Host speaker and author, this book called the deaf blind woman at harvard law. It have limited vision and hearing. I was born and raised in california. I am still living in california in the area. Im talking to you for my living room. And actually for care. I am jeff, and i sat down to write my book here. My death and blindness is not the thing that makes life difficult. Its other things of the life difficult. Disabled people are inferior compared to nondisabled people, that is not true. Its not a barrier. This keeps moving throughout our society and sing that disabled people do not matter. Therefore they dont need to have services accessible. Haben girma they dont provide medical care. And all kinds of unfair biases. When i was younger, i was not sure what to do. Do i just accept inferior ideals. But over time, alerted to advocate and i started to demand inclusion then i learned about the american act. In his celebrated his 30th anniversary year. Prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. I learned about it when i was in college. And my book shares this process where i discovered advocacy, and i learned to advocate for people with disabilities. If you could take away one message from the book, is the concept of being able. Theyre not inferior to nondisabled people. It teaches people to identify a problem and also join us into fight against this. I am an advocate so i look back into my life and i asked myself what are the lessons of my life, how can they help people and give them opportunities for disabled people around the United States and around the world. I picked it stories from my life to teach people about this. Abel is him intersects with sexism, racism, and it pops up in small conversations in the kitchen when youre making veteran jelly. So i wanted to show people that i wanted to enable abel is him. So the people can learn to identify it and work to remove it in our society. My parents are from ethiopia and in parts of those countries, people play the disabilities a and the family sprayed it was really difficult to deal with that kind of depression. That they might have in the culture but the parents had to learn to resist that idea. They had to learn to define disabilities for ourselves. It is not a burden on the family. Disability is an opportunity for renovation. So we have to come up with our own definition of what disability means. When i was growing up, i would try to tell my parents i cannot cook, you cant ask a blind kid to do chores. They were not buying it. They still insisted that i cooked and did chores. In the one hand, as a kid i was frustrated. But as an adult, i am grateful that i got this life skills. Tell the kids, dont do showers. Dont cook, that is dangerous. In those kids grow up into adults. And they never develop and form their independence and life skills needed that is frustrating. We need to help us kids explore their environment. In develop life skills. Like how to do things for themselves. And society is built for nondisabled people. And that forces the disabled people to come up with solutions. Everything from cooking in the kitchen to solving international challenges. One of the things i had to learn to solve is how you communicate when most people rely on vision and hearing to communicate. I tapped into my strength. One of my strengths is my sense of touch. I use it more than most people. Its something that is cultivated for a long time. It helps me. It helps me while rockclimbing. It helps me through all kinds of situations. When im walking, i am feeling the different textures through my feet. From payment to carpet to hardwood floor. To tap into that intelligence is something that i developed. In a communicate with people. I am really tapped into it. So i was looking at technology. And the touch solutions. In 2010, and a piece of technology came out that supported bluetooth and braille. I will hold up. So im holding up this device with braille on the bottom. Then run my fingers over it to feel the letters. When i connected to an external keyboard, people can type on the keyboard and i can read in braille. Most people do not know braille. If they dont know sign language. In most people can type especially millennials. So i found that communication is much easier when ive tapped into my strength, my sense of touch. My hearing is terrible. My vision is terrible. My sense of touch though is excellent. As i tapped into that. And i have way more opportunities that came up for me. Disabled people do this all the time. We increase the dissent ability or at your schools, more innovations come in. More solutions to problems come in. So benefits all of us. It benefits all of us to increase diversity in our teams. Traditional philosophies have excluded a lot of thinkers. And knowledge that exists in the world. There excluding a lot of the things that were developed by people of color, women, i am disabled people. That existed crossed this different minority group. So we need to rebuild our libraries to include more diverse thinkers and philosophers. In traditional throughout western history, exclude a lot of other people. Quietly passionate about social justice. Because i want to stay alive. I want opportunities that are available to nondisabled people. Disabled people are also at risk for police violence. And disabled people, a lot of individuals in power, police officers, agents, walking to situations that one can see in here and move around in. And that is terrifying and we need then ask for help. Knowing all of these injustices exist. It wants to have me advocate for change. And in my book, take about a situation in college where all he wanted was to eat. I wanted access to food. Benefit information was only available in a visual format. As a blind student, i cannot read the menu. And as the cafeteria to please provide a menu and braille. Posted online or email it to me. I have technology that allows me to access things that are read in emails. In the cafeteria manager told me we are very busy, we have over a thousand students. We dont have time to do special things for students with special needs. That is to be clear, this is not a special need. Everyone needs to eat. There are kinds of people that are