The Voiceless Minority

   I hope you are having a satisfying Saturday. Although we have made great strides, significant work remains to be done. Yesterday, I posted a blog about Patrice: The Movie . If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, be sure to click the link at the bottom of this post. On the surface, one may think the movie is just about one disabled couple’s journey to get married, but it is about much more than that. While telling the story of Patrice and Gary, it also highlights the transportation crisis that disabled people face. For most people who have a disability, the inability to access affordable and reliable transportation is a barrier they have to overcome daily. I am lucky to have a support system that can provide me with my vehicle. While I do have to keep up with regular maintenance, I am very lucky because I didn’t have to buy it myself. I am eternally grateful to my parents for their generosity, but I also know what it is like to rely on the paratransit system becau...

Above is an image of a logo from a movie titled Patrice: The Movie. It is yellow and in large print.  Happy, fabulous Friday. Before I get into today’s post, I want to thank everyone for their support and amplification of my articles and the entire Voiceless Minority community recently. Your support and encouragement inspires me and all the other writers who have helped amplify the voice of the voiceless. Several years ago, I wrote a blog, which I will link at the end of this article. It is entitled I Can Write, But It Is Time for You to React. I am happy to report you have taken up that call to action in more ways than I could have imagined, and I am eternally grateful for your support. Okay, enough with inflating your head as you are reading this. Now, down to the fun stuff. Last September, Patrice: The Movie premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Shortly after, in October, it premiered on HULU. I will link an article written by Amy Kuperinsky for Disability Scoop that outlin...

Above is an image of President Trump signing a bill into law. He is wearing a black suit with a red necktie and is surrounded by people on either side. His pen is poised over legislation, which is on a wooden desk.  What a worrisome Wednesday it is for the disability community. Steps are being taken to erase the work of great disability champions such as Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts, to name a few. As a relative of mine put it a couple of days ago, laws are made, then they are repealed, so advocates must never stop fighting. Although my relative and I sometimes disagree politically, I could not agree more with her words. Indeed, it looks like it is happening yet again. This past January, Donald Trump became the 47 th President of the United States after a four-year hiatus between his first and second term. While I am registered as a Republican, and I agree with most of his platform, I question what he's doing regarding the voiceless minority. Before his election, he stated that h...

Above is a black and white photo of the 504 sit-in from 1977.  Okay, so maybe I’m late to the party. Still, I was recently made aware of a disturbing lawsuit taking place that will effectively erase the strides we have made as disabled people in America over the last several decades. The lawsuit that is slowly gaining traction, Texas vs. Becerra, is an attempt by 17 states to overturn the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protections for people with disabilities, explicitly aiming to overturn the 504 provision. I will list the 17 states that I believe are harming not only the disability community in America but America as a whole. However, before I do so, I will highlight that my home state of Florida is one of the offenders. The lawsuit is an attempt to not make America great again by using a slogan from our newly elected President. Still, in my opinion, instead, it is an attempt to return to the dark ages of disability in America. Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana...

  Image of Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, By: Ashley Shew Standing Up On Bookshelf. The Voiceless Minority has gained tremendous traction over the last several months, and it will always be my primary outlet for my advocacy work. We have grown tremendously and had the opportunity to incorporate guest writers, including a permanent contributor, Michelle Zeman. We have also been given an excellent opportunity to present at the largest Disability Expo in the nation this upcoming June. The Expo is known as The Family Café, and we are honored to have the chance to be among some great self-advocates and allies over the three-day event. While all that is something to be celebrated, this blog will discuss my next advocacy adventure and a book that I have recently read. I finished my fellowship with Florida Sands late last year and was unsure what to do next. Luckily, the universe presented my next opportunity rather quickly. I was selected as a 2025 IEEE Spectru...

                                              Above is a photo of Marissa Bode from Getty Images Anyone who follows this blog or knows me knows I love theater and film. I even went so far as to get a degree in drama at college. While I love “straight plays,” which are plays without musical numbers, I am obsessed with musicals. I love all the standard ones such as “Rent,” “Avenue Q,” and “Les Mis.” However, I only knew part of the story because I listened to the soundtrack.  That changed this past November when Wicked, the motion picture, hit theaters. I went to see the movie with my girlfriend, Samantha LeBron, who is not as big a musical fan as I am. Because I didn’t know the story well, I was unaware that a character was in a wheelchair. Universe, please forgive me for being late to the party. The movie was great, and the character in a wheelchair was portrayed extr...

