly interview a very wide range of individuals and things that I never would have thought about, like augmented reality or virtual reality, and the challenges with a disability has. It would never have occurred to me.

There was several interesting stuff there. Is that how the channel got started in a sense was with those interviews, or the Disability News Report sounds like that's maybe what it began as and then grew from that?

Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. [laughs] It started out with the interviews because I wanted to offer a platform where people could tell their stories. I have always enjoyed talking to people and learning of their stories. [laughs] I started out with the interviews.

Once I started with different topic ideas and themes, so to speak, then I would search for people to see who was open and willing to talk about it. I would interview the people with the disability or people with a virtual reality segment that you talked about who offer a product because the virtual reality I didn't even...

I'm not a gamer at all, [laughs] so I definitely was totally out of the loop on anything gaming. Definitely had no idea about virtual reality, but I thought it was awesome that he had come up with something to allow people with disabilities to still engage in the same way as non‑disabled people.

That's how it got started. Those interviews are still on YouTube. I waffle back and forth on doing another season because when I first started, I thought, "OK, this is what I'm going to do, and then maybe in season two, I'll do this." Then, it grew into having a channel where I'm more on the backend, allowing him to give the platform to everyone else.

I haven't circled back to the interviews, but I enjoyed them. Sometimes people through Instagram will say, "Hey, you should do a topic on this, and do a topic on that." I still think that there will be more content regarding that because I have it in me, and I have such an interest in it.

Keith: To close, I wanted to hear a little bit about each of your thoughts on what the future holds for your platforms and the way you see them going, what goals you seek to attain along the way. Liz?

Elizabeth: [laughs] I would love to see Conscious Being become as mainstream as possible. I'd love to be able to see it being a global publication that is in the stands alongside Vogue and Elle and all of those really big magazines.

How cool would it be to be a disabled woman or a non‑binary person and walking into a supermarket and going, "Hey, there's a magazine for me [laughs] with representation of me in it"? That is the massive goal, but obviously I don't see that happening for a few years. [laughs] It might take a while to build and grow.

Certainly, I want the magazine to grow and build, build the readership, build the community, even on social media. We're starting to build a strong, thoughtful community around the magazine where I think people can actually talk about some of these issues that we raise in the magazine, including gaming. Jennifer just mentioned gaming.

Keith: [laughs]

Elizabeth: In Issue 2, we do have an article from one of our writers about how gaming actually helped her through mental health issues, [laughs] which is a really brilliant article. It's touching on to those topics necessarily thought of in relation to the disability community but showing or providing that representation for disabled people.

Also, part of it is that importance of showing non‑disabled people that disabled people's lives are full and rich and have depth. Just like non‑disabled people, we all have the same hang‑ups and issues and problems. We might have some extra struggles because of accessibility issues or stereotypes or beliefs and stuff. In general, we want the same thing as non‑disabled people.

That's why I hope with Conscious Being that we can be representative of that and informative for not just the disability community, but the wider community at large.

Keith: Jennifer?

Jennifer: I definitely am looking to gain the audience, the viewership, and everything like that. I also have a ambitious long‑term goal, [laughs] like Liz, in the sense that there was maybe a couple of months ago I read an article about this valuable 500 CEOs said that they would make disability inclusion their business.

An ambitious long‑term goal for me would be to tap one of those companies and get some partnership or collaboration going with the network and see where that goes. Right now, people can view it online, or either have to have a Roku to download the app to their device. I would love to see it embedded, as the term that I'm using, on the Roku channel itself.

That would also be a nice long‑term goal or any other platform. I'm not married to Roku necessarily so that people can come across it the way they come across the ABC network.

Keith: That would be great. Those are both high goals, but I would love to see those goals attained sooner than later. Absolutely.

Thank you guys so much for doing this. I appreciate it. Good luck with everything. I hope this is another way to help get some more eyes and ears and hands on your different publications and media.

Elizabeth: Thanks, Keith. That's one of the wonderful things I love about the disability community. As I expand my network, and I'm sure Jennifer feels the same, as you expand that network, I find as a community, it's that level of support for the projects that we're all working on.

We all as different people, whether allies or disabled people, but they were all working on to raise the profile and representation of disability. Everyone is so supportive and lifts each other up because we all know how important it is, and that no one's in competition with each other.

We're all aiming for the same goal. We all want to achieve the same thing. If we can support each other with that, that's brilliant. Thank you, Keith, so much.

Jennifer: Yeah, same, Keith. I do appreciate that. I agree with Liz. There's definitely been an overwhelming gratitude of, "What can I do to help? I just believe in the mission of your organization. Tell me where I can fit in?" I certainly appreciate these opportunities with you, Keith, to be able to continue to spread the word.

Keith: Thanks for giving us word to spread. Thanks again.

Jennifer Price and Elizabeth Wright were great guests today, and we thank them for being on the podcast. You can find Disability News Report on the web at disabilitynewsreport.tv, or if you have a Roku device, you can find it for free in the Channel Store.

To read and subscribe to Conscious Being magazine, check out flipsnack.com/consciousbeingmagazine. Thank you for listening to the You First podcast or reading the transcript online. Please email any feedback questions or ideas about the show to podcast@disabilityrightsflorida.org.

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You can learn more about the services we provide, explore a vast array of resources on a variety of disability‑related topics, and complete an online intake on our website at disabilityrightsflorida.org. You can also call us at 1‑800‑342‑0823. Thank you for listening to You First ‑‑ The Disability Rights Florida Podcast.