Full Transcript
Laura Wolke:
A lot of my job was just to listen to really hard situations, even if you had no way of solving the problem, and show that just because you’re a service provider doesn’t mean you don’t see them as a human being.
Pete:
She didn’t begin with the career she wanted.
Laura:
I didn’t have the ability to detach the way that I think you need to do if you’re doing that work.
Pete:
But she found the career she was destined for.
Laura:
Before I had this really sort of narrow understanding of what somebody did with a law degree, and it was like you’re either a prosecutor or you do criminal defense, or you maybe work for a company. You can get a JD and never, ever practice law, and it’s still a super helpful degree. You can become a politician, which I would never do. You could be on a board, and advise a hospital. You can write policy. There’s just so many things you can do.
Pete:
Meet Laura Wolke, law student-
Laura:
I was able to finally get all of the accommodations that I requested, but I had to appeal twice. It was truly unbelievable.
Pete:
-lawyer-
Laura:
I think my graduation from law school, for them, was really this point where they could be like “We did our job, we were good parents, she’s going to be fine.”
Pete:
-clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court-
Laura:
I was standing on the train platform for 30th Street station, which is underground and you have no cell service, and so my phone rang, all I heard was “Hi, this is-” but then the phone went dead. So I had to agonizingly wait. Justice Thomas does a few rounds of interviews, so she was calling to schedule that first screener interview.
Pete:
-and old friend.
Jeff Thompson:
Who ever thought that doing woodworking with me at Blind Incorporated would lead to this?
Laura:
It gave me the confidence, Jeff. I just take saws and just, you know, bust down barriers.
Jeff:
There you go.
Pete:
And now let’s join Jeff Thompson and his guest, old friend Laura Wolke, as she shares her journey-
Laura:
There are places that I’ve been to a thousand times. I mean, I can daydream, I can listen to music and walk there, like, I have been there a thousand times, and everything is different now.
I was really motivated. It was easy for me to study, I got excited about going, and that was a big sign for me that I was doing the right thing, because, you know, if you can’t be excited about the fun stuff, you’re probably not going to be able to do the really boring or the really stressful stuff.
Pete:
-to her most recent pinnacle of achievement as a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recording of man at Supreme Court:
-the Honorable Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, oh yea, oh yea, oh yea, God save the United States and this honorable court.
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio we have- oh, how should I introduce you?
Laura:
Um, best person ever and friend that you missed most deeply?
Jeff:
There we go! This must be Laura Wolke, how’re you doing?
Laura:
I’m good, how are you?
Jeff:
I’m doing great. Hey, great presentation you gave for the NFB, I’ve got to say.
Laura:
Thanks.
Recording of Laura Wolke at NFB:
Thank you so much, President Riccobono, I’m already laughing because all of my friends know that I’m very not into pop culture, and you managed to pick one of like three modern songs that I actually know, so job well done already!
Jeff:
You know, you’ve come a long way, you’re working for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, did the internship with him last summer, and this wasn’t your first choice of occupation, being a lawyer, I remember when you left Blind Incorporated and you went off and became, I would say a social worker of sorts?
Laura:
Mm-hm, yep.
Jeff:
But you weren’t satisfied with that.
Laura:
No, I was originally planning on going to get my PhD and then becoming some sort of counselor or psychologist or something, and then- yeah, I was doing social work, I was living in Philadelphia, and so my consumers were people who had some sort of disability and are also in various Medicaid programs, so we helped to do case management for them. You know, we tried to get accessibility modifications to their homes and stuff like that, but there were also a lot of other issues that were going on with consumers, and a lot of my job was just to listen to really hard situations, even if you had no way of solving the problem, it was just to be someone who actively cared about them and would call, and just check in and, you know, show that just because you’re a service provider doesn’t mean you don’t see them as a human being. I really loved it, but I didn’t have the ability to detach the way that I think you need to do if you’re doing that work, so I just spent all of my emotional energy working with my client consumers, and then I’d come back and my friend would be like “I had a really hard day, can we chat?” and I’d be like “Actually, I’m so exhausted, can I please just go to sleep?” And over a couple years I just was like I can’t, I mean, I’m not cut out for this, I admire so much the people who do it, because in order to be caring to the people that you’re providing services to, and then also be able to care for yourself, you have to be so emotionally mature.
