Speaker 1 00:00:36 And good evening. Thank you for joining disability and progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions, ability topics. My name is Sam. I'm the host of the show. Thanks so much for tuning in shuttling dollars. My research woman. Good evening, Charlene. Good evening. Everyone in the studio with us, we have Brian or Ryan, sorry, Ryan Strunk. Ryan is the national Federation of the blind Minnesota president. Good evening. Good evening, Ryan. Thanks for coming in. Absolutely. Tonight, we're talking about an interesting topic. Um, we're talking about the problem of refusal of the entertainment industry to cast blind people and production and what is, you know, kind of happening to try to remedy the problem. So, Ryan, first of all, can you give us some history on you and how you got involved with the national Federation of the blind?
Speaker 2 00:01:25 So I have had the opportunity to get really good instruction and a lot of really good role models throughout the course of my life. And in fact, I'm one of the lucky few who as a blind person was given those sorts of opportunities. And so from the, from say, I would say age three, people were putting long white canes in my hand and making sure that I knew how to travel independently. And I was meeting people throughout my life who were blind people who were successfully and gainfully employed. And at first it was through summer programs that were put on by the state of Nebraska. I am a Cornhusker by birth and, uh, and, uh, w we won't talk about that too much, but I got a, I got involved with them, found out, you know, through talking with them that they were members of this organization called the national Federation of the blind and joined up and have been a member actively since 2001. Excellent.
Speaker 1 00:02:22 All right. Well, thank you so much for talking on and coming in. We always appreciate that. Can you tell us a little bit about who's national Federation of the blind is?
Speaker 2 00:02:32 Sure. So the national Federation of the blind is an organization of blind people who are speaking for ourselves. There are a lot of organizations out there who purport to be for blind people. And we are one of the few organizations that is of blind people. In fact, we are the oldest and largest in the country. We've been around since 1940, and we have representation in all 50 states, as well as in Puerto Rico. And the district of Columbia in, we actually have the distinction of having been around since 1920, our organization started out as the Minnesota organization of the blind. We were the mob, if you will. Uh, but in 1940. Yeah, but in 1940s, when the seven affiliates seven state affiliates got together in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, Minnesota was one of those original seven and formed the national Federation of the blind. So we are having our 100th anniversary next year, and we're going to be really excited to celebrate that
Speaker 1 00:03:30 Probably didn't want to be known as the mob in the 1940s anyway,
Speaker 2 00:03:34 The 1940s yet. It was probably good to probably good to change. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 Okay. So thank you for that little history. Um, so can you tell us, like how many chapters, I'm sorry, did you say it, how many chapters are in the United States?
Speaker 2 00:03:49 So there are, as I mentioned there, we've got 50 state affiliates as well as two in the district of Columbia and Puerto Rico, but then those state affiliates are broken up into local chapters and we have around 700 of those across the country. We've got a number in Minnesota. There's one here in the twin cities and other in Rochester, up in St. Cloud and Duluth. We have another down in the river bend area down toward Mankato. And then we also have an at large chapter for some of our more far-flung members who live in, in outlying communities and who, you know, may not have the same access to transportation. Do you
Speaker 1 00:04:24 Have an approximation of how many members you have?
Speaker 2 00:04:27 So we have members in, you know, sort of active membership. We also have associate membership, um, estimates that I've heard range up to 50,000 members across the country.
Speaker 1 00:04:37 And there's, there's no nothing that says you have to be blind to be a member.
Speaker 2 00:04:41 Absolutely. And we, you know, as, as in so many other social advocacy type organizations, uh, we want allies all over the place. And so while we want to make sure that our leadership is blind people, we want help from anybody who's willing to give it cited or not.
Speaker 1 00:04:58 Excellent. All right. So this issue is an interesting issue, and I am going to, um, dance on the other side of the counter once in a while for this tonight. So let's w we want to discuss the issue of blind individuals being excluded from the entertainment industries, um, various shows and movies. So, you know, talk to us about how NFV, first of all, got involved with something like this,
Speaker 2 00:05:33 You know, representation of blind people. And in fact, if people with disabilities has been one of those things that really hasn't traditionally been great since the media started, you can go all the way back to things like Mr. Magoo and how there was an entire, yeah, an entire entertainment show based on the idea that blind people have no idea what's going on and are idiots and this sort of representation, you know, certainly there are some more positive portrayals. You, you might argue that Daredevil is a more positive portrayal of blind people, but the number of daredevils out there versus the number of Mr. Magoos, I think the scale is, is tilted very far in the other direction.