  We are one week away from Donald Trump retaking the presidency once again after an overwhelming victory last November. Disability advocates and allies have some concerns regarding a Donald Trump presidency. This article will build on an article published by Disability Scoop late last year. By the end of it, you, the reader, will be more aware of crucial programs like Medicaid and how they affect persons with disabilities. Along with a Trump presidency, the Republicans will maintain a slim majority in both chambers of Congress. This will enable them to reshape public policy and, indeed, policies that affect people with disabilities for years to come. Nothing is known for sure, but it is rumored that the Trump administration aims to cut funding to vital programs such as Medicaid and others. I can understand wanting to provide tax cuts and tax reforms that were promised during his campaign; however, even though I am a supporter of President Trump, in this case, I think he is treat...

  The emphasis on science and technology is more critical than ever before. The earlier children are exposed to science and technology, the more likely they are to develop a love for it later in life. However, in my experience, if you are a student with a disability, there is a lot less emphasis placed on these subjects. Late last year, the state of Pennsylvania joined an ongoing effort to bring students with and without disabilities together in a new way. Thanks to Andrew Fee, the vice president of strategic partnerships for Pennsylvania Special Olympics, students in Western PA not only got the chance to build cool robots but also worked together to create a robot with a student with a disability. According to an article published last September by Disability Scoop, which I will link at the bottom of this post, several counties in western Pennsylvania participated in a robotics program developed by Unified Robotics. The program partnered students in science and technology clas...

America is supposedly the land of opportunity. We toute ourselves as being the greatest country in the modern world, and for the most part, I am a proud American, and I tend to agree with this statement; however, did you know that even though we are just beginning 2025, it is still legal to pay people with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Let me say that again: it is still legal in the greatest country in the world to pay a group of our citizens less than $7.25 an hour. How is this possible? The rest of this article attempts to answer that question and shed light on the problem of "sub-minimum wage." People with disabilities have been a part of American society from the beginning. However, in this author's opinion, we only began to be seen as human in the late twentieth century. In 1938, there was a provision written into the Fair Labor Standards Act that allowed employers who employed people with disabilities to pay them, and I'm not ...

This post comes with a note to readers. This may or may not make complete sense. This post comes from a perspective of being stuck in my head. As much as I use this blog to teach and inform, this time, I am using it as a therapy tool as well. When I ask you, the readers, a question, please know that I am questioning you and my own subconscious. Now that I have said all of that, here we go. Initially, I was going to write a post about a movie I recently saw called “Conclave.” On the surface, the film has nothing to do with disability or disability-related issues. Still, if one looks deeper, one can see that the movie is about both self-acceptance and being accepted by others. I will not go into the movie's plot because, like I said, this is not a film review. I only reference it because it got me thinking. For eleven years now, I’ve been an outspoken voice for The Voiceless Minority, of which I am a member. However, I wonder if I have been an adequate advocate for people with disabi...

  This past September, an article was published in a disability magazine known as Disability Scoop. Michelle Diament wrote the article. It highlighted an incident where former President Trump equated having a mental disability to poor job performance. He did so when he attacked Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at back-to-back political rallies. I will attach the original article to the bottom of this piece. The rest of this piece will not discuss that particular incident but use it as a jumping-off point to analyze the former president and his behaviors as a whole. I am political, but I am nowhere near a politician. In my 38 years on this planet, I would like to think that I have seen quite a lot and know a little something about a lot of things and a lot about a few things. Unfortunately, having a disability in today’s world means you encounter a lot of misunderstanding, ignorance, and discrimination. A recent incident with former President Trump highlights an overall problem that st...

 The movie-going experience has been part of American life for decades now. At the same time, being disabled has also been a part of the human experience since the beginning of time. This piece will address the idea that although we are thirty-four years into the ADA era, movie theaters in Ocala, Florida, demonstrate how little respect people with disabilities have earned in thirty-four years. Over the weekend, I was treating my friend/caregiver, who I will call Jane, on a trip to the movies for her 24 th birthday. She was nice enough to not only drive my van for only the 10 th time since she started working with me but also because my power wheelchair broke several weeks ago and there was a delay in the delivery process of my new chair; she was willing to push me around. The first of many problems we encountered that day occurred when we got to the front door. It was only then we noticed that even though disabled people do go to places by themselves without caregivers or atten...

They say things happen for a reason. They also say for those of us who are religious that God has a way of providing exactly what you need when you need it, even if you don’t know you need it. I am living proof that this statement is true. In the following piece, you will learn that one event, no matter how small or big, has the power to change you if you allow God to implement his plan in your life. For those of my readers who don't know, I am beginning the second year of my fellowship with an organization known as Florida Self-Advocates Network’D (FLORIDA SAND). They are a nonprofit, organization made up of 15 self-advocacy groups throughout the state. The organization aims to amplify the voices of individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) on a local, state, and federal level.  According to their website, their mission is… FL SAND is an independent 501(c)(3) organization formed to expand the self-advocacy movement in Florida. It works through the support ...