Jeff:
It just shows that you weren’t ready to settle, because you’re employed now, you’re, you know, hit the big time, working, and had all that going for you. You wanted something more, what made you change your route, your journey, and go on to become a lawyer?
Laura:
I actually went to this conference at Notre Dame, which is where I ended up going to law school. It was like a conference on bioethics, which is something that has always really interested me from a Catholic point of view—I’m also Catholic. It was all of these different professions talking about all of these different issues, so there was a medical doctor, theologians, all these different people, and there was also this law professor. He started talking about all this stuff, just really interesting- the policies around bioethics. It’s actually really interesting, because you’re starting to see, in pretty sad ways, some of this stuff coming out during the COVID crisis. I found his talk really fascinating, and I had lunch with him. Before I had this really sort of narrow understanding of what somebody did with a law degree, and it was like, oh, you’re either a prosecutor or you do criminal defense, or you maybe work for a company. He sort of really helped me to realize you can get a JD and never, ever practice law, and it’s still a super helpful degree. You can become a politician, which I would never do. You could be on a board, and advise a hospital, or whatever. There’s just so many things you can do, you can write policy, so that got me really excited. It was really funny, because the conference was, I believe, in late June, I came back from it and I bought all these LSAT books, the LSAT is the test you have to take in order to get into law school, and I just called my parents and I was like “I’m going to take the LSAT and go to law school.” I was not really sure what their response would be, and they were just kind of like “Okay,” and I was like “What- aren’t you a little surprised?” And they were like “No, actually, we’ve sort of been waiting for you to come to this conclusion, we’re glad you finally came around to knowing that this is what you’re suited to do.”
Jeff:
They had a running bet-
Laura:
“How long is this going to take?” So then it was just funny, because it was like I was really motivated. It was easy for me to study, I got excited about going, and that was a big sign for me that I was doing the right thing, because, you know, if you can’t be excited about the fun stuff, you’re probably not going to be able to do the really boring or the really stressful stuff.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. You’re an avid Braille reader yourself?
Laura:
Yes, I am.
Jeff:
How was the accessibility to do the LSAT?
Laura:
I took it at the time when there ended up being a huge class action, which was covered by the tests that I took. I was able to finally get all of the accommodations that I requested, but I had to appeal twice. It was truly unbelievable. I took the test at the University of Pennsylvania, which is a huge school, tons of resources. At the time that I took it, there was a part of the test that the writing portion- as an accommodation I asked to be able to use my laptop since I can’t write by hand. They were like “Yes, but you have to bring your own printer.” I was like “Okay, I live by myself, I’m already bringing my Perkins Brailler, a laptop, Braille paper, whatever, you know? This is an Ivy League school in Philadelphia, you’re really telling me that I can’t connect to a printer?” And they were like “No, you have to bring your own printer.” Which I didn’t even own, I didn’t own a printer. So I had to borrow a printer from a friend, and then my parents, thankfully, I was, you know, fortunate enough that they lived an hour away, so they drove down and took me and my entire van full of equipment, because also- they also gave you one practice exam, which was in Braille, so it’s quite large, it was this huge stack of books, and you had to bring that exam back the day of your test or you were fined some exorbitant amount of money. So, all in all, I just had this incredible amount of stuff.
Jeff:
You’ve got to get a U-Haul just to go take a test.
