RIKKI POYNTER: Hello. Welcome back to the channel.
So, to my abled friends, followers, family.
Wait, I don't have that, but to anybody abled watching this,
I have one question for you.
What are you doing to help disabled people during this incredibly
difficult time, during a time where there is a very big election soon?
I ask this because there is something going on
around Twitter and Facebook constantly
right now about Donald Trump that for some
reason I have to say is kind of getting on my nerves.
And you probably wouldn't expect it.
If for some reason you don't know, there has been
news circulating around since around 2016,
of Trump mocking a disabled reporter at one of his rallies.
This disabled reporter's name is Serge Kovaleski.
Also at the same time, there's a bunch of people saying that he didn't mock
Serge and... Whether he did it or not is not really the point right here.
But what's been happening especially now is, almost every single
abled person that I know is posting a meme or the GIF or an article
or whatever, of Trump mocking this man on national television, and then saying
something along the lines of, "How could you be voting for this guy?"
"This is where the line is drawn for me,"
which - I mean, that's the only thing that
drew the line for you, not the racism or anything that's been happening.
But OK.
And I'm not here to knock on the people who are bringing awareness
to this thing and calling out his ableism by doing that.
That's fine.
But here's what I've been noticing.
None or most of y'all have given a crap about disabled
people except for that one particular moment.
The main sort of advocacy for disabled people that
I'm seeing on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube, etc.,
it's all coming from my disabled friends and acquaintances and fellow activists.
And if abled people are bringing more awareness to ableism
and what disabled people face, it's usually
from people that already started
working something with disabled people so, like accessibility in
the gaming industry, or, you know,
captioning , ASL interpretation or sign
language interpretation in general, but I can tell you right now that
most of the abled people that I follow- other abled YouTubers, even,
my own friends and acquaintances and family members and what have you.
This is the only thing that they have
been posting and nothing else,
even if - I know that they're seeing other things from me because
all I'm constantly doing is spreading awareness about disabled lives,
Black disabled lives, especially right now, and things like that.
And so, every time this meme, the article, comes up
and somebody is always trying to use this gotcha moment,
what have you been doing for disabled people besides
just trying to post that to get brownie points?
Are you learning ASL? Are you volunteering
to caption videos or sharing captioned videos
making sure that what you are sharing is transcripted
or captioned, image descriptions -
there's just never been anything else from these
people except for that moment, and what that shows me
and a lot of other disabled people that have been talking
about this because my tweet about it has gone Twitter viral.
I guess you would say and then there's been other replies.
What this just shows us is that you're not really caring too much about
disabled people if this is the only thing that you're doing.
What have you done for disabled people before or even after that?
And so, I actually asked.
Now, here's the thing.
I asked on my private Facebook
and I don't think anybody actually responded.
I asked people on my public Facebook page
and I got some really good responses actually.
Some people are learning sign language, whether it's American Sign Language,
or I think actually somebody is learning
Libras, which is a Brazilian Sign Language.
You know what else has been happening?
I'm gonna- let's take a look, shall we?
One person said that they've been learning ASL for a year and they
encourage other people to do so.
They're sharing articles, providing image descriptions and transcripts, and at
their retail job, they're helping deaf
and hard of hearing customers especially
if they are using sign language.
Another one learning ASL, learning about the deaf community and
deaf history, one's getting their bachelors in deaf studies.
One person admitted that they don't actually do enough but they
are teaching pre-school and are trying to teach them some of the
ASL - some of the ASL? Some of ASL.
Can you teach me English, Kaylee? Please. (LAUGHS)
Please teach me English, apparently I'm losing it - Oh, the one person who is
learning Libras in is a scout group and are supporting and encouraging
disabled people to also become scouts, which, fun fact, did you know that
the founder of Girl Scouts at least in the United States was deaf?
At least that's the information that I was given
in a book, so I thought that was pretty cool, but I do have
one abled friend I know who was actually my
captioner and sort of interpreter at YouTube
NextUp, he had been working as a captioner, so I trust him.
So, he doesn't have to answer although he answered on twitter.
Everybody else, it's just so telling.
I mean, maybe they didn't actually say-, maybe they didn't see
the post, which is completely understandable because
the algorithm or the way the Newsfeed works
on Facebook is absolutely atrocious.
Still, I don't think there's any way that somebody could avoid
what's going on with disabled people entirely just
from me, just because of how much I'm constantly posting
on Facebook to these people, and also just talking
about it like, you know, the same people that follow
what I do, and you would think, especially people that
I'm close to, right? Or closer to. You know who I am.
You know how I am. You know what I am.
Do more. Sign petitions. Make phone calls. Write letters.
Volunteer to caption videos at the very least.
Find captioned videos to share with people.
Try to do image descriptions.
There's so much more that you can do to bring up ableism than just
sharing that one two second GIF moment of Trump mocking someone.
I appreciate very much that there are people that
are saying, "Hey, this moment right here is not OK."
But this can't be the only thing that people do.
This cannot be the only thing that people bring up.
You have to do more to try to convince me and other disabled
people that you actually care about disabled people.
Start today. Sign those petitions - there are a lot of petitions
regarding Black disabled lives right now.
I will find and link down below.
Make phone calls - if you see a virtual event happening
especially right now with COVID-19 and everything,
ask them what accessibility they're doing.
Are they putting the auto-generated captions on Facebook on
when they're doing a virtual event? Are they hiring interpreters
for or getting actual, like, captioners to caption the content?
In fact, the protests that are happening right now.
Find out if they are bringing interpreters.
Tell them to bring interpreters; they can Google
database of interpreters around in the area.
That's what I have had
to be doing for a couple of... Democratic Party things
on Facebook that are trying to do these online events, right?
If you want to tell us that you care, show us please.
And I hope that me telling you this encourages you to do it.
This is how you do it, by actually putting in the work.
And going back to my first question, what are you doing for
disabled people politically, socially, etc., etc.?
Leave that down in the comments below because I know that you are out there.
This isn't about all abled folks because I know
that lots of abled folks are doing things.
But this is just for those people that aren't.
You don't have to be perfect, but at least show us a little something.
So, be sure to share this video with your friends
or family who may be doing that same exact thing that
I'm talking about, let them know that they've got to do more.
So, hopefully, this will spread a little bit of education.
If you would like to translate this video,
I've got a translation link down below, it really helps out.
Don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell.
Give this video a like; engagement, it really helps with the channel growth.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch this video,
and I will see you later.
Bye. (MUSIC PLAYS)