Episode #278
“The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law” with Haben Girma
Haben Girma (she/her) is a disability rights advocate, the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School and she is an Unapologetically Black Unicorn. Haben discusses her book, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, as well as the importance of accessibility, advocacy, and recognizing the many dimensions of disability identity. They discuss the importance of inclusive communication, multisensory experiences and learning from people with different disabilities and backgrounds. Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, by Haben Girma: https://habengirma.com/book/ More about Haben Girma: https://habengirma.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/habengirma/ The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is now: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Contact the show: UBU@UnapologeticallyBlackUnicorns.info Transcripts are available on Apple Podcasts. Descriptive Transcript: [Music intro the theme music is piano, electric guitar with strong brass and horn melody with a funk beat and becomes softer when Keris starts her intro] KERIS: Welcome, and welcome back to Unapologetically Black Unicorns. I am so excited that today I have a guest who is… and people know I make up words. So these are the words that I'm making up for this guest. She is splendiferous. Magnificent, that is not a made-up word. Wonder Fluidus. [keris laughing] Yeah, she's amazing! Okay, that's not… that's not a made-up word either, but she's amazing, and I've had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times. I've read her book, and we'll talk maybe a little bit about her book. But before we get into all of that, Um, many people know I'm Keris, I'm your host of UBU, but many people might not know what the heck I look like unless they happen to already know me, but I'm African American and Indigenous, I have long black hair that also has a natural gray undercut. Yeah, okay, I'm naturally gray at this point, what can I say? I'm wearing glasses that have a rainbow rim to them. Have a little bit of lipstick on, and I have on my Disability is Not a Bad Word shirt on today. And my background is blurred out because we are on Zoom. Also, people know, relative to this podcast, I don't do bios. I ask my guests to introduce themselves. So, Haben, I'm gonna turn it over to you. Would you like to introduce yourself? [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: Hello, everyone! My name is Haben Girma. It's delightful to be here and connecting with everyone over this podcast. And audio is a fascinating way for me to connect with people. Because I don't listen to podcasts personally. Since I'm deafblind, And during this conversation, what we're doing is we're using technology, specifically a braille computer and keyboard. You will notice a delay! Between the questions and the answers. Part of accessibility is patience. Making time for all kinds of places. My voice is coming from the Bay Area in California. I am a woman in my 30s. With Eritrean and Ethiopian ancestry. And…I have lived in different places, but I keep coming back to the Bay Area, because I love…[speaking with enthusiasm] the wealth of food and cultures and beautiful parks we have over here in the community that I've built up over here. So, what…is important to me is building community. And I do that through…Education. Creating legal advocacy and writing. I published a book that talks about how…Ableism, racism, and sexism, show up in different aspects of our world. And the things we could do to remove them from our community. KERIS: Thanks for that introduction, Haben. And speaking of your book, um, I think before I met you the first time in San Francisco, at a library event you were doing with our friend Mychal Threats, I read your book, and I read it via audiobook, And to be clear, audiobook is a way of reading a book. And I laughed. I cried, I clutched my pearls, I have no pearls, but if I had them, I would have clutched them. I, um… Oh, I don't know, I had… I went through all the emotions in that book, and I just love that book. And I saw and heard your sense of humor. So when I got to meet you, um, in order to communicate with you, I had to type on a, um, keyboard that communicated with your Braille device. And I had to tell you, I'm a horrible typist, that I actually type backwards because I have a form of, I guess, like, a spatial dyslexia. So, um, but I remember we had a lot of fun, um, having conversation And I also remember later, when I saw you at the Disability Rights California Gala, because I had read your book, I know, uh, that you love to dance. And there was music playing, and I asked you, hey, would you like to dance? And we got up and, um, you wore me out. We weren't dancing that long, but again, you wore me out. You are the dancing queen. So, tell me a little bit about your book, um, Haben, because the name of the book is what? Haben! [KERIS LAUGHING] Go figure. But the name of the book is