Combating Ableism | Through Her Eyes Author Keshia LaVett Ep 93
Jan 30, 2024
Jamie Truman
Keshia LaVett, in her novel Through Her Eyes, puts a spotlight on the often overlooked experiences of the visually impaired. Drawing from her rich background as an educator, LaVett brings to life the story of Hope, a young girl striving for independence while navigating the world with a visual impairment. - In this engaging conversation with host Jamie Truman, Keshia talks about the student that inspired the character of Hope and her passion for bringing more inclusive representation in children’s literature. She dives into issues of ableism and shares her personal observations as a literacy teacher, including the importance of teaching children how to be compassionate and accepting of those with disabilities. - Keshia also discusses her writing process, focusing her commitment to the authentic telling of Hope's journey through the daily challenges and victories of someone sight-challenged. - Tune in to learn about Keshia’s future plans to address discrimination and foster more empathy and understanding for the visually impaired community!
Keshia LaVett, in her novel Through Her Eyes, puts a spotlight on the often overlooked experiences of the visually impaired. Drawing from her rich background as an educator, LaVett brings to life the story of Hope, a young girl striving for independence while navigating the world with a visual impairment. - In this engaging conversation with host Jamie Truman, Keshia talks about the student that inspired the character of Hope and her passion for bringing more inclusive representation in children’s literature. She dives into issues of ableism and shares her personal observations as a literacy teacher, including the importance of teaching children how to be compassionate and accepting of those with disabilities. - Keshia also discusses her writing process, focusing her commitment to the authentic telling of Hope's journey through the daily challenges and victories of someone sight-challenged. - Tune in to learn about Keshia’s future plans to address discrimination and foster more empathy and understanding for the visually impaired community!
Welcome to the Truman Charities podcast. I'm Jeannie Truman, your host. Have you ever thought about what it might be like for someone who is visually impaired or a person with low vision? Keisha has been an educator for over 20 years and when she had a student that was visually impaired, it opened her eyes to help. People tend to treat individuals with disabilities differently. Keisha just published her second novel, throw Her Eyes. This story is about a young girl named Hope who is trying to navigate life while visually impaired. It's a fascinating book that takes an in-depth look into the life of someone growing up with a disability and trying to establish their own independence.
Speaker 1:
I speak with Keisha about the student that inspired her to write Throw Her Eyes, why she feels it's so important for children to be reading books whose main character is somebody with a disability, how she came up with the character Hope and her plans to possibly make this a series. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Keisha as much as I did. Thank you so much for coming on today and talking with us about your book, throw Her Eyes. Yes, and I wanna hear a little bit about your story. This isn't actually your first project. Oh, I love it. Now we can see it, my copy here. Wonderful, absolutely. And this isn't your first project. You know you had another project in 2008, the Innocence of Love, and you've been an educator since gosh 2000. I've done, I've done the love in my mind. I can tell through your books and all of your work that you've done. So tell us a little bit about your story and what kind of inspired you to create this book.
Speaker 2:
Well, I've always loved words and I know this is gonna sound really cliche, but Stevie Wonder is my favorite artist of all time. He just happens to be blind and sight challenged, but much of what he had to say before I even knew. Being young and hearing his music and just with my parents and being introduced to his music, I just fell in love with his ability to draw me in and to make me listen, and I was able to identify with a lot of what he had to say. But at the same time I found myself within his words and it was just remarkable. And then I found out that he was sight challenged, and then I found out that this was a blind man, and so I think that sparked something in me and I've always wanted to do something like this, and that was one of the earlier inspirations.
Speaker 2:
And then, when I start teaching, inclusion is a big part of my role, it's a big part of my occupation, and so I'm a literacy teacher, and the one thing that we are required to do, and something that I'm passionate about doing, is making literature accessible to students and cultivating them so that there'll be lovers of books. But the more and more I inspire kids, the more and more I noticed that there were no books well barely any books that represented persons with disabilities, where the person with a disability was the main character, and so I had students and I still have students with all types of challenges. It's nice when I go back and reflect on my connection with Stevie Wonder and his verse, and I saw myself in some of his stories, his verse stories. I noticed that one of the reasons why I was able things resonated is because I saw myself and I wanted that for students, for all students.
