AMINA KRUCK: I'm going bring you back because I begged to do this part of the section.

I wanted a chance to introduce you to a little taste of this because sometime I would really like to do a train the trainer on this to pass it on.

Now that I'm a little white haired old lady.

So some of the training we do is a little bit of this disability liberation / attitudinal barriers workshop that I talk about.

So I'll tell you a little bit about the background which is I have this background of 25 years of re-evaluation co-counseling.

So it's this idea, this guy Harvey Jackson who is from Seattle who is a labor organizer guy found out how powerful it was to have people just have time listening to each other well.

And discover that if you just really listen to somebody and support them and look at them and appreciate and thought that he probably had much more of their own answers than they knew and just had some distress running.

And what he found is they told their stories, they would have emotions.

You know, they would laugh and cry and all that.

So part of that theory is that hurts get set in not just intellectually.

So just talking about things will not change it.

Because it's set in on a physical, mental, I would say spiritual level.

Set in on all those levels.

If you're devalued as a human being, that's a spiritual assault.

It's not just an intellectual assault.

And so part of the healing process is having feelings.

And that having feelings is not, is not the hurt.

It's the discharge of the hurt.

So that's the basic theory about this.

So I have all those years of professional counselor training.

But this is what informed me a lot.

And he kind of made it think about just think of your brain in a way.

It's collecting all this data from a situation.

So you are walking down a street and it there's a dog and it's got spots and its tail is wagging and there's rose bushes next to you and it's a cloudy day and the dog walks up and you're all positive expectation and it bites you, then the natural healing process is go tell somebody the story of what just happened to you and cry a little about it and you tell the story until you're bored and you don't tell it any more.

On the way here you almost had a car accident.

What do you do first thing when you walk in the door you want to tell somebody what happened to you.

The emotions get shut down but, if look at any one-year-old, they show you how to do the natural discharge process so easily.

Just like we always say everybody's born an advocate, newborn babies know how to advocate for what they need.

Very effectively.

So don't think you are not capable of being an advocate.

Well similarly, watch those one-year-olds when they get hurt, they cry.

Right?

And they go for support.

If they're afraid, they shake.

And cry.

If they're angry, what do they do?

Throw their whole body down, scream and kick.

Right?

Sometimes when you're afraid, what do you do for a discharge is you laugh 

You ever have anybody in your face really mad at you and you burst out laughing and you think now I'm really gone.

See?

I used to work with teenagers, this woman would come from Planned Parenthood, Carol West such a great presenter, talking about sex ed and the kids would be giggling up a storm and the kids would be like be quiet 

She was fine.

She knew they were charging off embarrassment and fear about the topic being talked about.

So co-counseling theory says that you have to let people express their feels because I bet there's some people here who were angry and didn't show it.

Or were really sad and didn't show it.

Nobody knew.

Right?

So it's this letting people know that the dumping off the feelings is the healing of the feeling.

Now, if somebody is stuck in the same feeling over and over for a long period of time, now you have a psychological problem going on and you need psychological help to get through that maybe.

But naturally one-year-olds don't cry forever.

They cry, I remember my little nephew Jesse learning to climb up on the couch jump off the couch, and land on his feet.

So I say it took about 40 tries and between try 1 and try 40, there was a lot of bruised knees and a lot of tears and a lot of crying.

And by about 35.

He was landing on one foot and one knee and looking up to see if I was still watching to know he was okay an by the 40th time he did it.

So we would never learn how to read or ride a bike or do these things that are hard and painful without throwing some tantrums along the way.

It's natural.

So we all know we get stopped from doing those natural forms of healing, right.

Don't be a cry baby, we get shamed, smacked, we get beat.

So the inhibition, isolated, go to your room.

Shamed, don't be a cry baby.

So we get a ton of messages to stop that natural healing process.

Well, what is weird is if you ever like something has been really good and fine and you start crying and you don't know why or shaking.

And that's because it's finally safe enough for something to dump off of you.

And the tears you cry when you're crying sadness have different chemicals than when you are chopping onions.

This is all your body, that stress reaction that you have, the fight or flight thing that happens, that's biological when you're under stress, your brain thinks differently, your senses get clear, your heart speeds up, your adrenaline rushes through your body.

So you're ready for fight or flight or freeze.

I learned about that one a lot longer, the freeze response.

