What’s Up WID: Rebecca Alexander Transcripts

Ashley Inkumsah:
Hello, everyone. And welcome … Or welcome back to What’s Up WID, the World Institute on Disability podcast, where we discuss what’s up in the disability community across the globe.

Ashley Inkumsah:
If you’re new here, I’m your host, Ashley Inkumsah, and on today’s episode, I’m sharing an awesome conversation that I had with the wonderful Rebecca Alexander. If you’re not already familiar with Rebecca, she’s an award-winning author, psychotherapist, keynote speaker, fitness instructor, athlete and disability advocate. She’s also a member of the deaf-blind community, and it was such a pleasure to speak with Rebecca about her experiences living with Usher Syndrome, why accessibility is so important, disability representation, and the film being developed about her life for Netflix, as well as the documentary film American Masters: Becoming Helen Keller that Rebecca recently narrated. It was an incredible conversation and I hope that you enjoy it.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Thank you so much for joining me for today’s episode of What’s Up WID, Rebecca. You narrated the film American Masters: Becoming Helen Keller, which chronicles the life of Helen Keller. While many people may not be aware, Helen Keller was actually quite radical for her time period and she was quite the social justice activist in her own right.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Can you please give us a brief synopsis about the film? And can you explain to us why Helen Keller’s work is more relevant than ever in today’s climate of social justice?

Rebecca Alexander:
Sure. So what’s interesting is that when we think about Helen Keller, if you ask anyone, they’ll say, “Oh yeah, I know about Helen Keller. I read The Miracle Worker in second grade. And, for second graders, when you think about what they can comprehend and what the purpose of learning about Helen Keller in the second grade is, it’s about, essentially, a woman who had no vision or hearing, how she was able to access language and her famous connection in relationship with Annie Sullivan and how Annie Sullivan famously brought her world to life by bringing her hands underwater at the water pump and signing in tactile sign into her hands, water, and making that connection.

Rebecca Alexander:
And that’s where the story ends. And what we don’t know, or what we don’t, generally, learn about is that Helen Keller was absolutely incredibly progressive. She was an independent thinker. She was very much a radical thinker, especially at the time. And she was one of the founding members of the ACLU. She was very much in favor and outspoken for the rights of people, not only with disabilities, but people of color, for the impoverished. And she really was a trailblazer in many ways that was unheard of for people who were fully sighted and fully hearing, but certainly it was not something you found among people with disabilities.

Rebecca Alexander:
So she was able … She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. So there were so many aspects to her life. And she was incredibly dynamic. And those are the things that we never really learned about when we were growing up, especially in the school system, which is a whole other conversation. But definitely this is finally being able to tell more about her incredibly dynamic and complicated life and history.

Rebecca Alexander:
And it’s also in a fully accessible format. That’s the other piece that oftentimes gets missed in mainstream media. We don’t have fully accessible content so that people, not only who are fully sighted and fully hearing or without disabilities can access it, but also people who are either low vision or blind, deaf or hard of hearing can access it, as well.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And I’m curious to hear what made you hop on board to narrate the film?

Rebecca Alexander:
Sure. So it’s interesting. The American Foundation for the Blind awarded me with the Helen Keller Achievement Award in 2016. And so I assume that PBS found me that way, but they approached me and when I had an email from PBS and they said that they were doing a project and they were interested in whether I might want to participate, I thought to myself, “It’s definitely something about Helen Keller.” And, of course, it was, but I was delighted that they reached out.

Rebecca Alexander:
And it wasn’t actually until my own receiving of that award, the Helen Keller Achievement Award, that I said to myself, “I really need to do some deep research on who this woman was. Why I’m receiving this award? Why would I be selected for this?” And so to find these similarities between me and Helen Keller … We are obviously decades apart. I’m 42 now so we have lived very different lives and very different times and yet there are a lot of similarities in terms of the type of work and the type of social justice we both advocate for.

Rebecca Alexander:
So it was at that time in 2016 that I really learned just the extent of her work and her relationships and how incredible she was, particularly for the time that she was, not only raised, but that she was living in.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She was quite the radical person for her time. And I feel that that is very overlooked by many people. I know myself, I did a deep dive into her life and I found out a lot of things that I was previously unaware of too. So that’s pretty awesome that you got to be a part of this film. And where can people watch this documentary?

