W. Kamau Bell
speaker
1,269 appearances
5 recordings
5 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 14 Oct
W. Kamau Bell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Oct 2025 with 1.
Appearances
As we all know, it's a tough time right now, but we have the power to love and care for each other. I really believe that. I got a wife, I got a mom, I got three kids. It is important to love and care for each other and give each other some grace. And today's episode is all about care. We're talking about disability rights. We're here on Monday, March 10th, and as of today, here's the latest.
Congress is primed to cut more than $880 billion in funding for Medicaid. Does that sound like a big number? It's a big number. 17 states are suing the U.S. government to end federal protections for disabled individuals. Meanwhile, more than one in four adults in the U.S. report having a disability. Are we really trying to leave behind a quarter of our country and their caregivers?
Is that what we're trying to do? All right, let's take a breath. You've got this, and the ACLU's got you, and they've got a little bit of me, and I'll get a little bit of you, and you get a little bit of me. We'll all get each other. Now, let's get into it. We have two incredible guests joining us today, and I don't use the word incredible lightly.
Zoe Brennan-Krohn is the director of the ACLU's Disability Rights Program. You may recognize her from At Liberty's episodes about Britney Spears and conservatorship. And Nicole Jorwick is the chief of advocacy and campaigns at Caring Across, an organization that is working to build real, helpful, thoughtful care systems. Thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
Before we get started, let's just sort of, at a basic level, introduce yourself and what it is you do in your life and your favorite flavor of muffin.
Nice. Now, you mean chocolate all the way through or chocolate chip?
OK. All right. That's with the chocolate chips to Nicole. Super.
I hate to do this, Zoe, right off the bat, but Nicola gave the right answer. Call balls and strikes right at the top.
I hate to start this in a contentious way, Zoe, but this is where we're at in America. Needless contention. Just kidding. I've had both of those. So let's talk about why this is the work you each choose to do, because I think, as we talked about before we started, this is a conversation talking about disability in this country and people who live with disabilities.
It's a conversation a lot of people don't have, even though they don't even understand how it touches their life or how it will eventually touch all of our lives. And so I just want to know personally and start with you, Zoe, why is this the work that you choose to do?
Nicole, I'm not going to let that go by without highlighting. You just went full on Latin root.
You're making somebody proud because you were like, I'm getting my Latin root knowledge in. And I just want to highlight that that was impressive. And you did it easily. It was not even like a reach. Good job.
I always have to shout out Alice Wong, who's the person who really schooled me on disability and people who live with disabilities. She did it on television on my show, United Shades of America. And also has just been a mentor throughout my, since we've met, about all these issues.
Actually, the first time I met Alice, she was on my Denzel Washington podcast, which I had to bring up because we were talking, me and my co-host, Kevin Avery, were talking about, there's a movie where Denzel Washington plays, and I'm going to get this wrong, but he plays, I think he's a quadriplegic.
confined to a bed and he plays a police officer and the name of the movie is Escape Me, which is going to make my Denzel fans crazy. Angelina Jolie is in it. Zoe, you can read, you can make up something.
The Bone Collector. Got it. The Bone Collector. Yes. Yes. Okay. Points on the board. This is the first time the podcast has had points, so we'll see where this goes. On The Bone Collector, he plays a guy who's a quadriplegic, and he's also a cop, and it's
Sort of, essentially the movie is showing you that he can be a valuable contributing member of his team, even though he's a paraplegic and he's living with a disability.
But Alice pointed out he also must be a rich person living with a disability because of all the things he has that most people who live with disabilities don't have, like a 24-hour aid and the level of equipment that is around him. And so she reached out independently and just said, I would love to come on the podcast and talk to you about that.
And I was like, come on here and talk to us about it. And so through Denzel Washington, another reason he's the greatest actor of all time period, we got to talk about how movies portray people living with disabilities. And so I think that, and confuse the portrayal. And so again, I always have to shout out Alice Wong.
But the thing that I always, that I really remember from learning from her, and I grew up during this era, so you'd think I would know, but in my mind, if somebody had said, when was the American with Disabilities Act released? instituted, I'd have been like, I don't know, the 1900s, like the 20s, like, like, like, you know, like the 1800s.
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