Amanda: This episode of DisKumbaya was recorded a few months back before the passing of our beloved friend and co-founder of DisArt, Chris Smit. Dominick and I had the pleasure of being introduced to all you listeners by Chris, who was helping us launch our first episode of this DisKumbaya, featuring a great conversation where you get to know a little bit about us all. We hope you all enjoy as we cherish these final words with a great man and friend.
Chris: Hey everybody, welcome back. Thanks so much for being with us today. Introducing two of our newest voices, Dominick Harper and Amanda Jurysta. How are you guys doing today? How are you guys doing today, Dom and Amanda? Yeah, doing well. So we’re here to introduce you guys to our audience because you and your new podcast DisKumbaya is coming up on the Dystopia wavelength, and we’re just so excited about this show, but want to give our listeners an opportunity to get to know you guys a little bit. Amanda, tell us a little bit about you. What do people should know about
Amanda: Oh man, I have to go first? As they as they are, as they get excited about this new podcast?
Amanda: Yeah, I don’t know. I was hoping that Dominick would have to go first. What to know about me. I’m like, pretty much obsessed with horror movies and true crime. I tend to talk about my pets a lot, especially my one cat. I’m really into music, I don’t know.
Chris: This movie, slasher movie, like the horror movie desire. And you love them, but that since you were a kid
Amanda: No, actually, when I was like, really little, I used to hate them..
Chris: Oh. What changed?
Amanda: I don’t really know. I just kind of like as I got older, we used to watch them every weekend and then I really got into it. But then I really started getting into true crime. And then I got into, like, really weird things. So, I don’t know, I guess I just kind of got into the scary movies with it.
Chris: You like the odd stuff?
Amanda: I do like the odd stuff.
Chris: Nice and Dom, you like the odd stuff as well?
Dominick: Oh, for sure.
Chris: All right. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. What do we need now about Dominick? What are you? What’s your oddball things?
Dominick: I don’t know, man. I’m a full counterculturist to the core, been since birth. One thing you will know about me is I’ve never changed. Amanda can pertest that I’ve only gotten mature, but I haven’t really changed what I like. Big big into geek culture as a whole. Avid anime, comic book readers since like, age four.
Amanda: Getting me into it with him.
Chris: Yeah, that’s right.
Dominick: Amanda is my partner in crime, since like the sandbox pretty much. We really linked up in middle school, so that’s really cool. One thing you guys can know about me is I enjoy music as well. Um, mostly alternative and hip hop. Sometimes I rap, so maybe one day you’ll hear something on our show. But until then, you know, I’m just passionate about disabled, you know, getting my disabled people going through this disabled journey. You know, when the youth customs for the kids, man, just like Wu-Tang is for the kids Dom for the kids, you know.
Chris: Yeah. And I think that that’s a really important thing to, you know, you guys have this vision for this podcast. Amanda, who are you hoping listens to the podcast.
Amanda: Everyone? Like, I don’t.
Dominick Yeah, we’re not gatekeeping this. We’re crashing the party, you know.
Chris: Right, Right.
Amanda: Yeah. I mean, I can’t really give you a straight answer.
Chris: Yeah, well, who are you hoping listens to it?
Amanda: I mean, people who feel, you know, they’re alone or they don’t have anywhere else to go, or just people who are curious about, you know, their disability or disability culture or just things like that. Uh huh.
Chris: Uh huh. What do you think Dom?
Dominick: I think, I totally agree with Amanda on that. I feel like this podcast is for people that are the inbetweeners, and what I mean by that is the, the idea that we don’t, you know, I still don’t fit into food disability culture as a whole. It’s kind of a rebellious spirit inside of me. I think it just won’t allow me to fully drink the Kool-Aid, you know. (Chris yeah. yeah, yeah.) Which is fine.
Chris: What do you, what do you mean you guys don’t fit into the disability culture.
