saw that document a story we listen to after the war saying your europeans go build united states of you but we would not be with you we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on how does iraq. i ask them how can a and you know in the stream today of respectful representation why disability so destructive for the community let's take a look at a vital twist a thread that explores the impact that some of common tropes have on people with disabilities and this is how important conversation we want to hear from you you can chat me in all tweet me at history. my name is malcolm smith and i want to stick to that media traps that affect me one i just think people are jerk wants is bad behavior is justified because there really isn't this tropi it's autistic people entitled which makes it hard pressed to get accommodations to just that people are always white male and young usually children this trial makes it harder for people of color when and adults to get diagnosed and also makes it difficult for translators that people like me to get care i just think people need respect where we're trained in the media at night is that basic need. disabled people are lazy and just need to get off this self-indulgent butts and do some hard work or anything is better than being disabled all you look disability inspires me offensive absolutely and only just some of the most common ways that disability used in media pop culture literature politics and so much more this is cindy ford when how low is cindy she is and also who wrote that thread you just saw that has been tweeted at like several 1000 times and if you haven't read it yet you can bookmark it share it engage with your community on it city's latest book is where the watermelons grow also with us on the program and how gets the most at disability and diversity activist in monterrey mexico and founder of the mexican a woman with disabilities movement happy to have you badly and hell and another friend of the stream lawrence carter long is the director of communications at the disability rights education and defense fund thank you all for being with us i guess separate to start the conversation cindy i am looking at this thread i have read it several times just take a spot set the scene where were you what was your mood when you sit when he sat down to write a side with 11 tropes and details teach else in here something that i had actually been thinking about doing for a couple of weeks i am as you mentioned i'm an author i write books for children and so i end up reading a lot of books for children too and read fairly regularly all 3 books that have really hurtful portrayals of people with disabilities and this is something that i had been thinking about for a couple weeks and i had i had kind of had that they do that a lot of the problem with media representations of disability is the fact that most people that we're all raised in such an able with the fighting that we don't actually recognize what good and bad ability rip. and he is and so i kind of had this idea that maybe if i broke down some of the common tropes and explained why they were hurtful then it might help and i didn't expect it to get much traction i was honestly really just hoping that like couple of library and then the kidlet world would read it or something like that and kind of help help to spread that message really take out how did it get this just. how big did it get i think last time i checked it was like. 6000 likes or something and about 5000 retreat i'm just sitting at one point here you say update i'm having to meet this thread for now thank you everyone in the shed and discuss these words so appreciate it like ok by. so much was happening you know as what was happening here that this particular thread at this particular moment really took off it really shows that cindy hit a nerve right there the problem with these tropes there are reinforced over and over again now people in the hear them over and over again they're not questioned they begin to believe them i think creatively the worst part about them is that they're lazy right they don't give us any new ground they don't give us any new insight so would cindy did which is very great is you pop the bubble so that people could expand their brains and maybe have a different view i love and how cindy actually number so let's go to number 4 because number 4 is something that you find really upsetting inspirational porn let's to get into that why did you pick that one out of the 11 that cindy gave us. and then that one was the only thing because this thread was amazing because it also had been this perspective on it which i think made it very real and like coming from a very like honest place think is one particularly inspiration pour it bothers me a lot because. especially. that it has in the everything from politics to our lives to everything because we. we're not seen as a subject right and we're not given those rights but only when we become inspirational to others that's when we you know become alive. and also i think that when it comes to inspiration point it's that like there's narratives about that very able as narrative about that we came our disabled lives this inspire us not the stable so i think that was a very powerful one and to be described in this way disabled person inspires every one of them by dint of their very presence changing lives cindy you work a lot with kids and you are saying that these stereotypes are harmful for children can you explain why oh it hugely harmful for children i have like i mentioned i will periodically read a book that i took a library get sent to me that has a harmful portrayal of disability and often it's hard for me to read sometimes it's like almost physically hard for me to read because it's so invalidating of my existence and my realities and like i'm an adult you know i have my own kids i have a fairly like robust of contact but when a kid is reading things like that they don't have any of that framework built up and they themselves and the difficult kid in the usually still coming to understand what their disability means and how it's different from other people and. i am chronically ill and so help and