Video Transcript

Eric Haris:
Hello everyone this is Eric Harris with the Game Plan at Disability Rights California. We're super excited to have two amazing guests, for this episode on the ADA, the 36th anniversary of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act. We had Tom Olin, who is, an amazing, leader and advocate and then we also had Anita Cameron, who's a fantastic leader. Both of these individuals, are elders in the disability movement and disability community, have been doing great work for a really long time. Tom, is a photojournalist who we got to talk to a little bit about the importance of photojournalism. And then Anita is an activist who has been in the movement for decades and decades. And talks a lot about her experience as a black disabled woman especially, in decades past, in the 70s and 80s and what that experience was like. So hope you all enjoy, this, this wonderful episode.

[Upbeat hip hop tempo music begins to play]

Eric:
So welcome, everyone, to another episode of The Game Plan podcast with Disability Rights California. My name is Eric Harris, and we have an amazing special guest for this episode, Tom Olin, who will tell us a lot about his background and his journey in the disability space. We're so lucky to have you, Tom, thanks so much for joining us.

Tom Olin:
Well, thank you and I really love being a part of Disability Rights California.

Eric:
Fantastic. Tom, can you tell us a little bit, about your connection to the disability community, to the disability movement? You've been in the space for a long time.

Tom:
Yeah. Well, I, I have, dyslexia, so I was always put into a special room or special seats for slow learners or, you know, the dummy class or whatever, you know, it was called, but, and that was from elementary school when that started. By the time I got into junior high and high school, I had figured out, you know, enough that I almost forgot I had dyslexia. You know, I just did audio stuff, and, you know, I made it work for me. And, you know, I actually was, accepted into a college, and then found out in that first semester that they didn't have any programs for me. And I had to write and do things that I hadn't done, and so I had to drop out and,

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
And then dropping out, what was really interesting was that you ended up, working in the rehab, hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And, and that was the first time I got to be with Fish Dues and other other disabilities. I was in a floor, a ward that was, in my own age. So that was around 18 years old, 18, 19 years old. And, and I it was, definitely eye opening. And I really got to some of those, some of the, people that we're, you know, there, as, as patients and such, are still friends with me. I should say a lot of them have died right now. But, when one of the patients was dying in Coleman, and I don't know if, you know Diane Coleman, she was, she ended up, doing Not Dead Yet, was some of the early attorneys in, in the, ADAPT world, and, and I actually, got to meet her a couple of times after the, rehab, space. And, I mean, that was a high drama. You know, people came in with traumatic injuries from trauma, traumatic injuries, and it was like, I either want to die or I'm going to get through this, you know? And that so it was pretty, pretty, emotional diagram of, of how people look at people with disabilities, how people in different areas, you know, what what they thought they were going to have out there. High drama and I really enjoyed it. I think it just, that's just me. So I ended up, kind of going outside, going off the grid for about ten years after that, in the mountains of the Ozarks. And then I ended up, coming out, and ended up on an island in Brazil, and no one spoke English. And so I, it was, I finally was talking to myself, your English, you know, it was quite interesting and what was interesting, it was like a meditation, you know, I got to ask, I figured I can ask myself questions, and then answer myself.

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
You know, we don't have time nowadays to do that at all. And, and so I asked myself those questions, you know, what are you on the earth for? Which, what's your next, what's your plan to do next, you know, what has the past up until now brought you? And where does it look like it's going? And I ended up saying, you know, I really wanted to get back into disability somehow, and

Eric:
I love that, I love it.

Tom:
And so it was kind of funny, I got to say, "Okay, where on the earth do you want to go to do that or pursue that path?" And I said, "Berkeley!"

[Eric and Tom laugh]

Eric:
One question that I have, photojournalism, is a space that, that you got into and we haven't, you know, so far we've done this podcast for about a year and we haven't interviewed anybody who's a photojournalist. Can you just talk a little bit about the importance of photojournalism as a tool for the disability rights movement?

Tom:
Yeah. So it's changed, that tool has changed, and we're kind of grappling with it right now. Again, in the beginning when I was doing, this I mean, I was, I was taking pictures and they ended up in, a lot of the organizations bulletins. They didn't have web pages back there. So it was always like a newsletter, you know, and I

Eric:
Right.