Speaker 1:
I emphasize all. There was one thing I really did enjoy about the book and that is the relationship that hope has with her mother and I could really understand kind of the struggle that she has because I noticed just being a mom in general. It seemed like she was always kind of in this tug-of-war of like trying to protect her daughter because of her disability, that she had and then also trying to give her that Independence that she so much wanted. And there is a part in it when she was at the mall and she was with her best friend and and she really just didn't want to have a walking stick, and her mom freaked out and she's like I just want my independence, I want you to stop, you know. But I could see like just stop hovering over me. But I can understand that struggle and it was a really beautiful Relationship throughout the book with her and her mother and I wanted to know, like how did hope come?
Speaker 2:
about. Well, I do see myself in home up. I am my mother's only child and she is my rock star. Love her. She still is, to this day, very protective, so that lives out in the story.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, very, you know I'm her baby and I get it, you know, and so well I know that a lot of that was channeled into my creative process. Yeah, because of my background, you know, she wanted me to have the best. She always wanted me to be safe, but I feel like I was very sheltered and I just wanted to live my life in such a way where I'm leaving a blueprint me, guided by her, obviously because of her mother with her wisdom, all of the things that she passed on, my love for stories she passed on to me. She tells me stories even to this day and I go. I get so engrossed, you know, but I wanted to leave my imprint on the world in some way, and so I'm a lot like hoping that way. Well, she wanted to tell her story, but she had no story because all of her stories were surrounded by what people were either telling her or doing for her, and so she yearned to want to do her own thing, and so I think that's where we sort of intersect, mm-hmm, she and I. I.
Speaker 1:
Wanted to talk a little bit. You have mentioned to me that you once had a student that was site challenged. It's help me a little bit about that. What was that experience like? Did you channel any of that into the character of hope?
Speaker 2:
Yes, so I'd never had a student who was site challenged and I didn't meet this student to 2012. So I had been teaching in public schools for almost, you know, for about 12 years, and so you know we have students with IPs, students with learning disabilities, etc. Etc. Students in wheelchairs, partially hearing impaired but I'd never had a site challenge student and I didn't know what to expect. So I was preparing the lessons, you know, researching, getting the background needed from his case worker so that I can allow him to access the curriculum and learn. I just I wanted him to have a good experience and so I was expecting it to be a sort of a learning curve for me and I was expecting me not to Provide him what he needed. I thought that I was going to be Struggling to just teach him and so, and then I met him and I went oh, my god, what a wonderful sense of humor he has and how much of a self-advocacy was and Helping me to support him. And you know he would say you know, this is fine.
Speaker 2:
I used to know this was back where we weren't using Chromebooks, so I had to go and enlarge all his materials for him when I was giving his Assessments or we had to read tags, they had to be enlarged. So I had to do that. So that was prep for me. But you know, I remember like not enlarging it enough, and I remember him saying oh, I'm fine, oh, don't worry about it, miss Wilson. And that that's my surname, wilson, although my pen name is love that, but my students know me as miss Wilson. And he would go oh, miss Wilson, I'm fine, no worries, you know, I'm a boss, you know things like that.
Speaker 2:
Oh, he was just so funny and so human, and I think that was the first time that I realized that ableism exists and that mindset, that Philosophy that has been ingrained in so many able-bodied people, that persons with disabilities are the other. They are the other that's struggling. They need so much help. They don't have a personality, they're just the part of the population that we need to help when we can, and that's it. We don't have conversations with these human beings, we don't invite them into our lives and Enjoy them as human beings who happen to have physical challenges. We just don't do that and so we forget the humanity that's embedded inside them. They're human beings. They like to have fun, they like to joke, you know, they're just navigating the world in a different way, and that's it.