Rebecca Alexander:
So if you go to the pbs.org website, they do have full access to it for streaming. And I believe that you can find it on thirteen.org or pbs.org.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yeah. We’d also hosted a live screening and a Q&A session actually for the film, as well, last month. But if you weren’t able to attend that … Thank you, by the way, to all of those who attended our screening last month … And if you weren’t able to attend that though, you can log onto pbs.org/americanmasters and stream it over there.

Ashley Inkumsah:
You started to touch on this. You’re quite the social justice activist yourself. Similarly, to Helen Keller, you’re also a member of the deaf-blind community and you’ve committed yourself to advocating for the disability community. Can you tell us a little bit about your story and your experiences growing up with Usher Syndrome?

Rebecca Alexander:
Sure. So my form of deaf-blindness is quite different than what Helen Keller’s was. I was very fortunate that I did not go deaf and blind until much later in my life, at least comparatively. I have Usher Syndrome, which is the leading genetic cause of deaf-blindness in the US and around the world. It is a rare disease. It’s an orphan disease, which means that there are much fewer people affected by it than something like Alzheimer’s or breast cancer, for instance. So that means that there are fewer research dollars when it goes into looking into finding treatment for it.

Rebecca Alexander:
But Usher Syndrome comes in three different types. I have type three. So a person with Usher Syndrome type one is born completely deaf and is progressively losing their vision. Their vision loss tends to have a more rapid decline. A person with Usher Syndrome type two is born with a set amount of hearing loss and is progressively losing their vision. They tend to lose more hearing later on in life. And a person with Usher Syndrome type three, what I have experienced, is the mildest onset of both progressive vision and hearing loss.

Rebecca Alexander:
So when I was younger, I had what was known as a cookie bite of hearing loss. We thought it was from having frequent ear infections and it wasn’t until I was about 18 or 19 that I experienced a big dip in my hearing. I had tinnitus or ringing in my ears. And that was when I really fully started wearing hearing aids. And over about a 10 year period I progressively lose enough hearing that I decided to become cochlear implanted in my right ear first and then in my left ear. So without my cochlear implants, I am fully deaf.

Rebecca Alexander:
I am fluent in sign language and also tactile sign language, which is the language of the deaf-blind. I learned sign language in college and tactile sign language later after going through my rehabilitation mobility training through the Helen Keller National Center. And I have found that as my vision and my hearing loss has progressed that using sign language and tactile sign language has been tremendously helpful for me in accessing information, no matter what the environment is.

Rebecca Alexander:
My vision now, a normally sighted person has about 180 degrees of vision when looking straight ahead and I have about 10 degrees of my central most vision. So I use a cane to navigate the world.

Rebecca Alexander:
But so, for me, I was raised in Oakland, California, a very progressive part of the country. And I was raised by a grandmother and parents who were very active in the community. I was taught on all of the holidays, but also during the year, that being an active participant in your community and helping those who were less fortunate was not just something that you do for the greater good. It was something you did because it was your responsibility.

Rebecca Alexander:
And this was before even my disabilities had progressed significantly. So I was very active in the HIV-Aids community, delivering meals to people, living with HIV and Aids in the early ’90s when it was really an epidemic, particularly in the San Francisco Bay area.

Rebecca Alexander:
My father actually was able to represent a man named Kevin Cooper, who is wrongfully convicted and still living on death row. And he was able to get a stay of execution for his death in 2005, I believe it was. And was it 2003? Now, my mind is slipping me. But he was able to get a stay of execution, and this was a Black man who was wrongfully accused. And this is just a long way of showing you that this is something that I’ve always had as a part of my life, being surrounded by people who believe in doing what’s right for others and using your voice, not just to speak up for yourself, but to speak up for what is right and for injustice.

Rebecca Alexander:
I do a lot of work in terms of accessibility. There is so much work that still needs to be done. We live in a very digital time now and so there are a lot of websites, podcasts that are not accessible, there are not transcripts provided, there are not accessible features to be able to access, whether it’s video content.

