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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff or

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Speaker 1: cpw DCS. If you're feeling an acronymy, which I said

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Speaker 1: just to bring out the pedants who want to correct

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Speaker 1: me to say that it's not an acronym unless it

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Speaker 1: spells a word. But let me tell you, pedance language

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Speaker 1: is socially constructed. That's what we're gonna talk about. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Margaret Kildrey, and with me this week

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Speaker 1: it's Samanth McVay. Samantha, how you ry?

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Speaker 2: I'm great. I'm so excited to be on talking about

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Speaker 2: Helen Keller.

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Speaker 1: Yay, yay. Sophie's our producer.

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Speaker 2: Wait did I just spoil that?

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Speaker 1: No? No, this is part two. Everyone who doesn't okay, okay.

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Speaker 1: Also it's in the title. Now you are the only

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Speaker 1: way who came into it not knowing last time everyone

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Speaker 1: else was talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always the last one. Why it's just you?

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Speaker 1: Actually, I tell all the other guests, rude, that's.

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Speaker 2: What I feel like, this conspiracy conspiracy theory. I'm like,

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Speaker 2: you're setting me up. I know you're setting me up,

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Speaker 2: aren't you?

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Speaker 1: But I'm ling, how you doing? Sophie? You know, let's

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Speaker 1: do it Okay, okay, our audio engineers ian our theme

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Speaker 1: music was written for us by unwomen. And this week

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Speaker 1: we are talking about Helen Keller, about deaf blindness, about

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Speaker 1: how history discusses her all wrong, and we're talking about

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Speaker 1: social construction of disability. So if you've paid attention to

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Speaker 1: theory in the twenty first century, you'll realize we're talking

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Speaker 1: about more and more things is being socially constructed rather

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Speaker 1: than like objective facts, it's scare quotes. The one that

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Speaker 1: gets talked about the most is gender. What is a

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Speaker 1: woman is socially constructed and therefore mutable, and therefore can

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Speaker 1: be understood to include, for example, a trans woman like myself,

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Speaker 1: as well as this woman like you all. And I

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Speaker 1: don't really want to get into the gender thing too

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Speaker 1: much right now, but one of my favorite examples of

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Speaker 1: social construction, maybe this is a weird one. Okay. If

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Speaker 1: you gave a map of the world to a kid

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Speaker 1: and ask them how many continents there were, they're not

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Speaker 1: going to say seven. They're going to say six if

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Speaker 1: they get convinced that Australia is big enough to count, right,

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Speaker 1: because you've just taught the kid that the continent is

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Speaker 1: a land mass right, and so then they'll say six

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Speaker 1: not seven. Because it is social construction that gives us

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Speaker 1: Asia and Europe. This is my theory. Someone might tell

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Speaker 1: me I'm wrong at some point.

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Speaker 3: Now, somebody will definitely tell you you're wrong at some point,

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Speaker 3: but that's just because that person's an asshole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, fair enough, that's true. So in general, the

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Speaker 1: social construction of disability seeks to remove barriers for participation

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Speaker 1: in society versus the medical model, which seeks to medically

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Speaker 1: solve disability. In the social model, the impairment is the

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Speaker 1: medical condition that sets someone up for disability, whereas disability

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Speaker 1: itself is the result of the interaction between people living

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Speaker 1: with impairments and the barriers in the physical, attitudinal, communication,

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Speaker 1: and social environment. Shout outs to the group people with

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Speaker 1: Disability Australia for that definition. In the social constructive disability,

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Speaker 1: it's not a disability until barriers are put up by society.

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Speaker 1: And this model has been in people's minds one way

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Speaker 1: or another for a very long time, but it was

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Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties that it kicked in more

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Speaker 1: and got its name and stuff, at least as I've

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Speaker 1: been able to find in nineteen seventy five, a UK

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Speaker 1: organization called the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation said,

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Speaker 1: in our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people.

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Speaker 1: Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments. By

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Speaker 1: the way, we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full

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Speaker 1: participation in society. In nineteen eighty three, a disabled academic

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Speaker 1: named Mike Oliver gave this name, gave this the name

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Speaker 1: the Social Model of Disability. And to me, it's not

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Speaker 1: a coincidence that this movement started around nineteen seventy when

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Speaker 1: just about everything in American society was changing, well, Western society.

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Speaker 1: A lot of this comes from the UK as well.

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Speaker 1: The more I read about late sixties and early seventies

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Speaker 1: in the US, the more it feels like we actually

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Speaker 1: kind of did have a revolution, not as complete as

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Speaker 1: one of we would have liked, but modern feminism, anti racism,

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Speaker 1: bodily autonomy, decolonization, queer liberation, disability rights, just fucking all

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Speaker 1: of it and pouring in because of people fighting really

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Speaker 1: really hard with everything from sit ins to rifles. And

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Speaker 1: I bring this up because I think we owe everything

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Speaker 1: to the prisoners who are still in fucking prison from

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Speaker 1: that time, because there are still people in prison from

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Speaker 1: these struggles. The other thing about that model is it's

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Speaker 1: a really good lens with which to understand some of

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Speaker 1: the problems in capitalist society, or really productivity is the

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Speaker 1: end goal society. Author Susan Wendell, in an essay called

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Speaker 1: the Social Construction of Disability, said, when the pace of

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Speaker 1: life in a society increases, there is a tendency for

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Speaker 1: more people to become disabled, not only because of physically

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Speaker 1: damaging consequences of efforts to go faster, but also because

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Speaker 1: fewer people can meet the expectations of quote normal performance.

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Speaker 1: The physical and mental limitations of those who cannot meet

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Speaker 1: the new pace become concer aspicuous and disabling, even though

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Speaker 1: the same limitations were inconspicuous and irrelevant to full participation

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Speaker 1: in a slower paced society. That one kind of like,

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Speaker 1: mind blew me a little bit when I like, just

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Speaker 1: like this idea that it's like, yeah, you can see

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Speaker 1: that we are suddenly disabled because more is expected of us, right,

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Speaker 1: so fewer people are meeting that bar. The other thing

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Speaker 1: that she said in there that I think is worth

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Speaker 1: pointing out, quote two things are important to remember about

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Speaker 1: the help that people with disabilities may need. One is

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Speaker 1: that most industrialized societies give non disabled people, in different

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Speaker 1: degrees and kinds, depending on class, race, gender, and other factors,

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Speaker 1: a lot of help in the form of education, training,

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Speaker 1: social support, public communication and transportation facilities, public recreation, and

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Speaker 1: other services. The help that non disabled people received tends

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Speaker 1: to be taken for granted. It is not considered help

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Speaker 1: but entitlement because it has offered to citizens who fit

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Speaker 1: the social paradigms, who definition are not considered dependent on

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Speaker 1: social help. And so just pointing out that like literally

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Speaker 1: everyone gets help from society, you know, and that absolutely

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Speaker 1: able body people or not disabled people get more help

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, you know. And Mora Lee way, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: So almost on talking about the social conceptions of disability.

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Speaker 1: But because being me, I spent a while reading about

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Speaker 1: medieval conceptions of disability, because I like that branding, and

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Speaker 1: because anything that might have a sword in it is

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Speaker 1: just like cooler, right, you.