Speaker 2:
And so he and that experience really opened my eyes and I always wanted to write something, but I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. And I'm sure since you've read the book, you notice how many human things I wanted hope to encounter. I wanted it to be realistic because, although persons with disabilities are human beings, they do have the physical challenges some of them, and navigating the world isn't easy, so I didn't want to make it easy for her either. This is definitely realistic fiction, but she's thriving and she's contributing to her society, and that's what we need to be thinking about when we encounter persons with disabilities. We need to live in a world of acceptance.
Speaker 1:
I do love because you're telling this story about the student that you had and it reminds me a lot of hope throughout the book just like very determined, strong willed, funny and very personable. So I can see some of the similarities throughout the book. What would be one of the big takeaways that you would want someone to get from through her eyes? That?
Speaker 2:
othering is wrong, that othering is wrong and that we all belong to this world. That's the biggest takeaway, that acceptance is something that we all need. But we all need the opportunity to shine. And one of the quotes in the book is the naming of her nickname, Moode, and that she's different than anything in her space, Like most people with disabilities. Different, that's all, that's all it is. But that she shines, she stands out, and that's the other thing. That's the other parallel to my student that I taught. He stood out, but he stood out in such great ways. He was the life of the class, Like we all laugh at him, we all laugh with him. We always had something witty to say and he was very personable and hope stands out.
Speaker 2:
And one of the things through my research, I realized that persons that are site challenged are legally blind. They see more light than you think. So there's a lot of variations to blindness, but her challenge provides a level of darkness. It just does. Her experiences not being able to navigate the world like able-bodied people brings about a level of darkness and, of course, she sees shade. So she's someone in the dark, more in the dark than she is light, but she's shining through it. And so I wanna say that, whatever your challenge is, we're not identified by that. We wanna shine through that, we wanna grow through that and we want to thrive and contribute to our world. That's the message. That's the message there, and that's exactly what she's doing like a boss, Like she's. She's a fancy, fancy pants lady she is.
Speaker 2:
I liked it. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I wanted it to be funny. Yeah, I wanted her, like you said. You know, I wanted her to be relatable and personable, but more importantly, Jamie, I wanted her to be human. I wanted her to be human, and that's the takeaway that these are human beings.
Speaker 1:
You're an educator and you're an author and you've done all of this research. What would your advice be to parents to help their children be more compassionate and have more empathy for individuals with disabilities?
Speaker 2:
So, the one thing that was brought to her parents' attention in the text was that she needed to learn how to be independent, and so I strongly recommend that you don't do it for the student, but you show the student what the person I'm sorry I'm so used to being a teacher you show the primary, the student of all, I'm so used to the teacher.
Speaker 2:
I know I'm so used to having to teach your conferences, but anyway, but you show your child how to do it, how to be as independent as she can or he can, so that they can access the resources needed to navigate the world effectively and independently, as independent as they can be, so that they can become who they are supposed to become. Hope found. Oh, I don't wanna spoil it, but I feel like, without Give, her a teaser, a teaser.
Speaker 2:
You're right. Exactly Without spoiling it. She became hope. Her name is intentional. Her name is very intentional because her parents hoped that she would heal in some way. Of course, ultimately they wanted her to gain her sight and be able to see, but the hope mainly was for her to live a good quality of life, and so she did. Me from the outside, looking in as an able-bodied person, I see the struggle. I see that it's hard. Are any of us living an easy life? We all have our challenges, but are we identified by our challenges? No, we're not. One of the things that is also helpful and this is not just to parents but when you see a person with a disability and you see them navigating the world, give them a name, give them a human name. That's Madeleine, over there in your mind, and immediately you start to feel the connection, the human connection there. Immediately, as soon as you give that person a name, or that Sam over there, that person in a wheelchair waiting for the light that's Sam.