Rebecca Alexander:
So the there’s a lot of work to be done that we continue to work on in order to continue the legacy that Helen Keller started so many years ago.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Absolutely. And you already touched on my next question, which was about accessibility. And you’re so right. There’s so many podcasts that are not available with transcripts.

Ashley Inkumsah:
We’re happy to say that this podcast is available with transcripts and we also have American sign language versions, as well, which is awesome.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So accessibility though, is something that’s so important. And why do you think that it’s so important that businesses and the media prioritize accessibility? Why does it matter so much?

Rebecca Alexander:
Well, here’s what’s interesting: That so much of technology and innovation actually started from the disability community because when you are a person living with a disability, it means that, in general, things are not accessible for you. And so you have to be the one to pioneer the way towards accessibility. You have to be the one to figure out how to make content and information accessible and then approach whether it’s a company or whether it’s any organization to say, “This is how you can make the information you provide to the general public accessible.”

Rebecca Alexander:
And so what’s interesting is that people with disabilities are incredibly innovative and it’s that innovation that leads to business growth, that leads to social action and social change. And there’s nothing that people love more, especially in the day and age that we live in now, than seeing that companies are committed to doing, not only what’s right for themselves from a business perspective, but also from a social perspective, that they’re taking everyone to account and understanding that your consumers are not simply homogenous, that they’re incredibly diverse in terms of, not only the way that they look and their race and creed and nationality and ethnicity, but also in terms of their ability.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yeah, absolutely. And not only does obviously accessibility obviously benefit the disability community, but everyone benefits. I think of closed captions, for example, that even people who are hearing use closed captions and so many other things: Curb cuts, delivery people carrying dollies, so many things. People with wheelchairs use them. So everyone benefits when we have that universal design and universal accessibility.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So it’s something that’s so important that I wish that businesses would prioritize more, but we’re getting there. I can see that we’re getting there and it’s so amazing to see so many businesses commit to it. It’s awesome.

Reggie Johnson:
My name is Reggie Johnson and I am the Senior Director and Head of Marketing for the World Institute on Disability or WID. We are a very passionate, dedicated staff that advocates policies and develops programs and services that serve the needs of over one billion people with disabilities in the US and around the globe.

Reggie Johnson:
We started our end of the year fundraising campaign and I’m asking for your support. Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why should I give to WID?” Well, I’d like to share with you three reasons why: First, we help organizations achieve greater access and accessibility of their products and services for people with disabilities because we believe that greater access and accessibility benefits everyone.

Reggie Johnson:
Second, we provide trainings, tools, resources, to help people with disabilities and their loved ones make the most informed decisions about their employment and long term housing goals.

Reggie Johnson:
And, third, it’s no longer if a disaster happens, but when is the next natural disaster going to occur? Whether it’s a flood, tornado, earthquake, wildfire or ice storm, we provide disaster preparedness and resilience trainings and help accelerate assistance and resources to disability led organizations in impacted areas, both during and after a disaster.

Reggie Johnson:
Your financial support helps us continue to do this work. Please consider a financial contribution as your support would truly be appreciated.

Reggie Johnson:
From all of us at WID, we hope that you and yours have a wonderful rest of the year and an amazing 2022. Thanks.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Support WID today by visiting www.wid.org/donate/.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And your memoir, I want to talk about your memoir, Not Fade Away. It’s going to be the subject of a major motion picture that’s going to be produced by, I believe, John Krazinski is producing it and David O. Russell, for Netflix?

Rebecca Alexander:
Yeah.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And disability representation in the media has been so notoriously lacking for decades upon decades, or inaccurate, or just, basically, nonexistent.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So why do you think it’s so important for people with disabilities to tell their own stories to have them portrayed accurately?

Rebecca Alexander:
It’s interesting because this has been a huge part of this process. So much has happened, even within the disability rights movement during the time that the initial rights to my book were optioned in 2015. And so I’m glad that that change has happened in terms of casting, in terms of staffing for this film. I have really advocated and they are going to be, not only casting, but also staffing people with disabilities because it is so important for us to be able to practice what we preach.