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Speaker 2: Could go for it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think seeing how social constructs change over time

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Speaker 1: is incredibly useful to our modern conceptions. Medieval conceptions of

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Speaker 1: disability were radically different from our own, and they weren't

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Speaker 1: the medical model. They weren't good, but they weren't They're

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Speaker 1: just different, right, I'm still learning about this. Medieval studies

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Speaker 1: is very complicated because medieval studies is like millions of

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Speaker 1: different cultures over like a thousand years, all like cramped together,

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Speaker 1: is like you know, and usually it means like the

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Speaker 1: Christian West, but even then there's like all of these things. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the medieval Christian world was a world full of where

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Speaker 1: where things were judged by morality first and foremost, as

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Speaker 1: compared to currently where we're judged by like productivity. Right,

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Speaker 1: So in the current world, you're not disabled until you

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Speaker 1: can't be productive to society. In the medieval world, at

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Speaker 1: least in some places, and in some societies, you weren't

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Speaker 1: disabled except by moral failing. Physical impairment wasn't always enough

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Speaker 1: to count. That said, there were complicated prejudices against impairment.

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Speaker 1: It seems like some people were like, Oh, you're judged

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Speaker 1: by God as a sinner and that's why you look

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Speaker 1: like that. And other people were like, no, you're living

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Speaker 1: closer to God, living out purgatory in this life. You'll

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Speaker 1: get to heaven sooner. Neither one of these is good.

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Speaker 2: Right, but you know you're made to suffer. Yeah, you

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Speaker 2: can get the rewards when you die.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Thanks.

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Speaker 1: I like the current method, the social construction model, that

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Speaker 1: the one that.

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Speaker 2: But so can we add the somehow add a saying

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Speaker 2: about swords to help out that other one to make

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Speaker 2: you like it better somehow?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 1: I really like the Tarot card the Nine of Swords

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Speaker 1: where it's like the woman sitting in bed with nine

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Speaker 1: swords on the wall, and I just it's like, it

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Speaker 1: couldn't be me. Could you imagine waking up and having

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Speaker 1: nine swords and being sad? I can't?

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Speaker 2: I could?

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Speaker 1: I could?

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Speaker 2: I think they're yeah, because like what if there's there's

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Speaker 2: why why does she have the swords? What are the

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Speaker 2: swords for? Is it for her? Or is it like

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Speaker 2: against her? Like? What? What?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 5: Right?

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Speaker 1: I get? Okay, Okay, I see what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: I'm a sad sag. You can't ask me questions like that.

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Speaker 1: I'll find sad anywhere.

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Speaker 2: I got this. Let me bestimistic.

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Speaker 1: I really fixed my last name too soon. By like

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Speaker 1: mid twenties, I was like, I kill Joyce. Who I am?

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Speaker 1: I'm like literally professional optimist at this point basically try

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Speaker 1: and telling.

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Speaker 2: To be constantly smiling, and they're talking about happy people.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, this doesn't make sense.

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Speaker 1: I try to be really outgoing in my twenties, and

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Speaker 1: that's why I was a kilt choice. My social battery

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Speaker 1: was constantly drained, so I was always fair crouchy. All right,

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Speaker 1: that's fair. So back to Alec briefly, we're almost done

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Speaker 1: with Alex.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, we're still talking about Alex LESCo.

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Speaker 1: Okay. He left a legacy that people argue about to

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Speaker 1: this day. Why is this important? Because he was close

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Speaker 1: friends with Helen Keller and her entire life her over

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Speaker 1: her entire life. It was a huge inspiration for her

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Speaker 1: positions on many things, including almost certainly her position on eugenics,

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Speaker 1: which we will get to. She dedicated her first book

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Speaker 1: to him, and both of his brothers died of tuberculosis,

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Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with this episode. I just

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Speaker 1: tracked TV's body count in all my episodes because there's

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Speaker 1: something wrong with me, and we're up to four at

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Speaker 1: this point.

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Speaker 2: Wait, only four?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that I found in that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you've done so many episodes.

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Speaker 3: This episode only in this episode, that's okay, It's like, yeah, yeah, well,

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Speaker 3: that's you've only.

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Speaker 2: Found four the entire time you've been on for over

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Speaker 2: a year.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: No, it's just the fact that someone dies of TB

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Speaker 1: in every episode I do. In this episode, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Do you for the entirety of the seasons?

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Speaker 1: No, because some of them are you need to, Although

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Speaker 1: I keep bringing this up because I'm just really excited

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Speaker 1: about it. The first a Manda get the first trans

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Speaker 1: man to get gender firming surgery in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and like at all that we know of, went on

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Speaker 1: to save millions of people from TB by revolutionizing the

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Speaker 1: way that we screened for TV. Name was Alan Hart,

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Speaker 1: cool with fewer caveats. Alan Hart was just great, all right,

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Speaker 1: so I like it. Alec Bell he starts hanging out

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Speaker 1: with young Helen Keller and she's like seven something. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: not even seven yet, I think at this point, and

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Speaker 1: he's like, Hey, go talk to the Perkins Institute for

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Speaker 1: the Blind. That's where you're going to find your answers.

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Speaker 1: So Bridgman, Laura Bridgeman is still there, she lives there,

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Speaker 1: she's hanging out and the school Perkins was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we have this twenty year old student who just graduated.

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Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan she could go help you, and this started

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Speaker 1: a fifty year friendship between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan.

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Speaker 1: Anne considered not taking the job because of Helen's family's

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Speaker 1: connections to, you know, treating humans like chattel, but she

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Speaker 1: ends up taking the job and the world is probably

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Speaker 1: better off for that. Helen refers to March fifth, eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven as her soul's birthday. When Anne showed up,

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Speaker 1: immediately she started teaching Helen words by writing them in

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Speaker 1: her hand, and the first thing she handed Helen was

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Speaker 1: a doll and then spelled out the word doll in

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Speaker 1: her hand. This didn't work right, the first attempt, of

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Speaker 1: course didn't work. But a thing that makes me happy

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Speaker 1: about this is that I know at some point Helen

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Speaker 1: wound up with a doll from Laura Bridgeman, with clothes

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Speaker 1: that Laura herself had hands sewn for the doll. And

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Speaker 1: so I really like the idea that seven year old

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Speaker 1: Helen's first words that she was shown was the representation

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Speaker 1: of this gift of love from someone who had been

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Speaker 1: through it before her, right, And it just like makes

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Speaker 1: me happy.

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Speaker 2: It does. But you know what I keep thinking about

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Speaker 2: is the people who would gouge out the eyes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of their dolls. I'm sorry, no, no, it's a

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Speaker 1: really striking image. I'm sorry, No, it's it's.

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Speaker 2: I'm never gonna be invited. Whoa. Yeah, Like that's so sweet.

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Speaker 2: But I keep thinking about the bad people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the children right here, and you're just

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Speaker 3: me that.

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Speaker 2: I just go real dark. Anyway, keep it alight, let's go,

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Speaker 2: let's go.

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Speaker 1: So it took her about a month for this to

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Speaker 1: for her to get it to go from like mimicry

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Speaker 1: to understanding. And this breakthrough event has been made famous

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Speaker 1: everywhere in the world. And which is that she spelled

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Speaker 1: out the word water while running water from a fountain

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Speaker 1: over Helen's hand, and basically, you know, Helen Keller's like,

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Speaker 1: oh shit, this is a thing that represents this other thing.

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Speaker 1: Fuck yeah, teach me all the things that represent other things.

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Speaker 1: And she just hits the ground running. There's a there's

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Speaker 1: a statue at the US Capital of Helen at the

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Speaker 1: water fountain, and I don't know, it's like, it's funny

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Speaker 1: to me because she's this revolutionary socialist and there's a

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Speaker 1: statue of her at the Capitol that said she did

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Speaker 1: meet every US president She's just actually that fucking famous, right,

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Speaker 1: And this is how people ignore her life is that

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Speaker 1: she is immortalized in bronze in the US capital when

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Speaker 1: she's seven years old, when she first learns how to speak,

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Speaker 1: not what she learned how to say to most of

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Speaker 1: the world. Her story stops as soon as she can

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Speaker 1: read and write and communicate. The cool thing is done.

