Today’s subject is this podcast because it’s episode 100!! Whether this is the first time you’re listening or if you’re a longtime listener, this podcast is co-audio produced by three people and myself: Sarika Mehta, Geraldine Ah-Sue, and Cheryl Green. I’m proud to work with all three of them since the podcast started in 2017. You’ll hear us talk about the lack of disabled voices in radio or podcasts, our collaborative process, and the future of the podcast. And this is a supersized episode! After the conversation, you’ll hear some feedback from podcast listeners. In this post you can also find more such as a downloadable list of all 100 podcast episodes you can share as a resource (coming soon) and another document with responses by students from Mid-Peninsula High School in San Mateo, California (see below).

And now for a very important update. Friends, this is the last episode of the Disability Visibility podcast. I’ll talk about how I came to this decision in the conversation with Geraldine, Sarika, and Cheryl. I hope you will continue to subscribe because I may still produce other audio stories in the future, just not regular podcast episodes. It has been an absolute joy to create and collaborate with so many awesome people.

In addition to Sarika, Cheryl, and Geraldine, I want to thank Mike Mort for creating the logo, Wheelchair Sports Camp for allowing me to use 2 of their songs as the theme music, and Lateef McLeod for the introduction. I also want to thank the 100+ guests for sharing their wisdom and time and for trusting their story with me. And most importantly, I want to thank YOU. This is not the end, but the beginning of new adventures. Thank you for being in community with me.

Transcript

[Google doc] [PDF]

About

Portrait photo of an Asian American woman looking directly in the camera with a slight half smile. She is wearing a light blue button-up shirt and a long earring on her right ear. She has a lip ring, dark eyes, and dark hair that is tied up with bangs that are cut in a diagonal line, slanting to her left. She is set against a silver background.

Geraldine Ah-Sue is a cultural activist and independent radio producer primarily interested in stories shared by BIPOC communities about culture, community, and love. She has produced stories for outlets such as KALW’s newsmagazine show Crosscurrents and APEX Express on KPFA. She was the producer and host of the second season of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s podcast Raw Material, which focused on the intersections between art, community and social justice. Currently, she is enjoying working on her independent creative project Playing with Food: The Place where Food Comes to Life, and loving on her inquisitive, song-filled toddling daughter.

Twitter: @geraldineah_sue

A white woman with olive skin and long, dark brown, curly hair stands outside by a red wall that vanishes behind her in the distance. A line of enormous running horses are painted in a mural on the wall in black and white, their manes blowing in the wind. Cheryl stands with her arms folded in front of her, forearms chiseled from too many years typing, staring off in the direction the horses are headed. She has a solemn crow tattooed on one arm and wears a black t-shirt with white text, "No More Spoons" and a row of knives and daggers. — A white woman with olive skin and long, dark brown, curly hair stands outside by a red wall that vanishes behind her in the distance. A line of enormous running horses are painted in a mural on the wall in black and white, their manes blowing in the wind. Cheryl stands with her arms folded in front of her, forearms chiseled from too many years typing, staring off in the direction the horses are headed. She has a solemn crow tattooed on one arm and wears a black t-shirt with white text, “No More Spoons” and a row of knives and daggers.

Cheryl Green, MFA, MS is a multi-media digital artist, captioner, audio describer, a 2017 AIR New Voices Scholar, 2020 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader, and Digital Operations Lead and a Member-Owner at New Day Films (through July, 2021). She brings her lived experience with multiple invisible disabilities to creating media that explores politically- and culturally-engaged stories from cross-disability communities. She reported and produced one episode for the Peabody-nominated Season 2 of 70 Million and has audio described and captioned many films for Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival and Superfest International Disability Film Festival. Her audio and written blog, transcribed podcast, and documentary films are at www.WhoAmIToStopIt.com

Twitter: @WhoAmIToStopIt

A brown woman with long, curly, black hair, stands smiling while playing a ukulele. She is visibly pregnant, wearing a dark purple dress. The background shows a green wall with small paintings of flowers hanging.

Sarika Mehta, originally from Chicago’s suburbia, loves things music, dance, and all that jazz. She’s been a producer with APA Compass radio collective, founded and hosted the podcast Intersections Radio, anchored the KBOO Evening News, and of course served as a producer for Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility Project Podcast. Currently she is the host and founder of Diaspora Blues Radio where she nerds out with her favorite artists. Her fascination with languages led her to the worlds of Sign Language Interpreting and journalism for the ears. She’s a busy mama with two little beautiful boys and she’s been known to make stuffed animals out of excellently patterned socks. Keep up at sarikadmehta.com.

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