They tried to silence her. They told her to limit her voice to disability issues, but Helen Keller never stopped advocating for human rights. You, too, have a voice. Keep advocating!

This video is an excerpt from the White House Disability Pride Month Convening. The entire recording is on the White House YouTube channel.

Descriptive transcript

Haben Girma speaks on stage, sitting with a Braille computer on her lap. Also sitting on stage are, from left to right, Gene Sperling, Mychal Threets, and Eric Harris. The camera shows a lively, diverse group in the audience, including people with wheelchairs.

Haben: Helen Keller was a brilliant Deafblind woman who lived from 1880 to 1968. She had a powerful voice. But many times when she wrote down essays about causes she cared about, editors would reject it saying, “That’s too political, just stick to talking about blindness.”

And she was stuck and prevented from speaking up on a lot of issues. Today, a lot of disabled people can speak up online. Our social media channels allow us to share our views—on videos, written posts, all kinds of ways we can get our message out without going through ableist editors. Helen would be thrilled with all that we’ve done today!

One of the things that gives me hope is when I witness disabled people advocating for the end of suffering in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, and many other places where there are humanitarian crises. We don’t have to be single-issue people. We have advocates who’ve worked hard to win us our right to speak, and protect our right to vote.

Keep lifting up your voices. Keep advocating! Thank you everyone.

(Applause)

The euphemism Special Needs, after many years of service, has filed for retirement. Nondisabled people receive countless supports, so why should supports for disabled people get treated as something extra? The only difference between accommodations for nondisabled and disabled people is ableism. That’s why the overworked Special Needs decided the time had come to move on.

The video is an excerpt from my remarks at the White House Disability Pride Month Convening.

Descriptive Transcript

Haben Girma speaks on stage, sitting with a Braille computer on her lap. Also sitting on stage are, from left to right, Gene Sperling, Mychal Threets, and Eric Harris. The camera also shows a lively, diverse group in the audience, including people with wheelchairs.

Haben: The biggest challenge, in schools, medical centers, workplaces, is ableism. Ableism is the system of belief that treats disabled people as inferior to nondisabled people. When I arrived in college, I discovered the menus in the cafeteria were only in print. I couldn’t read it not because of blindness, but because of the format of the menu. The idea of disabled people going to university still surprises some people who work at schools. And that’s a classic example of ableism: we need to plan for disabled students. I went to the manager and I told him, “The format of the menu doesn’t work. But if you provide it in Braille or post it online or email it to me, I have tech that allows me to read emails and websites that are accessible.” The manager said, “We’re very busy. We don’t have time to do special things for students with special needs.” Just to be clear, eating is not a special need.

(Laughter)

Haben: There’s this myth that nondisabled people don’t need help, but nondisabled people need lots of accommodations. The cafeteria was full of chairs, hundreds of chairs. Those are accommodations for nondisabled students. Students with wheelchairs roll in with their own chairs. So the school was spending money on accommodations for nondisabled students.

(Laughter and applause)

Haben: And along the ceiling, there were lights. Those are accommodations for sighted students.

(Laughter)

Haben: Blind students didn’t need the lights. In fact, the school would have saved so much money if they turned off the lights.

(Laughter)

Haben: The difference between accommodations for disabled people and nondisabled people is ableism. And if we learned to notice ableism, we can remove it from our schools. But back then, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know how to advocate, so I was stuck not having access to the menu. I told myself, don’t complain. There are worse things in the world. It’s just menus. And the barrier followed me day after day. One day I did research and I learned about ada.gov. I learned about the Americans with Disabilities Act and I realized, we have rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, including students. And I went back to the manager and I told him, “if you don’t provide access to the menu, I’m going to take legal action.”

(Applause and cheering)

Haben: I had no idea how to do that.

(Laughter)

Haben: I was 19, I couldn’t afford a lawyer. Now I know there are nonprofit legal centers like DRC, where Eric works. Within the government, there’s the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Civil Rights, where we can send in complaints. There’s the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. So we have all these resources, but I didn’t know about them. All I knew was I had to try. I had to do something. The next day, the manager apologized. He was scared of getting sued.

(Laughter)

Haben: And the culture changed at the cafeteria. Instead of thinking of it as something extra and charity, they realized they must provide accessibility. The ADA helps us fight ableism and I hope more people learn about the resources: our laws, the agencies that can help us to fight ableism and discrimination. Thank you.

(Applause)

His brilliance, humor, and enchanting stories help people deepen their understanding of mental health. Mychal Threets @mychal3ts teaches how we can make libraries accessible for everyone, and sharing a stage with him at the White House was an absolute honor!

Descriptive Transcript

Mychal and Haben sit in chairs in an auditorium. Mychal types on a keyboard as he talks, and Haben reads from her Braille computer as he types.

Haben: And what did you find?

Mychal: I found some accessibility books, and some other resources to help out people who are disabled. I also found a display on mental health. Which is big in my life and I love to see that it is also recognized as a disability.

Haben: Yes! And the library is a great place to teach people about mental health, their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other civil rights laws. So that’s really exciting the library had a display like that.

Mychal: They did! It was so cool to see. Libraries are always trying to convince people that they are for every single person.

Haben: Yes, it takes some creativity, some funding, some determination, to make sure that every person gets access to the library. But we can make that happen.

Photo: Mychal stands beside Haben and they are both smiling. Mychal, with an eye-catching Afro and snazzy tie, does a thumbs-up. Haben signs ILY with one hand and holds Mylo’s leash with the other.

