A message from Howard Renensland, CEO & Founder, [with]tv
As the person responsible for this Blog …wait a minute. Let me be more accurate. My daughter Victoria is the person responsible for this Blog, [with]tv, PWDBC, and all my attempts at activism as she is the Motivation to me. Connie Kuusisto is responsible for it in terms of she constructed it and manages it. …So as I was saying, as the person not really responsible for this Blog, I will from time to time throw in my two cents when the spirit moves me and I have time, the latter of which will never occur.
I did want to comment on The Grace of Living with a Disability and subsequent comments as they relate to why I am doing what I am doing with [with]tv. I will be brief and personal with my comments. Firstly these three points of view and millions of others need a mainstream media platform. These and all other issues deserve and demand to be embraced by society at large in a place of public discourse. Then and only then will any issues needing resolution begin to approach resolution. There will always be differences of opinions by all people with and without a disability.
I am not getting into the subject of God that Ruth does. I will say that being born and raised in Kansas I was taught, “you play the cards you’re dealt”. End of story. Being of farmer stock, getting up each morning and seeing nothing but wide open space to the N – S – E + W you learn to take what Mother Nature gives you, which more often than not was a draught, a flood, a blizzard, a tornado, but seldom a nice mild day. I also learned you are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution. We ALL have a job to do.
I was always tragically amused when during confrontational, argumentative, adversarial, endless PPT Meetings where I was militantly advocating for the school system to stop trying to exclude her, stop trying to segregate her, stop trying to convince me to let them remove her from the classroom, ever. It was not going to happen, not for “hell or high water”, as my father would have said. I was amused to hear them say, “Howard don’t sacrifice Victoria for a principle, for a cause.” I would always look at them dumbfounded and say why not? What else should any of us do with our lives but live by principles. Either I believed in what I was advocating or I did not, but I certainly would not stop my efforts because of the battle. I always told them Victoria has a job to do. She has a purpose in addition to living her life. We all do.
That is my point. We should ALL be inspirations, every one of us 24/7 disabilities, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic group, age, or any other label be damned. We should all be role models. We should look to inspire because some day we may feel life sucks because we spill our Starbucks, Exxon goes down 12%, gas goes up 37 cents a gallon, or the damn scale goes up a few ticks when we only had 3 cookies! The real point for people with disabilities, from my perspective at least, is this: One does get tired of being a role model when that is the only role you get and then when you are held up as a role model you get no real benefit because you have NO SAY IN who you are or what you are.
I started [with]tv because there are NO people with disabilities on TV. Don’t waste my time telling me about the handful of folk who have somehow conquered the odds and have gotten on. Statistically they do not exist, though individually they are to be applauded, admired, and respected. When a person with a disability is on TV it is one of two types. We see the Super Cripple stereotype or the Super Pity stereotype. I also got so tired of every dramatic show being about women being raped, tortured, killed, cut up, etc. There simply must be other dramatic content out there. There is and we will produce it when funded.
Some people will always admire, respect, applaud, and hold up as an inspiration or a role model, people with disabilities. That is ok by me if we control the image, if our company benefits from it, and we are able to empower a community through self-expression and employment.
In terms of language, [with]tv will be and is a “people first” practitioner. This is not a matter of political correctness, a term dreamed up by folk who are not happy unless they can call anybody anything they want for their own amusement or self-aggrandizement. We say people with disabilities with a disability. We do not say disabled. It is not accurate. All people have ability. All people lack some ability. In our case we are people first. That is more than half the battle. As long as we are “the disabled” we are disenfranchised, we are not human; we are a cause, a charity, and a need, different. We don’t hear the label able-bodied people in common discourse for good reason. It is stupid and inaccurate. People with a disability or with disabilities are like everyone else first and foremost. They are PEOPLE…with. That is the difference. I feel we bring more to the table than those without a disability. I also regret it when people say I have a physical disability. I understand it, but regret it. As long as we separate ourselves by disability, cause of disability, issue of concern, etc. we will none of us accomplish what we want. I understand this separation though. Our world exists in a constant state of charity. We are all fighting for those “donor dollars”. It is nice to say we have progressed from a medical model to a model of social activism to a consumer model. In some ways it is true but not for all of our community and not in a way that is considered on a par with other market groups far smaller than ours, lacking our discretionary income and our potential.
There comes a time in life when you say “fish or cut bait” and that is what time it is now.
That is what [with]tv is about. It is like when you were a kid on the playground and you could not get in the game of 4-square, what did you do? You went and got another ball and started your own game. That is what we are doing at [with]tv, only it isn’t 4-square brother, its life!