Tom:
was always. when it came to, you know, if they wanted to pay me, great. But I always gave I gave myself away. And I'm really glad. I mean really when they say give and, you might get tenfold back and it really was like that, and still is like that. People still remember me, you know, giving, giving their organizations photos. But the importance was and the photos is so different from writing, you know? People, until until people sometimes see a photo, they don't believe the writing. I remember in Brazil, you know, one of the, we had magazines back there, back then, back in the, 70s and the 80s and through the 90s, it was late 70s, the 80s and then the 90s and they kind of went away, when big social media came, came about. And we really don't have those magazines anymore. And these are magazines that that, edited what was going on. And there's no magazine, you know, there's, some social media,

Eric:
Right.

Tom:
It kind of does that, but not like, and it doesn't have the photos like that. And when you're talking, when you're like talking with community, if we're talking community, there are many ways of looking at where, you know, what's the emphasis or just what's your venue. What what does, you know, what where does the photos go to and why. Yeah. And, and in the beginning, when we, when the movement happened, was happening, and there was the IL movement and then you had the the disability rights movement, and they intersected at times. And a lot of the players were the same players. But, especially when it came to the disability rights, people saw pictures that they could not believe that disabled people could do.

[Tom laughs]

Eric:
Right, right.

Tom:
Yeah. They were really night and day. I mean, I can remember back then in elementary school and I don't know, we had the weekly readers all showed, you know, what was happening around the United States and, and, you know, my photos were probably got to see, the power of people with disabilities.

Eric:
Wow.

Tom:
After the Jerry Lewis thing that was going on, you know? So that was very important. And to get it into places where elementary schools and things like that. And, and I also in LA, I also, worked for the LA Unified as a aid in Special Ed, and I got to bring my photo books and show the kids, you know, and, [Eric laughs] and I remember one kid, and he was in this one, and, and I was a sub at different places. So I got to go all over the place.

Eric:
Nice, nice.

Tom:
It's one elementary school that the kid, I showed him the book, and it was, it was like, it was a line of, people with disabilities, about a hundred or more. And he just looked at me, "I don't know, there were that many people just in chairs in the world."

Eric:
Man.

Tom:
Yeah. You know, like, was just and that's so that was the early days of disability photography, you know, got to, people got to see things different in a way.

Eric:
Well and you, you've been around, you've seen it all. You've been able to take photos of a bunch of different major events and major things. Is there one or maybe a couple of like moments where you're you're doing your work and taking photos and just recognizing, wow, this is really some powerful stuff. Even, you know, all the things that you've seen.

Tom:
That's that's kind of a funny question. Because we're trying to grow a movement and and so there are, you know, people will say, "Oh, it's a Capitol Crawl photo." My favorite ones were the people that were on the front lines that came out of the institutions and said, hey, you know, I want to be on the front line. You know, I'll, I'll save up my SSI money. I'll go out and fundraise. I'll you know, to get to those places during the big ADAPT movement, you know, like, came up to the ADA and you know, that ADA passed, to me that was more your people came out of fucking institutions, you know, and said, I want to go because I have people back in the institutions that need to get out. To me, photographing their empowerment was whereas what I love it, you know, but I could also, you know, take photos at the other part of that was also how do you, how do you, how does a movement rise? How does that movement connect? And when people got to seek connection in different places, they adapt and ADAPT, went to different cities all over the United States plus in Canada, and, with hundreds and hundreds of people. And you don't see that anymore and and you don't see, you know, people forget that, before even before the ADA happened, over a thousand, people with disabilities were put in jail,

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
You know, that's that's something that, is incredible and don't happen. I mean, really doesn't happen much as much anymore. I mean, back then, sometimes you went in jail for five days, and you can imagine what some of the people, especially the quads, you know, that was life threatening.

Eric:
Right? Absolutely.

Tom:
We had magazine, we had the Disability Rag, we had the Mouth Magazine. We had a couple. We had, Cindy Jones's magazine, which I can't remember what the name was right now. But, we had what was happening, and especially with the Mouth and the Disability Rag I worked with the Mouth so I can say this. Is what we did is it what, the Rag would produce their magazine one month. We would do the next month so that, things were, you know, people could read just pretty much what was happening now. But now, I mean, now it's like every day, but you can't really see what's happening in the disability movement, every day we would have to go to 15 different organizations websites to find it. Yeah, it's really impossible. Back then you could be sitting on your John or whatever reading one of the, magazines and, and probably a thousand other people around the United States was doing the same thing.