Speaker 1 00:06:16 The only thing that I'll say to that too, is I feel the same of the other way, though, when you over-exaggerate somebody as almost superhuman so much, that really puts number one, an unrealistic, um, you know, role on us. And number two, what happens when you meet somebody? That's just like yourself, you know, it's, it, they're just ordinary. They have a job, they have a family, they have, you know, maybe one or two things they volunteer with. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:45 Well, and, and thankfully, I've not been asked to do any par core like Charlie Cox does, but I, you know, I, I think that, yeah, they, the idea of you don't ever see a blind person in a show who's just normal. Uh, the blindness is never secondary. Blindness is always like the thing that you focus on, and it is the character central defining role. And the reason we wanted to we're we're really fired up about this right now is there's a show on the CW called in the dark. And the premise of in the dark is that there's this lady who is blind and she is not particularly happy about that. And she is searching for someone who's missing, but she is played by a sighted actress. And this happens every single time. If there is a blind person in film, they are cast as air or the blind person is played by a sighted individual. And this is problematic.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 So just to ask, as far as that go, I mean, why is it a problem? Why do you
Speaker 2 00:07:51 Sure? Well, I think the biggest reason is a problem is because we have decided as a society, that there are certain identities that we don't want to be played by. Other people, as a general rule, women are played by women. Men are played by men. Yeah. I mean, and it does, you know, um, there are, there are certain instances that are played up for comedic effect, but the general rule is women are played by women and men are played by men, and you can slice that in all sorts of different directions, but there is a certain authenticity which you would get from having somebody with a particular identity represented by a person with that identity. And we want to make sure that portrayals of blind people are authentic. And so it just, as you would not get as a general rule men to play women and vice versa, except in those rare circumstances, we want the general rule to be, if there is a character who's blind, let's have them played by a blind individual that it doesn't mean that blind people couldn't play sighted people. But man, specifically, if you're going to do, if you're going to have a blind character, let us play us.
Speaker 1 00:09:01 So, but you're okay with us playing a sighted person. And why would that be?
Speaker 2 00:09:07 Because I think there are more of them. Yeah. That's certainly a, that's certainly a thing, you know, it's like, and, and, and part of that is being in the minority and, and wanting to be represented elsewhere. So I wouldn't say that because blind blindness is not central to my identity. It is part of my identity, but it's not central to my identity. Um, but I want to get to a point where as, as blind people, you know, first, yeah, we'd love to see that representation of ourselves. But if, for example, I'm involved in the improv and being involved in improv, whenever I go out onto the stage and I do a scene, I almost never played blind characters. And it's not because I'm afraid to, or not, because I don't want to be blind, but because when I'm doing the scenes, my blindness is not the thing I'm thinking about. And so, yeah, we'd love to have people play cited characters just because maybe blindness is not the only thing in your life you want to focus on.
Speaker 1 00:10:08 Right. And when you go out to do that, is there a part of you that kind of looks at, um, I want to do this to see if anyone notice, will anyone notice that I can't see, or will I look really like everyone else? So to,
Speaker 2 00:10:26 Well, so there's two answers to that. One is I want to be like everyone else as much as possible. And so I think being involved in the community and doing these things gives me the opportunity to do that as, as far as looking like everyone else. My, one of the conditions of my blindness is called nystagmus and it causes some pretty erratic twitching in my eyes. From time to time, there are a number of school pictures, for example, where I'm looking off to the left instead of straight at the camera, because the guy never let me know that I was looking out to the left, be that as it may, you know, when, when you, in my particular case, when you look at my face, it's rather obvious that I'm not making eye contact with anybody. And so that's just a thing that I understand. And when I get out on stage, you know, people are going to know, but I'm okay with that because I think the bigger issue is they know that there's a blind guy out there living the life that he wants and entertaining us. Excellent.
Speaker 1 00:11:19 All right. What is NFPS goal in this particular project?
Speaker 2 00:11:25 We really want to, to really change the atmosphere and to get people to start having the conversation that there are blind people who want to be in the entertainment industry and at all levels from community theaters, dance studios, all the way up to Hollywood. And I suppose the way that I think about this is the reason we want to do this from a social perspective is because the entertainment industry is people driven, right? If people don't want to see it w the entertainment industry is not as a general rule going to show it. And so we want people to get on board with this idea of blind people, being allowed to act and blind people being allowed to play blind people so that we can change the landscape so that when people are out there, uh, you know, thinking about what they want to watch on TV, or when they see a blind, a person, they understand that they're blind people who live and walk among us and do ordinary things and work ordinary jobs and have aspirations.
Speaker 1 00:12:28 Um, I want to ask Ryan why, why you feel that this is because I happen to know that there's a, there's been a deaf actress portraying, you know, herself and not even deaf people, that, that we've had different actors or actresses actually with disabilities in the entertainment committee or industry. And so is why is this so special to blind people?