Speaker 1:
I do really like in the book in the beginning when they were speaking about when hope was born, and our eyes are swollen and they weren't sure what was going on and you really see the parents kind of going through the process throughout the book of just first like devastated what are we going to do? This isn't happening? To accepting it, acknowledging it and then trying, as I had mentioned before, to give her that independence and that internal struggle. So there's so many things. Hope is the main character but there's all this other dialogue within the family going on. That's so relatable because that's every family right. There's always all kinds of different dynamics within relationships and challenges, and so you really see that throughout the book. You see Hope's challenges with her best friend, angel, and then you see her challenges with her mom and her parents. That's really wonderfully written because it's so, as I said, like relatable. It's just fiction, but kind of not. As you mentioned, it's fiction but not Right.
Speaker 2:
That's great feedback for me, because that's exactly what I was going for. I want it to be a real story that people can relate to, and so knowing that that's communicated well, thank you.
Speaker 1:
So tell me a little bit about writing this book. So what was, I think, your biggest challenge?
Speaker 2:
Wow, so many, yeah, so many, because you know I'm not that challenge, and so I literally had to. I had to try to embody what I thought she would be going through and what that would look like. Being a teacher really helped, though. It really helped because I see it every day students who struggle with the different challenges, whether it be physical or learning disabilities, whatever the case may be but I see other students and how to respond to them, and I'm in meetings and I notice how not all, but how some teachers are depicting the struggle, and so I had to channel that, but it wasn't easy. Like it was just so much revision and I was like, ah, that one is not true. You know, I needed this to be realistic. I'm like, no, she would never say that, or no, she's not going to walk up the stairs without holding onto the wall in the dark. Like no, she wouldn't. Let me go back and let me rewrite that Right.
Speaker 2:
You know, yeah, I needed, I needed readers to see the struggle, but in order for them to see the struggle, I had to paint the picture, and that was really hard, because I am not a site challenge individual, and so one of the things that fans often ask me is like how much research did you do and how did you, how did you know and how are you able to present her in the way that you did?
Speaker 2:
And I'm a praying woman Not afraid to share that, and so you know, I pray for guidance. You know, I wanted to do this realistically and I wanted to do this well. So I did a lot of reading, a lot of observing, and I just wanted that to come clear and become clear. As a writer and as a reader, I wanted the things that the publisher had me do was to not edit as I went along. So you know, a part of my contract was that I get two reads and then any you know they can make changes and then I get another read. So one of my reads she said I want you to read this book as a reader, and that is a writer. That's tough For you.
Speaker 1:
I'm sure it was tough. I know I want to change this, I want to change that report, but I can't right now. I'm just reading it.
Speaker 2:
So that's another part. That was hard, but I think just painting this portrait, this child who becomes a woman, a site challenge woman, that was the hardest part.
Speaker 1:
I was gonna ask you because I've seen that you've done a lot of book signings recently. Yeah. I think, it looks like it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, so I kind of two parts to this what has been the feedback that you've been getting from people that are coming to these signings and getting and Purchasing the book? And then also, what do you have coming up?
Speaker 2:
Oh, okay so people are Sharing their own, their stories, and I'm learning about legislation that we still need to work on, having to protect the caregivers of Persons with disabilities. So I mentioned how, you know, there are different variations, there are different challenges, and so, even with hope, she needed Mrs Maverick to come in and teach her how to be independent. She needed Her mother to protect her and to help her to get us to the point where she can become independent, and so there are many caregivers out there who really need the support. They need resources. They're not equipped and oftentimes the resources aren't there to pick from state to state, and that's what I was learning, and I was shocked because it's 2023 Well, that's 2024, but at the time right, it was 2023 when I was like, wow, really, you know, and so I said, well, the more people are becoming aware, I'm hoping that we can change this and that, you know, we can get lobbyists To represent.
Speaker 2:
One of the things in the book is that, you know, hope speaks in front of congress, and so we need to do more of that. We need to go and we need to speak on behalf of any challenge. It needs to happen because there's so much discrimination that's going on. Ableism is just one of them.