Right?

That's how you handle a crisis.

And what happens when the crisis is over?

You did that so well.

You're sitting down and you're weak in the knees.

You might throw up.

You might have biological functions happening because everything is just discharging out, right?

And your body comes backs to stasis and you feel really tired and worn out and relaxed and eventually you get back to stasis again and that's what a stress related disease is all those bodily functions don't ever get turned off.

Your brain is working on stress and it's just never getting turned off so you get ulcers, you get migraines, you get chronic illnesses that we're talking about.

So that was part of the theory.

This natural healing process.

Which meant if you're going to heal from hurt, so that was one-on-one hurts.

What they found out was well there's these one-on-one hurts I got attacked by a dog or something.

The other piece is when you have this traumatic experience and you don't get a chance to discharge and by the way, rapidly telling the story is discharge also.

And if you don't get a chance to shake it off, cry it off, burp it off, fart it off, whatever the discharge is that you do.

I'm a yawner.

You know, so whenever I start to do relaxation practices, I yawn and yawn.

People who have strokes will have huge yawns, their whole body will just go through it.

It's discharging, think of it like energy that's built up and it's got to discharge out it's a natural process because all 1 and two-year-olds do it perfectly unless they've already been scared out of them.

We all have some feelings we're more comfortable with than others.

When this stress time happens, if we don't get a chance to do the natural discharge process which is get support, dump off feelings, get our biological system back to safety and normal.

The other thing that happens is we don't think very well and we don't think very well forever.

It's like instead of all these disparate pieces of information sunny day, rosebushes, spotted dog tail, not wagging, blue dress I'm wearing so the next time I'm in a new situation that's brand-new, I'll check it out.

I'll scan.

Is the dog spotted?

Is it a sunny day?

Is there roses nearby. Am I hearing a blue dress?

Decide how I'm going to proceed in that situation.

But, if I haven't had a chance to do that, this gets glommed in and this is where phobias come in and allergies.

Now I'm allergic to roses.

I never know why.

I can't make that connection.

What happened.

So this is part of the theory and why I say it's important to have to teach about it a little is because when you're working with people on hurts, and this is psychological self-esteem hurts too, part of the healing will be discharging off feelings.

And so it's good and I want mentors to know that so that they know that their mentees having feelings doesn't mean they're more miserable, more afraid or more hurt than before they were showing they were having feelings.

I want them to know that means their mentee is safe with them and can dump off feelings they've been holding back that needed to just dump off and heal.

And to not be afraid and not stop it.

Can I use you for an example?

What is this message to you when someone does this?

You're having a hard time, I'm so sorry.

What does this message mean.

It's okay?

AMINA KRUCK: You think that's what it means but it doesn't.

It really means hurry up and get over it.

Right?

If someone says can I hold your hand while you're telling me about this, it's a different feeling of support.

Got to be respectful.

But it's a different feeling.

And so helping people learn how to recognize when what they're doing is they're uncomfortable with a feel someone else is having and therefore, they shut it down is they're stopping the healing and I want them to know that that just because someone is showing a feeling doesn't mean they're in more distress.

It may actually mean they're really safe right now.

Because they've never been with anybody who is willing to listen and respect them for who they are in that way or at least not since that happened.

I just like to talk about that.

Reality there's a wonderful liberation policy statement that co-counseling came up with and they did this for all kinds of constituency groups because they found out that okay, there's the individual hurts but what about the cultural hurts, sexism and racism and attitudes toward people who are poor and people with disabilities.

These are actually oppression that's are real outside of us.

They are -- they are a cultural pressure that's on us that is a real hurt.

And they deny the reality about who we are because they can't work, if you know who we really are.

So we really are good lovable valuable, creative intelligent, cooperative strong, powerful.

Is that a surprise to anybody in this room?

No, it's not.

That's how we know who we are.

But when I do groups with individuals with disabilities, that haven't been through this with me and haven't been with IL for very long, it is a surprise.

And right away some of them will start crying or arguing with me why they're not.

So economic political system.

What's oppression?

It's where a vast majority of people work to produce wealth for a small minority who own and control the wealth.

Okay.

That's true.

If you're a man in this culture, you're doing your job, if you work until you drop dead or you kill before you get killed.

If you can not do those things or are not doing those things, you get put down.