Dominick: I feel like we fit in, but I feel like there’s some principles that I just kind of go like…… are we just doing this Kumbaya? Like, we shall overcome? You know, like, I’m from my generation and I mean, taking a shit, laying down, you know. Well, maybe we will be depending on where you at with your disability, where you got to be. But like, we have ways to communicate and take action, and I think we become too complacent in the stand right now. And I think it’s a cultural shift of individuals that are adults that are going through this disabled experience that can’t necessarily fund it fully commit to the OG ideas all the time, but also got to find their own place.
Chris: Yeah, you know, it’s been so interesting, as you guys know at DisArt, we talk a lot about disability culture and in some ways right, a lot of our listeners will be introduced to disability culture through your podcast, right? And I think that’s just so exciting. And I think what I love about it is just that you both bring, like you said, a very contemporary understanding of disability today.
Dominick: This is DisKumbaya, you know, this is the place to be for disability culture and lived experience and all the random shit that goes on between me and Amanda’s daily lives. You know, we’re I’m, I’m the cusser of the group and the loud mouth, she’s more of the quiet assassin she comes in with the right time at the right moment you know so.
Amanda: I wouldn’t necessarily say quiet.
Chris: Oh yeah, yeah. Right, right. I like the quiet assassin and that’s nice. (laughs)
Dominick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. She she’s stealthy with her coming in comes out know I’m saying so.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: I just like to put my two cents in.
Chris: Yeah, that’s right.
Dominick: And that’s, that is the meaning of our whole friendship of me saying something and Amanda putting her two cents in.
Amanda: Or keeping you in check.
Dominick: This is true. So, Chris, you being one of the fearless leaders of the DisArt way, can you talk about, you know, how it was growing up with the disability.
Chris: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I grew up in it’s interesting. I grew up in a family that had three boys, three, three of us, three siblings. And my older brother Brad does not have a disability at all. My other brother Randy has more than I have. And so two disabled boys, one non-disabled boys, you know, living a life in suburban Chicago, you know, suburbs of Chicago. And, you know, I’ve been disabled from for all my life. And I went through all the school programs that you might imagine, like therapy and all that kind of stuff. But I was mainstreamed. I don’t know if you guys know that term. It’s an old school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dominick: Yeah. We’re from that generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah
Chris: What’s that mean for you guys? For me, it meant that I was in normal classrooms or everyday classrooms with other non-disabled kids. Right? And yet I would go for resource periods with the disabled kids, right? I had this really cool opportunity to live in a in a district, to have a lot of money there. And so teachers and the disability programs at the schools I went to were really well funded and really, really amazing. So I didn’t have direct contact with them, meaning I didn’t hang out with them a lot, but I did spend my gym class with them right in my therapy time with them and, and what that. So anyway, the long story short is that I had an education that was both, I guess I would say disabled culture on one hand, and then complete sort of the complete opposite. Like down disabled world.
Dominick: Yeah, yeah. You walk the two lines, you know what I’m saying?
Chris: I did you guys have that when you were growing up or. No.
Amanda: Yeah, for me I was. So I wasn’t mainstreamed until the first grade, so I actually had to repeat the first grade twice because they mainstreamed me in the middle of first grade. So like you, I was put in regular classes, but couldn’t do like regular gym or something. And or if I didn’t want to go to recess, we have the POHI program. Yeah. So I would go hang out with everyone else. One of my class would go to like recess or something. So like you, I would go and do that until I moved out of that school district before I became the only one in my school. And I was there. So I did the same thing. I do.
Chris: Similar. Similar stuff. Yeah.