Speaker 2 00:12:57 I, so I think that it is not specific to blind people. Um, I think that there are, you know, certainly there are examples like Marlee Matlin, as you mentioned a minute ago, who, who is an actor. Um, but I think, you know, for example, Trevor Noah just had this amazing interview that he put out where there was a gentlemen who is in a wheelchair and mentioned that, you know, why, why is this particular movie? And I wish I could remember the name of it off the top of my head, but why is it okay for this, this, uh, guy who's in a wheelchair to be played by someone who isn't and they had this great conversation about it. And he said, you know, why not put an, a list actor up against an up and coming actor in a wheelchair and get that person to represent themselves.
Speaker 2 00:13:44 So I think it, it is existing elsewhere. I will say, in terms of specific to blindness, I think a lot of it is down to social, um, misperceptions. I know a guy who was on American idol and he did his second round audition and the producer pulled them aside and they said, you know, you're really good, but I want you to know you're not gonna make it because blind people are way too hard to produce. And so they pushed him yet. They pushed him all the way up and he got to sing for Paula and Simon and, and, um, Randy, and then at the end of it, they, they told him he wasn't going to make it. And the irony of that is they went on to then have Scott McIntyre, this blind guy who made it all the way to what the top five or six or something like that, and did just fine.
Speaker 2 00:14:31 Um, and in addition to which, you know, I know a number of people who have been involved in some sort of digital media, a good friend of mine for example, was in a music video in college. Um, it can be done. There's a great episode of CSI recently that came out where all of the, uh, there were a bunch of people in the episode with disabilities. Every single person in that episode with a disability was represented by someone who had that disability. So it can be done. It just, it isn't. And I think a big part of the reason it isn't is because either people aren't thinking outside the box and figuring out, for example, if you want to make spike marks on the floor, so people know where to stand, make them tackle, make it. So when I'm walking around and I step on this bump in the floor, I know I'm on my mark. Um, that's easy to do. And as soon as people start thinking about that, hint, you can talk to us and we'll give you tips like that. And we can start casting more blind people in shows.
Speaker 1 00:15:28 So I understand, and I think this is, uh, a great thing, but I wonder, it just seems like they feel like there's so much, like, would you have to teach them facial expressions? Would you have to teach them? And how do you teach that? And would it require more money? And so what do you say to that?
Speaker 2 00:15:52 So as somebody who is, has dabbled in acting myself, one of the things that I did was I actually paid people to walk through some of those things with me, because yeah, in some ways facial expressions are, are learned. And as somebody who has never been able to see facial expressions, mine might be a little different. Some of that you can do through method acting, right? If you truly want to look, just look, uh, disgusted then, and someone in method acting is going to make you eat a great big mouth full of mud, and then be like, okay, remember that facial expression. And you'll be, you'll be good to go. So you can certainly do things like that. Um, but the other, the other part of it is look, Hollywood as a general rule is used to creating all sorts of things out of things that don't exist, right?
Speaker 2 00:16:40 Game of Thrones is, is doing all sorts of amazing camera shots and traveling all around the world and spending buckets and buckets of money, uh, to take us into a world that has never existed in will never exist on earth. So if you want to be authentic and game of Thrones, you go find a castle in Scotland and you, you make it look real. If you want an authentic blind person, then get a blind person. And if you're worried about facial expressions, then you know, either a facial or a lack of facial expressions are different. Facial expressions are just part of the Austin authenticity. Yeah. Like if you're blind, this is how you're going to look, or this is how you might make facial expressions or just get a qualified blind doctor. Who's done a lot of these things who knows how to make facial express.
Speaker 1 00:17:29 Gotcha. Yes. But I like the concept of there are going to be some differences. Hello, it's a disability and there's differences. Um, just like if you have a wheelchair there's different
Speaker 2 00:17:43 And embracing those differences is part of being your authentic self. What is
Speaker 1 00:17:49 NFB or national Federation of the blind doing to promote blind and visually impaired actors or actresses?
Speaker 2 00:17:56 So the first of these is we have a national association of the performing arts and we get together a few times a year. There's a board of directors for that. And they talk a lot about ways to improve your opportunities. But we're also doing a lot on everything. As I mentioned before, from community theater on up having conversations with talent agencies, with studios, um, with producers to get this message out there. And of course the other part of it is having conversations like these, where we get the public to understand this is a battle that's happening right now. And is one that we hope you'll fight with us.
Speaker 1 00:18:34 Talk about what's happening with it. Like, um, has I haven't kept up on it. So as the first showing air,
Speaker 2 00:18:42 Yeah. His first show did air back in April. And it's been on the air since, um, reviews that I've seen have not been terribly positive though. You will. The, the beautiful part about the internet, as you can find people with opinions all over the spectrum. Um, the thing we are excited about though, is that the producers of the show in the dark have said that they're willing to meet with the national Federation of the blind, hear our concerns and, and figure out how to make this more authentic.