You get called names.

You get the attitude of feeling less than.

Now, this is changing somewhat maybe a little bit in our culture.

But it's a big stereotype.

Same thing for women.

If you're not able to care for others in my generation, then what is your usefulness?

And the most -- men who got injured -- Jerry, my boss and I would talk about this because he was quadriplegic used a manual chair into sports and hunting and all that kind of stuff.

And he would say how long he stayed in anger during the grief process.

And watched the men that he knew and how many were really mean to their wives.

Of course the wives stayed in most cases back then anyway.

But we saw so many women that acquired disabilities and the husbands left.

They didn't stay.

But the women, the men weren't so much suicidal.

The men were mad.

The women would get suicidal.

Cause if I can't take care of people.

I've been in this movement a long time.

So I'm not saying it's all the same now.

But you know what I'm saying?

It affects people differently based on male, female, family of origin, what were you raised to do.

But that disability interrupts some of those.

I was not -- I have this chronic illness.

I wasn't raised with some of the same expectations my sister was as a woman with a disability or a girl as a disability.

I wasn't thought of as a woman.

I was thought of as a medical condition.

Ha. I'm sorry.

Economic political system.

So we have a system and it's not any better than it was.

Anybody watching the -- I wanted to say I almost said Frankenstein.

The Roosevelt stories on TV and the trusts and cooperations.

Have we gotten anywhere?

We're still talking about the one percent of the one percent have all the money.

And what about the exploitation of people with disabilities.

Why is a hearing aid thousands of dollars still when everybody can get iPhones and computers?

It doesn't make any sense.

Does this cause disability by unsafe working conditions and stereotypes people with disabilities as less productive or nonproductive, thus, the word dis-ability which we're all so uncomfortable with and use begrudgingly and by its own terms, it disvalues and further disables us.

So every oppression relies on a psychological trip of separating one group from another by virtue of some real or imagined difference and then using that difference as an excuse for mistreatment.

It is a way for people -- this is Amina's world view.

You don't have to accept it.

I'm throwing it out to you as a way to look at this.

All that pent-up feeling that isn't discharged gets aimed somewhere.

All that energy is looking for a lightning rod and that's where bullying comes in.

And that's where this oppression gets targeted on a target group.

And people with disabilities is a target group and we still see that.

They always complain about us like we're costing everybody so much money.

I would like to know why spending money on a power boat is somehow more valuable to our culture than spending it on a wheelchair.

I don't get it.

Or why healthcare costs is like a burden on the economy when it's part of our economy.

I don't get it.

So -- and certainly a lot of people are getting rich off of us.

Right?

A lot of people.

So who are we talking about?

Examples who's considered disabled and what does that mean and so we explore that.

When I do the workshop, one of the things I love to do are disability panels and when I do them, I don't have a free flowing one.

I have a recipe that I learned from voc counseling.

What's good about being disabled?

What's hard about being disabled?

What's the name of your disability and what does that mean?

What kind of supports help you live?

The quality of life you want.

And what don't you ever want to hear again?

They love that.

And then are you willing to take questions or anything else you want to tell anybody.

And then I ask the audience, and I've done this with anywhere of small groups up to 20 or 200 people I did for the City of Phoenix and then I ask the audience to repeat back to the panel what did you hear them say?

I will interrupt them if they give some interpretation of Johnny is really a brave person.

No, no.

What did Johnny say?

Johnny, I heard you say -- because I want to make sure they get it and I want Johnny who took the risk to share their guts with them to know they got heard.

And people love doing that panel.

I know there's a million ways to do it but that's an easy one for me.

And they love doing it and the audience really gets a lot out of it and they enjoy it as well.

So this idea of hearing from people what is disabled and that there's no normal, everybody is different is on a continuum.

We all know that, right?

The word multiple sclerosis does not tell you what that means to that person.

It might give you a few hints.

Having psoriasis does not tell you what that means.

Being quadriplegic does not tell you what supports they need necessarily, what functions they have going well, being called a person with a developmental disability.

It does not tell you.

These labels don't really tell us anything and that there really is no normal because why is that my codirector who has never identified as disabled always has -- has had in the lifetime I've known her chronic migraines, chronic digestive problems, takes Prozac on a regular basis, not Prozac is but Prilosec.

But she's not disabled.