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Speaker 1: Story over. Little girl overcomes adversity through hard work and friendship.

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Speaker 1: National hero No notes, what people don't like talking about

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Speaker 1: is what she actually said. And there's another problem with

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Speaker 1: stopping the story of Helen Keller when she was a child.

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Speaker 1: People in fantilize people with disabilities fucking constantly. I want

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Speaker 1: to quote a black disability, writes lawyer named Haben Germa

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Speaker 1: from an interview that she did with Time magazine. Quote.

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Speaker 1: Since society only portrays Helen Keller as a little girl,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people subconsciously learn to infantilize disabled adults.

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Speaker 1: And I've been treated like a child. Many disabled adults

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Speaker 1: have been treated like children. That makes it difficult to

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Speaker 1: get a job, to be treated with respect, to get

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Speaker 1: good quality education and healthcare as an adult. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: the story does not stop when she's seven or eight years.

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Speaker 2: Old, and that story that we know really just kind

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Speaker 2: of highlights and Sullivan more than Helen Keller's achievements, as

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Speaker 2: well as the fact that thinking about the fact that

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Speaker 2: she learned a language like that in a month, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's incredible. Yeah, I'm trying to relearn a language now

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Speaker 2: and it's not working well.

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Speaker 1: She she learned that language was what was happening in

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Speaker 1: a month, right, But the.

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Speaker 2: Fact she could really get into it, the fact that

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Speaker 2: there's like this correlation that it actually happened, and of

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Speaker 2: course she builds up, but this whole level is like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: as a child, I remember trying to learn English and

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Speaker 2: it took me six months, and I you know, with

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Speaker 2: all of the different things, like she had an incredible

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Speaker 2: achievement and she was they do they make it. They

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Speaker 2: set it up to be as if she was incapable

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Speaker 2: to begin with, and that whole level again they being

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Speaker 2: the story right right, the story. Yeah, but then you

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Speaker 2: look at the levels like, wow, this is more than

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Speaker 2: just your typical of like I taught something to this

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Speaker 2: and this person was so great that they were able

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Speaker 2: to teach them. It was her abilities to do that.

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Speaker 2: It's like that that takes away from her story a

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Speaker 2: little bit.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, no, that makes a lot of sense,

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Speaker 1: and it also weirdly also leads out leaves out the

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Speaker 1: larger context of because when it gets presented as like

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Speaker 1: the first deaf blind person to learn to communicate, which

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Speaker 1: is a lie, one of the things that gets left

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Speaker 1: out is literally this lineage where Laura like lived with Anne,

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Speaker 1: you know, and like it's like we stand on the

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Speaker 1: shoulders of giants, like we create things because we as

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Speaker 1: a society learn things. And and I don't mean to

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Speaker 1: take away from Helen's achievements by saying this, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like it's all of this stuff. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: when she was seven or eight, not long after Anne

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Speaker 1: showed up, the two moved up north and Helen attended

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Speaker 1: the Perkins Institute for the Blind, then bounced around to

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Speaker 1: a couple of schools for the deaf. She went to

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Speaker 1: New York for a minute for a school to the deaf,

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Speaker 1: Then she went to a regular high school for a while,

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Speaker 1: as I can tell, And then she did the this

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Speaker 1: was when I was speed running a little bit this part.

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Speaker 1: Then she did the thing that she's famous for, which

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Speaker 1: is go to Harvard. Well, I mean, I don't of

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Speaker 1: you knew this, but you can't have girls studying at

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Speaker 1: Harvards shes a Radcliffe, the women's annex of Harvard.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm trying to, like because the storylines and what

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Speaker 2: I know versus what like they don't match. I'm like, oh, oh.

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Speaker 1: No, tell me, tell me. I'm curious.

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Speaker 2: No no, no no no, meaning like because of the way

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Speaker 2: that it's framed, you think it's so far back past,

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Speaker 2: but it really and then at the same time, like

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Speaker 2: it my timeline is off, is what I'm.

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Speaker 1: Like, Oh I see yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. She goes.

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Speaker 1: She goes to Radcliffe, which is the women's annex of

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Speaker 1: Harvard where they quarantine all the cooties. And the rich

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Speaker 1: philanthropist guy who paid for her education was someone that

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Speaker 1: she met through her good pal Mark Twain. I can't

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Speaker 1: remember what episode we talked about Mark Twain on. He

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Speaker 1: is complicated. She's very good at being friends with complicated folks.

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Speaker 1: The rich guy, his name is Henry Huddleston Rogers. He's

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Speaker 1: an oil magnate who invented the oil pipeline. Thanks Henry

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Speaker 1: Huddleston Rogers. He was half evil capitalist and half progressive reformer,

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Speaker 1: and not just with having paid for Helen. He like

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Speaker 1: did a lot of work of I can't remember where

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Speaker 1: they funded. I can't remember what he funded. He funded

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Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff. I don't know they were good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Now he's fucking he invented the oil pipeline. Was a millionaire,

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Speaker 1: cool people he is not.

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Speaker 2: So Yeah, did Helen not come from a rich family.

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Speaker 1: Oh, she came from a rich family, but I think

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Speaker 1: that there's probably like rich family money. Like Also, some

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Speaker 1: of the ways it's described is that her family wealth

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Speaker 1: was like kind of shot by the fact that they

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Speaker 1: got their asses kicked by trying to have an unjust war,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so I know they didn't lose a lot, but

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Speaker 2: apparently it wasn't enough to get not a lot lot okay, okay,

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Speaker 2: yeah a lot, not a lot lot, and I feel

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Speaker 2: not enough. Yeah, they still had money, yeah, instead.

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Speaker 1: Of like giving it all to the people who had

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Speaker 1: literally built all.

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Speaker 2: Of their wealth, right, I mean, they didn't get in prison,

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Speaker 2: they still had their land.

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Speaker 1: I know exactly. They did fucking fine. They did a

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Speaker 1: little too fine. They were fine. Yeah, so yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: so so Helen Keller goes to college, becomes the first

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Speaker 1: deaf blind person to get a bachelor's degree, and her

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Speaker 1: time at Harvard in like one version of the story.

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Speaker 1: There's so many versions of the story and a lot

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Speaker 1: of At this point you get into multiple versions of

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Speaker 1: the story that are all kind of true. Although before

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Speaker 1: we get into those stories, I want to tell the

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Speaker 1: story about the person who didn't have any goods or

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Speaker 1: services and was very sad.

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Speaker 2: And then I need these goods and service like.

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Speaker 1: A yeah, like a shiny city on the hill. There

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Speaker 1: were goods and there were services, and they were offered

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Speaker 1: at competitive prices. God, all right, there's some advertisement. Yes, thanks,

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Speaker 1: and we're back. And Margaret is dealing with the complexity

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Speaker 1: of having to come up with some other clever way

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Speaker 1: to point out the complexity of pointing out ads. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: four times a week.

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Speaker 2: Perfect, So we just ignore them.

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Speaker 1: No, that's completely fair. I kind of like, like, I

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Speaker 1: just think it's like funny to be like, eh, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: roun here come the ads. I don't know whatever.

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Speaker 2: I feel like y'all have a lot more space, I guess,

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Speaker 2: freedom to do with the ads than we do, because

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever told you this, Sophie.