Speaker 1 00:19:11 Has there been any response from the female role of this show?
Speaker 2 00:19:17 Yeah. If there has, I haven't heard about it, but that would be an interesting thing to find out.
Speaker 1 00:19:22 Yes. It would be so currently, like does NFP or anybody, you know, out there hosts opportunities for blinder actors or actresses to kind of participate and learn and things like that about acting.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 Yeah. In fact, we are going to, we have a national convention coming up in Las Vegas of July 7th through the 12th. If anybody wants to come and join us, it's going to be a good time. And we are going to have an acting workshop there that where we are going to have a blind actress come and work with members on how to improve their acting talents and increase their ability to get out there. The other thing about it though, is the national Federation of the blind is really built on a philosophy of if you give blind people the same or the, you know, the right training and the same opportunities that they're going to be able to compete on a level with our sighted counterparts. And so one of the ways that we encourage people to embody this philosophy is to put yourself out there in places where you're going to have those opportunities get involved in community theater, get involved in improv or dance or whatever that thing is that you want to do and, and use your scrappiness to come up with ways to do it or lean on the other 50,000 members of our organization to get tips and tricks and learn things you didn't know, you didn't know.
Speaker 1 00:20:47 And I mean, I want to be clear that there's probably people out of the organization too, who might have good experience and been in a lot of acting stuff that could help. Can you tell me how much, um, how much changes do you think a movie or, or show should have to make for somebody with a disability? For example, you know, we ask for, um, things to help us in school or our jobs. How much should they have to revamp?
Speaker 2 00:21:24 I think it's going to depend on the individual that they decide to cast. I think it's an in, in more than having to do it, it's choosing to do it. It's developing a mindset that says, we think that this person is worth casting and we are willing to do these various things, make these modifications, whatever it is in order to shoot the most authentic scene possible. And if that means doing a second take, then you do a second take, but that kind of stuff exists in Hollywood all the time. So, um, you know, as, as far as ADA and, you know, the Americans with disabilities act and what accommodations should be provided for, you know, I don't know enough about acting to be able to, to give specifics. But what I would say is that we, we want people to first understand that blind actors are out there and they're worth casting. And then once you have cast them or decided to cast them, then figuring those things out.
Speaker 1 00:22:22 Do you think perhaps that's part of the fear with Hollywood is that if they do one and make some exceptions or make some, you know, allowances or whatever you want to call it, um, accommodations, there's a whole slippery slope that they may have to be expected to go down. Do you think there's a fear of something like that?
Speaker 2 00:22:45 I mean maybe, but I guess I would say bring on the slippery slope, you know, I mean, so right. If you go back to the, the, the time of Shakespeare, right? Every one was played by a man. And if there were parts for women, they were played by men. And there was probably when people started to, to get women involved in theater, there was probably this whole group of people that went are shy. We're going to have to have two dressing rooms. Now I don't feel comfortable with this. And nobody went, you know, uh, gosh, I, I can't build a second dressing rooms. So I guess we won't, we won't,
Speaker 1 00:23:20 I thought there was stories out there for women who did dress in the men's dressing room,
Speaker 2 00:23:24 There probably was. And eventually we went, you know, this is worth it. We want to cast women in these roles. So these are, you know, we're, we're, we're willing to build a second dressing room, like, bring it on, you know, make that slope as slippery as you want to, as long as our guys are getting in there
Speaker 1 00:23:41 And they should be expected to do the same level of talent or, you know, adequate performing as the other actors and actresses. Right?
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Yeah. I mean, by all, by all accounts that I have heard, Hollywood is tough and whatever your ability is, you gotta be able to hack it. If you can't hack it, you're in the wrong field. And so, as you know, we, we wouldn't say dumbed down, anything are the guys that we have out, there are perfectly capable of doing this kind of work. And, you know, maybe there are modifications, like bumps on the floor. Um, and, and again, we come back to the authenticity, figuring those sorts of things out. But no, I don't think that, uh, you want to shoot a worst show and I don't think you will shoot a worst show. If you hire somebody who's blind.
Speaker 1 00:24:30 When is it okay or not okay to play somebody with a disability, if you don't have one, because people are playing each other all the time, people are playing. Doctors are not doctors. Peer people are playing lawyers. They're not lawyers. When is it ever? Okay.