Laura:
Yeah, basically, just to take the test, and it took us multiple trips to bring everything in. It was definitely not the worst, I’ve heard so much worse testing accommodation stories and I consider myself pretty lucky, but, I mean, I’ve been totally blind since I was 15 months old, and even to submit the accommodation- as I said, I took a few years off, I took the LSAT when I was 25. I had to go all the way back to my elementary school- I went to public school, and so I had an IEP, and they made me submit my IEPs as part of my accommodations packet. And again, thankfully, I’ve lived in the same place forever, I have kept extremely good records, like my dad literally had a file called I think “Laura’s IEPs,” but it’s just such an incredible entry barrier, especially because I didn’t have a condition that changed at all, like I have friends and colleagues who used to not use assistive technology, they would use low vision technology, magnification stuff, and over time they’ve switched, and things are so much harder for them because their needs have changed over time, and so it just sends up these flags, like why do you need this now, and you didn’t before? It’s interesting, one of the big pieces of advice I give now when I talk to younger- like, high school age and middle school, it’s like “You have no idea what your career path is, whatever it is, you need to start saving these.” Like, if you send an email to a principal, “I need this accommodation,” you know, or even especially now with COVID, everything needs to be kept, and kept as records, because whether you take the GRE or go into law, or if you have to continue taking exams that require accommodations, unless something fundamental changes, they’re going to keep asking you to go back, like all the way back, to your SATs, and your AP tests, all- like, I had to do all that stuff. So, it definitely is a worthwhile thing to start compiling all of that stuff in one place.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, it’s amazing the hurdles and barricades and brick walls. Did they know that you were going to work for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?
Laura:
No, because did I know? Absolutely not!
Jeff:
How did that come about?
Laura:
Oh my gosh, so-
Jeff:
Well, congratulations on shooting for your- you know you wanted to get your law degree, and you did, so congratulations on that.
Laura:
Thank you, yeah, it was- a thing I’ll say is I never even thought that having a clerkship at the Supreme Court was a possibility, and not to say, oh, I undercut myself, or whatever, it’s just a very rare opportunity, and it’s statistically not very probable at all that you will have one, and so it was never something that even crossed my mind. The justice came to Notre Dame when I was a 1L, which is the first year of law school. He gave a talk to our constitutional law class. I just admire his life story, it’s just so incredible. Unfortunately his memoir, even though it was a bestseller, is not available on Audible or Kindle or anything like that, but if anyone is able to access his memoir either through Bookshare or other means, I do really recommend it, because he’s a Black man from Georgia, and he grew up in segregation, experienced really severe racism, sometimes, he was very poor, did not have indoor plumbing, things that, you know, are very hard for me to even imagine. The things that come through when you meet him, or in his book or anyone who has ever known him, is that he has obviously been formed by those experiences, but he is not angry or bitter. He’s just such a joyful person, his laugh is one of the most amazing laughs I’ve ever heard in my life, and it’s very infectious, and so I’ve always admired him just on a personal level, because I have a personality that tends to struggle with getting jaded or cynical or sarcastic, and so reading about someone who had gone through things that I would- I mean, it’s never good to compare, but I would objectively say are much harder struggles and hardships, and see how he came out the other side very loving and joyful was something I was like “Wow, I would really love to learn how to emulate that.” So then he came to Notre Dame, and I got to hear him talk, and I don’t know, it just sort of planted this seed of wow, it would just be such an amazing dream to meet him, not even work for him but just to meet him and talk about some of these things. I did very well at law school, and so I graduated in a place where I could have conversations with my professors about maybe this would be possible, but it really just is- like, you really are taking a giant leap of faith and a shot in the dark, because there are so many applications and you never know when they’re going to be actually looking to hire. There’s just so many unknowns that you just have to do it and put your trust, and just be detached. That’s what everyone told me, like, apply and then don’t think about it again. Overwhelmingly, the chances are that you will never get called. You apply to all of the justices, which I did, and then you wait, and wait, and wait and wait, sometimes for a very long time.
Jeff:
And you didn’t think about it at all, did you?
Laura:
No- okay, I definitely thought about it- actually, okay, yeah.