Rebecca Alexander:
But I think that part of what’s so important about people with disabilities telling their own stories is that what’s most interesting is that I think Netflix has an exclusive consulting company that they work with, and I won’t list names, but they are people who I believe represent disability. But even that has been interesting, to see people who, within the disability community, are supposed to be representing disability … And I found that there’s been a lot of misinformation that has come from asking people who represent people with disabilities as though all of us with disabilities are under one huge umbrella.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Exactly.

Rebecca Alexander:
And my story is not the story of every deaf-blind person. My story is not the story of every person with a disability that involves hearing or vision loss. My story is my unique individual story and it needs to be simply that my story, and indicative and representative of what my experience has been, the same way that people who are fully able bodied are represented for their unique individual experience, we need to continue to have the unique individual experiences of people with disabilities, so that it’s not, “Well, we can’t buy the rights to this film because it’s about a woman who’s going blind and we just signed with someone who’s going blind and deaf. So we’ve got that crossed off.”

Rebecca Alexander:
We have to continue to tell stories that are different in their own ways, even if some of the themes are similar, because there are many themes that are very, very similar for fully sighted and fully hearing and non-disabled people that are never even given a second thought because disability is not so typecasted.

Rebecca Alexander:
So I hope that this will continue to allow disabled stories to be told in unique and dynamic ways.

Ashley Inkumsah:
That’s absolutely true. People with disabilities are not a monolith. So we need to see a rich tapestry of the way that the stories are told because you’re so right, the disability community is not a monolith. That could not be further from the truth. Even though there’s experiences that unite everyone, they deserve to have stories that are told that really represent the differences and the nuances. So I cannot wait to see this film. I know it’s going to be awesome already. I do.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And why do you think that the media should prioritize including people with disabilities in their creative processes, as well as in their marketing and advertising campaigns? Why is that something that matters so much?

Rebecca Alexander:
We need to normalize disability. Oftentimes the types of campaigns we see today are very much filled with inspiration porn and this idea that we are pulling at the heartstrings of people by representing people with disabilities in our campaigns, by showing, “See, we see everyone,” but not actually then following through and having, let’s say, accessible content.

Rebecca Alexander:
We need to make this more than just superficial. I think that it’s so important for the media to stop capitalizing on disability and seeing all people with disabilities as inspirational and seeing people with disabilities simply as normal human beings, doing everything they can to live their lives just like anybody else.

Rebecca Alexander:
And I think that we face so many barriers. We face so many challenges that are unique to living with a disability, but that are not unique to being human. And it’s, I think, so much a part of the human condition to live with disability. I think that most people see disability as though it will never happen to them. And the reality is that the majority of us, at some time in our lives, will live with a disability.

Rebecca Alexander:
I think it’s also very important for us to change our messaging. Oftentimes when my story has been covered, when I hear other people’s stories covered who have disabilities, it is a story about, “Me living, but not living with …” “I’m a woman who suffers from, who is afflicted by, who is being robbed of.”

Rebecca Alexander:
And when we use language like this, we victimize and it is time to stop victimizing, particularly because the majority of us with disabilities do not see ourselves as victims. We see ourselves as innovators. We see ourselves as, again, pioneers, as warriors, as people who are doing everything we can. We feel very frustrated at times, but the victimization needs to stop. And I think that it has become so prevalent in our culture that people use this language without even having any awareness that they are using the victimization language.

Rebecca Alexander:
And that I really want to see some change with because it’s exhausting, it’s old and it’s incredibly dated. It’s time for us to really continue to push that needle much further.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yes, exactly. I think ableism is so deeply entrenched into our lexicon and into our society that we use these ableist phrases such as “suffered from” or “confined to a wheelchair,” or whatever the case may be. And some people do it and they’re well meaning. They don’t mean to be ableist but they just don’t know any better.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So how do we begin to dismantle that ableism and teach the people who don’t know any better? How do we start to have those conversations with non-disabled people who want to be allies? What do you think we can do?

Rebecca Alexander:
It’s a really good question. I mean, I’m in the process of really working hard to try to even contract with a major company in the fitness industry. And, again, without naming names, I’m fighting against this being typecasted, being them thinking of me, “Well, how do we …” They’ve now hired somebody else with a disability, very different than the disability that I have, someone who I believe is an amputee.

