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>> My name is Haben Girma.
I'm a disability
rights advocate,
lawyer, speaker, and author.
My book is called "Haben:
The Deafblind Woman
Who conquered Harvard Law".
And as the name tells
you, I'm deafblind.
I have limited vision
and hearing,
and I grew up in a
sighted, hearing world.
I was born and raised in
California, and I'm still living
in California in the Bay Area.
I'm talking to you
from my living room.
I don't actually work here.
I work at my desk,
and that's where I sat
down to write my book.
My deafblind-ness is not the
thing that made life difficult.
It was ableism that
made life difficult.
Ableism is the belief
that disabled people
are inferior compared
to non-disabled people.
It's not true.
We're not inferior, but ableism
keeps moving throughout our
society and saying disabled
people don't matter.
Therefore, don't make
the service accessible,
don't provide medical care,
and all kinds of unfair biases.
When I was younger, I
wasn't sure what to do.
Do I just accept
inferior service?
But over time, I
learned to advocate.
I started to demand inclusion.
And then I learned about the
Americans with Disabilities Act,
which celebrated its thirtieth
anniversary this year.
The ADA prohibits discrimination
against people with
disabilities.
I learned about it
when I was in college.
And my book shares this process,
where I discover advocacy,
the ADA, turn it into a
career, and learn to advocate
for people with disabilities.
If you should take away
one message from the book,
it's the concept of ableism.
Ableism is the belief that
disabled people are inferior
to non-disabled people.
My book teaches people to
identify ableism and join us
in working to find ableism.
I'm an advocate.
So, I looked back into my life
and asked myself what are
the lessons from my life
that could help people
advance opportunities
for disabled people
around the United States
and around the world?
I picked stories from my life
that teach people about ableism.
Ableism intersects
with sexism, racism,
it pops up in small
conversations in the kitchen
when you're making PB&J.
So, I wanted to show people all
the different ways ableism hurts
us, so people can learn
to identify it and work
to remove it from our society.
My parents are from
Eritrea and Ethiopia.
In parts of those
countries, people believe
that disability is a
curse on the family.
It was really, really
difficult to deal with that kind
of oppression within
one's culture.
My parents had to learn
to resist that idea.
They had to learn to define
disability for ourselves.
Disability is not a
burden on the family.
Disability is an
opportunity for innovation.
So, we had to come up
with our own definition
of what disability means.
When I was growing
up, I would try
to tell my parents,
I can't cook.
I can't do chores.
You can't ask blind kids
to do chores or cook.
They weren't buying it.
They still insisted that
I cook and do chores.
And on the one hand, as
a kid, I was frustrated.
But on the other, as
an adult, I'm grateful
that they ensured I
got those life skills.
There are lots of
parents of disabled kids
who tell their kids
don't do chores.
Don't cook.
It's dangerous.
Then those kids grow up into
adults who've never developed
important independence
and life skills.
That's frustrating.
Parents need to help their
kids explore their environments
and develop important
life skills,
like how to take
care of one's home.
Most of our society is built
for non-disabled people.
And that forces disabled people
to come up with solutions
from everything from
cooking in the kitchen
to solving international
challenges.
One of the things I had to learn
to solve is how do
you communicate
where most people rely on vision
and hearing to communicate?
I tapped into my strengths.
One of my strengths
is my sense of touch.
I use it more than most people.
Tactile intelligence is
something I've cultivated
for a long time.
It helps me while
partner dancing.
It helps me while rock climbing
and in all kinds of situations.
When I'm walking, I'm
feeling the different textures
through my feet, from pavement
to carpet to hardwood floors.
So, tactile intelligence is
something I've developed.
And when looking at ways
to communicate with people,
I immediately tapped into it.
So, I was looking
at technologies,
touch-based solutions.
And in 2010, a new
piece of technology came
out that supported
Bluetooth and Braille.
I'll hold it up.
So, I'm holding up a
little device with Braille
on the bottom, and
I run my fingers
over the dots to
feel the letters.
When I connect this to
an external keyboard,
people can type on the keyboard
and I can read in Braille.
Most people don't know Braille,
don't know sign language,
but most people can type,
especially millennials.
So, I found that
communication became much,
much easier when
I tapped into one
of my strengths,
my sense of touch.
My hearing is terrible.
My vision is terrible, but my
sense of touch is excellent.
So, I tapped into that and
way more opportunities came
up for me.
Disabled people do
this all the time.
When you increase disability on
your team or at your schools,
more innovations come in,
more solutions to problems.
So, it benefits all
of us to care.
It benefits all of
us to increase hiring
and diversity in our teams.
Traditional philosophy texts
exclude a lot of thinkers
and knowledge that
exists in the world.
There is a bias towards
white, male philosophers,
excluding a lot of the
wisdom developed by black,
people of color, woman, and
disabled people who exist
across those different
minority groups.
So, we need to rebuild
our libraries
to include more diverse
thinkers and philosophers
because the traditional texts
that have been praised
throughout Western history
exclude a lot of
critical voices.
Why am I passionate
about social justice?
Because I want to stay alive.
I want access and
opportunities that are available
to non-disabled people.