Jeff:
You’re you.
Laura:
I didn’t think about it as much as I thought I would, let’s say that. I was better at it than I thought I would be. But yeah, I definitely thought about it a lot. Look, this is like Murphy’s Law. I feel like any time you’re waiting for an unexpected phone call, that’s when all of the scammers and- scammers, they know, right? They know. Because you’re going to answer your phone, no matter how weird the number looks, you’re going to answer it, because what if it’s the call that’s saying, “We’d like you to come in for an interview,” you know? That was the thing, it was like every time my phone rang I kind of had this startled reflex, like [gasps], you know, and it would be my mom, and I would be super sad, no offense, mom. And so, a good amount of time went by, and I was actually home visiting a friend in Philadelphia, and I was standing on the train platform for 30th Street station, which is underground and you have no cell service, and so my phone rang, and I answered it, and all I heard was “Hi, this is-.” It was clear that it was a real phone call, but then the phone went dead. So I had to agonizingly wait for the train to pull out of the station and get out of the tunnel, and that’s when I found out that I- Justice Thomas does a few rounds of interviews, so before you go to the court for your final interview you talk to some other former clerks and things like that, and so she was calling to schedule that first screener interview. And so it was pretty awesome, I was freaking out on the train and I was all by myself sending these frantic texts to friends and my family, because I couldn’t call, I was on the quiet car so I couldn’t call anybody, you know, and then after the screening interview was another really long waiting game. Sorry, this is a very long story, but it just goes to show you the amount of providence it takes. I was in DC working for another judge, there was a seminar- a constitutional law seminar about originalism, which is a form of constitutional interpretation. I went to the seminar, and the justice actually gave a talk to us there. So I met him, and actually got to chat for a short amount of time-
Jeff:
Justice T.
Laura:
Yeah. And then shortly thereafter, he called, and I came in for my interview. So, I really believe that if all of those things- if I didn’t go to the seminar, if I wasn’t at- Notre Dame has a number of professors who clerked for Justice Thomas who have an amazing relationship with him, you know, it’s all of these things that have to fall into place to get to even the option that you even get selected for an interview, let alone get to get hired.
Jeff:
Who ever thought that doing woodworking with me at Blind Incorporated would lead to this? Wow, that’s-
Laura:
It gave me the confidence, Jeff. I just take saws and just, you know, bust down barriers.
Jeff:
There you go, impressive. Hearing your journey, I remember when you got the job, oh, okay, she’s a social worker, cool, she got a job, you know? That was huge.
Laura:
I was at your house! Do you remember that?
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, they called!
Laura:
Yeah! I was at your house because I was there for a wedding and you guys hosted me, and I do, I remember how excited I was, because I had been unemployed for a while and it was really hard.
Jeff:
Just that point of getting jobs and all the parents out there and everything know what that would be like, you know, and what did your dad say when you graduated from law school?
