6/26/25 - Voting, basic advocacy, and cringe acting

Hello!

Here are your three disability links for a Thursday afternoon ...

Disability Voting News: June 25, 2025

Sarah Blahovec, The Accessible Voting Booth - June 25, 2025

"Like many around the country, I'm experiencing a record heat wave, and as I’m writing this introduction on Tuesday afternoon, I’m worried about the many voters in New York City who are headed to the polls for the primary in such severely hot weather. Luckily, Governor Hochul recently signed legislation to repeal a ban on handing out food and drink to voters waiting in line at the polls–a critically important move ahead of a heat wave bringing a heat index of 85 to 110 degrees. I’m also thinking of the many poll workers, canvassers, and election protection volunteers who mobilized despite the extreme heat and hope that they get lots of rest in a well-air-conditioned room today."

Despite the broadly worrying trends, it's been encouraging to read Sarah Blahovec's weekly newsletter on developments in voting accessibility in the US. Not every state is working overtime to make voting harder for disabled people. And knowing where disabled voters are going to need additional legal and logistical support is going to be especially important for in next year's mid-term elections.

Americans with Disabilities Act must be retained and fully enforced

Letter to the Editor from John H. Borja, San Diego Union-Tribune - June 22, 2025

"Before the ADA, very few places focused on allowing access to disabled people. Today, the ADA is still being implemented incrementally in buildings, stores, roads and mass transportation vehicles. In the U.S. we are not anywhere near full implementation in housing."

There's noting remarkable about this Letter to the Editor. It expresses the essence of why accessibility is still important today, though it could have been written 30 years ago. In fact, it's so basic that we might be tempted to be bored by it. We have much more dire and complicated disability issues to worry about. But that's why it's good to see people still willing to explain the need for accessibility – again – in whatever forums are available to them. We don't need to go back to basics on accessibility – we never really left them behind.

Seth Rogen Once Auditioned to Play a ‘Boy With a Cognitive Disability’ and Says It Went ‘So Bad’ It ‘Would End My Career’ if the Tape Leaked: ‘If You Have It, Burn It’

Zack Sharf, Variety - June 23, 2025

"'And I’m tempted to do an impression of what I did, but I can’t even do it. I can’t. That’s how bad it was. It’s so bad. I dare not even portray what I did in this audition. Because I went for it. I saw myself at the Oscars… Truthfully, if that tape was out [in] the world today, this would be the last interview you ever saw me do. Other than, like, my apology tour. Please, if you have it, burn it. Please sell it to me. I will buy it.'"

This is how actors and comedians can take responsibility for participating in terrible depictions of disability, without excessive shame or self-canceling. If you did the wrong thing at one point in your career, make fun of it! I find it particularly notable that Rogen says he imagined an Oscar when auditioning for a disabled part. Lots of people still love Forrest Gump and Rain Man a little too much. But lots of people are also well aware that handing out easy Oscars for hammy, syrupy, inauthentic disability roles is a joke. Comments like this one from well-known actors on a widely-viewed talk show are small but encouraging signs of progress.

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