Haben (voiceover):

Video returns to Mychal and Haben talking in the auditorium. Mychal Threets is a literacy ambassador.

Haben (voiceover): He spreads library joy, and teaches people about mental health. In this video, we’re hanging out just before our panel at the White House Disability Pride Convening. He’s typing because I’m Deafblind and reading his words in Braille. He is a lot of fun to chat with and learn from! If you’re not following him already, definitely follow him on all the channels.

Full video on the White House YouTube channel

Descriptive Transcript

Haben: Haben Girma speaking. Hello, everyone. So I am going to start with a visual description. It’s an accessibility practice for our blind audience, and anyone who’s multitasking.

(Laughter)

Haben: I’m a Black woman in my 30s. I’m wearing a blue dress. In front of me is a guide dog on the floor.

She’s seated on stage between Eric Harris and Mychal Threets. On the far left is Gene Sperling.

Haben: You will notice a delay between when Gene asks a question and when I respond. And that’s because the Braille transcription is coming through. I’m Deafblind, not hearing Gene, but I’m reading the words in Braille. Transcription takes time. Many of us have felt pressure that if we don’t speak, move, walk, or even think at an arbitrarily chosen pace, we’ll be kicked out of the group. Mainstream culture often punishes people for those who are deemed too slow. I can’t tell me- I can’t tell you how many websites have kicked me out because I was completing a form at a speed they decided was too slow. Many deaf people have experiences calling with a relay service, and the person on the other line of the phone hangs up because they decide it’s too slow. The idea that faster is always better, is ableist.

(Applause from the audience. Haben laughs.)

Haben: I like applause, you can applaud as many times as you want throughout the presentation.

(Laughter)

Haben: Nondisabled people are starting to learn the value of savoring moments. There’s the slow food movement to savor flavors, and the slow travel movement to savor experiences. When we take time for disabled voices — voices with stutters, voices that sign, voices that type — then we allow ourselves to savor the wisdom of disabled friends and family members. I take pride in being disabled. If we can say, “She is a woman,” “She is Black,” without any shame or stigma, then we should be able to say, “She is disabled,” without any shame or stigma. “Disabled” connects me to a rich community. It connects me to the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s not the Americans with Special Needs Act.
(Laughter and applause.)

The video zooms out to show the audience, a diverse group including people with wheelchairs.

Most museums have a visual culture, but this little museum takes guests on a multisensory tour. The Disgusting Food Museum also challenges our culinary biases.

Descriptive Transcript

Haben faces the camera holding a closed jar. Behind her is a wall of red and yellow cans.

Haben: A lot of museums focus on visuals. I’m at a museum that’s now encouraging people to explore their sense of smell and their sense of taste. We’re at the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö, Sweden, and there are dangerous foods here and foods that are known for being … disgusting. And I’m holding a jar that has a bit of Surströmming, which is fermented fish that is well known in Sweden. I’m opening the jar… oh dear!

The jar has white fabric material absorbing the scent. There is a white label with black text on the outside of the jar that says, “Smelling Jar: Surströmming.” She raises the jar to her nose, then pulls back, her eyes widening.

Haben: Yeah, that smells very, very fishy. I’m told… my cousin Brook tells me it smells a lot worse in real life, when it’s the real thing. And there have been court cases all about this scent!

The video cuts to her speaking in front of a black curtain.

Haben: They had lots of different things for us to taste here. I tried durian, the fruit.

Photo: The rind is green and covered in sharp spikes. Inside the soft, oblong, yellow fruit is surrounded by a white pith, like that of an orange.

Haben: It kind of tastes like a mix of onion and mango.

Inside the museum, she holds a toothpick with a small, gray sliver of something that shines as though it’s slimy.

Haben (Voiceover): I tried Surströmming, the very famous fermented fish from Sweden.

She cautiously bites and chews.

Haben: Oh, it’s definitely not as bad as I feared!

Back to the room with the black curtains.

Haben: The one that challenged me was salt licorice. The first time I tried it, it was this overwhelming salt flavor and my mouth was full of salt and I just spit it out because it was too much. Then my cousin told me it’s super popular here in Sweden, so I gave it another try.

Behind a long counter, staff hand out samples to guests. A black table cloth hangs over the side of the counter with the text, “DFM Yuck! (Disgusting Food Museum).” Haben stands several feet in front of the counter, and her guide dog Mylo looks up at her inquisitively.

Haben: My favorite so far was pickled cabbage juice from Eastern Europe. And now I have a popular Swedish candy, salt licorice I think it’s called, and it’s kind of like a block of salt and squishy like licorice.

Photo: Circular, black pieces of licorice coated in white, fine-grain salt.

Haben squeezes the piece of licorice she’s been holding gently between two fingers. It’s about the size of a quarter and formed in the shape of a cube. She pops the licorice in her mouth. Her eyes widen and she smiles as she chews.

Haben (Voiceover): Chewing.

(Nervous laughter).

Haben (Voiceover): I look shocked and amused as I struggle to keep chewing!

Haben finishes chewing the salty licorice.

Haben: The inside is very sweet, like licorice and the outside is salty. The first time, I couldn’t finish it because it was so salty on the outside. The trick is to start chewing right away, so the salt and sugar mixes.

She looks to the right, speaking to her cousin out of frame.

Haben: Okay, I figured it out!

Back to the room with the black curtains.

Haben: What I found at this museum is that things are never as bad as we think they’re going to be. It’s excellent to have a place where we can challenge our sense of taste, our sense of smell, and learn about food from around the world.