Photo of Sia in a black dress and blonde wig with a black bow.

Sia’s New Film “Music” Isn’t Just Bad Representation of Autistic People; It’s Downright Dangerous.

Content note: includes discussion of mistreatment of autistic people, including prone restraint Amidst the utter mess that was 2020, I found a bright spot by discovering the tv show Everything’s Gonna be Okay on Freeform. Though it’s not perfect, I…
Four people on a video call. An ASL interpreter signs in the lower right corner. Rooted in Rights logo and icons for Open Captions and Audio Description are on the left.

Accessible Video Calls

Accessible meetings are effective meetings. Whether you're catching up with a friend or discussing the latest project at work, accessibility ensures that everyone can fully engage and participate. Funded by the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, Wastewater Treatment Division and the Coal Creek Sewer Upgrade Project.
A Black woman with closed eyes fades into a swirl of painted rainbow colors

How Can Black People Protect Their Mental Health Right Now?

Content note: includes discussion of COVID-19, police brutality toward Black people, murder of unarmed Black people The last few weeks have put Black people through the wringer. The footage of George Floyd’s death has sparked the largest protest in history…
A side by side image of Melissa's Facebook avatar and an actual photo of her, as described in the blog post.

Facebook Avatars Are Fun…But They’re Definitely Not Disability-Inclusive.

Like many people, I’ve been spending a lot of my quarantine time mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. Amidst the cute cat photos, career updates from writer friends, and selfies of at-home haircuts, I noticed a new trend last week: People were…
Rooted in Rights logo with interlocking trees in white and teal on black background

Accessibility for Social Storytelling

Accessibility as a Tool for Social Storytelling originally presented at Netroots.
A stack of color magazines

For the Disability Community, Authentic Representation Makes a World of Difference

When I was in sixth grade, I started a scrapbook of articles about disabled people.  Each article was carefully cut out from newspapers and magazines, or printed out from the early 2000s Internet, and slipped into a page protector in…
A retro red television with antennae sitting on a wooden surface in front of a mint green wall. The TV has an accessible icon on it.

An Open Letter to Hollywood: Inauthentic Representation of Disability Isn’t Representation At All

Growing up, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to be. It’s a fruitless endeavor at any age, really. But as a young disabled woman, my daydreams were harder to contrive than I imagine they were
Photo of Judy Heumann's memoir cover superimposed over a background of stacks of books

Rooted in Rights Reviews – Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

The prologue to Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner starts with the words, “I never wished I didn’t have a disability.” It’s a powerful way to begin a memoir, one…
Photo of four people in a car about to embark on a roadtrip.

Rooted in Rights Reviews: Come As You Are

Content note: sexual harassment Come As You Are is a comedy about three disabled men and their trip to Montréal, Canada to lose their virginity at a brothel. The film, which is coming to theaters on February 14, opens to…