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"Haben" by Haben Girma
Jul. 11th, 2020 04:50 pmReading Haben by Haben Girma right now. Deafblind lawyer who advocates for disability rights. https://habengirma.com/faq/ The book is a series of select anecdotes from her growing up.
My fav chapter: where Haben is an undergrad and she can't read/hear her dininghall menu and she can't tell what food she gets until she tries to eat it, and it's a pain -- and the dining hall keeps forgetting to email her the menus -- even after Student services and various departments and Haben Girma herself keeps meeting with the dining hall and asking them -- and the manager of the dining hall sends the most mealymouthed obnoxious email to Haben, telling her that they can't always help her --
And Haben looks up info about the ADA and then write an email to the manager clarifying that she's not asking, she's saying they are breaking the law by not providing accommodations for her, and they need to get it together or she's going to bring a lawyer -- and CC's the manager's manager and various college heads in the email -- and yes, finally, the dining hall management does show up apologetic and gets it together. And another student who is blind finds the menu emails very helpful too, because he can't hear the menu being read off in the noisy dining hall. And Haben starts becoming interested in law school after this.
So, so satisfying.
Relatedly, looks like there's a 7/25 Book launch webinar for an anthology called Disability Visibility.
My fav chapter: where Haben is an undergrad and she can't read/hear her dininghall menu and she can't tell what food she gets until she tries to eat it, and it's a pain -- and the dining hall keeps forgetting to email her the menus -- even after Student services and various departments and Haben Girma herself keeps meeting with the dining hall and asking them -- and the manager of the dining hall sends the most mealymouthed obnoxious email to Haben, telling her that they can't always help her --
And Haben looks up info about the ADA and then write an email to the manager clarifying that she's not asking, she's saying they are breaking the law by not providing accommodations for her, and they need to get it together or she's going to bring a lawyer -- and CC's the manager's manager and various college heads in the email -- and yes, finally, the dining hall management does show up apologetic and gets it together. And another student who is blind finds the menu emails very helpful too, because he can't hear the menu being read off in the noisy dining hall. And Haben starts becoming interested in law school after this.
So, so satisfying.
Relatedly, looks like there's a 7/25 Book launch webinar for an anthology called Disability Visibility.