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
And people thought, people were close to the movement that way. People felt like they were in a movement. It was totally, you know, we don't have that kind of, and and was a movement that you trusted, know, that, and, and so that was it was a whole different time in world that, that photojournalism could come into play and be,

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
it was I remember our magazine, the Mouth. You know, the White House, they, they had like seven, seven copies or more?

Eric:
Wow.

Tom:
It was, you know, people that were in the know and needed to have those magazine to know what was happening because because they were, they were they weren't saying, oh, this is a great, you know, government administration or even this is a great SIL, no, it was that if there was a bad SIL, you know, people would hear about it.

Eric:
Yeah, yeah.

Tom:
It was bad players in the administration, we would something we, we didn't have actually we didn't have and that's why we probably don't have it anymore. But we can have any kind of spon, advertising [Eric laughs] or I don't know, it was totally different.

Eric:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, that's fantastic and very fascinating. That you mentioned the ADA bus tours. We're going to kind of shift forward a bit towards ADA bus tours, kind of around the times of trying to get the ADA across the finish line, passing the ADA. What were the ADA bus tours like?

Tom:
Well the ADA bus tour came after the after the ADA was passed, but on the first ADA bus tour, which it's still, the organization that helped start that was ADA Watch which Jim Ward still was doing that and well, we were at, we're at a friend's house when a whole collection of us, disability people went, why not do the things and but Jim, Jim and his wife and kids and I, we got two busses. And what we did was we went around to every state, every state, and we had to fly, and we didn't we had to leave the busses to fly to Hawaii and Alaska. But, other than that, we hit every state and do it. And it's the same what happened with, with, our, our, our father of ADA. Give me his name... Justin Dart.

Eric:
Justin Dart. Yes. Of course.

Tom:
Oh my. God. Well, anyhow, he he did these, ADA diaries, and he went around and collected names and collected, signatures. And so we did that too, because, at that time, the ADA was real in trouble, 2003-4 and, and so we went around, got names and everything like that and and, and what was really interesting is that, well, it was a really great we went to capitals, we went to, expo fairs. We, you know, went all over the place. And, [Tom laughs] it was like, there aren't too many things like that in the disability world and, you know, trying to bring people together in different places and, you know, it's, it was a iconic, very iconic, you know, so there were people that would drive their family to wherever we were just to see the bus. [Eric laughs] And the bus was kind of neat. The bus was covered, and, and the photos, my photos, you know.

Eric:
Oh, wow.

Tom:
And so at different places that on the bus, you could it was like a 35 footer. So it was a pretty big bus. And, and you can, there might be a picture of, protest stuff and people would, "Okay, I want my photo here" you know, or, you know, and things like that all around it. It was just something else. And

Eric:
Fantastic.

Tom:
And you drive when people would, you know, everyone loved it. Yeah.

Eric:
Wow. Yeah.

Tom:
And then in 2015, did the same. I did the same thing. I got the bus back and, and did the tour again. Did different tours, with that, and there and at that time, well, then I did other things building registration with the bus.

Eric:
Right, right.

Tom:
A lot of, disaster stuff that I would talk about history and, I had a lot of photos I got to take out to, you know, into different routes and to different, than you, like auditoriums and, and things like that, that could be put around, you know, independent living centers,

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
special ed schools. That was a really good one. You know, I remember going going to, 360, which is a very large independent living center, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Eric:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tom:
Yeah and, they brought in, I always to, you know, whatever the thing was, I should make sure that you have group homes. You have everyone that's connected with disability that can come, come. The thing about the the, trip to, you know, I would, park wherever the person people were, the organization were, and they'd bring your app and whatever. And those, you know, those photos are still hanging on walls, you know, and it was kind of tight It was like a, you know a, the town crier. You go from one place to another place and, and it was always interesting that, you could go 100 miles and people didn't know what they were doing on one, geographic area to another. And what great things were happening around. I got to, you know, talk about great things that are happening all over.

Eric:
Wow, wow. Well, you know, one question that I have for you, you were able to kind of witness pre ADA, post ADA, and then all of the things that happened afterwards, what are some of the things that you would say are like the things that really stand out, like when you notice the pre ADA versus post ADA?