illness has always been a big part of my life but when i was a teenager i became very very ill and i was i was almost completely. that found for a year and kind of never the same after that and i struggled so much with these kind of disability tropes that we see in representation and media because i felt like there were all these things they had to do to be a good and valuable the able to earth and like my life wasn't actually worth anything if i wasn't kind of living up to that media narrative of what a good to fable person looks like and so that's something that's always on my mind that as a kid author like i feel like you have a sacred responsibility because people are reading this when they're still forming their understanding of themselves and the world and how they deserve to be treated and how they deserve to live their lives so that's something that's always really and that was one of the points he picked up that anything is better than being disabled and we share this with you this is michelle she michelle writes in and tweets that the strain often the only exposure people have to disabled people is file what they see in the media now much of the majority of stories about disabled people are written by body people who are writing it from even this discriminatory perspective it sounds outrageous lawrence but that happens all the time in movies it happens all the time you know we wouldn't we don't accept that anymore with gender we don't accept that anymore with that message the thing with disability is we've always had those stories told by other people right it's been the doctors it's been the social workers it's been the preachers the teachers and the parents i think what's unique about what's happening right now is we're 30 years past the time when the americans with disabilities act was passed and disabled people are speaking for themselves right they're tweeting for themselves and everybody else can read that so they're no longer saying the disability is a dirty word right there that it's got 8 donors right 9 letters it's not a 4 letter word not a curse word so we can say it right that it's not something that happens. students or accidents but it's something that we're a part of it's bigger than any one individual when we say that we're disabled we're part of a community we're part of 61000000 people in the united states billions of people around the world that's 26 percent of the population here in the u.s. so it's nothing to be ashamed of it's nothing the run away from we don't what it was too short too precious to pick up somebody else's shame disabled people aren't doing that anymore and we're not having it which is why i like these threads like these are popular and how go ahead i should also say that michelle isn't a well chosen as some think that cindy. said and i love this on her tweet she said cher you know all the chunks of me share you of a stereotype to me i want to hear from you and then in parenthesis disabled people only full of this please so she didn't want people who didn't have to supply teeth to have an opinion in this particular topic way and hell go ahead and they think what lawrence was saying is also i think this transcends countries and language is bigger than spanish and in mexico we have the same you know how we have the same issue in our cyprus simply we see the long awaited us like the biggest pop coulter . thing that you see. every day every person with a disability that it's were trade on that it's like you know the poor person who can't be happy and they're not cured and it was a part of a part of the disability one of the disability troops that was under threat. so you know it was late in the end the bad guy you know dies the bad guy becomes blind for example and it's like it's kind of like this curse so the disability negative narrative has been internalized even by us person with a disability and obviously it's a little able is. the only telling without having a disability is very telling way of. unable to story building. yeah and it's been like that and not only in the united states but i see it all around the world as well i know you took that's true yeah. i was going to say oh dyke over there a plane already as if yeah most people are born into disability community you can be born into an ethnicity you can be born into a religion you can be born into a political party or affiliation but most people don't know other disabled folks from the time they're born and they're not encouraged to know other disabled folk so all of those negative means all of those negative attitudes all of those negative things that most non-disabled people never challenge get put upon that disabled kid so i think it's really important that as we're growing up as we're talking that we begin to stretch that in switch that what i think is really incredible about this is somebody is telling you that you're not defined by your disability or you shouldn't be defined by your disability what that tells you is that they're using an old definition if i if you go to the disabled people that i work with your address they're going to tell you if you ask what the word means to them they're going to say things like culture community constituency identity right it has nothing to do with diagnosis and so if your soli thinking did this of disability is diagnosis you're signaling to everybody else that you quit the disability community that you're stuck in the past we need to move on lawrence i'm going to bring out cindy's trial number 7 cent and i want to share this with people because i feel this is where you've had to pay out into the open this kind of pretty face to face let's put his opinion out that number 7 for me and don't let your disability define you i guess this comes from non-disabled people are trying real hard to make sure disabled people often seen as new wants people here and that's admirable but it's also a failing to cross an important fact many say for people to find something that's 70 yeah so this is something that has been kind of a long journey for me big. as like because my my illness was a part of me since i was born i have grown up with adults and authority figures around me saying oh you aren't