Matt James and Abigail Heringer. Credit: ABC

Los Angeles, Jan. 7 – Monday night saw the season 25 premiere of The Bachelor. This season has been highly anticipated, with the lead Matt James as the first Black Bachelor in the show’s history, and a lack of diversity is a longtime criticism of the show. The show also broke tradition by selecting James as the lead, who has never participated on the show. Leads are usually fan favorites from previous seasons.

James’ naivete and newcomer status comes as a refreshing change as I noticed little things that he did that were different from other leads who were following the direction of producers or what they had seen in past seasons. In another historic move, James chose Abigail Heringer, a deaf contestant, to receive his First Impression rose.

“So, there’s something a little bit different about me,” Heringer said to James when they first met. “And that is I’m deaf. So, I’m going to be reading your lips a lot tonight, but thankfully you have really beautiful lips. So, I’m not complaining!”

“I love that! I’m going to enunciate for you,” James responded. [continue reading…]

What does the ADA mean to you? In celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the disability advocacy nonprofit RespectAbility hosted a week-long summit including a day focused on working with the entertainment industry to advance authentic representation. To cap it off, the conversation focused on the importance of building a disabled industry pipeline for the future.

Hosted by the filmmaker and senior production advisor for RespectAbility Nasreen Alkhateeb, the panel spotlighted RespectAbility’s award-winning Hollywood Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities. [continue reading…]

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the historic Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility’s Lauren Appelbaum sat down with disabled journalists and nondisabled allies who have used their platform to shine the spotlight on stories important to the disability community to discuss the importance of disability representation and coverage in the media.

As it stands, disability inclusion does not get much attention in the media.

“People with disabilities are considered the invisible minority,” said Tim Gray, a senior VP at Variety. “I don’t think journalists are putting up a wall. I think it just doesn’t occur to them. Even now, with all the talk about diversity and inclusion, 90% of that conversation is about racial inclusion. Maybe the other 10% is about gender with women equality.” [continue reading…]

With one-in-five people having a disability in the U.S. today, the lack of representation – just 3.1 percent on-screen and even less in children’s television (less than one percent) – means that millions of people are unable to see themselves in media today. The national disability advocacy nonprofit RespectAbility has been honored to play a part in changing this, including consulting on an array of films and TV shows for a variety of studios and networks. As part of a week-long celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility highlighted examples of best practice in authentic casting and disability representation in Hollywood.

Moderated by actress and model Tatiana Lee, who also serves as RespectAbility’s Hollywood Inclusion Associate, one panel shined the spotlight on young adult entertainment media focusing on Ramy (Hulu) and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (Freeform).

Shows like these demonstrate Hollywood’s changing tide and push for inclusion of creatives with disabilities, both in front of and behind the camera. As research shows, only 3.1 percent of all speaking or named characters in film were shown to have a disability in 2020. Trends show these numbers will increase, and these talented individuals are at the forefront of this industrial shift. [continue reading…]

On the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility board member and co-founder of Bunim-Murray Productions, Jonathan Murray, hosted a panel of entertainment industry writers, producers, and executives to speak about the experience of the disabled community within the industry. Part one of the four-part “Fighting Stigmas with Hollywood” series, “Respecting the Ability: Ensuring Authentic Representation in the Entertainment Industry,” is about the importance of not only allowing but creating more supportive environments for people in the industry to tell the authentic and diverse stories representing all.

The lack of representation of the disability community in entertainment is vast. While one in five people in the U.S. has a disability, just 3.1 percent of characters on a primetime show have a disability – meaning that millions of people are unable to see themselves represented in media today. The shortage is one reason why RespectAbility is fighting for change; however, a change like this must be embraced from the top and have buy-in at every level. Studio heads, showrunners, producers, and writers must do their part to inflict change on the industry and showcase diverse people and stories. The participants shared why change is happening within the industry, and each has proven to be changemakers in their own right. [continue reading…]

“When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only afterwards do its details follow on. But for people with autism, the details jump straight out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image float up into focus.”

― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 5 – How do you see the world? Do you enjoy the beautiful small details of a flower or the sweet melodious sound of birds chirping? Do you find the sound of rain calming? What if all those details that we love started to slam into our minds in disruptive and disturbing ways? Would you still love them? For the neurotypical, our brains are designed to block out specific details of our environment for various reasons. But what if we couldn’t? Even still, what if you did always love them but couldn’t verbally express your appreciation? How emotionally taxing would your world be if everything you sensed was amplified and you had no way to express yourself verbally?

[continue reading…]

It was June of 1969. I was an 11 ½ year old visually impaired girl leaving home for the first time to attend Jewish overnight camp. I boarded the train to Wisconsin consumed with mixed emotions: already a little homesick and anxious, but also excited. I was excited about the friends coming from my Jewish Day school, and the new friends I hope to meet. At that moment, I was just like them—leaving home to spend three fun-filled weeks at summer camp.

It was a disaster. [continue reading…]

Atlanta, GA – The Georgia Disability Vote Partnership (GDVP) is proud to release its nonpartisan voter guide. Most of the partners of GDVP are nonprofit organizations and this voter guide is for educational purposes only, as GDVP does not rate or endorse candidates. The purpose of the guide is to help voters know the positions of the candidates and to provide some resources to help Georgians vote. GDVP has asked each of the Democratic and Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate the identical questions about issues affecting people with disabilities. Not all of the candidates have responded in full, but all responses that the partnership has received are reported here in full without editing.

According to the 2019 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, the total number of Georgians with disabilities is 1,246,077. 2018 employment data shows that there are 658,811 working-age people with disabilities in Georgia. In the economic expansion prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 238,875 (or 36.3 percent) of those Georgians have a job. [continue reading…]

As the nation waits for the Georgia Senate runoff next week, disability organization calls on pollsters and media to track disability participation and access.

Washington, D.C., Dec. 28 – With the political universe centered on the Senate runoff in Georgia, the unique needs and barriers of Georgians with disabilities could very well factor into to the outcome of the race. Thus, the national nonpartisan disability inclusion organization RespectAbility is asking pollsters, polling firms and political consultants to track voters with disabilities in their demographic data, as well as voter access exit polling.

According to the 2019 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, the total number of Georgians with disabilities is 1,246,077, making up 12.1 percent of the total state population. 2018 employment data show that there are 658,811 working-age people with disabilities in Georgia. In the economic expansion prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 238,875 (or 36.3 percent) of those Georgians had a job.

Thus far, there has been little outreach to voters with disabilities from all four Senate candidates in the runoff race. As noted by RespectAbility in November, none of the four candidates even mention the word disability on their campaign websites. None of the Senate candidates’ websites are fully accessible to the 254,972 Georgians who are blind or low vision. And very few of the candidates’ videos have captions, making them inaccessible to the 328,000 deaf and hard of hearing Georgians. [continue reading…]