Rebecca Alexander:
And so they’re thinking, “Well, maybe we can have you teach classes.” And when you teach classes, you’re using ASL. Well, I’m not going to use ASL. Have an interpreter maybe, but if I’m speaking English, I can’t be using ASL at the same time. I can be doing sign support.

Rebecca Alexander:
So I think that companies right now have this checklist of needing to have their people of color, of needing to have their people who represent each category as though it’s something they’re doing to cover their bases, to keep themselves from facing a lawsuit, as opposed to really understanding that disability and difference is not something that we have to just put out there to cover our bases. It’s something we have to put out there so that people who are like us, that is someone with a disability or somebody who comes from any type of background, feels they’re being seen, they’re being represented.

Rebecca Alexander:
And that, I think, is what’s most frustrating is that you have to constantly teach people that whatever their views are around disability, that it is just that. It’s their view and it’s a very narrow minded and very unilateral minimal view of what it means to be someone with a disability. We have to stop type casting and we have to start opening our minds to possibility.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Absolutely. That’s where Allyship starts is when we start trying to understand one another and taking yourself … And understanding, how you said earlier, that if you live long enough, disability will happen to you. So it really does transcend and intersect across all of our livelihoods. So it’s something that everyone should care about and advocate for, is disability, justice and disability rights. So, yeah, I absolutely agree with you.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And as someone with a disability who works tirelessly within so many different communities and fields: You’re an author, you’re a psychotherapist, a fitness instructor and a disability rights activist and an athlete, why is it so important that people with disabilities have access to employment and independent living and economic empowerment? Why do you think that’s such an important thing to have?

Rebecca Alexander:
I think that confidence is built on being able to know that you are, again, recognized and seen and supported to be able to live independently based on what your needs are. So people who end up who are fully able bodied and end up being able to take that natural or very “normal” trajectory of moving ahead with their lives and moving out of their homes with their caregivers, their parents, whomever, the reason why they’re able to do that is because they live in system that is set up for them. And it’s not that people with disabilities aren’t able to develop or have independence. It’s that they don’t have the resources or the ability to live independently because they live in communities or in a society where the types of services that they need are not available.

Rebecca Alexander:
And these aren’t services that are so above and beyond the realm of possibility. They’re simply needed for the ability for us to all work together communally. Communities that really thrive are the ones that are interdependent, not the ones that have independence. Interdependency, that is being able to help others, being able to acknowledge your need for help, being able to ask for help, those are all the fundamental principles to living in a highly functional and successful community.

Rebecca Alexander:
And that’s what we need to be able to teach. That if somebody has needs, that we’re able to meet them, not because they’re needy, because this is simply a right that they have to be able to develop that independence. And when we allow them those resources, they become much less dependent upon the government. They’re able to develop the confidence and be able to sustain themselves, not only professionally, but economically and socially in a way that brings everybody further in terms of our society.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yes, absolutely. I could not have said that better. That is absolutely true.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And what advice would you give to those in the disability community and in the deaf-blind community, specifically, who are looking to emulate the work of Helen Keller? Or even emulate your own work, your advocacy work? What advice would you give to them on how they can start to put themselves onto that trajectory?

Rebecca Alexander:
Sure. So I assume that anything I do and ask for, or anyone that I need, I assume that the first answer I’m going to get is, “No.” And I, generally, am met with, “No,” because people don’t like what they’re not familiar with, they don’t like change, they don’t like things that they don’t know and they don’t like what they believe is to be an inconvenience.

Rebecca Alexander:
So I say that when you get your first “No,” that’s your first, “I need to keep pushing forward.” “No,” to me, really has no real value. “No,” to me, is somebody else’s projection of their fear of change and their fear of the unknown, as opposed to a full official “No,” and now, “That’s it. I tried and I need to throw my hands up.”

Rebecca Alexander:
So I think that people with disabilities, unfortunately, need to be prepared to hear the word, “No,” you need to have a tremendous amount of patience and you need to be able to continue to push forward. And when you hear “No” from someone, you want to make sure that you figure out who the next person is, either above that person to go to, to be able to voice your concerns or your needs. I think that you have to always expect that you’re going to hear “No.”