I'm disabled with my chronic skin condition that's only really bad when I can't wear clothes.

But other than that it's okay.

And -- so this I don't know of this is new to you but sitting and having these conversations with consumers is a shocking opportunity for them.

Is disability a tragedy, a circumstance, a change, how do we view it?

So looking at that.

And then of course I always show the difference between the medical or rehabilitation paradigm and our independent living paradigm.

Where the focus is on what's the problem I mean I was a problem with chronic health problems in a clinic for 15 years of my life.

I was clearly the problem because they did everything possible for me.

And you know, of course it was the 70s so maybe I just didn't want to get better.

The truth is they didn't know what an autoimmune disease was back then.

It wasn't until after HIV that they began to understand autoimmune.

So then I like to do this.

So we're going to do dyads again, break up, get into a dyad, two people, get an A and a B person and we're going do a little sharing opportunity with each other.

So I like to do this and we'll do short -- just short ones.

I'll give you a hint about what this is like.

So you've got five here.

So go meet up with April.

We only have 25 minutes for this segment.

Everybody have a partner, who is A, who is B?

Whose table doesn't have a partner.

Extra person.

This gentleman.

Great.

You want to pair up with somebody from this table.

Great.

You need a chair?

Here's a chair.

So you have an A person and B person, right?

You're not going to take notes during this.

So one's going to be the talker first and one's going to be the listener first.

Right?

And so what is the listener going to do?

Like what?

Listen like what?

Like a treasure box?

AMINA KRUCK: Like a treasure box opening.

Right.

I'm in control so I only have one right answer and you got it.

Yay.

I should have a prize to you.

All the other answers were good too.

But listening.

Just listening.

It will make you think of things yourself but don't interrupt, just listen and if they stop telling their story because they're a quiet person, ask them to tell you again and tell you the story again or an earlier memory.

Okay?

So co-counseling theory is you've got a big bathtub full of distress.

It's a lot more effective to pull the plug out than to scoop it out one bucket at a time.

So we -- so one of the techniques is to ask what's your earliest memory in any way at all related to physical or mental disability.

Just to start to dig out where did this stuff come from?

So that's what we're going to talk about.

So A is going to talk first and B is going to listen.

And I'm going to time you.

Just to clarify, our earliest memory related to our own physical or mental – 

AMINA KRUCK: So I'll say that another time -- another way to help you with that.

So what's your earliest memory in any way at all related to physical or mental difference.

It's when did you become aware that somebody had a physical or mental difference or you became aware that you had a physical or mental difference.

Okay.

Either way.

Earliest memory.

It might have been something on TV, a family member, might have been yourself, might have been someone at school.

Any of those things.

And it doesn't have to be a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious disability.

We're talking about a physical or mental difference.

Everybody know what you're talking about?

Who's talking first?

All right.

Go.

AMINA KRUCK: Okay.

We're going to come back, thank you.

Anybody want to share quickly a memory they came up with that was maybe a surprise, family, friend, TV?

Jerry Lewis Telethon.

Come and share with us instead of each other.

Yeah.

There you go, you're on now.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, I'm not.

Hello, hello.

Very, very interesting because I absolutely cannot go back and remember anything when I was young.

About ever anybody with a disability or I don't remember anything racial.

I don't remember any differences in people until I was in like the 7th grade or 8th grade.

It never even occurred to me that anybody was different.

AMINA KRUCK: Interesting.

Well, I just want to say at our age going back to 7th grade is an early memory.

Give you more credit than you think.

Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I wanted to say the same thing.

I had a very hard time thinking of something and I really haven't – I sat there trying to ponder and try to think about differences.

And nothing really sat into my mind until really recently.

Literally about 16, 17.

AMINA KRUCK: Did anybody that was a listener when they were listening to somebody else's story – I know you're already thinking about your homework what's your story going to be then realize a different story by listening to the person you listened to?

Yes.

Say something about that.

Go ahead and talk for her.

Just tell what happened.

Tell what happened.

Who was telling a story.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: She was telling me a story about a gal that was skinny on top and bottom but in the middle was like a hot dog and that she couldn't get through the door 

AMINA KRUCK: Okay.

And then what happened.

You said then she remembered something different.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don't know, I was still stuck on that story AMINA KRUCK: And why are you crying.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because I just felt bad for the lady what's it stuck in the door?

