039: Tiffany & Emily

Written By Tiffany Yu

Tiffany & Emily | Making the Disability Experience Accessible ft. Emily Ladau, author of Demystifying Disability

Listen on: Apple // Spotify // Google // YouTube

In this episode, I’m joined by Emily Ladau, disability rights activist & author of Demystifying Disability, to chat about her journey to becoming a disability rights activist, making the disability experience accessible to the world, and disability allyship.

We discussed:

  • Emily’s journey to becoming a disability rights activist

  • How her mom influenced her advocacy

  • The tragedy model of disability and ableism

  • Disability pride as a struggle and celebration

  • How Demystifying Disability came to be

  • Making the disability experience accessible to the world

  • Asking questions about disability

  • Nuance and privilege in the disability community

  • Disability allyship

Show notes:

About Emily Ladau

Emily Ladau is a disability rights activist, writer, storyteller, and communications consultant whose career began at the age of 10, when she appeared on Sesame Street to educate children about her life with a physical disability. She serves as the Editor in Chief of the Rooted in Rights Blog, a platform dedicated to amplifying authentic narratives on the disability experience through an intersectional lens. Her writing has been published in outlets including The New York Times, SELF, Salon, Vice, and HuffPost and her first book, Demystifying Disability, is being published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in fall 2021. Emily has spoken before numerous audiences, from the U.S. Department of Education to the United Nations. Central to all of her work is a focus on and harnessing the power of storytelling as a tool for people to become engaged in disability and social justice issues.

Follow Emily Ladau

Transcript

Tiffany Yu: Hi everyone. You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. Tiffany & Yu is a podcast about things that matter. And more specifically, I'm talking with friends who are using their voices and platforms to cultivate creativity, compassion, and change. Today I have with me one of the first supporters of Diversability, Emily Ladau. She's a disability rights activist, a writer, a storyteller, the uh editor in chief of Rooted in Rights, which I've had the honor of writing for. Hi Emily. 

Emily Ladau: Hi, Tiffany. Thank you for having me. 

Tiffany Yu: I forgot to mention that you also have a book coming out in September called Demystifying Disability. Emily and I, I think we met at Diversability's launch event in 2015. 

Emily Ladau: Yes. I remember being there. I believe it was in a coworking space. Is that right? 

Tiffany Yu: It was. And I remember a story that our now mutual friend, Xian Horn shares where I think you and her had connected a few months before that Diversability event and were trying to find some time to connect. And then you did at that event, is that right? 

Emily Ladau: I'll do you one better. It was about a day before. It wasn't even a few months. It was like a day before we were talking. And then suddenly we were brought together completely randomly at this Diversability event. So you have done a great job of intentionally and unintentionally connecting people.

Tiffany Yu: I love that. One of our goals is to be more visible to each other within the disability community. And then once we're able to do that, then to be more visible to non-disabled people as well. 

Emily Ladau: Right. 

Tiffany Yu: I was curious if you could share a little bit of what you see your origin story being that led you to self- identifying yourself as a disability rights activist.

Emily Ladau: That is a great question. And I think it has been this ongoing evolution that hasn't quite stopped yet. I think that my identity, the disability rights activist, is continually evolving. It started probably when I was very, very young, just being outspoken about my disability and a lot of contexts and not being afraid to say what was on my mind. I guess you could say I was a pretty precocious child, but then I would say my first official taste of advocacy happened on a rather large scale, one that not many people have the privilege to experience. So I was on Sesame Street when I was 10 years old. And that was quite the way to jumpstart an advocacy career. Although at the time I didn't realize that was what was happening. I just thought that I was being myself on television and that I was going to teach other children about what life with a disability was like. And then looking back on it, I think having had a platform like that at such a young age made me realize that speaking out and being the representation that you're really wanting to feed is an incredibly powerful thing. I initially thought that I would just integrate any sort of advocacy into a career as a high school English teacher. And then I had an existential crisis, a quarter-life crisis, if you will, during college where I said, I don't want to teach in a classroom anymore. That's not my dream. I want to be a disability advocate. So I called my parents and I told them that. And they said, we don't really know what that means, but okay. If you're going to do that, fine. I pursued it from there. And a week after I graduated college, I did an internship program in Washington, DC through the American Association of People with Disabilities and through the AAPD internship program, I started to connect with other disabled people. So it was a very gradual evolution of coming into this as a career. 