Laura:
So, I made a friend in law school, she’s like a mom, a friend, so she’s got grown kids of her own, and she kind of took me under her- like, she would invite me over to their house and feed me nice home cooked meals, and just, she was a true friend but also very much a mom figure. And so when I had my graduation, she invited, you know, my sister and my parents were in town, my best friend from law school came, Francesca, and then I had a couple other friends from other departments who she invited over. I should mention, they have I think seven children, so they have this beautiful, big, rectangular dining room table that’s just so warm and communal and we just had a meal there. My dad, he gets pretty emotional sometimes, and he was just saying that they’ve always been extremely invested in my education, I have heard the stories from my first cane teacher—again, so I’m 33, I was diagnosed before the ADA was even passed, my parents had no idea, there was no internet no easily accessible resources, when I’m eight months old and I get my diagnosis, my dad already picked up the phone and started calling people and being like “How can we get her to go to a public school?” He didn’t know about Braille, how does she learn how to read, all these things, again, it just got me started off on this amazing track. Now this is very common, or it should be common, but I started using a cane when I was two, and I started reading Braille when I was three, just like any other child learns how to walk and read starting at that age, and so, you know, I always grew up in this house where I was expected to do everything that my siblings were doing in terms of chores and homework, and they always said “You’re expected to do, and you can do whatever your sister does,” I have a twin sister, they always instilled that in me, and they believed in me when I went to college, and when I got my job, and then when I graduated law school- and I didn’t have my clerkship yet when I graduated law school, but when I graduated law school I think my dad said something like, you know, you grow up and you tell your children that you believe in them, and that you have faith, everything’s going to be fine, and this philosophical idea that you can do whatever you put your mind to. You don’t really realize how much you didn’t actually believe it until it’s happening. And I think my graduation from law school for them was really this point where they could be like “We did our job, we were good parents, she’s going to be fine.” I think it’s why I have this soft spot for parents who have blind children or other children with disabilities, because, yeah, your whole life is to be a cheerleader for your child, and to just- sometimes, you have to put your fears down and you have to put on this brave face even if you’re not feeling so brave so that they can be brave and courageous, and I really benefited from that from my parents, and it was kind of very striking for me to hear that from them, like in a really nice way, they had their hard times too, you know, and they really had to make these acts of trust the way that I was. Like I said, I went through a period where I was unemployed, and I got rejected from tons and tons of jobs, even in law school it was really hard for me to get a firm to hire me at one point. There have been periods of my life where I just had to keep digging deep and being like “It doesn’t matter how many people discriminate against you, it doesn’t matter how many times you get rejected, you keep plowing ahead.” I think it was that sort of grit that they instilled in me that allowed me to do that, and then to hear that they also too were sometimes just sort of white-knuckling it was sort of- it was a nice way to bond, I think.
Jeff:
Oh, that’s great. Even when you’re talking about hunting for a condo or a house, you’ve ran into some people that said “Oh, what, you’re blind?” Even though you’ve done all you’ve done, have all these credits and everything, it’s like “Oh, but, you’re blind.”
Laura:
All they see is that, yeah. Or it’s like, there’s this joke where people- I mean, I’m not saying this because I think this is true, but people have sometimes paid me compliments, being like “Oh, you’re so humble.” There’s people who if they’ve clerked at the Supreme Court, they’re like “Oh, I’m the best,” and I’m just like, yeah, you know, it’s kind of hard, not that I want to be like that, but it’s like when people still congratulate you for tying your shoe or walking upstairs, it’s kind of hard to get a big head, you know? It’s like- because no matter what you do, to most people they’re unfortunately still seeing you as this person who it’s just sort of miraculous- not too far in the past, I went to a salon, and the woman asked me when my bus for the nursing home was going to pick me up.
Jeff:
Did she add grey to your hair?
Laura:
Maybe! I mean I guess I should check! But I’m just like, again, this is where I come back to what do you do? Obviously that’s offensive, and I’m just like are you kidding? Did you not see me walk in or the way that I’m dressed, or any of the things that we’ve talked about while you were cutting my hair? I guess none of that matters? But it’s like you have to laugh, because it’s the only way that you, for me, cannot let it just beat you down and eat you up. I know I have my friends, I know I have the people in my corner, obviously there’s tons and tons of work to do, but you’ve just got to have this mindset where you can kind of see the absurdity of that comment and hope that next time a blind person walks in she’ll not make that assumption.
Jeff:
Kind of like Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter, B. Rewrite that a little bit.
Laura:
Yeah, exactly. It’s a pretty frustrating thing, to have that kind of no matter what new enterprise you’re entering into, you still get people acting like that.
Jeff:
I think that’s something good for people to understand, though, even though you might be 14 to 24 years old, transitioning into college and your journeys way ahead of you, or if they went to a training center, they think they’re going to come out of there being that ninja traveler and the world’s going to see you totally different, some of that doesn’t change.