Speaker 2 00:24:50 So I think that, again, we go back to the concept of the general rule, right? As a general rule, we want blind people to be played by blind people. Cause I, I agree with you about doctors, but there are two things about the doctor angle that strike me. One, the reason doctors aren't playing doctors on TV is because they're busy being doctors, right? I don't want you to stop doctoring so that you can go put on a TV show for my entertainment, please stay in the emergency room and help me stay alive. Um, so, so that's one and the other is a doctor is something you choose to be blind is not something that you choose to be. Right. And so he
Speaker 1 00:25:30 Said for every disability out
Speaker 2 00:25:32 There, yeah, absolutely. You know, being, being disabled is not something you choose. Whereas a doctor is something that you do. And so the disability is part, not all, but part of your identity and what I don't want to have happen is people out there saying we know how to play your identity or embody your identity better than you do. No, you don't, you know, I'm the blind guy. I know more about being a blind guy than a guy. Who's not a blind guy. Cause I sort of am one and a and I don't I, so yeah, I think as often as you can, you ought to have a blind person
Speaker 3 00:26:52 Oh, you <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:32:19 Ah, they're in the bathroom. I love that guy. You're welcome. So, you know, we were talking, um, when the music was on and you were saying, you know, I, an example of somebody who did kind of their own modification is this guy, um, who has dystonia on anybody who's been a long-term listener will remember that I did interview him a long time ago, but he has dystonia, which is, um, affects your nerves and in a particular hand, and it was his guitar playing hand. So he actually had to switch how he played guitar. He actually became switched his guitar to his other hand and, um, did his strumming and picking and everything with his other hand. So, um, with his left. So I thought that was pretty amazing. And you were talking about how there's a person who made their own modifications and did exactly what everyone else does and makes their music sound good. They just did their own modifications. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:33:29 And when we were talking about the slippery slope earlier and what, what should you expect from a actor with a disability and, and, you know, the answer is still, I think the same thing you would expect from someone without, and, and the thing that you notice about when you listen to Billy McLaughlin is that it's like, he's not, he doesn't sound worse. You know, he wasn't willing to say, all right. So now that I have this, this, uh, condition, all of my albums are going to be terrible. You just gotta be okay with that. Now he said, I still want the quality to be the same. And here's what I'm willing to do in order to make that happen was important enough to him to, to bring the quality.
Speaker 1 00:34:10 If I am a somebody who would like to get better and acting are more experienced in a blind actor actress, what are you guys doing now? What opportunities are there now?
Speaker 2 00:34:21 So I would go back to the, uh, the performing arts division that we have, but the other thing is get involved. In my case, my, my foray into acting was improv. And in the twin cities, there are a number of phenomenal improv opportunities. Brave new workshop has a great group of, yeah, they're, they're fantastic.
Speaker 1 00:34:42 Fantastic. Anybody who hasn't seen them should do it?
Speaker 2 00:34:45 Absolutely. Oldest, uh, improv theater in the country there. They're fantastic.
Speaker 1 00:34:49 They are phenomenal. I do have to just say
Speaker 2 00:34:52 Yes. Uh, Stevie Ray's comedy cabaret has been fantastic. They do a short form down in Chanhassen. Um, I'm a member of the touring troop down there, and there were a lot of fun in addition, huge theater on 30th, or I'm sorry, on lake and Lyndale or, or just, uh, just off of lake in Lindale is another fantastic place to, to get improv exposure. And one of the things that I particularly love about huge is there inclusion is really part of their model and to the point where they actually have a advisory group of people with disabilities and determines like what sorts of things do we need to do at huge to make our shows more inclusive. And so just by getting involved in those communities, you can talk to your fellow teammates to your fellow castmates and say, what sorts of things do I need to do differently? I'd say the other thing is just, we've got thousands of members in this organization who have knowledge of all different sorts of aspects, whether it's public speaking, you want to learn how to work on your physical presence. Or as I mentioned before, we've got blind actors and actresses in our organization. So reach out to us and we can put you in touch with the right people.
Speaker 1 00:36:11 One of the things that I always questioned, because I have had some experience in theater and whatnot, and I have always played sighted people. Um, I'm trying to think if I have, I think I have played one time. I didn't play a sighted person, but almost all my stuff has been sighted people. And so I've constantly found myself looking for how to look like I wasn't blind or how to look as sighted as possible and look like I didn't miss grabbing into that candy jar or something. Um, but one of the things that, that did elude me a little bit is I, I never found a place that would like teach body language or expression. I think I have quite a bit of it, but you know, there were times that, you know, I was lucky enough to have somebody say, you know, when you say this line, you should look like this. Otherwise, how is there somewhere that does teach that kind of thing that somebody says, well, I want to get more involved, but I really need to learn some things first.
Speaker 2 00:37:19 I'm not aware of a place that does that, but I've also never taken an introductory acting course. And it's entirely possible that those sorts of things would be covered there. I just don't know, as far as anything formalized, we're starting to explore that. Now, as I mentioned a little bit ago, there is going to be an acting course this summer at our convention in Las Vegas. Yeah, absolutely. And, and this is maybe it's the tip of the spear. Maybe this is the point where we go, okay, this worked out well, here's what we need to change. And here's how we expand it to more people. Uh, but it's having those, those sorts of discussions. If you want to look mad, um, eat a lemon and the face that you make when you eat a lemon can be a really petulant sort of angry face. Um, and when you, when you get that feeling, you can start to develop that, okay, this is my mad face.