Tiffany Yu: I believe your mom has a similar disability to you and I wanted to ask how you felt like that modeling or having a model or your mom also be someone who had a visible disability influence to you and how you saw your own disability.

Emily Ladau: I think that played an integral part in my journey, but maybe in a different way than people expect. My mother was always a role model for me in terms of advocating for myself. She had previously worked in both the health insurance and the home care industries. She was incredibly familiar with what it took to navigate these very complicated systems. I watched her grapple with having to call and having to argue and having to push for services and constantly being an incredible advocate for me and for herself. And I learned the skills of being an advocate, but my mother was not plugged into any kind of disability community or disability rights movement work, anything like that because she just didn't know about it. It's not like when you and I were little, there was social media that people could just pop onto and become connected to all of this. She was very isolated from any sort of disability community, and it really wasn't until I took the skills that I learned from her in terms of advocacy and started applying them more broadly and connecting with other disabled people and getting outside my bubble that I grew up in that I really got into advocacy as a passion and then all of the skills that she taught me, I then turned around and brought her with me in the advocacy journey. So I think a little bit kicking and screaming at first, but we got there. 

Tiffany Yu: It's such a beautiful example of the fact that a mother-daughter relationship can be very equal with both people learning from each other.

Emily Ladau: It's so true. And my mom is my best teacher and my best friend and my editor-in-chief. And, you name it. She is it. But at the same time, I think that people see us as a tragedy when they see that my mom passed on her disability to me. I'm constantly having to reframe for people that what you think of as tragedy, I think is an incredible part of my life to have that bond with my mother at that level.

Tiffany Yu: As you talk about tragedy, I was curious if you could talk a little bit more about, what many of us know as the tragedy model of disability and how that contributes to ableism. 

Emily Ladau: I'm glad you brought it up because I think that having that foundational understanding of ableism and where it comes from is really helpful when we're talking about disability. I think the best way to start is probably to share the definition that I use of ableism. So I keep it pretty simple. There are a lot more in-depth definitions out there, but mine is just attitudes and actions that devalue someone on the basis of disability. And in the case of looking at disability as a tragedy, we are being ableist when we do that, because we're essentially devaluing the person and their life, because we're assuming that their disability is somehow making them less than whole, is somehow ruining their life. We assume that disability is this terrible, horrible thing that has happened. And I want to be very clear that I come to this from the perspective of someone who was born with my disability, I didn't acquire it later in life. So it's very true that I don't have the perspective of someone who suddenly acquires a disability. But what I do have is a hope that if we stopped looking at disability as a tragedy, if we started shifting those mindsets culturally, that if somebody did become disabled later in life, then it wouldn't be such a shock to the system, that it wouldn't be something that sends them reeling into a feeling of not knowing where to turn for support in very complicated and ableist systems that are designed to deny access to disabled people and not knowing if they would ever be able to fully participate in all aspects of their life again. So for me, the real negative part of seeing disability as a tragedy is that we're essentially alienating people from the experience of disability and talking about it only from a negative perspective, which then I understand why suddenly disability is scary and terrifying and something that you pity and something that you feel bad about. Because that's how we talk about it all the time. We don't talk about it in a very nuanced way where yes, it's difficult. Yes it can be scary or painful, but also it can bring you to be part of this incredibly rich culture and community, and it can add so much to your life. So for me, it's combating that narrative of tragedy is really all about finding the balance and the nuance and how we talk about disability. 

Tiffany Yu: I love that you brought up nuance because, I'm someone who did acquire the physical manifestation of my disability. And it is nuanced because not only did I become disabled, it was in a car accident and someone else did pass away and those to me are tragic. And that's why I always start by asking people about their origins, because I think that there are parts of that story that are sad and that I wouldn't wish onto a kid, but there are other parts that I've been able to embrace. So July was Disability Pride Month. There was something that you published that I really resonated with. You said disability pride can be both a celebration and a struggle. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.