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Speaker 2: After I got done with Behind the Bastards, and we

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Speaker 2: know how Robert likes to introduce the ads, and he

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Speaker 2: got an email from a listener who came to listen

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Speaker 2: to our show was criticizing her for not doing the

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Speaker 2: same thing as a Robert for the ad breaks. And

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Speaker 2: she was like, what he hell, I wasn't even on

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Speaker 2: that show.

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Speaker 3: God, get fucking life that you track down a host

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Speaker 3: of a podcast to complain that they're not doing ad

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Speaker 3: transitions in the same way as a as a comedic

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Speaker 3: history podcast like come the Rock on.

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Speaker 2: Or like we have a whole different standard when it

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Speaker 2: comes to our podcast.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: But yes, Margaret, you're doing a great job. And I

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Speaker 2: joined every single one of them.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, why I get paid the big bucks.

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Speaker 1: I don't actually write the scripts. All I do is

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Speaker 1: the ad transitions.

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Speaker 2: It's amazing.

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Speaker 1: Ye that would be easy, man, I have such an

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Speaker 1: easy life anyway.

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Speaker 2: So coming back.

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Speaker 1: To yeah, her time at Harvard, her time at Cooties,

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Speaker 1: Harvard gets presented at as this like great accomplishment, this

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Speaker 1: huge place of learning and wonder of fucking Hogwarts or whatever,

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Speaker 1: And this is not how Helen Keller what Helen Keller

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Speaker 1: had to say about it. In nineteen sixteen, in an

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Speaker 1: article in the New York Tribune, she talks about how

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Speaker 1: she learned how society creates disability, how reading HG. Wells

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Speaker 1: and Karl Marx opened her up to understanding how human

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Speaker 1: suffering and often disability, was created by capitalism. The interviewer

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Speaker 1: asked her, and all of this had to come after

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Speaker 1: you left college. Did you get none of this knowledge

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Speaker 1: of life at college? Her answer is no. Like the

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Speaker 1: interviewer goes on at length about how emphatic this no is,

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Speaker 1: college isn't the place to go for any ideas, She

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Speaker 1: said about her teachers, they did not teach me about

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Speaker 1: things as they are today, or about the vital problems

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Speaker 1: of the people. They taught me Greek drama and Roman history.

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Speaker 1: They celebrated the achievements of war rather than those of

437
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: the heroes of peace. For instance, there were a dozen

438
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:04,400
Speaker 1: chapters on war where there were a few paragraphs about

439
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: the inventors. And it is this over emphasis on the

440
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: cruelties of life that breeds the wrong ideal. Education taught

441
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 1: me that it was a finer thing to be a

442
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: Napoleon than to create a new potato. This is where

443
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 1: I should have done the ad break with potato. I know,

444
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: really fucked that one up. Yeah, golden potato.

445
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,760
Speaker 2: Golden potatoes. Wait, the school zone people have an obsession

446
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:30,400
Speaker 2: with potatoes.

447
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a thing for a while.

448
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 5: Just me and MagPi.

449
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, potatoes, I just think they're neat.

450
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 2: I mean, I agree with you. Potatoes are delicious.

451
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, gold gold potatoes are great.

452
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: Yeahm hmm yeah. Fan of the fan of the potato.

453
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: Helen Keller also said quote in the same interview, it

454
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: is my nature to fight as soon as I see

455
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: wrongs to be made right. So after I reld Red

456
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: Wells and Marks and learned what I did, I joined

457
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: a socialist brand. I made up my mind to do something,

458
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: and the best thing seemed to be joining to join

459
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 1: a fighting party and help their propaganda. That was four

460
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: years ago. I have become an industrialist. Since the interview

461
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 1: is shocked by this. They're like, quote, an industrialist, I asked,

462
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: surprised out of composure. You don't mean an IWW A syndicalist,

463
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: she said. I became an IWW, an industrial worker of

464
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,360
Speaker 1: the world. I became an IWW because I found out

465
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 1: the Socialist Party was too slow. It is sinking into

466
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 1: the political bog. It is almost, if not quite impossible

467
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,199
Speaker 1: for the party to keep its revolutionary character so long

468
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: as it occupies a place under the government and seeks

469
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: office under it. The government does not stand for the

470
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 1: interests of the Socialist Party is supposed to represent. The

471
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: true task is to unite and organize all workers on

472
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: an economic basis. And it is the workers themselves who

473
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 1: must secure freedom for themselves, who must grow strong. Nothing

474
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: can be gained by political action. This is why I

475
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: became and IWW so, yeah, this is not That's not

476
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: the Hell and Keller that they like talking about.

477
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 2: No again though, I think, as you said, as many

478
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 2: people said, they kept her as a child, so you like,

479
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 2: really really that's where you think the story ends and

480
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 2: realizing ah, yeah, she has some thoughts, Yeah, great thoughts.

481
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: She has twelve books, something like four hundred essays and

482
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: like wow, lectures and stuff that she wrote because after

483
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: college she started looking around and seeing what was wrong

484
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: with society, and she wrote. She also wrote openly about

485
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: the fact that she owed her success to class privilege.

486
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: Because there is something that you're reading all of this

487
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: and you're always like, yeah, of course it's not. She

488
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: accomplished an amazing thing, a lot of amazing things, but

489
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: a lot of them were accomplished because her family came

490
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: from money, right, and they came from fucking dirty money,

491
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: and she just wrote openly about that. She joined the

492
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: Wobblies in nineteen twelve and she wrote the IWW and

493
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: she wrote for the newspaper for years discussing, among other things,

494
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: the fact that disability was caused by social conditions. She

495
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: meant that in a fairly literal way as compared to

496
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: more of the modern social construction, although people also sometimes

497
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 1: refer to some of her writing as a precursor to

498
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: the social construction model. To quote her, I was appointed

499
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind

500
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: for the first time. I, who had thought blindness and

501
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it

502
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the

503
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: selfishness and greed of employers, and the social evil contributed

504
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: its share. I found that poverty drove women to a

505
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: life of shame that ended in blindness. And this is

506
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: her talking about sex work and syphilis causing blindness. Speaking

507
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: of complicated politics. So Helen Keller she just kind of

508
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: did everything. She walked picket lines, She toured around the

509
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: world talking about socialism and disability. She joined vaudeville for

510
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: five years. And this is kind of interesting. It's like

511
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: what we were talking about with Laura, where people would

512
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: come and see her as this entertainment thing. But Helen

513
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: chose this like this is the read that I've gotten

514
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: from the people I've read talking about this is that

515
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: this was like kind of more of a reclaiming of

516
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: her stories again in the way I've seen it presented,

517
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 1: where her act on vaudeville was her and Anne would

518
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: go up and she'd take about twenty minutes to like

519
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 1: describe her condition and stuff right and what had happened,

520
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: and it's sort of side showy, and then answer questions

521
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: from the audience. But I really should have written some

522
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,479
Speaker 1: of them down. When she answers questions for the audience,

523
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: it's just full of snark and she's kind of a

524
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 1: stand up comic really like, yeah, she's funny as hell,

525
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: and she's just like, I don't know, I really should

526
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: have written them down, and now I feel guilty that

527
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:48,239
Speaker 1: I didn't. And so she did vaudeville and liked it

528
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: a lot. And really I think she liked playing the

529
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 1: crowds and stuff like that. And they only stopped when Anne,

530
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: basically Anne's health like kind of stopped making that easy.