defined by this this is just something that's you know a small part of your life it doesn't have to control you and i reached a certain point as a teenager where i was like that's completely not true this doesn't define my life there's no action that i do in my life that is not filtered through the lens of my disability because everything that i do i have to make sure you have enough energy i have to make sure that i'm not going to have physical joint issues or muscle issues that are going to physically prevent me from doing that i mean on and on and on and so it's something that i grew to be frustrated about but i also agree with what lawrence is saying because what i always say is that did my disability does define me but that's ok it's not necessarily a bad thing and i think usually it's only able people who see that idea of a disability to finding somebody who immediately jump to that being a bad or a negative thing because like there's a lot of things that define me i mean i'm lactose intolerant and so that defines like whether or not i can drink no but that's not something that i'm like oh my gosh i have to say that ad saying you know. go ahead i want to jump in and what did just said because i think it's so powerful that you as a woman with you know a disability have the voice to actually say i am not defined by my disability i mean i am do and i am defined by the lady because if not then you would be raising like this effort to go day to day but you don't see that i think i may think i i thought about this job a lot and i don't think that there are people who say that the disability doesn't the find them. i think it could also you know it could have a difference also i think you know maybe positive vision about it about you know there are other things that i would. considered binding but as long as none of them are based on the fact that visibility is like this bad thing that we're like a broken negative not happy being then i think it's great that we can have our own versions up or not but not based on the you know negative. narrative about it ok i guess and i guess let ourselves let me just share with 6 years of what the assumption and what you think underlying assumption the underlying assumption when anybody says your disability doesn't define you is the disability beg i'm going to push back against that right to get the disability yes and i was just giving it to my little sliver of time because i want to share with you all thought from valerie cow fan as she is a film and t.v. critic and she puts a really interesting point into our conversation here it is i think it's fatal to have creators and storytellers who have disabilities or who know people with disabilities well if there is family members organise friends involved in the portrayal of characters with disabilities otherwise you're viewing one particular segment of their perspective and you're doing a disservice to this audience my 10 year old son has spinal bifida and i can tell you there's a huge difference between being born with a disability and helping later in life and it's important to show we all have things that make us different and make a special. while i have to so let me just show you what's happening here on where hell is says that one example of inclusion is representation it's very important for people to see examples of people with disabilities in films and media not pull try. and this is some of the you mentioned much. particularly with the kids and then in films and what happens to people with disabilities. that is my husband gets to hear my rant about this whenever watching t.v. i especially i'm certain types of a genre as there is a huge problem for disability in characters to be sort of a symbol of either weakness or 'd like ineffectiveness or evil and you see a lot in certain in certain kids' media we watched on netflix last year the series of unfortunate events which was really fun but one of the things that got me every single time is that one of the adults in the story is the ineffective guardian who's never able to save his charges from the evil character and he is his main character they should is that he has a chronic car and and it's the car is used as a shorthand to show that he's weak and ineffective as a guardian and it just always got me because like i have cystic fibrosis i cough all the time and and you see that a lot you see another thing that drives me that a lot of times a character will have asthma and they'll have an inhaler but the inhaler is actually a symbol of their lack of confidence and then when they get confident at the end they throw away the inhaler and i'm like that's not how inhalers work that's not how i have no work it doesn't matter how much inner confidence you are having oh you'll we need to find that awesome a kid over all of you or it just please rephrase if you are a moment's notice just. one of the jobs that you have of this is a comment here from amanda ross and what i love she said just to remind guys this thread is super helpful but the only way to get a better idea of if you disable keep it is helpful stereotype is to pay all trade for sensitivity read you a kind of that you are living in poverty meant that sensitivity lawrence for instance you were. turned a classic movies and you were looking full representation of good disability as a disability and then when we look to good we look to good bad and whack a doodle you know what we but if i do look at you 137 movies from the same one era up through the time the 88 was passed in 1990 and we looked it. over those trends what were those tropes that were shown during those times and how they echoed and how they changed throughout those times and all of these things that cindy shows in her thread kept coming up over and over again one of the things you never saw within those $78.00 decades of disability in film was disability and community what happens when disabled people come together when they've decided enough is enough and we're not going to take it anymore thankfully i was just at the sundance film festival a couple weeks ago saw the world premiere of a movie called grip camp by nicole newnam and jim brecht it's going to drop on that flicks that