Emily Ladau: I think that we need to challenge ourselves to hold space for the fact that disability is, as we were just saying, a very nuanced experience. A lot of people come to disability through tragedy. To clarify what I was saying earlier, I don't mean to say that tragedy is not a part of disability, but rather that tragedy isn't the way that we should then continue to look at disability as we're moving forward, because it's that notion of tragedy that makes it so challenging for people to adjust to life in a disabled body. And for me, I felt that very acutely because I'm disabled, yes, but I had an injury a couple of months ago and it really forced me to change how I use my body. I found myself recovering from this injury just as Disability Pride Month was coming up. And I was saying to myself, I'm not sure I feel very proud of myself or of disability this month because my body hurts. I'm broken. I feel defeated. How can I possibly be proud of who I am? And then I realized that disability pride is about making space for celebrating who you are and all that disability has brought to you. And it's also about understanding that there are very difficult parts of being disabled. And we can acknowledge both of those truths at the same time. I think we miss that in conversations when we're talking about, please don't say that disability is tragic, or please don't say that disability is inspirational. Where's the in-between where you're just existing as a full human being, who is experiencing an entire spectrum of emotion at any given moment about what it means to be disabled. 

Tiffany Yu: And an entire spectrum of emotions because we're humans just like everyone else. But I do want to talk about your book. I want to dig a little bit more into ableism and allyship. We'll just have a short break here and then we'll continue chatting with Emily Ladau. 

And we are back from the break. You're listening to the second half of this episode of Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. I have with me, Emily Ladau, who has a book coming out in September called Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally. How did this book come to be? Is this something that you were brewing on for a while? 

Emily Ladau: Speaking of origin stories, from earlier in the episode. This book was not something that I was dreaming up in particular to be very, very honest. I've always tried to speak about disability in a way that is understandable and accessible to people. I have a bit of a mantra that I like to throw around. If we want the world to be accessible to the disability community, then let's make the ideas and the experiences surrounding disability more accessible to the world. And I know that's not always a popular line of thinking because then it feels like the burden is on disabled people to be a teachable moment. But at the same time, I don't think we're yet at the point where we can afford to not meet people where they're at if we want to make the world a more accessible place. And so disability can be a confusing thing to talk about, what words do I use? How do I act? Will I offend someone? Will I do something wrong? Initially, I had been thinking if I ever wrote a book, it would be a story of me and my mom and sort of the dynamics of being a disabled mother-daughter pair. And then I was on a podcast in 2019, Call Your Girlfriend and I guests co-hosted with a friend of mine, Kelly Dawson, who is a writer who has cerebral palsy. She's fantastic. And after that, an agent reached out to me and said, have you considered writing a book? I've read your writing before, I heard you on this podcast. I think the way that you talk about disability is very clear and you communicate it well, so let's write a book. And I sent a proposal about the story of my mom and I, and she said, you'd probably be really well-suited to write a book about disability. No such book really exists. I didn't know this book was happening. She had the vision to be quite honest and helped me on a path to figuring out how I could take some of the things that disabled people feel are incredibly basic, but can actually be incredibly confusing to non-disabled people. And give them the tools to talk about it in a way that feels approachable, not a textbook, there's no quizzes at the end. Nobody's going to judge you. So that was how the book came to be. It was from someone else pointing out to me that the way that I communicate about disability is something that might fill a gap. I feel incredibly lucky that someone saw that potential in me and wanted to work with me on that project. 

Tiffany Yu: I feel like this mother-daughter book will be the second one. I want to repeat this for our listeners again, your mantra. If we want the world to be accessible to the disability community, then let's make the disability experience accessible to the world. Many of us will say, if you have questions about our disability or experience, like feel free to ask. Of course some people have varying levels of comfort with that, but then I find that are non-disabled allies still aren't asking the questions even after we've put the invitation out. And I was wondering if that is something that you have noticed as well. And what do you think is at the root of that and what bridges do you think we can help build? 