531
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: She traveled to dozens of countries. She learned five languages,

532
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: far more than I've ever learned. Frankly, she tried to

533
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: overthrow capitalism. She flew a plane once. This is one

534
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: of the things that gets used as an example of,

535
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: like clearly Helen Keller's fake is that she claims to

536
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,959
Speaker 1: have flown a plane. It was a pr stunt. They

537
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: went up into an aircraft with her in the co

538
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: pilot's seat, and then she took the controls for a

539
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 1: little while once the flight was stabilized. Yeah, that's more

540
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: flying than I've ever fucking done.

541
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I would never.

542
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, she got into Christian mysticism. I wanted to learn

543
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: more about this. I always wish I had twice as

544
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: much time for every subject. She wrote twelve books. She

545
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: also her first like published or the first short story

546
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: stuff that she wrote with science fiction. That's when she

547
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: was little, but it ended up getting published because who

548
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: she is.

549
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 2: I think she wrote this when she was little. Yeah,

550
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 2: she wrote a science so it was good enough. They

551
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: wanted to publish it later. But I think I think

552
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 2: they wanted to publish it later once she was famous.

553
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 2: That's that's my best Okay, so using her name, it's.

554
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: My read but I don't know. I didn't read it.

555
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: Go read it right now, Okay, go do it.

556
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll come back, and we're back and I haven't

557
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: read it, and no time has passed, all right. And

558
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: then here's the most complicated thing that I'm like confused

559
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: as shit by, that no one talks about in her

560
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 1: like list of things. Is this song that she wrote

561
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: the lyrics for in nineteen seventeen called Uncle Sam is Calling.

562
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: It's a patriotic song about how everyone should join the

563
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: army to fight in World War One. What this does

564
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: not map to anything I know about her and what

565
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: she's actively doing as activism in this time period. I

566
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: don't know what's up with this. I wrote it, No,

567
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: I am not sure. I am sure it is attributed

568
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: to her. It is attributed to her and not some

569
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: other Helen Keller. I think it is possible, and I

570
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: am not saying this is a truthful thing because I

571
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it's possible that they slapped her

572
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: name on it because she's right right.

573
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 2: Was she somewhere near a vicinity of someone saying something

574
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 2: and said one word and then they were like, she

575
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 2: wrote a song?

576
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: You know. I don't know, but it's a uncle Sam's

577
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: calling is a jingoistic like, let's all go fight.

578
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 2: Did she get royalties? I don't know, like they're going

579
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 2: to attribute that to her. Shouldn't she get some money?

580
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: I yeah, maybe she just did it as a like

581
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: blatant I need some money, or like there's another I

582
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: have another theory. I'll get to you in a second

583
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: about it, but okay, okay. Other stuff she did, she

584
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: spoke out about against racism, like regularly. She donated a

585
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,959
Speaker 1: ton of money to the NAACP, and in nineteen twenty

586
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: she helped found the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union,

587
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: alongside future friends of the pod who I have not

588
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: gotten to talk about yet but I want to, the

589
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: social worker Jane Adams and the Wobbly and birth control

590
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The ACO was formed in response

591
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: to the Palmer raids, which were we've mentioned a couple

592
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: times on the show. It's the kind of first red scare,

593
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: the little red scare before the bigger one. Wasn't little

594
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: to the people who lives were ruined by it, which

595
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: is when anarchists and communists were swept up and deported

596
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: for protesting against the war, which she'd written a patriotic

597
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: song for. I don't know. Here's what she said about

598
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: war and revolution. Quote, I am not for peace at

599
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: all hazards. I regret this war, but I never regretted

600
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: the blood of the thousands spilled during the French Revolution.

601
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: Generals testify to the splendid initiative the workers and the

602
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: trenches take. If they can do that for their masters,

603
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: you can be sure they will do it for themselves

604
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: when they've taken matters into their own hands. My cause

605
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: will emerge from the trenches stronger than it ever was.

606
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: Under the obvious battle waging there. There's an invisible battle

607
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: for the freedom of man. So here's my other theory

608
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: that I am not convinced by. Maybe she wrote that

609
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: song to be like, everyone go fight in World War

610
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: One so that you all learn how to fight, so

611
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: you can come back and like have a revolution.

612
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 2: I would, I mean, that's an interesting. I get the

613
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 2: idea that we all need to be prepared things go down,

614
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 2: and for those who are not high on the social

615
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 2: economic status level and need to protect, especially against those

616
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 2: who have too much power, too much money.

617
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I'm.

618
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 2: Guessing that's where she was coming. But then like to

619
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: turn that into World War Yeah, confusion about uncle especially

620
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 2: loving Uncle Sam when she's actively not loving.

621
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: I know, Uncle Sam, I know, I don't understand.

622
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: So many so many does she ever claim it or

623
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 2: the name was just on it.

624
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: I don't know if she claimed it. There is so

625
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: much written about her, and I read a lot about her,

626
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: but this was like a last minute I'm like looking

627
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: through her like works attributed to her, I'm like, Uncle

628
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: Sam is calling. And I fell into a rabbit hole

629
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: looking it up. And then I was just like does

630
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: this line up?

631
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 2: I'm there right now, I'm like what.

632
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you find the sheet music? I didn't. I

633
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: almost was like, I'm going to put it in a

634
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: Midian play it for the audience. I'm like, I'm not

635
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: going to do this to anyone.

636
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: I kind of wished you would sing a stanza.

637
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: Oh I can't. It's funny. I'm like, actually terrible at

638
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: I see the guitar in the back notation. No, I'm

639
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: bad at taking notation and like singing it right. No,

640
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:34,479
Speaker 1: I yeah, I got you, I got you. I consider

641
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 1: myself a competent but not amazing musician.

642
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 2: I think you're great. It works.

643
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: Thanks you.

644
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you were in a band, a bunch of bands.

645
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 2: I just remember. Yeah, hell, you're a musician, come on.

646
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I just I would have to very

647
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: slowly take the notation and like look at it and

648
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: be like, okay, face facee okay, so this one's between

649
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,959
Speaker 1: this one and this one. That's how I I So

650
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: that's the work here.

651
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 5: That you tricked me into singing on the show.

652
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did that go?

653
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 5: Yeah?

654
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 2: Okay, I thought it was amazing.

655
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:14,280
Speaker 5: It wasn't.

656
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I'm Margaret, I know, I just myself right now.

657
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: I need ear.

658
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 2: We're just mixing everybody.

659
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 5: Else anyone's name wrong.

660
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 2: It's true, it's true.

661
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: Are you true?

662
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 2: You're the best, Margaret. I'm gonna need that to come

663
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 2: back if I come next year, you le learn what I'm.

664
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: Going to learn. I have to learn. Uncle Sam, Yeah, yeah,

665
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: that's clearly I'll learn. Battle him in the Republic. I

666
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: kind of let's go die to free people. It's like,

667
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: that's that's my vibe. No, I mean, you know, lots

668
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: of complications there, but whatever, all right, Oh, and then

669
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 1: speaking of complix she ends the interview when she's talking

670
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: about the war and stuff. She ends this interview by

671
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: comparing herself to future friend of the podcast, Joan of

672
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: Arc And for most people, I'd be like less a

673
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: little much, but this is Helen Keller, right, it's fine, Like,

674
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: it's fine.

675
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 2: Maybe she thought she was going down that path being

676
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,720
Speaker 2: a socialist and like the red scared.

677
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: It's really true, honestly, she like, I mean everyone during

678
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: this time was like, we're gonna have a revolution. This isn't. Yeah,

679
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: capitalism is gonna fall under the weight of its own contradictions. Like,

680
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: so back to the ACLU. The other big issue right

681
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: off the bat for the ACOU, besides the Palmer raids,

682
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 1: was defending the NAACP. And so that is like what

683
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: she's up to with her time, right, the ACOU has

684
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,479
Speaker 1: gone on to fight for basically everything good. Now, let's

685
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that she also worked with her

686
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: dear friend Alexander Graham Bell in advance of some of

687
00:35:54,120 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: his theories like around oralism and eugenics. Those talk about

688
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: Alan Caller's eugenics.