AMINA KRUCK: Yeah.

So you're having a spontaneous feeling, that's what's happening.

Because we're all hurt by these stories.

Just like we know that children are hurt by seeing their mother be abused or other siblings be abused because sometimes in a family one sibling is targeted, seeing anybody hurt is a hurt that has to be healed.

Allies have a lot of healing too.

When I do this with groups -- somebody help me with that -- that are nondisabled, it often turns out people work in the helping professionals with people with disabilities had disabled siblings, parents, grandparents that they were close to.

And so they already got to know that person as a person, not a disability.

But somebody maybe else has a story -- Darrell, are you willing to share your story.

Do you have a microphone available.

It's another good way of learning about physical differences.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Amina stopped by and asked me what my earliest recollection was.

When I was an adolescent, we had a paper boy who was described to me by my mother as being retarded.

That's all she ever said about him.

And because this word that I wasn't familiar with was stuck into my brain, I started paying attention to him and I noticed that he would creep up the driveway to the side door and quietly lay the paper on the steps.

When he would come to collect his money every month, he would stand by the door.

He would never knock on the door.

And he would wait until somebody noticed him.

But he would never say a word.

So because of this word that had been labeled on him, I started being fearful of him and I started assuming that these unusual behaviors on his part were something really bad.

AMINA KRUCK: Something to be afraid of and you mentioned to me that he seemed afraid.

He had fear.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He seem afraid of me, yes.

AMINA KRUCK: So why I wanted that story is because it shows all the stuff we learn in that one little interaction about what's said and not said.

So I like to say -- when I started doing this, I could say it's like talking about sex.

But everybody talks about sex now and they have underwear advertisements on TV.

So that doesn't count any more.

But we have kind of -- we're kind of constipated when it comes to curiosity about disability because we don't get information much.

More now.

But there's a lot of curiosity about it.

As Pam had said.

People need to be invited to know that they can ask questions or whatever.

Most people now don't mind children asking questions in the grocery store.

They like them to do it.

20 years ago, that's not necessarily true because of how prejudiced society was from lack of exposure to us.

But we're just around so much more now.

Those older generation grew up in a different way with different stereotypes.

But these attitudes and stereotypes.

So when I do this workshop, I spend 45 minutes with people blurting out R words and B words.

You know, what the B word is?

Stereotype about people with disabilities?

So throw out a few words.

I'll repeat them for the taping.

What are negative stereotypes about be disability?

Freaks.

Thank you.

Weak.

Yeah.

Weak.

What else?

Needy.

Bedridden.

Unintelligent.

Yeah.

Slow.

Slow.

No future.

Crazy.

I used to use that word having feelings doesn't mean you're crazy until someone from the mental health community an advocate friend of mine told me how hurtful that word was.

Because what does the word crazy mean.

What are the other adjectives that crazy implies.

Mental.

3B.

Mental word.

I didn't know what that one meant.

What else?

How about scary.

dangerous.

Psycho.

Maybe murderer.

What else?

Psychotic.

What does psychotic mean?

Out of control.

Don't know what they're thinking.

Delusional.

Not on the same plane of communication as me.

I don't know where you're at, who are you?

What's going on.

All those negative stereotypes are wrapped into that one word that we use all the time but anybody who has a mental health disability it's like every time they hear it because it's what they're fighting against every day of their life.

Pardon me.

Yes.

What was the B, the B word?

AMINA KRUCK: Oh, burden.

And then there's the always better off dead than disabled.

I like that one.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So is that why we kind of suppress a lot of our childhood?

AMINA KRUCK: Good point.

Hard to think about something that's around so much distress.

Very painful situations.

I always think about -- it wasn't until I came to ABIL that I got that Jerry Lewis is the person who gave me an impression that somebody who had issues talking with cerebral palsy weren't ignorant, were able to think.

Because my stereotype came from that character that he used to do.

The way he talked and there was a particular character.

It was really just like somebody I met at ABIL that had cerebral palsy.

But I hadn't realized that.

So when I do this liberation workshop, we spend much more time talking about these things, getting it all out in the open.

And I have a whole list, two page list of these words that have been collect.

And one of the workshops I got is an A word which is the Navajo language word and I got some Spanish words for, you know, that are used in that community that are the same things and it's very hard to translate materials into Spanish in a way because it's -- help me out, say it again.