Emily Ladau: That question took a turn that I didn't think it was going to. And I love that because the question that people usually ask about asking questions is, well, isn't it rude to ask questions and shouldn't we get to the point where disabled people don't have to be answering questions all the time, because you don't want to be a living, breathing teachable moment 24/7. And I really understand that logic and I don't think that anyone should be obligated to answer questions if they're not comfortable. And if someone doesn't want to volunteer information, that's okay. That's their choice. But when you put yourself out there and you say, I am okay talking about this, I don't want you to dance around it or act like it doesn't exist. Then the question becomes, how do I talk about it? So disability is so stigmatized and talking about it is so taboo that people probably in many cases, don't feel like they have the words to talk about it so they just don't talk about it at all. And if they do say something, there's a good chance someone's going to tell them that they're wrong for the terminology that they use. Say person with a disability. Oh, say disabled person. I don't have special needs. Oh, I'm differently abled. There are so many varying preferences for language in the disability community. And that's okay because language is a personal choice, but it also means that it makes it a little bit tricky to navigate. So in Demystifying Disability, I do try to give tips and starting points for language that is usually a safe bet while also getting the caveat that I'm one person with a disability. I'm not the expert on anyone else's language choice. Once people have those words to use to ask the question, and also once some of their fears are a little bit put at ease around is it okay for me to ask this question? How do I ask this question in a way that's polite and not rude? Then we can start to have more meaningful conversation. I talk about language. I talk about etiquette in the book. Two things that I think we kind of assume that people should just already know. But we forget that everybody needs a starting point and a baseline to feel comfortable asking question. And also we forget that it's okay to have an open conversation about disability. It's not a bad thing to talk about it, but I still, I have to say again, nobody's obligated to answer questions. It's really, it's all personal preference.

Tiffany Yu: And again, we're highlighting the nuance here. Because within your mantra you're saying, how can we make this disability experience accessible? But it's like, if we want to make this disability experience accessible, but no one who's disabled owes answering anyone's questions depending on their comfort level. I was on a podcast a couple of months ago where we were talking about how you have a disability population and then you have a disability community. So how do you get people from the population into the community and likely the people who are in the disability community probably have more comfort around making their disability experience more accessible. I'm just curious if you have thoughts a little bit more on this nuance, which you have repeated multiple times in this show to say we don't want to put the onus on disabled people to have to educate, especially free, no more free emotional labor. Why is it important to make this disability experience accessible? And then how, if we have such a large group of people who are disabled themselves, who don't feel comfortable answering questions. 

Emily Ladau: I love the question, and I'm glad you're pushing on this because I think that this particular contradiction is where people can get really caught up. And I think that's what prevents us from having the conversations that we need to be having about disability. I think we have to remember to look at disability very individually. We tend to talk about the disability community and I use the term community even as a catch-all for the literal 1 billion people who exist who have disabilities worldwide. But one thing that I point out in the book is that that's actually kind of an inaccurate term. It's a handy term for me as a writer, because it was a good catch-all, but the disability community is not a single entity at all. So I'm glad you brought up the point about population and community. If we're looking at disability from a much more individual perspective, I think it becomes easier for us to address that contradiction. Some people have preferences moving one direction where they want to talk about disability. Some people have preferences moving in the other direction where they're not so comfortable talking about it. And we can't just assume that every single disabled person is going to want to do the exact same thing, is going to want to engage in the exact same way. While I would love if everybody was more comfortable talking about their experiences, I have to acknowledge that most of the reason why I'm comfortable talking about my experience is I am a white cis-gender, meaning gender that I was assigned at birth, female, who is physically disabled and I communicate verbally. I have a lot of privilege around how I communicate about my disability. Not everybody is afforded that same privilege, quite literally to the point where it can be life or death, communicating your disability dependent upon the culture that you live in, or perhaps could be the difference between getting a job and not getting a job, between getting an education and not getting an education. I operate with a lot of privilege despite being part of a marginalized community. And that's where I think the nuance comes into play is that it's okay if I talk about disability, because I know that I'm going to bounce back. That may not be true for somebody who's experiencing oppression that I don't experience. I hope you don't think this answer is me dancing around the issue, but rather I think this is the issue. I think that we forget that disability doesn't exist in a vacuum, doesn't exist in a bubble. What's good for one person just might not work for another person. And I think that's the fundamental truth of talking about disability, of talking about identity. That's in my mind how I reconcile that you can at once call on people to make the disability experience accessible and also respect personal preference. 

Tiffany Yu: So fascinating. And I loved that you brought in privilege. I want to spend the last part of this conversation talking about allyship. We know language is important. A lot of people feel like the word ally creates further otherness between two communities. And then there's also another movement of people wanting to move more toward using words like accomplice.