Speaker 1 00:38:13 So what significant things, if any, have happened since the start of, in the dark,
Speaker 2 00:38:21 You know, um, the only thing that I'm aware of really at this point, as far as real concrete stuff, is the producers reaching out. And that's a big step. We want the producers of the show to have a conversation with the national Federation of the, and here, the issues that we have. And, uh, and, and the things that we hope will change the other though, is just that people are talking about this in a way that really hasn't been before. And I feel like that's a win because the most common thing I hear when I mentioned this to people is, oh, I never thought about that. And we want people to start thinking about it, right. Because if you don't think about it, then it never changes. And if you think about it and it makes you uncomfortable, that means we're doing something right. Oh, shoot. Yeah. I never thought about that. Isn't that, that isn't fair. All right. Okay. Let's do something about that.
Speaker 1 00:39:15 Did you guys pick it the shower or
Speaker 2 00:39:16 Anything? There was a protest in New York city outside of their headquarters. And, um, it was thoroughly, uh, thoroughly well attended and covered. And beyond that, that was our sort of big push, uh, to get some exposure on that. Continue. We're continuing though to have conversations behind the scenes and also to have conversations in places like social media, where we can reach a lot of people
Speaker 1 00:39:43 Is the Minnesota chapter doing anything with these efforts in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 00:39:49 So, because this is a national effort, we're all really involved in it. And so we're continuing to have those sorts of conversations here and to get the exposure. So there's a, there's a few of us who are involved in performing arts and certainly in those communities, we're having the conversations as well.
Speaker 1 00:40:07 I just am curious. Um, it's no secret that there are more than one different blind division of different groups. Um, some people are more adamant about separation than others. Are you guys doing anything to reach across the board to other organizations and saying let's all band together and fight this because I mean, I always point out and somebody's poo-pooed that, but, uh, that who was a member and I thought, well, why would you do that? I mean, there's strength in numbers. I mean, all you have to look do is look at the ARP strong organization and that the huge numbers. And I think if you band together, I mean, you know, I suspect this is, should be, or hopefully is most people's goal. Um, so I just was curious if you,
Speaker 2 00:41:03 The short, um, just to, to give a little bit of context, there are a couple of different organizations of blind people. Uh, there's the American council of the blind, there's the American foundation for the blind, um, where the national Federation of the blind, and sometimes the organizations work on, on different things or go about different things in different fashions. And, uh, in this instance, I mean, I agree with you look, the, the, our goal is to get blind people into acting jobs. Our goal is not to get blind NFB members, interacting jobs. And so if people want to work on this and get involved in this and fight on this with us, man show up, let's get to work. Absolutely. And you know, there are people, uh, there are people involved in say the mixed blood theater here in Minneapolis who are not involved in the national Federation of the blind.
Speaker 2 00:41:52 Good on ya. Uh, mixed blood theater is doing some amazing things to, uh, to provide audio description. In fact, if you go to a place like the Guthrie, uh, the Guthrie will have a couple of nights during a show where they will describe the action and they'll have somebody come into the house and, and describe what's going on to blind patrons. It's only a couple of nights out of the run, um, which is great. I, I am incredibly appreciative of it. That's how I got to see Hamilton and, uh, south Pacific and a few other things, please, for the love of God, keep doing that. Um, one of the things that I think is amazing about mixed blood is they build their audio description into the tech cues. So when the tech is doing the sound and the lights and all those other things, they're also hitting the buttons to play the described cues for the blind people who are in the audience and wanting the description. That's amazing that came about because a blind individual, uh, helped come up with that idea. So I think this is something that cuts across all of blindness and for that matter cuts across all of disability, because we're not the only ones dealing with this.
Speaker 1 00:43:02 Just a small side note. I don't know if you knew this, but it is true that Minnesota, Minneapolis in general has the hot, one of the highest, um, audio described performance numbers, even, even to New York.
Speaker 2 00:43:19 I did not know that. I'm, I'm glad to hear that though, because I saw Hamilton in New York and was very disappointed by the fact that there was no audio description, so no, a way to go Minneapolis. We, we kind of rock it. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:43:33 That's awesome. So how can someone get more information about specific projects and how they can help?