Laura:
Absolutely, or even just the things like, for me, with COVID, I mean, there are places that I’ve been to a thousand times. I mean, I can daydream, I can listen to music and walk there, like, I have been there a thousand times, and everything is different now. There’s entrances that are locked. I went home for my parents, to see my parents, and I came back and they had installed this big plexiglass protective barrier around the concierge at the front desk, so I went to go get a package, and I just sort of reached my hands out and hit the plexiglass with the back of my hand. So everything- we live in this totally different world now, like with COVID, I’m sure that I look a lot less confident to people than I formerly did, walking around to all these places, because no matter whether it’s age, you know, whether you start noticing wow, my hearing isn’t as good as it used to be, or your memory, there’s not as much cognitive space to hold information about new places. Everything is always changing, and so even if you can be super ninja blind person in certain areas of your life, some of that might slip in other areas, and it’s going to be fine, because as long as you just know to expect it that people are going to still kind of come up to you and make comments, and you don’t let that be a distraction. You just know it’s coming, so you’re not taken off guard by it.
Jeff:
Every once in a while you want to turn to them and say, “That was so 1997!”
Laura:
Oh, yeah, no, I don’t want to misrepresent myself, I definitely lose it with people sometimes.
Jeff:
So tell me about Justice T, now you told me a story a while back, but he’s experienced some people with disabilities.
Laura:
He had a very good friend who had polio way before the ADA, or anything being accessible. He was the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the 80s. He spent a lot of time on accessibility. It’s really interesting, because a lot of the things that he did are things that we as people with disabilities see as extremely important, like for instance his committees were made up of people who actually had disabilities, so that the input they were getting was not from contractors and stuff, it was like “Oh, I’m Deaf or hard of hearing, and this is what I need,” or “I’m a little person, this is what I need,” you know, that was very progressive with a lowercase p for the time, and he really did a lot of work to transform at least the building and also some of the policies to be focused on people with disabilities, and so I think if someone has exposure either to someone that they’re very close to who has a disability, or they themselves have just experienced hardship or a deep minority status, the discrimination that can come from that, it can make someone just very intuitively aware of things that are problems or obstacles. I knew from the very first moment that I started working that- I think a lot of blind people carry this fear, I certainly have in the past, that let’s say if my JAWS crashes or if something happens and I can’t do the work, that that will translate into the person thinking “You’re a bad employee,” or “I shouldn’t have hired you because you’re not as reliable as an able-bodied employee.” I never had that fear with him, because it was always very clear, the difference between something that was a problem- he was able to see that an assistive technology is just that, it’s an assistive technology fail, just like if someone’s computer, you know, malfunctions or something like that.
Jeff:
Or the escalator or elevator-
Laura:
Exactly, or there were actually times when, you know, a server goes down and everybody’s out of luck.
Jeff:
Or a click ruler in woodworking gets stuck.
Laura:
Yes! Yeah, so it’s like, I never had those fears, and it was very liberating to just know that, thankfully also nothing ever became a problem to the extent that I wasn’t able to get my work done, but I think it just took so much stress off of me to know that I was doing something that the technology was sort of being pushed to its limits and everybody at the court was learning very quickly, and admirably about how assistive technology works and that if something were to go wrong, we would just pull together as a team instead of having the blame be pushed on me.
Jeff:
It’s amazing how when you woke up, you get your transportation to go to work, the people at your work, the people that surround you, and when you go to the restaurants nearby and stuff, how many people you are impacting and bringing awareness to blindness by who you are, what you’re doing, how you carry yourself. People use the word “Ambassador” or something like that, but whether you like it or not, you’re representing the blind community.
Laura:
It’s true. You know, as I said, it can definitely be tiring, because there are days when, you know, I’m grumpy, or I’m tired, I’m stressed, and you know, you feel guilty if you snap at someone or, you know—because you’re like, oh gosh, they’re going to think- now I just fed into the stereotype that all blind people are mean. That’s not true, it’s just that we’re human, you know, but I talked a little bit about this when I talked at the NFB, I mean, I think it’s so true, work is obviously extremely important, going to school, extremely, extremely important, but there’s just so much more to life.