Discapacitized.

So again, that idea.

The word invalid.

In-valid.

Creepy! Creepy, creepy, creepy.

Confined to a wheelchair AMINA KRUCK: Yes, or I like even better wheelchair person.

Yeah.

You don't have the microphone.

Were you waiting to talk, Pam.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love when school systems refer to my child as nonperforming AMINA KRUCK: Nonperforming.

We could do this all night and we do do it.

I've done three day workshops from Friday night until Sunday afternoon doing this kind of stuff.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: The only thing I was going to share is that in getting into this particular field, I kind of got there left-handed but what kept me away from people was because of a childhood experience.

So sometimes I think adults overlook that a child might not understand.

And I had a lady who was considered a cousin and wouldn't -- she would come when we went on vacation, she would come one day out of the vacation and my sister and I felt like we had to endure this one day and be silent.

And she -- as far as we were concerned, we tried to play with her.

She's mean and vicious.

She hit me, she hit my sister.

She was grumpy and just this whole intolerable person.

When I got older, and I saw her again, as both of us being adults, I found out that she had CP.

She had involuntary movement.

We didn't know that.

No one told us.

We sat next to her, tried to play with her.

We just thought she was mean and vicious and she was the most kind understanding loving person ever AMINA KRUCK: So that's the deal.

It's what we're told and then all that we're not told and all the assumptions that get made about it.

Right?

And so that's where we start to get our attitudes about disability whether we have one or not.

So in this workshop and I'm just going to move through -- did I do that by accident or what?

Did you do that Tim because I'm over time?

I'm right where I need to be.

Well, you can full screen it.

I didn't know what that meant.

Woo.

It's full screen.

So the results of oppression end up being negative stereotyping, discrimination, segragation, institutionalization, inadequate incomes, economic exploitations, I always think of this one woman I worked with.

Like that really lit her up when I told her think about the people who are getting incomes off of your disability to stop feeling like such a burden on culture because she couldn't work.

She was really hung up about not being able to work.

Environmental barriers to mobility.

Control of our lives by others.

You know, gosh, we have a mental health disability if they can't trust your thinking and they can't trust your decision making, then how can you stand up and tell somebody you've been abused?

Who's going to protect you or listen to you.

And then internalized depression.

It's a circle because all these things are the results of oppression.

And all these things cause it or reinforce it.

They keep us separate, we don't know each other, then we don't know what's going on.

These are our improbable theater performers and they've got labels they're putting on her.

And this is what they did with the labels.

They spelled "person" so that's just one of the play skits that they did early on.

So creative responses.

Results of oppression, discrimination, segregation, so it's really interesting.

Inadequate incomes.

We all know about the poverty level of people with disabilities.

The number people with disabilities that are unemployed.

Sheltered workshops, you know, well it's starting to come down federally.

Their days are numbered.

Their days are numbered and they're nervous and they're kicking up and it's going to be vicious and I had a target on my back when the state of Arizona voters voted to raise the minimum wage and they left out having a loophole for the sheltered workshops.

And it blew up all over the papers, the parents, the providers sent letters out to the parents to scare the parents of the ones that were -- had kids in sheltered workshops.

The editorial board from the Arizona republic, of course you'd expect this after you heard all the press releases from our Governor came out and talked about evil self-advocates and how dangerous they were to these poor vulnerable people with disabilities in sheltered workshops that had the pride of working for 11 cents an hour.

Shoot me in the head please.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Federal lawsuit just came to Nashville.

One of the last things I'm still kind of doing it with the WIPA project because they called me at the workshop where they owe over -- just over 100 people on SSI and SSDI back -- you know, from underpaying them for the last two years, I think 92 of those individuals are on SSI.

So -- I told them exactly how it's going to break down over those 24 months.

And so I'm getting calls still even though I'm technically out of WIPA now, because I was the contract person so they're all calling me?

AMINA KRUCK: They know you.

So yeah, this is going to be rolling out.

I've got to go fast here.

Because it is just a taste.

Control of our lives by others, not having choices or limited choices that are not acceptable choices.

You know, why was all those years until Olmstead, why was it that 95% of Medicaid dollars were mandated to go to nursing homes instead of home and community-based services.

Why was that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lobby 

AMINA KRUCK: Thank you.

