Opening Doors is produced by the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium and Jack Straw Cultural Center. This podcast was made possible by The Awesome Foundation and the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture with in-kind support from Jack Straw Cultural Center, Sound Theatre Company, Jennifer Rice Communications, and the SCAC steering committee. Music performed by William Chapman Nyaho, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.

Transcript:

Narrator: Opening Doors is a new podcast about accessibility in arts and civic life, brought to you by the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium and Jack Straw Cultural Center. For our first season, we aim to amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color with disabilities, and to learn how race and disability impact their access to arts and culture.

Kameko Thomas: the number one thing when you have an invisible disability is of course the automatic assumption that there’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll get these incredulous looks like “Oh really?” and then, the next one is “Oh, you don’t look like disabled.”

Troy Coalman: The same cultural attributes that exist to create racism exist for someone who can’t see. And so, we have to break down those walls and we have to break down those barriers that may exist, whether they have to do with language or they have to do with behavior. Whether they have to do with access. They don’t work separately; they work hand in hand.

King Khazm: We all need to do our part in unlearning prejudice and hatred and decolonizing our minds and looking deep into our systemic infrastructure and how we can all be a part of the solution. You know, what is the change that we want to see and how are we gonna get there?

Christiana ObeySumner: I cannot have a meltdown in the same way I could if I was say, a white cis man. Because if I had a meltdown as a white cis man, then people would just see me as “oh, this person is emotional” or “this person is upset” or- “this person is expressing themselves.” If I’m emotional, then I’m a danger. I’m a threat. They should call 911.

Narrator: Subscribe and listen at soundcloud.com/OpeningDoorsPod and wherever you get your podcasts.