Emily Ladau: The term ally in incredibly challenging, because I think that we've come to understand it as a title that we bestow upon ourselves. So for example, I may say that I am an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community. What the heck does that mean? So for me, despite what proper grammar might tell you, I think that ally is a verb and not a noun. I think that allyship is something that you have to actively participate in and continually make conscious choices around how you act and how you support a marginalized group. When we talk about ally, just as this crown that we put on our heads or this badge that we put on our shirt, that doesn't mean anything to me because you haven't really shown me that allyship. And I recognize that it can be confusing to know where to start when you want to be an ally to a community, because you can end up becoming over-ambitious or overzealous and speaking over the community or speaking for the community, or you might make a misstep and then the community wants nothing to do with you. Doing allyship, if you will, is something that can feel intimidating and overwhelming, but at the same time, part of being a good ally is really recognizing that you're probably going to make mistakes. You're going to have to listen to the feedback that you're given. If the people who you're being an ally to you are willing to give you that feedback, take that feedback, sit with that feedback, ask yourself how you can do better. And I don't personally have a problem with the term ally because I think we can all do our best to be allies and supporters of human beings. We can all do our best to support one another. So I've never really seen it as an othering term. That being said, the move toward accomplice, I do like that move. And I talk about that in the book, because that, to me means that you're not just on the sidelines, you're actively taking part in action to be a supporter to a marginalized community. So, there's a lot of complexity around that othering feeling when you're talking about people outside of a particular community, being a support, but at the same time, I'm very much of the mindset, we still need to meet people where they're at. If someone is actively working towards meaningful allyship, I want to meet them where they're at. And I want them to know that I appreciate it, and I want to help them do better.

Tiffany Yu: What are some of the ways that non-disabled people can meaningfully, be allies to the disability community? We have this term ally that I hope that all of us listening want to be in one way or another. What does that look like in the disability community if you're non-disabled? 

Emily Ladau: I think there are many levels to that. And also I would clarify that allyship is not something limited just to non-disabled people for disabled people. As a disabled woman, it's still incumbent upon me to be a good ally to disabled people whose identities are different than mine. So I think one thing that we tend to forget is if you're disabled, you're not suddenly absolved of your responsibility to be a good ally, to other people, because the only disability experience that you're an expert on is your own. And so any tips that I give around being a good ally are tips that I try to practice as well, because I don't understand what it's like to be someone disabled who has other intersecting, marginalized identities that I don't have. I know that feels very jargon filled, but it's just to say I'm a disabled white woman. I don't know what it's like to be for example, an Asian woman with a disability. That's just not my experience and that's okay. So how do you reconcile that and be a strong ally, but also not step too far forward. It's a matter of knowing when to amplify, when to pass the mic, meaning it's not your time to speak. It's your time to listen. And it's your time to give someone else the platform and raise them up and lift up what they're saying. And also recognizing, I think you said before, no more free emotional labor. If you're in a position where you can provide compensation, where you can provide some kind of opportunity in return for the work that someone who's marginalized is doing to educate. Pay that person, show that person that you value their time. Allyship doesn't always mean that the work that the marginalized people are doing comes for free, it just doesn't. And that's also challenging when you're attempting to be an ally when you yourself are marginalized. So again, there is nuance to every single part of this here. But what you can always, always do for free is know when to step back, know when to amplify and know when to pass the mic.

Tiffany Yu: One of the things that I want to ask you about is allyship also exists within the disability community. Why do you think that is important? And I guess one of the things I'm trying to get across is I think when people look at us, the disability community, they assume we don't have privilege, which we squash that. They also assume that we need the allies and we can't be them. 

