{"id":2858,"date":"2008-07-23T14:29:44","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T21:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-aboutdisabilities.pantheonsite.io\/?p=2858"},"modified":"2008-07-23T14:29:44","modified_gmt":"2008-07-23T21:29:44","slug":"who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/?p=2858","title":{"rendered":"Who We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the pleasant surprises using my Tivo is the programs it records on its own using my favorites. Last night I noticed that I could watch Tavis Smiley<\/a>\u2018s interview of the governor of New York from Monday, July 21, 2008. The governor, David Paterson<\/a>, is the first African American governor for that state and only the
second African American governor in the country. He\u2019s also low vision. I hadn\u2019t seen Paterson except in pictures. Seeing him on television it\u2019s clear he\u2019s one of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most interesting question Smiley posed to Paterson was about the use of the ubiquitous politicians\u2019 tool, the TelePrompTer\u2122. The governor admitted that he wasn\u2019t able to read his scripts off the machine so he had to rely on \u201cpreparation, preparation, preparation.\u201d
Which sounds to me like how people with disabilities often get ahead in the world. He then added that he had to be \u201castonishingly creative\u201d when he lost the thread and had to distract his audience. That\u2019s the
phrase that struck home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the traits we people with disabilities share is our practice at being \u201castonishingly creative.\u201d If we\u2019re not creative as we go into the world we find the world doesn\u2019t fit us too well. With creativity we can
almost always find a way\u2014whether the jury-rigged belt tied to the front door so we can close it behind us as we exit in our wheelchairs, or the humorous retort to deflect and mitigate someone\u2019s stark terror at
having to actually talk to one of us. It\u2019s all about taking charge and making the world fit us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the pleasant surprises using my Tivo is the programs it records on its own using my favorites. Last night I noticed that I could watch Tavis Smiley\u2018s interview of the governor of New York from Monday, July 21, 2008. The governor, David Paterson, is the first African American governor for that state and […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutdisability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}