shows these people would do a summer camp they came out of the summer camp they realize i am not alone in this and people want to change the literal world they went and they fought for disability civil rights and laws came out of that had changes in attitudes came out of that people are going to be able to see maybe for the 1st time what happens when disability community comes together that is a great leap forward. politics because to some of us in politics is becoming more and more of a. not 7 even if if policies may not be paying attention but certainly people with disabilities making them pay attention i'm just looking at some of the hashtags of putting. busy right now disability inclusion disability counts 2020 is a new another big one because that's a census in the united states and if you're not counting then they will not be policy that's built around they will not be facilities and cephus says that you need that will not be a health system available and to be counted and counting people with disabilities is a very important that's right there may not be a specific question about his ability on the 2020 census yet all of those things that disabled people rely on to live independent lives things like medicare or health care coverage things like special education things like snap benefits or food stamps because people with disabilities are more likely to live in low poverty or low income or poverty than are not disabled piers you and several other accurate let's if you come across donna meltzer she's the c.e.o. of the national cessation of councils and development disabilities she was talking about the census and disability she spoke to us here at the stream here's what she told us taking part in the census means that you are being counted this is critically important particularly for people with developmental disabilities for too long stigma lack of information about being the importance of the census and being counted people away from being counted but it's critically important if we want the right amount of funding to be available we have to stand up and be counted don't that stigma or lack of information stanton we're at the head us yeah life is too short for somebody else's shame it's really important for disabled people which is what we're seeing now we've got disability counts 2020 dot org go directly to that website you got 9 videos that are it english spanish and american sign language that can give you all the details that you need about why disabled people need to be counted in the sense of we're very excited about this we're seeing people across the state of california and indeed the country who are not going to be counted in. themselves setter which is. you are lobbying like a genius they are now get over it but it was. evident that on the census i were for example in mexico we have this thing we're sure we need to be counted in this time this year and this ability is going to be part of that of the questions that's going to be under store and long questionnaire of his answers because you know where we were invisible them there is no way that we can be part of the creation of public policy and social development of our needs and what we want and i also think that it comes together with the. narratives and thoughts because in mexico over exam as an example we have been all me social policy that we have today like a but also your policy with our new president has been totally as a potential as nothing that has to do particularly where our help or you know i did talk about women with disabilities about violence there is nothing about that nothing about our education nothing about you know the development so i think. it's important to be counted but it's also important to keep on pushing this truck this narrative because these are the sometimes these are the only. things that people go on have any idea about visibility and have the power of making decisions know and then they make the decisions or let me just share one must sort here from when i got to wrap up with cindy. this comment from stick you must and 09 and she talks about invisible disabilities and she said that they can't be seen i'm treated like i don't have a disability because it can't be seen and i'm abusing the system so people suspicious of her saying that she has disability or at a disability she says i have epilepsy but you cannot see it cindy how do you want us to wrap up this conversation oh yeah i think that the wonderful choir i i have a mostly invisible disability at all so i thought i'd go to see what we want you thinking. yes and tests take and i guess i don't do i rick douglas well i look at i i often run into into that are people being like saying oh i don't will send a stand up this show i want to find are so i want to leave people with what is it i would really love to see more faith made for disabled people to tell our own story because i think that is the thread that ties all of these issues together cindy may appreciate namei and hal thank you so much lower ends as always thank you a conversation continues online you'll find me a strain on twitter thanks for watching everybody see you next. when diplomacy fails and fear sweeps in our borders are wide open wide open to drugs terrorists we've proven that barriers are built to impose division which will to stick to instead of being an obstacle to do a good job wastes into became another obstacle to peace in a 4 part series al-jazeera revisits the reasons for divisions in different parts of the world and the impact they have on both sides walls of shame on al-jazeera. in the eye of the coronavirus information is more important than ever wonder what he's doing this to get it's the battle for truth in china and beyond. april on al jazeera. countries are imposing drastic measures to contain the corona virus pandemic we'll bring you all the latest developments from around the world pulse and untold stories from across and asia the pacific one i want east brings new insights from the well to my populated region as the democratic presidential race narrows how will the corona virus outbreak impact the u.s. election campaign an in-depth look at 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