Speaker 2 00:43:41 Um, you can learn all about the national Federation of the blind by going to N F b.org. Um, our affiliate website here in Minnesota is N F B M n.org. Um, and yeah, absolutely check out our website. We're on Twitter at NFB, M N nationally. Our, uh, our Twitter handle is NFB underscore voice. Both organizations are also on social media, or I'm sorry, on Facebook. And you can email me anytime you want to. My address is president at N F B M N dot O R G. And I'd be happy to talk to anybody about this.
Speaker 1 00:44:21 I'm going to have you give those URLs and emails again. Definitely.
Speaker 2 00:44:25 Perfect. Okay. So, uh, yeah, nationally and fb.org. Um, the state website is N F B M N dot O R G a. You can email me at president that NFB, M N dot O R G, and then social media. We are both on Facebook, both the national organization and the state organization, um, on Twitter, we are at N F B M N, and our national office, uh, feed is at NFB or a national organization feed rather is at NFB underscore voice.
Speaker 1 00:45:01 What are some of the other, um, projects your organization NFV is in Baltimore.
Speaker 2 00:45:06 So we've got a couple of big ones that are on the table right now. One of them is we are trying to improve educational opportunities for blind children here in the state of Minnesota. Um, I'm going to play a little bit of inside baseball and try to make it as, as an inside baseball, like as possible. But if there are blind children, one of the things that they get as part of their education is access to a teacher in the public school who will teach them how to do things like walk independently, using a white cane, uh, learn how to read braille, learn how to use a computer, independent living skills, all that sort of stuff. And that is part of their, their regular schooling along with the curriculum that they do, the math and science. And what have you, um, in the state of Minnesota, we are experiencing a severe shortage to the point where in the next five years, I believe it's two thirds of our, uh, our teachers of blind children are going to be retiring.
Speaker 2 00:46:07 It's, it's, uh, a really terrible thing that doesn't have as much traction as we would like. And so, one of the things that we're looking to do is to establish a university program that will train teachers of blind students here in the state of Minnesota. There are organizations who are doing these things sort of around the country. There are programs and other states, but we want to have one here. So that teachers in the state of Minnesota will, will learn and they'll stay here, or people even will come to the state of Minnesota, learn, and then stay here. But we really think that it is, it is absolutely vital and crucial that we get that number of teachers of blind students up because we're, we're losing out on educational opportunities for blind kids all over the place. Uh, another one that we're working on right now deals with protecting the rights of blind parents right now, uh, Minnesota is one of the few places, thankfully, that is, uh, that has some protections in place for if there is a custody hearing and blindness is raised as the reason why someone should not be allowed to keep their children.
Speaker 2 00:47:18 We want to strengthen those protections. So that if someone were to say, I don't know if you should have custody, whether it's in say a marital dispute like a divorce proceeding, or whether it's in something like, you know, maybe there's a concern social worker that the blind person is given the opportunity to demonstrate that blindness is not an impediment to them raising their children. And also that the courts have to provide a real specific reasons as to maybe why custody is denied in a way we don't want to say that blindness makes you a perfect pair. It doesn't, but blindness does not inhibit your ability to be a parent. I know thousands of blind people who are good and wonderful parents and have raised good and wonderful children. And so we want to make sure that those protections are put in place so that those kinds of, uh, those kinds of injustices don't happen.
Speaker 2 00:48:12 I want to hit one more. And that is that there is a real problem in this country, and it affects people with all disabilities. And that is that starting in 1938, when the fair labor standards act passed, uh, an exemption was put in place for people with disabilities. So fair labor standards act established the minimum wage and like it, or love it. The minimum wage is a legal guarantee that if you work for an organization, you are at least going to make this much money DISA. Uh, people with disabilities don't have that same protection. And so it is legal to pay people with disabilities. Um, literally pennies. There are, there are people and in different industries. In fact, one of the ones that we dealt with a few years ago was at Goodwill. There was an individual at Goodwill who made 17 cents an hour. And that is the kind of thing that we absolutely need to stop. There are, as in my last count, 104 organizations in the state of Minnesota who have the ability to pay people with disabilities, less than the minimum wage. And that is not okay. So we want to fight that.
Speaker 1 00:49:19 Excuse me, I'd like to say something to each one of those. Okay. And so you're going to have a two minute basic response. So in regards to the public school thing is, you know, it's really my understanding that Minnesota has an excellent education, um, that we are pretty high up there as far as states goes. I'm not talking about Europe or anything like that. Um, so, but the idea of the getting better education for blind teachers are more, um, I don't disagree with it, but what about having outside people come in like vendors of, you know, that teach this stuff already? What about that?
Speaker 2 00:49:58 So I don't disagree with you. I, and in fact, what I were not asking for is better education. What we're asking for is enough of it right there. The fact that there are 69 teachers for the entire state of Minnesota is a problem. Yes, 69 teachers, 1400 students. That's a shortage. Now, if we got outside vendors to be able to do that, you know, that's certainly something that could happen, but it would be putting,
Speaker 1 00:50:24 They have rules in place.