Disabled black and
brown people are
at greater risk of
police violence.
About a third to
half of those killed
by the police are
disabled people.
A lot of individuals in power,
police officers, TSA agents,
walk into situations
assuming one can see, hear,
move in certain ways,
and that is terrifying
and leads to many deaths.
Knowing all these injustices
exist moved me to advocate
for change to be a
social justice advocate.
And in my book, I talk
about a situation in college
where all I wanted was to eat.
I wanted access to food.
And the food information
was only available
in a visual format.
As a blind student, I
couldn't read the menu.
And I asked the cafeteria,
please provide the menu
in Braille or post it
online or email it to me.
I have technology that allows me
to access websites and emails.
The cafeteria manager
told me, we're very busy.
We have over 1,000 students.
We don't have time
to do special things
for students with special needs.
Just to be clear, eating
is not a special need.
Everyone needs to eat.
There's this myth that there
are two kinds of people,
dependent and independent.
Everyone is interdependent.
Many of you like
drinking coffee.
Very few grow your
own coffee beans.
You depend on other
people to grow your beans,
your food, build your computers.
That's okay as long as
we're honest about the fact
that we're all interdependent.
The cafeteria manager
didn't 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 can't read the menu?
It was frustrating.
As a deafblind student, I would
go to a station at random,
get food, find a
table, try the food
and discover an unpleasant
surprise.
What was I to do?
Maybe disabled students should
just accept inferior service?
Maybe that was just
going to be my life,
doomed to inferior
services for ever and ever.
I talked to friends, advocates,
and they reminded
me, it's my choice.
It's our choice to
accept unfairness
or advocate for justice.
I went back to the manager
and explained the Americans
with Disabilities Act
prohibits discrimination
against students
with disabilities.
And if you don't provide
access to the menus,
I'm going to take legal action.
I had no idea how to do that.
I was 19. I couldn't
afford a lawyer.
Now we know there are
nonprofit legal centers
that help students
with disabilities.
But back then I didn't
know that.
All I knew is I had to try.
I had to do something.
The next day, the manager
apologized and promised
to make the menus accessible.
He actually did.
He started emailing the menus.
Life became delicious.
The next year, a new blind
student came to the college,
and he had immediate
access to the menus.
That taught me when I advocate,
it helps everyone
who comes after me.
That experience in college
inspired me to go to law school.
I went to Harvard Law.
Harvard said they'd never had
a deafblind student before.
I told them I've never been
to Harvard Law School before.
We didn't know what all
the solutions would be,
but we engaged in an
interactive process
to find the solutions
and make it work.
Now, I work as an advocate
for disabled people.
I know there's injustice,
and I know there's a
way to end injustice.
All of us have the choice
to accept unfairness,
to tolerate it, or
advocate for justice.
My book, Haben: The Deafblind
Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law,
helps people identify
all the injustices
against disabled people, well,
maybe not all of them but a lot
of them, and encourages
people to join us in fighting
to end injustice
against disabled people.
A lot of people don't know
about access for the disabled.
There are tools like the
Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines, Android and iOS
accessibility guidelines,
guidelines for designing
accessible physical buildings.
Some people say they
don't know about them,
so you give them the
opportunity to learn about them.
But if they have
education and still refuse
to make their services
accessible,
then there's the ADA, then
there are consequences.
People have had thirty
years to learn this.
There are no more excuses.
Research is important to all
advocates, strong advocates.
Research what they're
talking about.
Books help you gain a deeper
understanding of a topic.
When you are facing a difficult
situation, that's exactly
when you need to be an
advocate for justice.
If you have the energy,
yes, advocate for change.
I do understand that
sometimes those of us
who advocate all the time
experience advocacy fatigue,
and we need to take
a break, recharge.
At that point, it really helps
when you have a community
who can step in for you to
help continue the advocacy,
who can cheer for you and
empathize and help you recharge.
Community is a really
big part of advocacy.
So, two things; one,
there's a lot of injustice
against disabled people.
If you can turn that off
and pretend it doesn't exist
and stop thinking about
it, that's a privilege.
It's a privilege to not think
about disability access issues.
Libraries around the
country have the opportunity
to increase access
for disabled patrons.
Texts, books are
critical to knowledge
and expanding opportunities.
Make sure digital
services, library websites,
digital books are accessible
to blind readers and readers
with print reading
disabilities like dyslexia
and learning disabilities.
Increase access to
Braille texts as well.
The National Library Service
for the blind has been
a huge part of my life.
Growing up, I would get
so many books from MLS,
Harry Potter books, I got those
from the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress Braille
and Talking Book Program,
it's one of the few
programs in the country
where blind people can get
physical, hardcover, Braille.
books, books that I could
actually hold and feel.
This is precious and
rare when it's really,
really hard for blind people to
get our hands on Braille books.
So, for most of my life, when
I got a physical Braille book,
it was through the
Library of Congress.
We also have computer
Braille, refreshable Braille,
such as on devices like this.
And when a digital book is
compatible with screen readers,
blind people can read it
on their 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,
government programs,
and nonprofits that
provide Braille computers
to blind individuals,
but it's really difficult
to get access this.
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