Recording of Laura Wolke at NFB:
I firmly believe that this opportunity would not have been possible for me if I was not a member of many communities. Faith-based communities, specific engagement communities, sports, whatever, whatever it is that makes you feel alive, and makes you feel like you are flourishing, and what truly interests you about life, we need to be including ourselves and integrating ourselves into those communities. A lot of times there is this understanding that we focus on where the barriers are and we say, you know “There’s barriers to education, so we have to talk to the educators. There’s barriers to employment, we have to talk to the employers, we have to talk to the developers,” and that is very true, very necessary, very, very important hard work that is being done. But the fact remains that educators do not spend 100% of their time educating, and web developers do not spend 100% of their time web developing. They are human beings, and they are going out into communities, and they are living their lives in robust and rich ways, and the more blind people that are out there that they can encounter in any capacity whatsoever, that makes a huge difference, and by all of us doing that we just increase the odds that the next time someone is hiring- let’s say they even casually mention it at a dinner party, that someone is going to say “Yeah, I know a blind person, that candidate is competent.” Just because they are blind, it does not mean they can’t do the job, or play the sport, or take the leadership role, or go to Harvard Law School, as we heard earlier this evening. I just really encourage anyone who’s out there listening tonight, if there has ever been something that you have wanted to try, but you have been holding yourself back for fear of what it would be like to try to get into that community, I really encourage you to do that.
Laura:
I remember one of the people I’ve met- I run, as well, and so I run with a guide who’s sighted. I always ask people “Why did you get into this?” One of them told me “Yeah, I got into it because I went on a history walk in DC, instead of a nature walk it’s all of the historical events that have taken place in DC, and there was this blind guy there with a cane, and I had just assumed that he had someone with him, or that they would provide him with someone, and they didn’t, so he just came up to me and was like ‘Hi, I either have to go home, or could I walk with you during this history walk?’” And she was like “I just thought that was so cool, I never thought about a blind person wanting to go on a history walk where you’re just looking at stuff,” and then she was like “Well, I really like to run, and I bet blind people run,” and sure enough, we do! So it’s just something that simple, like that guy probably wasn’t going out that day thinking “I’m going to change someone’s point of view on blindness, I’m just doing what I want to do.” We can do really small things that have a really huge impact, even if it’s not a full-fledged change on how people view blindness, it’s like they might just go like “Huh. Wow, that’s interesting.” It just moves them that one step closer to losing this view that to be blind means you probably just sit at home and you’re completely dependent on people.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. Well, thank you for changing the opinion of so many people, and DC, the land of Oz out there! How’s your transportation out there now?
Laura:
So, in the land of COVID, it’s a pretty interesting world. The metro- like, we have a metro, we have buses, they’re basically back up to running normal schedules again, Uber and Lyft also kind of disappeared for a while, and they’re back as well. We don’t have to talk about the masking vs not masking thing, but I’m a big fan of masks, and it’s important to me, for- to feel comfortable, when I go out in public, to know that people around me are wearing masks. That’s been a new and interesting frontier of blindness. When I’m on the metro, I don’t know what people are doing, I just don’t know. Whereas in an Uber, I guess you still don’t technically know, but I’m sure all of us know at this point when someone’s wearing a mask it does change their speech patterns a little. You can ask them and the chances that someone’s going to outright lie to you- I mean, there’s probably some people who would do that, and then you can roll the window down, you can ventilate your car even if you aren’t 100% sure. So this has been an interesting thing for me where I at least for the short term just felt more comfortable in not using large-scale public transit and using more rideshares and things like that. I remember feeling a little bit guilty about that, when I first started doing it, being like oh, my gosh, I’m supposed to be this independent blind person, I’m supposed to take the metro. I have talked to a number of blind people who have expressed something similar. We almost feel like we’re regressing, a little, just because so many things about the world are different. I just decided, I need to reframe this, it’s not that I’m regressing, because if I was regressing I just wouldn’t be going outside at all, it’s just that things about my comfort level are changed. Like, this is a tool, and I have it, and if things change tomorrow and there’s a vaccine or COVID goes away- I mean, those things aren’t going to happen tomorrow, obviously, but I can go back to using the metro. But there’s no shame in feeling like I only feel comfortable walking places or getting rideshares. Anyway, that’s not a super great answer to your question, except to say that I really do think COVID has taught me that even though I’ve been out and independent for 15 years, obviously this is a very striking thing that has happened, but whether you might move to the suburbs and things totally change, or whatever it might be, it’s just like, flexibility is key, and not to get bogged down in there’s this one way to be independent, and if you change anything about that, you are giving up this image of independent blindness, because there are actually many, many ways of being independent, and we all have different experiences and different things that form our comfort levels, and as long as you know when you should be pushing your comfort level there’s nothing wrong with trying out different sets of independent skills depending on what your current needs are.