689
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: So wait, she actually worked in agreement with oralism.

690
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 1: Okay, so people, the way that I've read about it

691
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: is that she like more or less agreed with Alexander

692
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 1: Graham Bell's general camp around this stuff. And people claim

693
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: that she has some like she talks sometimes about how like,

694
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: blindness is fine, but deafness is what sucks. And I

695
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: am not in a position to you know, but like

696
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: it's it's a thing that has been very frustrating to

697
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: lots of people, and so like, overall, she seems to

698
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: be very heavily influenced by Alexander Graham Bell and continues

699
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: to be friends with him his entire life. And the

700
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: thing that we know about her in eugenics is in

701
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,800
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, there was a eugenesis doctor I can't remember

702
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: his name, fuck him. He left an infant to die

703
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: because of its disabilities. This spark controversy. Helen Keller wrote

704
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 1: in his defense. She wrote an article in The New

705
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: Republic in nineteen fifteen that included support for an infanticide

706
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 1: in the case of a quote poor Misshape and paralyzed

707
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 1: unthinking creature and that it quote seems to me that

708
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: the simplest, wisest thing to do would be to submit

709
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: cases like that of the malformed idiot baby to a

710
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 1: jury of expert physicians. They would only act in case

711
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: of true idiocy, where there could be no hope of

712
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: mental development. Yes, bad.

713
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 2: There's so much outdated language in that, and I know

714
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 2: it was used at that point. Everything makes me cringed.

715
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: Though I know, I know, Yeah, it's not good, it's

716
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,720
Speaker 1: actively bad. This is the only specific pro eugenic statement

717
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: she's ever been on record saying that anyone comes up

718
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: with when people talk about this, right, but it is

719
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: a big one. It is not subtle. Later in her life,

720
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: people sort of claim she walked it back, and I'm

721
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: going to push back against that. Later in life, in

722
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, she made several statements that on some

723
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: level contradict her nineteen fifteen statement, talking very explicitly she

724
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: did not believe that people should kill babies for being

725
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: blind or whatever. People use this later statement to say

726
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: that she'd walk back to the eugenics. But to my understanding,

727
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: the thing that she seems focused on is mental development.

728
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:32,800
Speaker 1: She seems to think that mental impairment is like actually

729
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 1: bad as compared to her physical impairments, which are not

730
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: actually bad. So I have no way of knowing or

731
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: conceiving of whether in nineteen thirty eight she had actually

732
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: changed her position on this or not. I do know

733
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 1: that this is the only work she ever did in

734
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: favor of eugenics, and she did multiple pieces of work

735
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: against it, although those pieces of work against it were

736
00:38:58,000 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: in the context of physical impairments.

737
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, the fact that it's also in defense

738
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 2: of an act is kind of double waomy. I know,

739
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 2: I'm not that anything is good, but you're like, oh,

740
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 2: you're taking this example of a horrific act and saying, yeah,

741
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 2: this is okay, Yes we can and justify it for

742
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: later times. It's kind of like ah burns.

743
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is a period during which, like I mean,

744
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: I think it was a couple of decades earlier, but

745
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: it was like Alexander Graham Bell was like literally on

746
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 1: a eugenicist board, like because every area had their eugenicist board,

747
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: because the actual dark ages with the Victorian era. And

748
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's possible that this was a way

749
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: that she felt in nineteen fifteen and not later. It's

750
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: possible that she felt this way her entire life. I've

751
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 1: run across a lot of seemingly contradiction positions in her

752
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: writing in life, and I think that I think she's

753
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: a person of great contradictions. Yeah, she's a socialist who

754
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: backs Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate for president, but meets

755
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 1: with every president during her life, you know. And she

756
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 1: also so she lived her life in the limelight, and

757
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: she fundraised constantly for people with disabilities, especially the American

758
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: Foundation for the Blind. And one take I've heard is

759
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: that the sanitized version of her life, the sort of

760
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: miracle worker version of her life, was something that she

761
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,279
Speaker 1: also pushed later in her life because it was a

762
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: really good fundraising method. Yeah, the like, oh, I'm just

763
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: a simple girl, learned to read, isn't that great, played

764
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,439
Speaker 1: well with crowds, and brought in the dough to help

765
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: disabled people.

766
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:43,919
Speaker 2: You work with what you got, Yep.

767
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: Fucking complicated And speaking of complicated interactions of money, do

768
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 1: I have to do the thing again? Here's the thing

769
00:40:52,239 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: where we here's some advertisers, and we're back and we're

770
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 1: talking about how complicated it was. She met with every president,

771
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 1: even though she supported you know, the overthrow, the violent

772
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 1: overthrow of the United States government, of which she wanted

773
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: to be a joan of ARC figure leading.

774
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 2: So did she just meet them because they asked her

775
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: to meet them, or was she advocating for something? Or

776
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 2: is she just like I'm just going to the White

777
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 2: House because I'm cool.

778
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: I'm actually not sure. I would guess that it was

779
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: probably part of her activism and like maintaining a high

780
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: profile in order to be more effective, But I don't know.

781
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: And one thing that happened to her a whole bunch, though,

782
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: is whenever she would like, whenever she was like doing

783
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: the good disabled person thing, the newspapers would be like,

784
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: Helen Keller are the wonderful world. And then whenever she

785
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: would say some like socialist shit, they would stop saying like, Wow,

786
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: she's so brave and smart to have overcome so much,

787
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: and instead all the newspapers would like, for a while,

788
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: be like, she's clearly mentally impaired by her disabilities, that

789
00:41:57,640 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: she's saying these things.

790
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: You know, she's not all She's not competition.

791
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,359
Speaker 1: She became friends with the complicated alumni of the Pod

792
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin.

793
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 4: Yep, A, sorry, yeah, that's the reaction. I'm sorry, fair, okay,

794
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 4: keep going respectfully understood.

795
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: To say he is not a good feminist would be

796
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: a minor hyperbole understatement. Yeah, the FBI tracked her every

797
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 1: move because of course they did, because she's of course

798
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: they did.

799
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 5: Those fucking piece of ship ghouls Jesus.

800
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 2: But she wrote the song Uncles. I know, that's not

801
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: that's not gonna leave my head. I'm like, if I

802
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 2: write a song like that, will everyone like, well the

803
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 2: FED stop? Well no, now we know we know the answers. Yeah,

804
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 2: unless they credit her after her death, which would have

805
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 2: been sixty.

806
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: I don't think it is because the PDF music, you know,

807
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: World War One. Yeah, yeah, it's like old timey sheet music.

808
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, of course they of course they fucking

809
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 3: tracked her, right, yeah, god damn it.

810
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I know. It's like it would have been

811
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: so interesting what if she had been alive, like ten

812
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: years longer. Yeah, Like how she would have interacted with

813
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: the seventies. You know, although it does seem like in

814
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, her like social her like she

815
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: she did step back from a lot of the radical

816
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: politics and just moved towards fundraising and a more sanitized

817
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: version of her own image as she aged. She fell

818
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: in love once when she was thirty six years old,

819
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: with a socialist who knew how to fingerspell. Yeah, yeah

820
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: he did. And his name was Peter Fagan.

821
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:55,879
Speaker 5: Yeah it was.

822
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: He showed up to transcribe for her when Anne was

823
00:43:59,080 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 1: sick one time.