Dominick: And for me, I was I really bad dyslexia and some other things. But yeah, I lived in both worlds all my life. Like I feel like for me socially non-disabled, non non-disabled individuals and disabled individuals have always been my counterparts. As for me, I guess mainstreamed in the third grade because they realize even though with all my dyslexic issues they were like is IQ and his comprehension was way higher higher than anything people couldn’t even imagine. And so for many years, like I like to say, I walked the fine line between two worlds and I still do. And it’s still a struggle, but I do say with the the generation that me and Amanda grew up in, our teachers were the first generation of ADA advocates that really fought for us and taught us to fight for ourselves at a super young age. Those of us that had the ability to do so, they instilled in us this, “You have to do it.” So yeah
Chris: It’s really interesting to hear you guys talk about that because obviously we all share that thing about sharing this experience of being in two worlds, right? And what that. And for me that was always about code switching, right? If I was with the able bodied people, I would talk this way or I would act a certain way, or I might not be so eager to talk about my disability. In fact, I guarantee you that when I was in high school, I would not talk about that. All right. So you would have these situations where you would be asked in your mind to deny your disability. Right. But…. The other half of me was able to embrace my disability with my friends and with these disabled friends that these people that I would you know, we had we had a handicapped floor hockey team. That’s what they used that word handicapped at the time. Oh, yeah.
Dominick: Yeah, yeah.
Chris Yeah. So we had a handicapped football team which I was the captain of, and we played like all these different teams or handicapped for hockey. And I was able to embrace that disability identity. But even there they were always trying to get me to overcome stuff, right? It was. So talk to me about is that true with you guys too? Like The Double Life. Did you feel a double life at all.
Dominick: You want to go first Amanda?
Amanda: You go ahead. Because I think if you go first, I’ll get a better idea of how.
Chris: Well, just like that double world like that, that feeling that you could be who you are with other disabled people. But if you were with able bodied people like your your classmates that could walk and could, you know, didn’t have disabilities, that that felt like a different world. And so it was like two worlds I lived and I was curious if that felt like the same way.
Amanda I mean, I personally still kind of struggle with that.
Chris: Yeah. Okay, let’s talk it. That’s interesting.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean, when I was younger, like I went to school where I was the only one that was disabled, so, like, I didn’t have other people to talk to about my disability. So it was just me and a walker and then everyone else at school. So I constantly was like trying to fit with them and I did everything that they did. Except a few games at gym that obviously like I couldn’t do. And then I got into middle school and then I was back with Dominick and everybody, and then I was like, I don’t belong here. Like, this isn’t my group of people. So I was struggling, like, I don’t know where I belong. So I struggled without, you know, like middle school and high school and like, even now, sometimes I struggle with that and then, like, you guys met Molly, and then when I’m with Molly and, like, she accepts me for, like, me and like, we talk about me being in my wheelchair, and she’s like, everything’s fine. Like I can be me in my wheelchair and in my walker Molly has had to be there with me to help me through the most embarrassing moments. Like, so I don’t I don’t have to navigate either world with her. Like, it just works well.
Chris: And it sounds like she knows you as a whole person, right? Where some of the other. Yeah, I get that. I have friends like that, of course.
Dom, what’s your thoughts on that urn? Do you know that Double life to man?
Dominick: Well, yeah, I do, but it’s kind of a different way to think about it for me.
Chris: Yeah.
Dominick I still feel like I don’t fit in nowhere. Like, if you really know me, I’m like, the dude that’s always, like, I don’t have a place, so I make my own. Yeah. Just because, like, living a double life, like, I gravitated towards the towards the outcast. Like, Amanda can tell you, all my friends are pretty much social outcast. Okay, so regardless of disability or not, Yeah
Amanda: I think that’s why we clicked. We’re alike.
Dominick: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Dominick: Yeah. We’re told, you know, And that’s why this podcast is so great. It’s, it’s done for the people that are the inbetweeners. It’s put on by the people that are The Inbetweeners which I think a lot of disabled people are to some degree, because individuality is such a prominent thing in American society and a prominent thing in human nature anyway, to be lumped in, you know, we’re from nine…… we’re we’re the nineties babies. We’re we’re, we’re the beginning of a decade. We’re the beginning of the ADA. So that lumped in that the POHI room would give you, you know Yeah, you get exposure to different disabilities but a lot of people might be at different functioning levels mentally and physically and it’s okay to be different, you know, say we respect them, then the same. But there’s a lot of quote unquote, and I’m going to say this and the audience can hate me later, quote unquote, normalcy, you know, ablest kind of normalcy in the in the in the way that you think as an adolescent and as a child, as a person, that this culture wasn’t fully developed like it’s still being developed now, but it wasn’t fully realized at the time.