Tom:
You know, because I was doing a bus tour, you know, that it was so funny because I'd go to the, you know, towns that were, towns and, and small villages and things like that and go through them. And, and before the ADA, you know, there was no disability anything, you know, and then, one of the places that driving that always had parking lots that were big enough for the, for the bus, you know, I'd be at Walmart you know, and you go into Walmart and there people would just go that the, the, you know, aisles were wide, you know, it was just it was it was kind of like, oh, my God. People, that's were a lot of people in the county would meet, or I think the greatest thing was you go through a small town and sometimes or yeah, that would be, the county seat, you know, and they'd have the big courthouse in the middle. And then, and then, you know, it'd be a block of just grass around it and, and benches, you know, and, and, and before you just see the old, some of the old guys, you know, whittling, you know whatever you know, the next time after the ADA, there were accessible places, accessible sidewalks and stuff like that. And, and being there, people in wheelchairs that were by the benches or, you know, doing the same things as the other people used to do. And, and I got you in the second part. You know, one of the things, there were ladders, I would stop at a city, you know, for a city and that be the mayor and dot dot dot. And there'd be and they would always talk about what they've been doing, you know, what what's happening and yeah, you'd ask, you know well how's your building inspectors and stuff like that or, you know, because that would really show me where they're at, you know, and, and people, you know, things were getting done and they were proud of them. [Tom laughs]

Eric:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tom:
Nowadays, I don't know if they'd be proud of. [Eric and Tom laugh] back then it was, you know, things were working really well.

Eric:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what would you like to see I mean, you, as you know, there are advocates all over the country who might be tuning in and want to, you know, hear different thoughts and ideas. What would you say you'd like to see going forward when it comes to disability rights, the ADA, the disability rights movement, like, are there any things that come to mind that you would just love to see in the next 20 years or 30 years?

Tom:
Well that could be a whole other show [Eric and Tom laughs] the thing is, is that, you know, I got to see the history of stuff, and the history is always an amazing thing. I've worked with the YLF, the Youth Leadership Forums in different states and and the, the youth enjoy the history and it's an old saying of you know, "You know, you can't go far unless you know where you've been."

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
I'm not saying that should what is reported should be exactly what you'll be doing. But you know, knowing that other people have done different things that should open you up to whatever maybe you can do. So I think that's really, really important and definitely, making sure that the youth are, you know, I, I still you know, I call myself an elder, and and there's just too many people that, you know, should be letting, the youth rise up a little bit more, put them into places where there is a ladder effect and they can, you know, rise up into different positions.

Eric:
That's right.

Tom:
That's a really important, and I think we just have to get back to who we, you know, like, like I was talking about the two differences of, you know, the movements. One was making, you know, the community accessible, and that's important. And the other one is we still haven't got we still don't work on people that are institutionalized. You know, we don't work in the prisons hardly. You know, and yet there are more people with disabilities than not in a prison or jail.

Eric:
That's right.

Tom:
You know, we got so many people still on, in guardianship and the, the reason, and, and the thing is, is that the only reasons they're in guardianships because we don't have the services that mitigates that. Of course they don't have, we have SIL's that can mitigate that. But judges don't know those things.

Eric:
Right.

Tom:
You know, we still have, you know, DD institutions. We still have, you know, we have a lot of people that, we have to, you know, realize that, you know, they are a part of this and that's

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
at the very beginning that we knew that. Now it's just like, you know, oh, let's get the funding to do this. We got the, money has come in, corporate has come in and corporate is taking over our disability services. So that's a whole nother world too.

Eric:
Yeah.

Tom:
You know, and yeah there's a lot, a lot to do still. [Tom laughs]

Eric:
No you're you're exactly right, Tom. And I'm really glad that you brought up the institute, institutionalization. And whether it's jails, prisons, immigration detention facilities, whether it's, you know, mental health, state hospitals, whether it's, you know, DD institutions, those are the spaces that, you know, our advocacy is needed most. And I'm glad that you brought that up, because it's happening all over the country, including in California, unfortunately.