Haben, um, the Deaf Blind Woman Who Graduated from Harvard, um, Law School. So, can you tell us a little bit about the book? [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: I'd love to, but first, I would love to comment on all you've shared. That event where we met! with Mychal Threads. Fabulous! Mychal is such a powerful advocate for literacy, for community, I hope more people read Michael's new children's book. And follow him on social media. That's Michael Threats, the library ambassador. And you were also mentioning You were typing to me. And you jokingly commented that your typing…is… is not great [HABEN SAYS WITH A SMILE IN A VOICE]. And I want to reassure you…And everyone that my goal is connection. Not perfection. I don't notice most of the typos. Because I'm focused on connecting with someone. I don't care about the typos. I can understand it 99% of the time. So, I want to reassure you, the next time we meet up in person, Don't worry about spelling. I… I have lots of friends with dyslexia and different kinds of learning disabilities, Or even physical disabilities that make typing difficult. And we adapt, we find ways If someone can't type, we can have someone else type for them, like an interpreter. So, we… we adapt. We… we find….., we ways to make things work. And then you also were talking about So, while reading my book, You clutched her pearls! But then mentioned you don't actually wear pearls. So, for you, personally, When you are physically reacting to something that stuns you, or shocks you, How do you physically react? What do you do in that situation? KERIS: Um, yeah, thanks for the question. I mean, I think it depends on what it is. Um, when I…Touch my pearls, if there were, you know, my imaginary pearls. It's almost like clutching my heart for me, where something has touched me. Um, and…I think throughout the book, there were so many different points that, first of all, felt somewhat familiar for me as an African American woman. And as an African-American woman with a disability, there were, um, parts of the book that felt very familiar, And those might have been… clutch my pearl moments. Um, the biggest clutch-my-pearl moment…or that kind of, like, shock or heartfelt was, um, in the book when you were talking about being on the plane. Um, and your father, I think, was pulled off the plane, and there you are. Um, you know, Deaf and Blind, trying to figure out exactly what was going on and how frightening that was for you. I mean, that was a…That was… yeah, serious, um, moment of…just wanting to know what's gonna happen. I know you're gonna be okay, because clearly, you know, you wrote the book, you…You're here to talk about it, but just the mere fact of going through something like that,and not, um, knowing what's going on around you. Um, yeah, I just was really, uh, had a lot of emotion around that part of your story, too. [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: [speaking with passion] That was such an emotional experience. And for most of my life, I tried to forget it. It was so traumatic, I did not want to remember it. And I came very close to not even putting that in the book. But… We are seeing an increase in family separations…Caused by governments. The U.S. government and other governments around the world. And it is…Horrible. It is so painful. And I thought it was important to show that this impacts disabled people, too. And we really need to be mindful of what we're doing to families. When they separated me and my dad, it was…It was temporary, But I didn't know at the time it would only be temporary. I was about 6 years old. And…As you said, DeafBlind, so I couldn't see or hear everything that was happening. And that is scary, Do children without disabilities. So, it's…Yeah, it's… it's definitely a pearl-clutching moment. KERIS: Yeah, thank you so much for including it in the book, and, you know, um… having to relive the trauma, and now I feel kind of bad because I brought it up, but at the same time, I'm glad we're here to talk about it, because it does need to be… We do need people to understand the impacts of some of what these governments are doing around, um, family separation and…Um, you know, how it impacts, um, the children, And the families writ large, that it's not a…it's not imaginary, it's not something that's on a piece of paper, it's real, and it impacts real people. So, you know, thank you so much for being vulnerable, to share that, uh, and for it to, uh, remind, um, everybody who reads the book, and also folks who are listening into the podcast or reading the transcript of the podcast. Um, to, um, have that information about that part of your story in your life. [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: I wanted people to understand that disabled people are multi-dimensional. We have so many different aspects to our identities. And it is customary for society to try to flatten us. To just disabled people. But we're much more than that. And your podcast is also teaching people that. KERIS: Oh, thank you, Haben, and I could