Chris: And so so you and I and Amanda were all part of an emerging you know, it’s still emerging, right? I mean, yeah.
Dominick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s in. But like, for my friends and I, everybody’s been mad, supportive. Like, everybody would know that I couldn’t read, like, for a long time I thought people would clown me Right? Right. Because of the type of guy that I am. The way I hold myself it was different now, like outside of school life was mad different. Like I was out on the street, like there was a lot of things, you know, I wasn’t doing like super illegal things that the chair stops you from that. So that’s a blessing in disguise. But like…
Chris: yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had to deal with my neighborhood at the end of the day. Like I come home and the code switching and was that was not necessarily about school, not how I was with school, but how I had to like be that guy after a while, like in a wheelchair, like, but I just had to be myself, but I had to navigate. How do you operate when people think you slow? People going to think you’re slow? They going try to take advantage of you, Right? And so that’s
Chris: Right. Now Dom. What about your race? What about the fact that you’re a black guy? Do you know what I mean? Is that does that change? Is it code switching? I mean, yeah
Dominick: It changes a whole lot later. Yeah. My cousins used to clown me because I come home, my family would do it all the time. They were like, Dom, you can change your voice. You’re not at school. Yeah. And I was like, What? Like, I never really thought about it.
Chris:Oh, that’s interesting.
Chris: Well there’s a, there’s that again that partitioning. Right. Like listen guys, one of the things that I’ve noticed, I want to get back to your point, but one of the things I’ve noticed is that people we’re almost segregated from each other, right? Because it’s so difficult to be together. Right. For all of us to be together, there has to be care. There has to be transportation. Got to be something. Maybe piss has to be something you have to eat. You know, all this stuff. Right? And so it’s rare that we’re together, but I see that it’s a form of segregation, Right. And it’s a real form. And so I’m sorry, I want to get back to your point, but I just wanted to point that out, because what you’re talking about is a sort of segregation of disabled people. That happens all the time
Dominick: Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. Here’s the here’s the funny thing about it, though. It is more brought on by the parents and children because they’re like, Oh, we need something for our child, which is, I understand, Like it’s very understandable, especially at that day in time when not everything was accessible or people didn’t. We didn’t slap the ADA on motherfers because they didn’t know what they were doing next. You know, I’m say like now, now, reliable to be like alright we’re suing, it’s out here. Go to social media blast and let them know that you know I wasn’t able to get in the space and be a part of it.it. But like for me, as a black male with disability from Detroit, it was kind of an interesting, you know, dichotomy when I go to school, you know what I’m saying? Yes, when I go to school, I have social life, right? So my social life is school. That’s why all disabled people. Yeah. Even though we might not finish higher learning in school, we’re school junkies. (Amanda: I miss school) We’re the best students you could possibly have because I. That’s that’s more. But we know how the system is working, right, guys
Chris: Amanda, you just said you missed school. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about what you miss.
Amanda: Like, I’m with school in general. Like it took me after high school, I went to College for like, nine years and two degrees.
Chris: Yeah Yeah, but what is it that you miss? (Amanda: learning) But it also sounds like we you miss and I miss the people. Yeah. The being around people. You know what I mean?