Emily Ladau: There's an assumption of helplessness and of needing help. And that's actually something that I hadn't thought about quite in those terms until I did an interview for the book with a wonderful black autistic actor Reyma McCoy-McDeid and Reyma was the one who said, if you're thinking about allyship and helping people, first of all, why are you associating the word help with that population? Let's unpack that. Especially in the case of disabled people, there's this presumption of helplessness and there's this assumption that because of that, we don't also have the tools and the power to be good and decent human beings to other people. There's just this assumption that, oh, we'll let them off the hook because they're disabled. That's something that I've seen before. Or alternatively, I've seen people who are disabled let themselves off the hook. Oh, well I'm marginalized too, so it doesn't really matter how I treat other marginalized people. And neither of those are good or correct ways of thinking. Disabled people, as you said before, are human beings like anybody else. So we are not absolved of our responsibility to be decent human beings. And we're also not absolved of our responsibility to respect the humanity of other people. If we want people to respect our humanity, how hypocritical is it if we're not doing the same. It boils down to the most, the most basic level. Nobody is excused from being a decent human being because of a particular marginalized identity. And we forget that too often. And I think especially in the disability community, because disability is the only marginalized identity that cuts across all other identities, there are some people who kind of weaponize disability and they say, well, I have a really hard life because I'm disabled so I don't really have to acknowledge my privilege. And I don't really have to honor and respect the fact that you have different experiences than I do. Nobody's off the hook, nobody's off the hook just because you're disabled. And we forget ourselves too often. I know that I had to learn that. I know that I had to learn about my privilege and I had to learn about allyship and I'm still learning about it. And I'm still making mistakes because I'm a human being. 

Tiffany Yu: I'm coming back to this theme of trying to unlearn that disability is a tragedy because that's how so many of us weaponize disability or self victimize, and we're all working to unlearn that. One question that I got asked recently that I am going to ask you as well as, how do you know when your allyship is not performative?

Emily Ladau: I don't know if you ever will fully know that you being the general you, but at the same time, I think that allyship is performative when you are speaking praise for it. And when you are seeking validation for it. And conversely, it's performative when you're given feedback about how to do better and you don't take it, or you find yourself offended by the feedback. I don't think that there's a determinant of what's performative. I think it's a matter of, are you being genuine in your actions or are you doing it because you're seeking some kind of praise for it. So yes from the outside, it can certainly look to people like certain actions are performative and that's a challenge, especially with social media, because sometimes someone can post something and be very well-meaning and genuinely trying to be a good ally, but it can come across as performative. So I do think that we kind of run into the challenges of people misinterpreting things or people making assumptions about your intent. That's all very challenging. But at the end of the day, you need to know that what you're doing was because you are genuinely being a supporter of a community. And not that you were seeking out the praise of someone from that community for doing a good deed.

Tiffany Yu: So many things to unpack. First of all, context matters. You and I can post the exact same thing and it looks a certain way, but maybe our intention behind it could have been different. And the other thing I want to highlight too, and this is where the nuance comes in, which is, I have heard in some of these allyship conversations that it is not a label you give to yourself, it's someone from another community giving that to you. And sometimes that comes in the form of praise. And so it's kind of like, oh, It's not performative when you're not seeking the praise, but then in order to get the label, it does need to come from someone. Anyway, something that came to mind. 

Emily Ladau: No, I'm glad you brought that up because it's such a complicated cycle. But to me, the kind of praise that I would be hoping to receive is not praise saying, oh, you were a good ally today, you know, but more like thank you for supporting us in this effort. Thank you for being a part of this fight. And so I think it's really about, yes, the praise is positive reinforcement and I absolutely am all about giving that positive reinforcement to people. If someone's being a good ally, I will absolutely tell them, but I'm not going to go to them and say, You did a good job being an ally today. I think it's true. It's not a title that you bestow upon yourself, but it's also, I guess the title that I would give someone, but not in such a formal way. For me, it's all about the genuine communication behind the word.

Tiffany Yu: I love the way that you said, what do you do when you receive feedback that something that you did may have caused harm to another community or be seen as harmful. And people say, it's not about your intention, it's about your impact. And so how do you take that feedback? And it's hard. Because none of us want to be wrong. And it's okay to feel bad about something that you did, but then what type of responsibility and accountability do you take for your own actions and what type of behavior change does that ultimately then lead to.