Tom:
Yeah. Yeah. You you got the good care plan, CARE Courts right now. [Eric laughs] The only time I got arrested, was, I'm really good at not getting arrested at actions because, you know, thing is, is that if you get arrested, then you can't take photos anymore, you know, and but, at one point, I was up in New York, Syracuse, I think it was in Syracuse and, was a demonstration, at a mental mental health facility in a hospital. And, I just said, okay, it's time for me to get arrested so here's my cam and take it away, you know, and, you know, after a while, after seeing everyone getting arrested, all these you know, for years and years and years, you feel kind of funny not being arrested. You know, I want to be included. Yeah. Same way with, you know, Evan, Evan Kemp and, and Justin Dart Jr. At the very end of their lives, they were trying to they were, they'd go to an ADAPT action and say, "Okay, okay, put us where we can get arrested." [Tom laughs] Yeah, they never got arrested. But they, they wanted to. That was one of the things, you know, that they wanted to do. They never got.

Eric:
That is fantastic. Thank you so much, Tom, for for joining us and giving us so much history and knowledge and, and ways to ways to move forward. So we really appreciate all that you do.

[Upbeat hip hop tempo music begins to play]

Eric:
Welcome everybody to The Game Plan with Disability Rights California. My name is Eric Harris and I am with Anita Cameron, who is a, just a fantastic leader in our movement, historic leader in our movement. We're so lucky to have her. Welcome, Anita.

Anita Cameron:
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Eric:
If you could, because I know some of the folks who might be tuning in don't know what ADAPT is. They might, you know, of course, be able to Google it, look it up. But can you just let folks know what ADAPT is, and why it's so important?

Anita:
So ADAPT is a national grassroots disability rights group that, it fights for disability rights It was officially founded in 1983. I joined in 1986, but the folks who made up the. To talk about ADAPT, you have to go back to 1978 and probably before. But in 1978, on July 5th and 6th there were 19 people gathered at the corner, the southwest corner of Colfax and Broadway in Denver, Colorado. And they were trying to get on the bus. Now, these folks, were all young folks with disabilities. Most of them, they had come out of a nursing home about four years prior. Most of them had come out of the single nursing home, and saw that disabled people still couldn't get around, couldn't get into buildings, couldn't get on busses or anything. And so those folks began, meeting with the bus companies to say like, put a lift on these busses, put some way that people in wheelchairs would get on the bus. And, our regional transportation district kept saying no. And so finally, you know, on July 5th and 6th,19 folks, they would be known as the gang of 19, got out of their wheelchairs and laid in the street for two days, fight for lifts on busses. That was a disability shout heard around the world. And that was also the beginnings of the founding of ADAPT. Until I joined ADAPT, at the age of 21, and I joined in Chicago and at that time ADAPT stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, and we would go we we did, yes, block busses, chained ourselves to busses, handcuffed our selves to busses. We blocked buildings. We, traveled the American, Public Transit Association, the urban, Mass Transit Association, and we followed these folks around the country, and protesting at their conventions.

Eric:
Wow.

Anita:
And, you know, and obviously lots of us got arrested and all, but, you know, we were, you know, obviously we were looking at, okay, the form I write says, you know, like when the, Americans with Disabilities Act, was introduced and Justin Dart was going around the country, doing his town halls. You know, I, participated in some of those, Major Owens was going around doing his stuff. Well, do you know, a lot of people don't even know who Major Owens was.

Eric:
Ugh I know.

Anita:
Don't know who Major Owens was and, you know, his his involvement and what he did and what he used, you know, his power to do in the ADA, you know, how that was his most proudest achievement and how even then, he was still erased,

Eric:
I know. Yeah.

Anita:
from the story. So, you know, we were you know, we were doing all of that and, you know, over the years seeing and we were seeing the ADA get sold. So now ADAPT, we were like, a lot of times people considered us like riffraff. They didn't want to deal with us. [Eric laughs] We were considered militant and radicals. We were compared to the Black Panthers and Act Up which to me, those are badges of honor. So, hey, because I was involved with Act Up and, we had ADAPT members who were Black Panthers.

Eric:
That's right.