Amanda: There was a time when, like, I hated the people. Like, Yeah. Because of how I was treated. Because I wasn’t always treated fairly. But for the most part, the people who were good, I like my professors, I like proving people wrong. That was always my favorite part. So but learning in general, I just like the learning. Yeah, I think that’s why I like the project that I’m working on. Like I throw myself into it so much because like I’m learning. That’s what I like to do
Dominick: Yeah, I miss it as well. But I don’t know. For me, it was the same thing for Amanda, because Amanda could tell you, I’m a lifelong scholar like my mom used to be like, he’s just a lifelong student. Like, anything he’s going to do is lifelong with it. But I also learned that I needed a social life. Like, school couldn’t be the reason I had a social life. I really had to figure out how to forge an identity outside of a collegiate or a high school. I remember the greatest thought that I had. We can go back to it.
I’m sorry I lost my thought where I was before. Amanda said she loved school, but there’s a thought that (sorry) I. No, no, no, no. That’s fine. We’ll get to it on another episode probably. You know, whatever. There was a point in my high school career, and I talked to Amanda about this recently because I’m still dealing with how our friend group that are disabled don’t really mess with me. Like the males in the group don’t mess with me. And pretty much like there’s only a few people that hang out with me or be in communication with me on the regular. And I was saying that like my biggest fear at 17, 15, 16 was being a disabled bum on the street because that’s what I saw. I didn’t see, you know what I’m saying? You don’t see many disabled. What I would what I would consider average Joes are success stories and just the average since it’s always some inspirational BS, then I’m like, alright man
Chris: Is that what you saw, Dom? I mean, did you see people, disabled people not flourishing.
Dominick: Well, I saw disabled people like I said.
Chris: Well I yeah, I mean, personally, I saw disabled people outside of school. I saw disabled people, you know, just surviving like not not not leaders, not in front of me. They’re not represented.
Dominick: There’s no no, you know, you know, and nobody came. And pardon my French, but then if a motherfucker, they come to school. Yeah. Come, they come to come to show you like, yo, you could do it. They were some uppity assholes about it to some degree. You’re like, you ain’t even giving me no knowledge. Then you got to get some person that works for some organization telling you there’s not like, maybe they are they got a hidden disability, but you looking at them as a youth. They don’t go through the same shit I do. Like, somebody’s got to wipe my ass. How does this work for me? And so it took me to be out of high, and I remember vividly our teacher, rest in peace, Ms. Maleko, was like, what do you guys want to do in the future? And everybody else come in, they had cool answers to me. I was like, I don’t want to be a bum. And everybody’s looking at me like I’m crazy because I’m like they’re like, man, what do you mean? I was like, man, have you ever noticed, like, people bang on the street or we are constantly screwed by the system in the sense that we are kept in poverty for the support that we need, but we all want to level up.
Chris: Most of us. Yeah.
Dominick: Yeah. So, like.
Chris: That’s, that’s really something. Yeah.
Dominick: You know, I’m happy that I’m flourishing now. Like, better than what I thought I would have been. But that idea of me still going begging for change is a nightmare. Still. Yeah.
Amanda: So my question would be, what does having a disability mean to you?
Chris: Hmm. What a wonderful question, though. I think. I mean, I guess I would say it means different things to me in different scenarios. You know, it’s different every day. I think for me it’s something that pisses me off sometimes. It’s something that motivates me sometimes. It’s something that my disability is something that I want to share with people, sometimes. I know to me, like if I’m feeling good, but mostly I guess what I’m saying is that my yeah, that my disability is my, my identity. In other words.
Dominick: It’s the lived experience. So yeah. And one thing you got.
Chris: Yeah. So when you say what does it mean to be disabled, I guess I answer with what it means to be me. You know what I mean? I guess that’s all it means. Yeah. And it’s an open ended question and it’s great to get you thinking about it. You know, I’d like to answer that. Like when I was a kid in grammar school or middle school or even high school, if you were to ask me that question, I’d be really curious with my answer. I think I would be a little bit more negative.
Amanda: Yeah.
Chris: A little More pessimistic, I guess.