Emily Ladau: And I will be the first to admit that I have made some very significant mistakes. I am not some perfect shining example of an ally, and I think we need to be able to admit that about ourselves. My learning is really ongoing about allyship and that's kind of the point of being an ally is that you don't do it once you do it over and over every day, it's a choice that you make. There have been times when I have made mistakes where I did not recognize my privilege, where I did not recognize that something would be harmful. And when I've been put in my place that really stings, but the response is not, how dare you call me out. I was just trying to help. The response is I apologize that this happened. I am going to work on doing better. And then instead of going to the person like a puppy and being like, did I do better? Did I do better? Just do better, just be better. I think that's kind of where the praise thing comes in. It's like, if you make a mistake once, okay, apologize, but then move on and don't keep making it about you and being like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry. Actions speak louder than words.

Tiffany Yu: Do you have any examples of people who you think are being good models of what it looks like to be an ally to the disability community? 

Emily Ladau: I think that's a great question and 

Tiffany Yu: understanding that we can all be doing better. 

Emily Ladau: The thing that I would say is, it doesn't necessarily need to be outside the community that we look for people who are really strong examples of allyship. And so somebody who I think about a lot, Liz Plank. She's an incredible journalist and she's constantly bringing light to disability issues, working very hard behind the scenes on disability issues. I love how she continues to amplify disabled voices and bring them into the fold and use a platform that she's built to address disability. And she has a book that's really fantastic For The Love of Men. And it's about toxic masculinity. And a friend of mine has interviewed in there, D'Arcee Neal, and he is a gay black man with cerebral palsy. And to have disability included in work that may not necessarily have seemed at the outset to someone picking up the book to be disability related, I think is an incredibly powerful thing. And Liz continues to do this in a lot of the op-eds that she writes. She uses her Instagram to talk about disability issues. She uses Twitter to talk about disability issues. And so, she is someone who I think does a really good job of showing how you can use a platform even if it's not the only thing that you use your platform for, to amplify voices of disabled people, of the disability community to get those perspectives out there. 

Tiffany Yu: I'll also share that my friend, Victor Pineda was also interviewed in that book as well. 

Emily Ladau: That's right. Oh my gosh. I read it a couple of years ago at this point. But that's absolutely right. Yes. 

Tiffany Yu: It's all good. Well, as we close this conversation on allyship, first of all, we'll buy Demystifying Disability. Are there other places that you would recommend people turn to learn more about disability history, culture, identity, and community? 

Emily Ladau: I am a little biased here, but I would really suggest that people check out Rooted in Rights. As you mentioned earlier, I'm the editor in chief and, Tiffany, you've written for Rooted in Rights some really powerful stuff, especially pertaining to how your identities connect. What I love about Rooted in Rights is that I get to be behind the scenes and support people to tell their story and to amplify their perspectives. And we fill gaps in media where people are not having these conversations. We come in and we say, let's tell that story. Let's give that person a platform to tell their story and let's pay them to do it. I would love for people to check out Rooted in Rights as a really good starting point for actually taking in the stories of disabled people directly from disabled people. 

Tiffany Yu: And while you were saying that, I was like, when is the Rooted in Rights book gonna come out? Similar to About Us. Your essay was actually in there. 

Emily Ladau: My essay is been About Us, the New York Times disability op-ed series anthology. But it's funny, we joked about an anthology years ago, the Rooted in Rights team, but who knows, maybe one day.

Tiffany Yu: That's true. So I always close with the same question, which is what are you grateful for today? 

Emily Ladau: I'm grateful for this conversation. And I know that seems like a cheesy answer, but I love being able to talk about the really hard and difficult things. I know that I can do it with someone who is also willing to talk about the really hard and difficult things. I love these kinds of conversations. So this has made me incredibly grateful and I'm just so excited to have been able to talk with you, 

Tiffany Yu: Always wonderful to reconnect with you. It's been quite the journey since we first met. 

Emily Ladau: I've loved seeing how Diversability has grown. I remember sitting in a room together with a small group getting started, getting it off the ground, having meetings. And now all of a sudden it's this huge connected community. And I just have so much respect that you've brought people together.

Tiffany Yu: If people want to follow you, if they want to buy your book, where is the best place to do it? 

Emily Ladau: I highly recommend supporting your local bookstore and buying it from there. If you can. If you'd like to buy it online, you can always check out bookshop or indie bound so that you can support a local bookstore that way.

Tiffany Yu: Awesome. Thank you so much, Emily, for being on the Tiffany & Yu podcast. 

Emily Ladau: Thank you for having me. 

Tiffany Yu
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