not agree with you more. I mean, um, you know, just in you talking about that story, You know, a lot of times, and people do know that I live with a mental health condition and other disabilities, but, um, there's been this segregation between, um, the mental health, um, advocacy community and the disability rights community, even though both communities have access to the same rights, um, because we have disabilities, but over the years, I've been working hard. to bring those two communities together. And, you know, as I was listening to you just tell a little bit more about, um, the trauma that you experienced. I always want people to know that everybody has mental health. Everybody has it, have it. Um, it goes not so well that your mental health can be impacted. And, um, you know, trauma is one of those things that impacts our mental health and well-being. Whether we get a diagnosis or not, so it is this intersectional issue. Um, and I don't know, what are your thoughts about how we could better, um, bring our communities together to, um, advocate to preserve our rights, especially now, because in the U.S., lots going on right now in the U.S. [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: Some of the most powerful advocacy experiences for me were cross-disability experiences, different organizations, for example, Mobility International USA, Disability Rights California, will bring in groups of disabled people, very different disability experiences, different backgrounds. [HABEN SPEAKING WITH A SMILE IN HER VOICE] And you learned things you never thought you'd learn. Because everyone has their own wisdom. They've had challenges, and they've come up with unique solutions. And when you have these spaces where people can share their ideas, There's solutions, their experiences, We all grow from that, and learn from that. So, it would be great if the mental health community had more cross-disability, cross-disability…Cross-community experiences! to share wisdom and learn from each other. KERIS: So what I say to that is snaps, claps, thumbs up, um, which is… comes from a show called In Living Color, which basically means I agree, I agree.” Y-A-S-S-S-S-S-S”, yes, [KERIS GIGGLES] kind of thing. So that's what that means. And I couldn't agree more, and I'm glad you're… you're on the same page with that. And…you know, as you were talking about learning from each other and our work, Um, one of the things that I've been learning from you, of course, is the importance of accessibility and how, in my work, whether it's this podcast, Which is a passion project. Um, I'm not funded, um… Yeah, I don't get any money for doing this, and I've been doing it for 5 years, but I do it because of community and relationships and connections and education. And, um, I've always wanted to ensure it's as accessible as possible. So, when I met you about a year ago, I… the first thing I said is, I want you to be on my podcast, knowing full well it was not fully accessible, and I was working towards that goal. Took me a year to get there, but, um…One of the things thatI had to think about was, as a solo person, I have a producer, but um, as the solo person who does the podcast. how to do audio transcriptions, and so I took a course, actually, from Think Outside the Vox around, um, culturally competent audio descriptions. And the closest I've gotten to is…just a straight…um, transcript from the, um, podcast. But I'd love it to be far more rich, like, Um, when I say audio descriptions, and you can correct me if I'm… if I've got it Got it? If I'm on point, um, is…that as we're talking, Closed captions or descriptions just put out the words. And what they might not hear is…If your voice sounds happy or stressed, or if we're laughing, Um, and that's what I want to include in my podcast transcripts, is something that is far more descriptive. What are your thoughts on that? [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: I sometimes call those descriptive transcripts. So, traditional transcripts actually lack the emotional information of someone's tone.[HABEN SPEAKS WITH SMILING VOICE] It can tell you so much about whether this is a joke, whether someone's laughing, Whether someone's angry and irritated, you want to know all those things. So, a descriptive transcript…That's that emotional information in there. So, you might have…The word laughing in parentheses, to communicate that there's laughter on the podcast. Or you might put in parentheses, awkward pause. Lots of potential to… to share this emotional information, so that it's coming through in the podcast In the written podcast. KERIS: Thank you, I'm, um, trying to do that, and, um, I have more time. I'm trying to spend more time. With the, um, podcast from each recording. I post every week, so, um, what I'm trying to do now is take the transcripts And, um, take the raw transcripts, and while I'm listening, to the recording, be able to parenthetically or appropriately put in, oh, by the way, the podcast actually starts with music, so I need to indicate that the music is