Dominick: For me personally, like I was just telling Amanda, one, we we’re talking about this question. I was like, it’s an ever evolving question, right? Because every stage of the human experience, you gain more perspective or, you know, you have a little bit more understanding of self. So with that being said, like for me, like if you asked me when I was small… a shorty.Shorty, I was like, I felt like a curse, yes, you know what I’m saying? Cause I couldn’t keep up with the neighborhood kids riding bikesI had to get a special bike. I had to do this and that. But going into a teen, it was still a pain in the ass, but it came from me, a blessing, because now everybody’s getting locked up or shot at or doing stuff that I can’t do, so I’m out of trouble, out the way. As an adult, it’s a tiring battle, but I’m happy I made it this far because Homeis disabled homies didn’t make it as far as I had, and so I got to live on for them and help the kids feel good about themselves, because I didn’t have that when I felt good about myself. So it’s an ever evolving question, and I would have to say the same to me. It’s a part of me, it’s Dom. It’s the way I look at the world. It’s my perspective as a human being, but it also taught me how to adapt quick as hell. So I’m all for that, you know what I’m saying? Like, perseverance and adaption.
Chris: Yeah. How about you, Amanda?
Amanda: The only thing that I could say is that it has me thinking, and I know that I wouldn’t change having my disability. Yeah, that’s about all I could say.
Chris: Is that the answer for the three of us? Would we all say that? Would you say that Dom?
Dominick: At this point in my life? Yeah. I got into an argument with a friend like a year ago and we hadn’t spoke ever since. They’re disabled. And I was like, they’re like, Well, what if, you know, I could take a pill? Or what if I was misdiagnosed? And I said, okay, let’s say let’s say that you’re misdiagnosed. Would that change who you are at 36 years old? No. Your experience will still be the same, you know, because your your mentality, you’ve grown up in this environment. What’s it going to change if you’re misdiagnosed? Well, I can I can do things I don’t feel comfortable in my own body. Well, all right, then. But you’re 36 years old. We all come and we all have that coming to disability, coming to whatever moment where you’re like, Oh fuck, here I am. It’s like, what’s going to change it? Like if they gave me a pill or a device where I was like, Oh, I’m able to move my legs and not have the CP jump going on too much, I would still think like a disabled person
Chris: Yeah, absolutely.
Dominick: I would still be looking like where the accessibility at fam? I would just be a bigger asshole because I’d be like, all right, now I can more be mobile for the people that can’t be. I can, you know, oh, I’m going to fight even harder. (Yeah) You better take my voice away from me because I’m going to I’m going to be a pain in the ass for the system.
Amanda: Still, I would probably be getting in a lot of trouble if I wasn’t.
Dominick: Yeah, Yeah, I would. I would. I wouldn’t definitely be the person I am. That’s kind and caring about things. I’d be more like.
Chris: That’s what you’re learning, right? You wouldn’t be dominant. I wouldn’t be Chris, you wouldn’t be Amanda. We would be different people. And this question about who would you be if you weren’t disabled? Or for me and my Christian family in my life, it’s always, we’re going to be healed in heaven. We will walk in heaven. And all this stuff, what we say about disability in heaven says a lot about what we think about disability in the real world. If I meet somebody who thinks, oh, I love you for who you are, but I can’t wait to meet you in heaven so that we can run together and they’re missing them, right? They’re missing the fucking point, right? They’re missing the point. Because when I get to heaven, if there is a heaven, if I go to heaven, I think I’m going to be me, you know what I’m saying? And my son’s laughing, but like, I think I’m going to be who I am. I’m going to be who I am. I’m going to be a guy in the chair. But it will mean something different there. I don’t know what the hell. I don’t have any answers. But these people who have answers pissed me off. It’s like their answer is, is that will walk.
Dominick: This how you flip that on their heads and drop one? That’s like a good wrestling move back in the day. You tell them God doesn’t make mistakes, Right?
Chris: Right.