Speaker 2 00:50:26 You have to well, and you have to be really careful, um, in the education system about, or not careful, but you have to be willing to get the education system. And the education system has to be willing to make the kind of changes that go, okay. Yes, we will let external vendors come in right now, you have to have a particular kind of license and you have to make sure that you dot all
Speaker 1 00:50:49 Your I's and cross all your T's and probably, uh, pass the NMS QT and all sorts of other stuff like that. Uh, but there are external vendors who are doing some of that stuff now. And, uh, you know, that's, that's always a possibility, but, um, if you want somebody who can do it full time, then we believe that education and getting more teachers of blind students is, is one way to solve that problem. But I, I, I would think you would think that the vendors need to have some kind of credentials or qualifications.
Speaker 2 00:51:19 Absolutely. Absolutely. All right.
Speaker 1 00:51:21 So about the parenting thing, um, what kind of things do you think that a blind parent should have to prove? Sometimes I get this idea that people want you to prove something above and beyond with a sighted parent would have to prove. And the other thing I would say to that is that how come sighted people don't have to prove that they're a good parents and believe me, I know plenty of bad ones. Um, they never,
Speaker 2 00:51:45 I have to prove that I agree with you. Um, but nobody ever says in the court, you're not allowed to parent your child because you can see right. The site is never used as a reason, uh, that to, to keep people from being able to raise their kids, but blindness is. And so it's not that you have to prove that it's, that you get the opportunity to do so, right? Because what we don't want to have happen is for a social worker to come into the hospital and say, you, you you're blind. I don't think you're going to be able to raise this child. I think the child is unsafe now. You don't have a child anymore. The blind person should be given the opportunity in that instance, uh, to, to prove that. And in fact, that's one of the things that I say I appreciate about the state of Minnesota is you cannot on blindness alone say, uh, this is why you're being denied custody. We want to make sure that there is writing put in place that says, okay, why is this happening? And also blindness is not the reason why
Speaker 1 00:52:42 The last thing I want to comment on is the fair wage. Is that what you'd call fairway? Yeah. So I agree that you shouldn't be able to pay somebody 17 cents an hour, but I also know that there are people out there if you demanded that people had exact, you know, first of all, I want to say an old people on both sides of the ramp. So I know people who are working in and high up organizations that are making good money that cannot see. I also know people who have, uh, whatever disability I would never get hired. And, but yet they are being hired and maybe they're being paid $2 an hour. Um, but for them it keeps them busy. It gives them something to do all day. It gives them a purpose. And what would you say to that?
Speaker 2 00:53:27 Hello? I guess what I would say is whose whose purpose, right? Um, at, at Goodwill, for example, we talked about the 17 cents an hour. They're
Speaker 1 00:53:38 Extreme. I agree.
Speaker 2 00:53:39 Sure, sure. But their CEO is making seven figures. So why should their CEO get to make seven figures? And what I would say too is if you believe that the people you are hiring are capable of work, then pay them what then pay them what they're getting, you know, in, in, in instances of people without disabilities, if you don't perform, you don't do that job. Maybe there's something else that you could do. Maybe there's a way that, that a modification took, could take place. Maybe there's some sort of training that could happen, but disability alone should not be the reason why, why you pay someone less than that.
Speaker 1 00:54:22 I'll accept that one. Alright, Ryan,
Speaker 2 00:54:26 Man, I, I, we're going to talk about acting, but bring us on. I love this stuff. Let's do it
Speaker 1 00:54:32 Been a great discussion and I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so so much. You want to give your Minnesota URL?
Speaker 2 00:54:42 Yeah, absolutely. You can find us here at www dot N F B V. National Federation of the blind, M n.org and F N F B M n.org. You can also give us a call at (612) 872-9363. Or you can email me anytime you want
[email protected].
Speaker 1 00:55:05 Thank you so much for being on Ryan. I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything. And when you land that big acting thing, I want to be acting right.
Speaker 2 00:55:15 Like sound sounds good. I'll come back and tell you all about, do that.
Speaker 1 00:55:18 Okay. Thank you. Thank you. This has been disability and progress. The views expressed on the show are not necessarily those of cafe or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of the show. Charlene dolls, my research woman. If you want to be on my email list, you may email me at disability and progress at to Sam, jasmine.com. We've been speaking with Ryan Strunk. Ryan is the president of the Minnesota chapter of national Federation of the blind. We were talking about the problem of refusal of entertainment, industry to cast blind people in production. If you want to hear this will be on the
[email protected] for two weeks. My name is Sam Ivan. The house is us show. Thanks for joining in this is cafe 90.3 or cafe.org. Thanks for listening. Goodnight.