Rebecca Alexander:
And when you hear “Yes,” or when you hear “Let’s discuss it,” your first response is always going to be to expect to hear a “No,” that you may be so incredibly surprised you’ll just not even know what to say. But I do think that “No” is oftentimes the first answer you will get. And it’s very unfortunate, but it’s a reality and it is not your stop. It is only the beginning of needing to continue pushing forward.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yep. I totally agree with that. I really do live by this idea that … I don’t believe in failures. I believe that every time that you hear “No,” or that you perceive that you failed at something, you don’t get the opportunity that you thought that you wanted, that it’s just a learning lesson. It’s just a lesson for you to take along the way and say, “Okay, well, this is how I’m going to do it differently the next time.”

Ashley Inkumsah:
So, yeah, I don’t even believe in the word “No” or failing. I think that every opportunity is a chance to learn and to grow. So that’s fantastic advice, for sure.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to share with our audience about anything that you’re currently working on or any other advice that you’d like to dish to our audience?

Rebecca Alexander:
I think that it’s important, particularly for people with disabilities, if there are any companies that you are trying to access online, if you’re trying to access fitness programming through Peloton or through any of these online streamings that are not accessible to you, write to them, write to their customer service, write to their infos. The more voices that are heard from the general public, the more they’re going to be inclined to create change.

Rebecca Alexander:
If it’s just one squeaky wheel, as they call it, then all they want to do is try to figure out, “How do I appease this person and say, ‘Yes, we’re working on it?'” We need to have our voices heard. And I know how exhausting and frustrating it is to constantly feel you’re going up against a brick wall, but I promise you that brick wall does start to crack if you keep using that little pick of yours. So make sure that you keep using your voice.

Rebecca Alexander:
I try to, on a daily basis, reach out to two different places when I receive … Or when I try to access something that’s inaccesible. So definitely use your voice because we are many and we need to speak up for, not what our privileges are. These are our rights and that, I think, is most important.

Rebecca Alexander:
And I also want people to know that they’re not alone. Living with a disability can at times feel incredibly isolating, but I promise you that you are not alone. That the frustration that you feel, that the anger, that sometimes the sadness, and it can be incredibly overwhelming … But I think one of the other things within the disability community is that we are incredibly humorous. Some of the funniest people I know are people with disabilities. Our disabilities make us incredibly resilient. They force us to have to use humor to deal with impossible situations.

Rebecca Alexander:
So I do think it’s important for people to remember that having a disability oftentimes is not the bane of your existence. It is the source of your humor.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yeah. I think that you touched on a couple of really great points in that the age that we live in, the social media, digital age, that we live in, of course, it has a lot of problems, a lot of perils. However, I do believe that social media has given people agency. It’s allowed marginalized communities, such as the disability community, to be able to voice their opinions and share when they’re discontent about something.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So I think, if anything, that we can be grateful for our current digital age is that agency, that social media, has given us where, yeah, you can call out that organization for being inaccesible and you can have your voice heard and the playing field is leveled in that way. So I love that we live in the digital age that we live in.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And you’re 100% right. The disability community is 1.3 billion people. At least 1.3 billion people are disabled. So no one is isolated in their experiences. There’s a whole community of people who share experiences. But also, as we mentioned earlier, have different nuanced experiences that are individual to their own lives. So, yeah, I think we all need to just mobilize with one another and that’s how we’re going to create change and move the needle forward, for sure.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And all the work that you’re doing is such a big part of that. So I’m just so enamored with all the amazing work that you do. And I thank you so much for talking to me for today’s episode. It’s been an awesome, awesome conversation.

Rebecca Alexander:
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate the time.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Thank you so much to Rebecca for chatting with me about her experiences and about why disability representation and accessibility are such integral components of dismantling ableism. It was also great to chat with her about the Becoming Helen Keller film that I know that you all will absolutely love, and you can check out at pbs.org/americanmasters.

Ashley Inkumsah:
I want to also thank you at home for tuning in. And, as I mentioned earlier, each and every one of our What’s Up WID episodes are available with transcripts and American sign language on our website at www.wid.org-what’s-up-wid.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And if you enjoyed today’s episode, then you can also show your support by making a donation at www.wid.org/donate so that we can continue to make more great episodes.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So thank you again for tuning in. And I can’t wait to talk to you again on the next episode of What’s Up WID.