Anita:
In fact, ADAPT was the only group that I had been involved with at all my social justice experience, where I wasn't the only black or I wasn't the only disabled or both. I wasn't the token. About half of us were black. You know, a bunch of us Latine, a number of us queer, you know, ADAPT, ADAPT, accepted it all, you know, ADAPT accepted all of us. We had Native Americans, Asians, Latine, you name it. We had it in ADAPT. Trans folks, I mean and the most unlikely people in ADAPT, including myself, rose to leadership. And so, you know, we were looking when we were seen, we felt like the ADA, was in danger. I remember Wade Blank telling me, you know, we got do something, because if we don't, he said we could be here three years from now. Still trying to figure stuff out. And so, you know, that, that was back in the days adapt was very, very, open and talked openly about things. We would learn quickly not to do that because police did the tracing and all. But we decided that we were, we decided that we had to do something. That's how the Capitol Crawl came in. ADAPT.

Eric:
Well it's interesting,

Anita:
[overlaps with Eric] Capitol Crawl.

Eric:
Yeah absolutely. And it's interesting Miss Cameron because I was going to ask you, you know, you, are an educated person. You know that to a certain extent, having, so-called traditional educated folks involved is helpful folks who can do the policy work, folks who can do the the talking to elected officials and getting policy passed. But you also recognize that protest and being physically present, and showing your frustration is also a big part of it, whether it's, you know, like ADAPT or the Black Panthers or other groups. So can you just talk a little bit about why both of those roles are important, that we need folks who are in politics and policy changing the laws, but we also need folks who are out there on the streets making making noise about, you know, what's going on.

Anita:
Well, actually, what a lot of people don't realize about ADAPT is by the time you see an ADAPT action and ADAPT protest, meetings have been going on. Education has been going on. We have been talking to the politicians for the legislative. Bob Kafka, he called what ADAPT does to pitch he called it using the pitchfork method. [Eric laughs] I called it, the multi-pronged effort. So that protesting and direct action, that is the last thing.

Eric:
Yeah, yeah.

Anita:
We want to start out with meeting the targets. You want to start out with educating, you know, you want to, you know, if there's a legislative aspect, if you have to, and ADAPT has written legislation, and what not, not actually help is that, you know, sometimes it takes some legislative stuff. When we do this in ADAPT, we will prepare for the long run, we knew that it was going to take years, even decades, and it's been decades and things, you know, still, you know, aren't. And so, you know, it's also like lawsuits sometimes you gotta sue them, you know, so there's a multi pronged, for lack of a better word, attack or approach and advocacy, you know, that, that by the time you see us, you know, blocking doors and chained to busses, we've already done all of the homework, the research, the meetings. We've been told so many times, and we're just not going to take no anymore.

Eric:
Yeah, yeah.

Anita:
And, you know, and then we decide, okay, it's time. It's time to hit the streets. And, you know, just like, you know, the folks with the civil rights movement, I mean, we are so committed to, you know, to fighting, you know, for disability rights that we, you know, are willing to, to get arrested. I've been arrested 140 times in ADAPT. In 39 years of active involvement. You know, I've been doing this stuff for 44 years now. Community organizing, you know, and whatnot. And it's still I mean, here it is 30, it's going to be 36 years post ADA. And we, you know, disabled people, we are still, we're still suffering injustice. But, you know, I tell people all the time, you know, as much as I fought for the ADA and got arrested, and did the Capitol Crawl and and got arrested in the rotunda, you know, the next day and went to jail and all of that, that the ADA is the floor. It is not the ceiling.

Eric:
That's right.

Anita:
I tell people the biggest thing that the ADA did not do, for disabled people was guarantee us the civil right to live in our communities with services of supports that we need. You know, disabled people we still don't have the civil right to be in our communities. Due to what's known as the institutional bias, we did get put in nursing homes, and whatnot. Put in different places, you know, and all society is trying to see us, you know, as incompetent, you know, useless. You know, we don't even know, you know, when I was 19, I was living in Michigan, and I was living on my own, and, you know, once again, my seizures just got out of control pretty bad. And so I was taken to hospital. The town that I lived in was so tiny that we didn't have and we didn't have a hospital. And so the ambulance took me to Cadillac, which was 30 miles from where I live. And I was on the hospital for a week in Cadillac, Michigan. And, getting the seizures control. And it seemed like things were, you know, okay, that seemed like I was stabilized and whatnot. I began to ask to go home. And they wouldn't, no one would tell me anything if I was going home. And one day, the sheriff came and got me from the hospital. That's how I was discharged. And the sheriff took me, and I thought that I was going home, and the sheriff took me to Traverse City, Michigan, 400 miles away to the north east. And I was taken to a psychiatric hospital.

