Zoe Brennan-Krohn
speaker
79 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Zoe Brennan-Krohn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
So I wouldn't want people to not talk about disability because they're afraid they're going to do it wrong.
Yeah, so in disability rights laws, disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. So it's a little clunky. Or having a history of that impairment or being treated as though you have a disability is one.
If people perceive you as being disabled, even if you don't, and they discriminate against you, that's also sort of a flavor of disability. disability discrimination. But I think what's important about the definition is that it's not a list of conditions. It's not saying if you have this diagnosis, you're in. If you have that diagnosis, you're out.
It's really about how you live in the world, which is what sort of distinguishes disability as an identity from the kind of medical terminology. A lot of people, probably most people with disabilities have or could have some type of medical diagnosis, but that's not the question for protection under the law. It's that there is some, physical or mental impairment. That's the word in the law.
People don't always love that terminology. That sort of what's wrong with you terminology that limits something that's part of life. So asthma is an impairment that limits the major life activity of breathing. Like that's real. You're in, welcome. If you want it.
Yes, welcome. We're delighted to have you. Thank you. So it is really broad and it is inclusive of a lot of types of experiences and people, as I said, who wouldn't necessarily think of themselves that way. Like as a lawyer, sometimes I talk to clients
who I see in my lawyer hat, okay, what you're describing to me is a disability and you're protected by disability rights laws and there's some sort of discrimination. But that's sometimes a conversation you have to have with people to say, what you're telling me about your disability
experiences, about your conditions, your illness, there are laws that protect you and that we want to use those laws to do X, Y, or Z. And that is a real shift in thinking for a lot of people. Some people come and they say, I'm a disabled person protected under the law.
And some disabilities, you don't have the option of not seeing as a disability or not talking about because everyone tells you for your whole life that you're disabled. So there's a real range of
I do think it's striking what what you're saying, Kamau, that even the best case scenario, the most privileged people in a lot of ways are making hard choices and and none of them are great. Like there are other than some like extraordinarily rich echelon of people, even people with a lot of privilege.
are having to make compromises or make choices that aren't great for them or aren't great for the aging or disabled family members. That is really typical, that it's hard for everyone. And of course, it gets harder and harder the less privilege you have, but almost no one is sailing through these kinds of decisions because it's just so much money.
Sure. So Medicaid is. a system funded by states and the federal government that provides a wide range of care to a wide range of people in this country. And it provides sort of regular medical care, like what you would think of for what insurance would provide. It can cover doctor's visits and prescriptions and things like that, but it also covers
A lot of, we've alluded to this already, covers long-term supports and services. So home and community-based services for people who have disabilities and rely on support workers to help them bathe or eat or get out of bed in the morning. That's covered by Medicaid. But it is much broader than people recognize in that it's low-income folks, it's people with disabilities, it's aging adults.
There's a lot of children. I think there's 40% of births are covered by Medicaid. A huge amount of care and support services in schools are covered by Medicaid. And one kind of I don't know, quirk or something about Medicaid is that it's called different things in different states.
So there's a lot of people who rely on Medicaid and don't know they rely on Medicaid because they rely on badger care, which is what they call it in Wisconsin, which is kind of cute. Turquoise care in New Mexico, also kind of cute, kind of on brand. And so people don't always know it. And part of that I think is really because of how much stigma there is about
about the term Medicaid that states don't want, you know, they use these terms to make it not seem like what it is. And so there's a bunch of people who rely on Medicaid, but don't realize it because they, because of all these different, because it's constantly different.
Yeah. So Section 504 is the part of the Rehabilitation Act that is from 1973. That's kind of the prologue to or the predecessor to the Americans with Disabilities Act. And so they have very similar protections and people sometimes refer to it as Section 504, which is as the Rehabilitation Act, they're sort of the same terms.
And this is actually separate from Medicaid, but is another attack on the disability community that is coming down the pike really simultaneously with the cuts to Medicaid. So Section 504, as I said, passed in 1973.
The regulations kind of making it real were passed in 1977 as a result of a really extraordinary protest in San Francisco, which was the longest sit-in of a federal building in United States history. There were disabled protesters who sat in at this federal building in San Francisco for 25 days to force these regulations through that would make disability rights laws real.
They were supported by the Black Panthers who came in and brought food and a lot of other organizations. It was a real intersectional moment, I think, before people were calling these moments intersectional, but that's what it was. And so it's Section 504,
Showing 21–40 of 79 · page 2 of 4
← Previous
Next →