824
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 2: And want to put quotes on transcribe fling.

825
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: It's kind of sad they made plans to Elope, but

826
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: to quote author Kim Nielsen, Kelly's family quote vigorously squashed

827
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: the relationship with forced midnight train trips out of town,

828
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: an angry and gun waving brother, and drama worthy of

829
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: a bad novel.

830
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 2: These people, man, what the I mean that kind of

831
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 2: that tracks? I feel on that track. I mean, that's

832
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: what Brian Kibb does for his ads. So of course, yeah,

833
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: slave owners would do that, yeah, slave people, yes, which

834
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 2: would Yeah. But I do wonder so if if she

835
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 2: was doing all these things about socialism and conversations about that,

836
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 2: I'm assuming her parents really hated that.

837
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: I wish I knew. It's like again, it's like there's

838
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: like annoyed that. I Like, there's so many versions of

839
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: her story, and that's that there's so much that people

840
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: do and don't talk about. Yeah, and people do know

841
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: this when I'm a I wish I knew. It doesn't

842
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: mean like it's unknown to history. It means that like

843
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, you know. Yeah, Yeah, she gave

844
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: into her family's disapproval of the wedding in a heartbreaking

845
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 1: way where she basically was like, oh, yeah, they're right,

846
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: no man will ever love me or whatever she wrote once,

847
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a man wanting to marry me. I

848
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: should think it would seem like Mary in a statue.

849
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:32,760
Speaker 2: Ah, just bad parents. We know this in general.

850
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's.

851
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 5: That's genuinely soul crushing.

852
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.

853
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 2: I'm surprised, like she didn't have friends or people will

854
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 2: be like, yeah you should, they're great unless he was

855
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 2: a bad guy. You never you never know, but like, yeah,

856
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 2: it seems like as many friends as she had, that's

857
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: on the outlier you would think that someone.

858
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,479
Speaker 1: So I think Ann Selvan also didn't approve of the match,

859
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 1: and I don't know like why, and I I mean

860
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: they were, I mean Ann Sullivan and Helen Collor were

861
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: very close. I'm actually I'm usually always trying to be

862
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: like historically close friends. I'm actually not trying to historically

863
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: close friends Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan.

864
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, that's a first for you.

865
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: I know what. My Google search historate does have some

866
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: phrases and questions about whether or not this is a thing.

867
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,240
Speaker 1: But it actually seems like they were historically close friends.

868
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: But not in a euphemistic way. But I suspect that,

869
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:45,760
Speaker 1: like I suspect that their their relationship there was felt threatened,

870
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:52,439
Speaker 1: you know, hmmmm mm hmm. But and there were other

871
00:46:53,000 --> 00:47:00,280
Speaker 1: there were other caretakers and other companions in Helen's life.

872
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan, her lifelong companion, died in nineteen thirty six

873
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 1: at the age of seventy while Helen held her hand,

874
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: and then she herself lived till June first, nineteen sixty eight.

875
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: She died in her sleep at home. She was eighty

876
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: seven years old, and her ashes were placed next to

877
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan's and next to one of her other companions

878
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: who didn't end up enough in the script for me

879
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: to add another name to try and remember.

880
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 2: Awful there, Oh that's so sad, and yeah, and she

881
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 2: never like she wanted.

882
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: To be fucking eighty seven and did like amazing shit.

883
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: She went to more countries but more languages, did more

884
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: shit than like. And it's like the thing that I

885
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: really like when I was trying to decide, when I

886
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 1: was like, am I gonna do a Helen Keller episode? As

887
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: I was like, would I do a Helen Keller episode anyway?

888
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: Just based on like being a badass socialist and shit,

889
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 1: and like I might, I would have all been framed

890
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: very differently. And I don't mean to erase the fact

891
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,399
Speaker 1: that she was disabled, right right, but I she did

892
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: amazing shit and not just like on its own face.

893
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:06,320
Speaker 1: I don't know I'm trying to say here, but I

894
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: don't think the story of Helen Keller ends with her death.

895
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,759
Speaker 1: I've read several accounts from folks deaf blind or deaf

896
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: blind to talk about living in her shadow, about resenting

897
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: her and then grappling with her legacy because of the

898
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: way that her story has been told. And I know

899
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: I keep bringing this up, but this is like a

900
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 1: thing that has been really messy and a thing that

901
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: is people have done with her legacy her whole life.

902
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 1: Her story was larger than life, and her death did

903
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,839
Speaker 1: nothing to diminish that. But the story about disability too

904
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: often starts and ends with her, So I want to

905
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 1: point some other stuff out too. In nineteen ninety, the

906
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act the ADA was passed. This bill

907
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: basically says you can't discriminate against people with disabilities and

908
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: employers have to make reasonable accommodations for people. This didn't

909
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere. The government wasn't just like, man,

910
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: let's be good today. I feel like we've been doing

911
00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: a bunch of bad. Why don't we just like do

912
00:48:59,320 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: some good?

913
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:00,359
Speaker 5: Right?

914
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: It's like not how governments work. I'm hoping I'll come

915
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: back to this topic with more info and details. But

916
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: some of the people who fought this in the nineteen seventies,

917
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: a group called ADAPT started. This is me come in

918
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: full circle back to acronyms. Yeah, this because it actually

919
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 1: is a word. This is an actual acronym.

920
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 2: This is an actual acronym.

921
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: On like c PW.

922
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 2: Just make it a word?

923
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 4: What is it?

924
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: Because? All right? Originally ADAPT stood for Americans Disabled for

925
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: Accessible Public Transit. They're a non violent direct action organization.

926
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: They're still around. On July fifth, nineteen seventy eight, in Denver,

927
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: they blocked public buses with their wheelchairs and spent all

928
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: night in the streets in front of these buses, preventing

929
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:50,719
Speaker 1: them from moving. And they started doing this all over

930
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: the place, blocking public buses because of their inaccessibility, and

931
00:49:54,760 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: sometimes they would crawl up into the bus for dramatic effect.

932
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: On March twelfth, the most famous of their actions took place.

933
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: There was a protest called the Capital Crawl, organized by Adapt.

934
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 1: The ADA was being stalled. Business lobbyists were like, we

935
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: don't want to pay money to help people, and the

936
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: evangelical right was like, we don't want anyone to help

937
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: those ichy homos who are dying of AIDS. So out

938
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:24,879
Speaker 1: of a crowd of thousand people or so in front

939
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: of the Capital, sixty protesters abandoned their mobility aids and

940
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:31,280
Speaker 1: climbed and crawled their way up the eighty three stone

941
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: steps to the Capitol. The youngest of these protesters was

942
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 1: an eight year old named Jennifer Keelan Chaffins. She later

943
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: went on to write a children's book about it all

944
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: called All the Way Up to the Top. And there

945
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: were other actions too. I think more than one hundred

946
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: activists were arrested after chaining themselves together in the rotunda

947
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 1: in the big central room of the Capitol, and it

948
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: gets presented, and I don't have a counter argument that

949
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 1: this kind of drawing, this attention shamed people into action,

950
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: right and actually getting their shit together to get the

951
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: eighty eight passed. So on July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety

952
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: the bill was signed into law. And these days ADAPT

953
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: seems to be focused more on medicaid and pushing for

954
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: people that have access to personal care attendants rather than

955
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 1: nursing homes. And I guess, like everything we talk about

956
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: on the show, the shit isn't over. We want to

957
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: keep the moving come. We want to keep the conversation

958
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: moving forward, but sometimes we get stuck and having to

959
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: say really simple things like yes, deafblind people can communicate

960
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: with the world. Helen Keller was a real person. What

961
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,920
Speaker 1: the fuck is wrong with you all? And that's Helen Keller,

962
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: a badass socialist who should never be simplified one dimensionally.

