Breaking Disability Barriers: Understanding, Opportunity & Inclusion | Part 1

How can people with and without disabilities better understand one another?

In Part 1 of this series, Barrett shares his perspective on some of the challenges people with disabilities face and how greater understanding, education, and opportunity can help break down barriers.

Barrett discusses relationships between people with and without disabilities, employment opportunities, representation in movies and television, and why authentic inclusion matters. He also challenges people with disabilities to share their experiences so others have an opportunity to learn rather than allowing stereotypes to define what's possible.

Barrett's message is one that appears throughout his podcast: give people an opportunity, learn from one another, and focus on what people can do rather than assuming what they can't.

Transcript

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So tell us guys. What else can we do for you? I got it from here. Welcome back to another episode of Paris Why You Live. The topic for today is living with a disability and how do we fix the challenges that people with disabilities face. The first topic for discussion are uh we know what the people with disabilities was the relationship with uh people without disabilities. One thing people without disabilities do not realize that most people with disabilities want to be treated the way the way they want to be treated. And also the people with disabilities need to be more open in sharing their experience of my opinion because if we educate people just like I discussed a little bit on my last podcast, if we educate people about our condition and we'll have more realization that other people will be knowledgeable and will just create this happy healthy relationship across the board with people with disabilities and without that being said, um my personal opinion is learning ought to be knowledgeable across the board, not just people with disabilities without giving people the benefit of the doubt, because a lot of time we're closed-minded and if we're closed-minded we we don't get we're not open to new experiences, new ideas. And heck, I mean if we work together as a society, I I think we can firmly agree upon what the future. So that being said, the ways I think we can improve as being, you know, elpose to each other is one give each other opportunity to be in our life. And this is the issue that I see nowadays in society is not a lot of companies are willing to open their doors for people with disabilities, but they're willing to open the doors at all. And I know there's drama across the board, you know, because they're we're about safety, people don't want to spend money. There's all these types of scenarios. But I think if we give another chance, if we give, you know, like um like by this when I used to play parallel soccer on TV, then not not only do we inspire the younger generation, and I know I know they have the Special Olympics on TV that's not my air. But I'm saying like if they allow like all these different sports with all these different conditions, then I think society will have a better understanding that we're we have a lot of more situations in common versus not in common because right now the issue with m with Hollywood and uh with Hollywood frames disability is better now, but in the past it wasn't real. It was not real scenario. My issue is with a lot of other people is they would let uh other people play disability parts that wouldn't wouldn't have a disability. So, you know, not only would they hire somebody without a disability to play the disability part, but it'd be it would be a misrepresentation of reality. And uh I just wish that um more producers and more um more actors would give people with disabilities a chance. Now from what I've seen on YouTube of the pr 21st century here now there has been more and more people uh that this feeling is to get better better representation of society, but you know, there's been the stigma that I've been watching in several videos running several articles that is the studio safe, is it not? And I can tell you from what I've seen and what I heard, if it was more safe um people with without disability and they had to go through all these protocols. Of course it's gonna be safe for people with disabilities because they work with people with disabilities and have scenarios in place. One example is I saw on YouTube they would have a bing back or somebody on the frame tapping the person with that can see that was blind, tap them on the show when they hit their mic or whatever they whenever they need to stand to do the part they need to do also as I was calling charisma and now that Cole is preserving anything I must have learning that more and more people that are willing to uh adjust and adapt, there it seems to accommodate the people that are playing the role. It's getting more and more production because you're like here we go, this is real, and for me as an outsider and I don't know all the answers that goes on in the studio. I'm not a prefectional actor by no means, but all the uh stuff that goes into acting people people are more willing to watch what's real versus what's fake. And I'm I'm not talking about comedy or none of that. I'm just saying if there is a real interpretation of people with disability playing somebody with a disability part or without one, then I think it'll make it'll make part of a a more inclusive world and there won't be these stereotypes of people with disability can't get jobs, people with disabilities have to fight as much as I have. I don't know other people have, but I tell you what, if we can uh be more inclusive and take take examples from companies and other businesses thinking that next step we will be are better off with society. And I think we're heading in the right direction, but there's also a lot to be done. So you may ask yourself what do we mean by in this building? See people view disability as like an obstacle that we you know, you have to face every day and some things you can't do. I say a disability is another obstacle you gotta overcome, which if you have that attitude you'll find ways around the obstacles that you face and just like I mentioned before, if we educate people and as a disability community, if we educate people and kinda tell people, yeah, we can do this, writing down by like acting, uh, you know, I would I was like a scary land person several years being one of the scary people and I was basically acting and doing doing my thing. We show people that we can do it, we can curse the stigma and I hope you enjoyed this episode and join join me next time. But it's a part of this series. And like always say, don't forget to live a very spiky life and be confident in here you are.