Eric:
Yeah.

Anita:
And I was taken before a judge who was attached to that hospital. I would later find that that the hospital, was 100 years old. And, they told me that they were, going to put me in this hospital because they said that I was a danger to myself because I wanted to go home. They said that there was no way that someone with my combination of disabilities could live independently, and that me wanting to go home was harming myself. Now, I had been living independently. [Eric laughs]

Eric:
Right, right.

Anita:
You know, but and so they said that, up to 60 days is what they told me. Those 60 days turned into eight and a half months. Wow. I was railroaded into a psychiatric institution simply because as a disabled person I wanted to. Now obviously that turned around and did something to me. Trust and believe me.

Eric:
Absolutely.

Anita:
The psychiatric hospital that I was in, like I said, was 100 years old. And if you've ever seen or read the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that was that hospital.

Eric:
Wow.

Anita:
There was, there were rapes that happened, beatings and what not, including with myself. I was the only black person in that hospital and that had its own

Eric:
Yeah.

Anita:
Dynamic.

Eric:
You know, something that's interesting? You know we, we're in California, and right now, whether it's, you know, CARE Court or, you know, the expansion of certain, the expansion of the definition of gravely disabled, conservatorships, all of those things are still happening. And they're happening at even more, you know, at rates, that are even higher than they've been. And the state is even expanding this. They want this to be easier. They want it to be easier to put people away and lock them up. And as you can imagine, black people with disabilities are more likely to be disproportionately impacted by this. So if you could just kind of tie a knot on that, that'd be that'd be great.

Anita:
Well I mean, but we are, right? I mean, and that sadly, I mean, if you're looking at, like the homeless people, you know, who are the ones that they're, you know, and I think the thing about, you know, being black and disabled, is that oftentimes for a lot of us black folks, our disabilities are the result of the racism or racist practices. You know, mom's not having, you know, enough access, prenatal medicine, you know, whatnot, black moms, things of that nature. I mean, even if you look at a school, you know, that person that that, school to prison pipeline, they're talking about black kids.

Eric:
Yes.

Anita:
Because it's black kids you know, that are the ones, it's black kids who are. You know, when I was in Washington, D.C., you know, I found out when I was living in Washington, D.C., I found out that, little black boys were disproportionately, yanked out of regular schools and placed in segregated schools settings in Virginia and Maryland, because they were disabled and you know it, you know, either that or black children's behavior gets pathologized

Eric:
Absolutely.

Anita:
and criminalized, stuff that little white kids can get away with, and no way a black child is going to get away with that. And let me tell you something. When I was coming up in school, we had corporal punishment. We had teachers whipping our butts. Okay. And guess who got it? And then in the black classes. Really, guess who got it? The darker skinned kids, you know, or you had, as in my case, when I was in kindergarten, white teachers abusing black students. I can't tell you how many times that teacher waterboarded me, you know, just for, like, stick my face in water, just for, like, I mean, at five years old. So we black kids, you know, we we we grow, we go through it, and it's a direct result of racism. And when you have racism compounded by disability, you know, and that's why I get upset with a lot in our black community, because a lot of folks in the black community treat black disabled people like we're white Karens demanding stuff, you know, and I don't, I don't understand where this comes from. You know, maybe it's the last, hallmarks of enslavement where people have to have value and what not. And if you didn't have the I don't know, but,

Eric:
Right.

Anita:
Even, like, even now, you know, there are some disabled, there's some black disabled who find a home in the black community. But it's not it's it's very, very rare. And what ends up happening is we black disabled, wind up finding a home within ourselves, within our own, you know, community.

Eric:
Well, it's been wonderful to get to know you better. Thank you once again for coming out to California, for the DRC gala this year. Thank you for all the advocacy.

Anita:
Oh that was so much fun. That was.

Eric:
Good, good.

Anita:
And I will be back in California in the Oakland area in August.

Eric:
Fantastic. Well, we can't wait. We hope to be able to see you and connect. [Upbeat hip hop tempo music begins to play] But thank you again so much for joining The Game Plan. It's been wonderful.

Anita:
Thank you. It was my pleasure and an honor to be here.