considered independent. And others who are interdependent. Any of you, very few of you know your own coffee beans. He depend on other people to bring food. As long as we are honest about the fact that we are all interdependent. The cafeteria manager did not understand this. So for several months i just tolerated the lack of access to food. I was a vegetarian back then. How do you know which station is serving vegetarian food when you cant read the menu. It was frustrating. As a deaf and blind student, i would go to a station at random. I would find a table then and try the food and discover unpleasant surprise. What was i to do. Maybe disabled students should just accept inferior service. Maybe that was just going to be my life. Inferior services. Then i talked to advocates. And it is my choice. That choice to accept or advocate for justice. So i went back to the manager and i explained the disabilities act is access, i will take legal action if you do not provide access to me. I had no idea how to do that. I was 19 years old. He could not afford a lawyer. And now i know your nonprofit legal people who help people with disabilities. In the back that i didnt know that. All i had no as i try and do something. In the next then the manager apologized and promised to make the menu accessible. He actually did. He started streaming the menus. In the next year and a blind student came to the college. And he had immediate access to the menus. That helped me to advocates. It helps everyone who comes after me. And ive experienced in college, i decided to go to law school. I went to harvard law. Harvard said they never had a defined students before i told them i had never been to Harvard Law School before. Didnt know the other solutions that would be. It was an interactive process to find the Solutions Make it right. Now, i work as an advocate for disabled people. I know there is injustice and i know the way to ending justice, all of us have a choice. We can accept order tolerated or advocate for justice. My book, haben for that deafblind woman went to harvard law. Helps to fight the injustices against a lot of the disabled people. It encourages people to join us in fighting to an injustice against disabled people. A lot of people do not know about access for the disabled. There are tools like the content access guidelines. And designing accessible things. Some people really dont know about them. So you give them on the opportunity to learn about them. But if they have education and the skills to meet these services make them accessible, then theres the eda and then there are consequences. People have had years to learn this. There are no more excuses. This is important to all advocates. Strong advocates researched what they are talking about. They help give you a deeper understanding of the topic. When you are facing a difficult situation, that is exactly when we need to be an advocate for justice. If you have the energy, yes, advocate for change. I do understand the sometimes of those who of us who advocate all of the time experience fatigue. I need to take a break. Recharge, and at that point, you really help when you have a community who can step in for you in to help you if you need the advocacy. You can cheer for you and for thighs and help you recharge. Communities are good this. There are two things. One, theres a lot of injustice against disabled people. And he can turn that off, pretend it doesnt exist, this privilege. To not think about Disability Access issues read libraries one of the country have the opportunity to increase access for disabled people. Folks are critical. And expanding opportunities, make sure the digital services, library websites, digital books, access to readers and readers with creditrating disabilities like dyslexia and learning disabilities. Increase access. The National Library service for the blind, has been a huge part of my life and growing up i would get so any books. The harry potter books, i got those at the library of congress. Library of congress, has a book program. Its a talking book program, one of the few programs were blind people can get physical hardcover braille books. Books that i can actually hold and feel. This is precious and rare. It is really really hard for blind people to get her hands on braille books. So for most my life, when i got a physical braille book, is through the library of congress. We also have computer braille. And the devices like this, and when a digital book is compatible with the screen readers, blind people can read it on the Braille Computers. So we also can access braille books, digitally. We do need to increase access to Braille Computers. They are expensive. There are some programs, and nonprofits that provide Braille Computers to blind individuals. But its really difficult to get access to them. Book to be recently spoke with republican senator joni ernst of iowa about her life and career. Heres a portion of the interview. He smacked i grew up in southwest iowa. Very rural part of the state. In the perseverance and the dedication, the hard work that my parents taught me really has carried me through so any different challenges in my life and an opportunity of a lifetime. I wanted to tell a story, to be uplifting. And certainly people will face challenges throughout their lifetime. But we all should understand that those challenges do not necessarily have to divide us. Daughter of the heart that is a reboot. You can watch the rest of her interview by visiting our website, the booktv. Org. Insert your name in the box at the top of the page. And next, on book tv, media ceo james steyer reports on the impact of elections and democracy. In former florida publican fmr. Sen connie mack talks about his life and career in politics. Later, white House Counsel for president richard nixon, psychological makeup of authoritarian leaders in the trump presidency. Consult your Program Guide for more information. Now, heres Common Sense Media founder james steyer. On technologies and elections. Hello my name is daniel, tech writer here. Moderator today for todays Commonwealth Club program. It help technology is shaping democracy in our lives. To be more important topic to discuss right now. Please toe