By who?

Nursing home industry, that's right.

Core independent living skills.

Low expectations.

We know about that.

And so I have them list out all of this stuff.

So this gets internalized about who we think we are and we have a lack of political awareness a lot of time.

We're less likely to vote, less likely to run for office, obviously, more organizations for people with disabilities than as of, we've been talking about rebranding ABIL and how do we describe ABIL when we go out.

First thing I always say is we're different from other organizations because the majority of our board and staff are people with disabilities.

That's what makes us different.

We get it.

Low expectations that we have for ourselves.

Low self-esteem, poor self-confidence.

Poor self advocacy skills.

Isolation, feeling left out, so we don't show up and we do not call and say we're not showing up.

Diversiveness amongst ourselves.

That pecking order amongst the different disability groups about who's got it worse.

Denial of our disabilities and others.

Blaming the disability for everything that's wrong in their life.

This is a cartoon, the victim channel that says the weather today will be really unfair by Scott Chambers, he used to do cartoons for The Mouth.

Compulsive cheerfulness or compulsive misery.

Feeling unattracted or unlovable.

Feeling untouchable.

I definitely felt that way.

Feeling you have no rights and do not know our rights.

Lack of social skills, youth and employment and IEPs and do they ever get invited or help to lead them.

Isolation from our allies.

So in a longer workshop you spend more time and what I'm trying to say is this is the kind of information that helps -- I fondly say radicalize people but helps them again get that perspective wider than themselves about what's going on and it's like they're under this waterfall of these attitudes all the time to kind of wake them up to it.

And realize it's not going to stop feeling this way unless they do something to step outside of that waterfall.

That they have to take action and they have to get to know more people with disabilities.

Because you'll love them before you love yourself kind of thing.

So what do we need from Allies.

We need people -- this is why I talk to peer mentors.

So, if you see somebody running any of the two things on that 2 page list chances are -- and people run the same attitudes about themselves that are nondisabled too.

I don't want to say they don't but there is a cluster of them related to disability.

So those they need encouragement to act outside of it.

They need somebody to say that's the oppression talking, that's not who you are.

Help point that out to them and point it out to each other because we need to lift each other as we climb out of that hole to remember the truth about who we are, that's part of our job.

And that's part of the mentor's job.

Knowing our legal rights and speaking up about them.

So we have to get educated.

Showing up and getting involved in things that matter to you and don't do it alone.

Get company.

So these are some of the just quickly things that I talk about in the workshop and that I talk about briefly with the mentors.

Learning the rules of the programs that you're part of.

Pam was tell me at lunch teaching persons with intellectual disabilities that yes, they did have to interview for their jobs.

And necessity, the employer got to choose whether to decide to hire them or not instead of placing them in a slot.

That kind of thing.

Get to know other people with disabilities is huge.

And that's what we do best.

Closeness, respectful.

Closeness.

Physical and emotional.

Emotional closeness is letting people be where they're at and letting them have feelings if they're having them.

Being respectful while they have them and going on but not trying to stop it because you're worried about their suffering.

No, their healings.

And awareness being able to identify oppression driven thinking and behavior.

So learning self-advocacy skills.

And what we need from nondisabled allies, teachers and friends and family is to explore their own feelings and I love to do this in another thinking and listen I like to do for longer periods of time I like to do more than one and if everybody has read John Hockenberry's book, I highly recommend that.

He describes so well how after he became disabled, suddenly he realized these other families members that he had had that were disabled all along he'd never identified that was being part of his life relaxed internalizing you're -- to remind us of the truth of who we are.

That's what our allies can do for us.

Support our goals, ideas and dreams.

You know all this.

Safe touch with permission speak up about discrimination and inaccessibility.

So I asked a friend of mine with all this NFL abuse, wife beating stuff going on I suddenly realized she's a survivor, I wonder how this is affecting her and boy was she glad somebody finally asked her after that we'll go through letters to the editor and she was so happy somebody was talking about it.

So happy it was out loud and that's why when we do the session about throwing out stereotype words out loud.

It's like this room.

Quiet at first and then once they get rolling and lay it out on the table.

And I have them go through and circle what are the key things holding you back.

You know, on this list.

So we can plot a path to liberation for you by knowing what are you up against.

So that's that.

I know a went a little bit over.

But thank you.