upbeat, funky, um, with a…fast beat to it, and then say, that I'm talking, and then maybe…put parenthetically, if there is laughter, or whatever emotion is there. I also talked to you about, um, doing something a little bit creative with the podcast that I've not seen before, and it has to do with Uh, when I watched a video of you, I think you were at the… Braille Museum in France, maybe? And, um, they gave you these little vials that had aroma in it. So, there was another sense that you could tap into to experience the exhibit beyond the braille and feeling the items, or, um, you could actually smell the leather book beyond just feel the leather book. There was a vial with, I think, a smell of leather in it. Um, can you talk a little bit about that experience at the museum? [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN was the Louis BRY [Braille [pronounced in French BRY] Museum in Cupre, France. Braille in French is pronounced ‘bry’. So, that's why I said Louis Briy Museum. And in the museum, they have leather products, because Louis Bryce's father was A leather harness and saddle maker so that was part of his…childhood, and…the museum wanted to…communicate the museum experience. For people who are not physically at the museum, so they created…Fragrance…Jars, vials, capsules… And they're little jars with labels on the top, there's print, And there's braille, and you open it up, and you could smell…different aspects of the museum. So, for example, the rose from the garden…The leather from the saddle and harness workshop. Candles…Lots of different…unique sense to that specific…place. And it was a very thoughtful souvenir to be able to…experience with the sense of touch and smell… especially for someone who can't see pictures. of the museum. A lot of people, when they travel and they come back home, they look at pictures or videos from their trips. I can't do that, but now I have… Smelling jars! With bry labels! to remember Cupre, France. KERIS: That is so very cool. And so I'm always thinking about, um, how to add a dimension, a sensory dimension, Um, to my work. When…For example, when I, uh, was in seminary, I wanted people to experience music, not just with their ears, but with what they could feel, so I passed out balloons so people could hold the balloon. And, um, get close to, um, the speakers where the music was, so they could actually, um, feel the music, um, and realize that Music is more than just what you hear with your ears. You can feel it. Um, and that was a way to help them understand that, um, beyond how maybe they were even thinking about it, probably people know they can [KERIS GIGGLING], but they don't recognize, I don't think. The power of being able to tap into that sense. And, you know, that makes me think about you and dancing. And when I was reading about you dancing. So, um, yeah, share a little bit about, uh, how you got into dancing. [SILENCE- DELAY] HABEN: I love dancing, I got into it through a dance instructor who was blind. And she taught us that we can access music in so many different ways. She was teaching a class of…mostly blind students. Blindness is a spectrum, so different kinds of vision. And those who were low vision and learned best visually, she invited them to come…welcome to the front of the class so they could more easily see her different dance movements. She also described what she was doing for those who learned best through listening. And then, for people who learn best through touch, She allowed us to touch her feet, And she used her hands to represent her feet and would physically move her hands to represent what her feet are doing during the different steps, In salsa, swing, morengue… She was a wonderful teacher. She still is a wonderful teacher. Her name is Denise Bansell. She's here in California. still teaching, and it inspired me to continue taking dance lessons. And I still love dancing. And I'm glad you and I were able to dance up in Sacramento. You were talking about how you love…multi-sensory experiences. And how you can… Bring that to these conversations on your podcast. KERIS: I like them. And, you know, as we're talking about this, this… this reminds me of… this idea of the work that we do, um, you know, in our advocacy, and maybe in our lives sometimes can be hard, it can be tedious, it needs to be done. Um, sometimes for me, um, you know, I think you may have heard of the spoon theory. I'm out of my spoons by 12 o'clock, but I still have work to do at by 5 o'clock, so I gotta figure out how to get through. And one of the things that, um, you know, I hoped we would talk a little bit about is joy and the power of joy. And, um, you know, I'm so, um, happy that you're sharing some of your experiences. Because, um, I'm hoping they give you joy. I know they give me joy when I see you doing them. Especially the most recent one. Um, I know I'm supposed to call you Queen Harben, Knightly Haben….I am supposed to kiss your knight ring… I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I know you were just recently knighted. Um, as in K-N