Speaker 1:
You know. It's interesting that you mentioned that because I've spoke with a lot of nonprofit founders and I was unaware. So I think a lot of people are just unaware or uneducated On the fact that they call it the clip when they're out of school and a lot of children with disabilities. Then all of those programs and everything that they have no longer exist. So you have all of these young adults and their caregivers not sure what to do because they're no longer available to them. I did love when they just talked to congress. That was great. It was just like I was such a you see the like evolution of her like from being a young girl to now this, you know, young adult, and it was really, really beautiful. So, yeah, thank you. Before I let you go, is there anything that you would like to mention that we haven't talked about?
Speaker 2:
Oh well, I think I. You asked what was next. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no, that's fine. Oh my god, this is, let me tell you, I'm, this is a, a passion of mine. I just I want to be a change agent.
Speaker 2:
I didn't want to write without a purpose, and I know the overarching purpose for any good writer is to entertain, to engross or to make people happy in some way with their words, right? But in my case, I wanted to do that. But I also wanted this novel to have a purpose, and so one of the things that I'm doing is I am I'm continuing this quest against ableism. Every time a person buys this book, they're becoming more aware Of the humanity that lives in persons with disabilities. So I'm combating this ableistic belief, one book at a time.
Speaker 2:
So I'm continuing on this journey with doing more interviews. Your interview number one, oh yeah. The next one is, uh, february 1st to coma radials. So I'll be there, yeah, so I just want to continue to just raise awareness. I want people to be mindful and join me in this fight because, honestly, this is an easy fight. All you have to do is shift your mindset, and you can do that with one small thing name a person hey, that's Cindy over there, even if you don't know them, but they become a person. And so that's what I'm doing now I'm just going and I'm doing interviews and I'm raising awareness and I'm starting book too, and so hope will live on, not just in name, but just in general.
Speaker 1:
Well, you know it's funny. I was going to ask you that because while I was reading the book and and just so everyone knows, I mean I read it quick, like couldn't put it down. It was such a wonderful book, I mean, I think I read it in two days, so it was wow. Yeah, that's so great to hear, really to see what was going on with her. And then I was going to ask, I was like you know what this kind of seems like? It would be a great series. So I don't know, you're up for it? Oh, I'm up for it. I'm up for it. I think we would all love a sequel.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and you're gonna get it. Okay, you're gonna get it, it's coming, I'm working on it, I'm thinking about it, and so, yes, it will definitely be a series.
Speaker 1:
Hope will continue on her journey and then how can someone purchase through her eyes and how can someone follow you? Because we want to know all of the Wonderful opportunities are going to be on Tacoma radio and all of these great things. But we want to follow you, be able to meet you. All that Awesome.
Speaker 2:
So, first of all, you can go to Keisha LeVette K-E-S-H-I-A-L-A-V-E-C-C dot com and Check out my website and all the wonderful inspirational art and things that are being purchased and designed To get the word out about not only the story but the inspiration behind the story. So those things are there on the website. You can follow me at Keisha LeVette, author on instagram, tiktok. I'm also on facebook so you can follow my business page there and we'll keep those things updated so that people Can come out and see me and meet me and talk to me. I'd love to hear their stories, tell me what I can do to help, because I know the powers speaking and the power of raising awareness. You're in the charity business so you understand that.
Speaker 1:
Yes, absolutely, and you know I want to make sure to everybody that reviews are amazing, so please tell us how much you love the book. Make sure to leave that review on Amazon. It does go a long way, it does, and they can also purchase the book at BarnesandNoblecom, booksimillion.
Speaker 2:
Politics and Pros. Politics and Pros is another big one. So yes, anywhere, just go online through her eyes. Thank you so much. For those of you who read the book and who are supporting me means the world to me. I will be nothing without a reader.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh. Well, this has been so wonderful and I loved the book. I hope everyone goes out to get it now. And, akihisha, thank you so much for coming on again to speak with us about your amazing new book through her eyes. You're welcome, jamie. If you liked this episode, please make sure to rate and review our podcast. That is how more people learn about the Truman Charities podcast and our organization, and to make sure you don't miss any of our future episodes, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. If you'd like to follow Truman Charities, you can follow us on Facebook at Truman Charities, instagram at Jamie, underscore Truman Charities and check out our website, tru-m-charitiescom. Thank you.