963
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 1: Who's complicated?

964
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:45,800
Speaker 2: Oh complicated, Helen?

965
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you got? You got takeaways?

966
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 2: Or me? Yeah, Sophie, no, until who you're looking at?

967
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: Oh me? Yeah, there's so many takeaways. I definitely didn't

968
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 2: know her history in socialism. I definitely stopped with the

969
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 2: young age story again. Yeah, really problematic, really problematic play

970
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 2: that we did. But yeah, that's really fascinating. But then, yeah,

971
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 2: her her friends, her crew of friends also interesting. I'm very,

972
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 2: very very confused about the song.

973
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: I am too, really confused. Someone is going to message

974
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:28,280
Speaker 1: me three years from now on Instagram in my DMS

975
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 1: and explain the song and they're not going to tell

976
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,319
Speaker 1: me what they're talking about, and I won't remember because

977
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: they won't say anything about what episode it was. That's

978
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: how it goes, right, Yeah, we did it yesterday when

979
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: when they explained the context, I will then be happy

980
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:44,839
Speaker 1: because I want to know what the fuck was going

981
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 1: on with the song.

982
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 2: Right, there's so many things. I'm really sad that she

983
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 2: didn't have that. I wonder if that dude was bad though.

984
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 2: Maybe that dude was bad, maybe just trying to riot

985
00:52:56,800 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 2: on her hotels and try to come in on her

986
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 2: fame or something good. Suffinitely, I hate that she fell away. Yeah,

987
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 2: I hate that she felt that way though. That really

988
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 2: my feelings.

989
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he does seem to like disappear from her

990
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 1: life after that.

991
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's too compact.

992
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:14,800
Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't just like bury in a shallow

993
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:17,399
Speaker 1: grave by some fucking you.

994
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 2: Took it dark this time, I didn't say that that's true.

995
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,359
Speaker 5: This is cool people who did cool stuff. As a

996
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 5: reminder to myself, I.

997
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: Know, I think sometimes this show is Margaret explores people

998
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: who are presented as cool, proposed.

999
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 5: To be in the podcast. That makes me feel better

1000
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 5: about the world back bye.

1001
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 2: But like that, here's the thing in everything with good intentions,

1002
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 2: they're still like they're human. So you never know because

1003
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 2: as a child, I definitely as a younger person in

1004
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 2: my younger in my youth, in my youth, I definitely

1005
00:53:56,360 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 2: have made problematic comments, not understanding and not growing. So

1006
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:02,720
Speaker 2: when you have moments like that, and if you become

1007
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 2: famous and then you start getting really really studied and

1008
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,360
Speaker 2: like people start digging ship up, yeah it gets it's gross.

1009
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 2: So you can never and there's never anyone who is perfect.

1010
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: Sophie.

1011
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 2: Of course Sophie, but that's yeah, that's why we're from.

1012
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one's actually perfect. No one can see Sophie.

1013
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: But Sophie is actually one of those biblical representations of angels,

1014
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 1: just like the like lots of eyes on floating rings.

1015
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 2: You know, you're you're you're going real. Okay, you're going

1016
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 2: real in this frightening angel. I was like, oh she's

1017
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 2: got a halo. Oh no, no, okay, we're.

1018
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:45,760
Speaker 1: Not afraid kind of angel.

1019
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, thou not afraid with a bunch of eyes. Come

1020
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 2: on now.

1021
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's Sophie. But that's separate then, like people,

1022
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing.

1023
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, but yes, I thank you so much for

1024
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:00,800
Speaker 2: bringing this because I did not know half this information.

1025
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 2: I was very fascinated with her in my high school days,

1026
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:08,879
Speaker 2: and now to know all of this, she does seem cooler. Yeah, complicated,

1027
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 2: but cooler.

1028
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I I feel like usually I end

1029
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: these research this research period with like I've cracked it.

1030
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 1: I think I understand this person, you know, love that

1031
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 1: there's just still mysteries here for me.

1032
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of mysteries.

1033
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: And I think that in some ways that's like kind

1034
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: of cool, like people just like actually contain multitudes and

1035
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: people do a lot of different things and fuck yeah,

1036
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: like the different things that you do. Mean you like

1037
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:42,840
Speaker 1: that transition.

1038
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what's complicated is because we are on zoom,

1039
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 2: I can't tell if you're talking to me or Sophie.

1040
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 2: So I'm like, for me, who's the cool person because

1041
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 2: I would not say that was me. But I am

1042
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 2: on a podcast called Stuff Mom Never Told You, which

1043
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 2: we do talk about intersectional feminism. We have a whole

1044
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 2: conversation about so many different things that apply to that.

1045
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,399
Speaker 2: We are on all of the social media's other either

1046
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 2: under stuff Mom Never Told You or mom Stuff because

1047
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:12,080
Speaker 2: we had to pick something and it sounds like we're

1048
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 2: a mom podcast. We are not sorry. We also have

1049
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 2: a book coming out in August. You can pre order

1050
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:22,399
Speaker 2: it on stuff you Should Read dot com and it's

1051
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 2: called Stuff Mom Never Told You, The Feminist Past, Present,

1052
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 2: and Future, where we talk about different things that happened

1053
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,840
Speaker 2: in history, not all the things because there's too many things,

1054
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 2: with some cute illustrations and such. Yeah.

1055
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited to see that book. I the mine

1056
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 1: it for podcast topics.

1057
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 2: I mean, well, what's so funny. It's the first podcast

1058
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 2: I did with you, episode about the Jaine Collective. I

1059
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 2: had just finished writing that chapter for that book, which

1060
00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 2: is why I was so like, ah, this is amazing.

1061
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,919
Speaker 2: I couldn't say it at that point because we were

1062
00:56:57,960 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 2: just starting the project, but I had finished that chapter

1063
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 2: and then you brought it to me and it was like,

1064
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 2: oh my god, here we go. Yeah, very fitting you.

1065
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 2: You You predicted so many things, right, Sophie.

1066
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 1: What do you got? Plug?

1067
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 5: Just follow at cool Zone Media and Instagram and Twitter.

1068
00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can follow me on the internet at

1069
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: Twitter for now, at Magpie Killjoy on Instagram where I

1070
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 1: post pictures of my dog at Margaret Kiljoy. And the

1071
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 1: bands that were referenced is I'm in a feminist black

1072
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 1: metal band called Femina's School, just my token reference for

1073
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: the day. And I'm also in a bunch of other bands,

1074
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 1: but I'll pick another one as I'm an electro pop

1075
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 1: duo called The Lave. We put out a three song

1076
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: demo and I really like it.

1077
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 2: Hellow yeah yeah.

1078
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 1: And that's They're on band camp and you can. They're

1079
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: also on like Spotify and stuff, which is cool. I

1080
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: like when people like my music. But if you go

1081
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 1: to band camp, there's like ways to give me money

1082
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: instead of Spotify's like point zero zero four cents or whatever.

1083
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: And we will be back next week with more. Let's

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00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 1: get ready to cool people who did it's a did it?

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00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 5: Oh oh oh? We gotta do it again, my boxing

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00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 5: and announcement One more time.

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00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 2: Before I go Yeah, one more time before I go Sophie,

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Speaker 2: Please please for.

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00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 5: You, Samantha.

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Speaker 3: And next week we'll be back with another episode of

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Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.

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Speaker 5: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

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00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 5: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,

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00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 5: visit our website

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00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 3: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.