Dominick: So then they have to think about they’re saying that you’re a mistake that needs to. They’re saying that the omnipotent being is flawed. Yeah. And made a flaw right nah. So he’s going to flip them on their head
Chris: Here’s what they’ll say, though. They’ll say, look, God made everything perfect and then we sinned. And so we have the result of sin, right? The fall and all that stuff, right? Yeah. So that’s what I’m living with in my religious tradition is that they say, look, the fall happened and that’s why you’re disabled. Humans pushed against God, right? And then they lost God and that’s why we’re disabled, right? Then there’s this sort of and I’m like, What the fuck? Have you guys heard that shit.
Dominick: Yeah I’ve heard that all.
Amanda: Yeah, I used to. You know, when I was little, I went to catechism and used to go to church, and I’ve heard it all.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you probably been prayed on just like me and all that crap.
Dominick: For me, I’m still a pretty spiritual dude. I’m on with the universe, with my Godly himself, you know what I’m saying? But I always point that to people. I think the idea and being a minority, I can always say this pretty openly without any question that comes from motherfuckers, that don’t go through much struggle. I think when you go through struggle, you find peace in the balance of, okay, shit is going to happen. And I feel like you saying that it’s the fall, it’s the cinematic . Then every motherfucker should have some strike them down, you know what I’m saying? It should be put in that way. But no, I think, honestly, having a disability has made me more human, more accepting of the humanity inside of me and more accepting of how people interact with the world with me. I’d be around some people that are stone cold hardcore, don’t care about people, but when it comes to me, it’s like, oh, bro, let’s help. There’s nothing more Godly than you helping your fellow man. Like, honestly, that’s what it is. But the selfishness of people, the selfishness of a society that isn’t built for us is what really hurts our community.
Chris: Amanda What is you do as a kid when you would be in those classes or they would prey on you and stuff? Do you remember how you felt as a kid?
Amanda: So in my were classes, pretty good and my church was pretty good. It was when I was outside of it and it always made me feel really uncomfortable. So like, we would just let it happen.
Chris: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Amanda: The last time that happened was when I used to work at the Y. That was so I was like 20 or 21. Yeah. And it was really, really uncomfortable.
Chris I remember it happening too, and I remember feeling like I have no way out of this like this. This person is just going to do it. And I can’t stop them. And I felt, Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Chris: It’s interesting that you say that your church is okay, but it’s when you’re out in the world, right?
Amanda: Yeah, my, my church being very they’re very, very nice to me. Like, um. Yeah, mine.
Chris: Mine was too. Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. My priest, I actually seen him a few years ago. He was always, like, really nice. And they never made me feel out of place. Except for when I had to do confessions. It was the only time I ever felt super uncomfortable. Yeah. No, they always made me feel like welcome and always made sure if I was in my walker of crutches, someone was there to help.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. It sounds really similar to my church.
Dominick: For those that like the conversation that we had today. Tune into More DisKumbaya with me and Amanda and Disartnow.org. Leave us your comments, questions, your insight on what we thought about things. Give us some knowledge. This is about each one teach one. This is the disability way. This is the DisArt way. And also follow us on social media. So peace out. This is Dom (and Amanda) signing off. We’ll see you next time.
Chris: Fucking brilliant. You guys rocked it. Yeah!
Episode 1: Intro Teaser
Dominick: Hi, everybody. This is Dominick
Amanda: and Amanda, and we have a new podcast coming called DisKumbaya
Dominick: We had the pleasure of talking to co-founder Chris Smit. When we talk about disability life, our experiences
Amanda: and everything in between.
Dominick: We hope you enjoy the snippet. The rest of it is coming soon.
Chris: Who are you hoping listens to the podcast?
Amanda: Everyone.
Dominick: Yeah, we’re not gatekeeping this. We’re crashing the party.
Amanda: I mean, people who feel, you know, they’re alone or they don’t have anywhere else to go or just people who are curious about their disability or disability culture.
Dominick: I feel like this podcast is for people that are the inbetweeners.