Jeff:
You know, you mentioned so many good tips for everyone earlier, what advice would you give to someone who’s in that transition age group, 14 to 21, as they’re looking forward to their own future?
Laura:
Well, I would definitely say, and I know I sort of spoke about this earlier, but do not be discouraged by rejection, because unfortunately it is the case that you probably will experience it for reasons unrelated to your merit, and that’s just the sad thing that we have to deal with, but like everything else, you can learn really amazing things about yourself. For instance, I think I applied for more than 30 jobs my first year of law school for a summer internship, and I got one offer. So that was a pretty humiliating experience. I learned a lot of really valuable things, I learned how to tell when someone was not wanting to ask about assistive tech but they clearly need to know about it because they had doubts, and I also think I learned how to be funnier, how to put people at ease, and there’s all these skills you might need to learn that maybe, perhaps, we shouldn’t have to learn but we might need to in practicality and they can make you into a richer and more fun person, like just a better friend, a more empathic person, a person who can more intuitively understand when someone’s going through a hard time, we can take these things that we need to learn through virtue of us having a disability and we can turn them into gifts that we can share with others that make us really, really, really good friends, and daughters, and family members and things. I would say you can be discouraged by rejection, just don’t let it stop you, and have a good sounding board where you can just vent it all out and get rid of it, and you can go to sleep or eat some ice cream or whatever you need to do, I did both of those a lot. And then just wake up and start again. So you know, that’s number one, and number two, I remember it’s getting farther and farther in my past, but I definitely remember what it was like going through those times and everyone just wants to, like, “What are you going to do, what are you going to major in, where are you going to go, do you know what’s next?” And those are really heavy questions, sometimes you don’t know the answer, like it’s very, it’s a huge pressure that’s put on you, and all these people are well-meaning but I really do encourage you to just find something fun. You can find this hobby that really is an outlet, and you can still be a great blind role model, or you can meet great people who will be on your team forever, like they’ll be in your corner and you can go to them for help and advice, but it doesn’t have to be related to anything school-wise or career-wise, it can just be, like, knitting, or a book club, or whatever, whatever it is you want to do. I just really strongly recommend that we all do what we can to branch out and to be involved in a lot of activities. I also think that can be a safer place if you are feeling a little nervous or a little uncomfortable. Some types of social settings, like if it’s an organized event or things like that, you know, they can be a safer place where you can try to venture forward and build up some of your confidence skills, and skills like just saying “Hi, I need an accommodation so I can go to this event.” And if you practice doing those, you’ll gain confidence, and it’s a skill that will always help you whether it’s with education or employment or home buying or whatever, having the skills to sort of feel confident in asking for whatever you need are really vital, and doing it in the context of then getting something fun out of it, it’s a much more rewarding experience.
Jeff:
That’s great advice. You mentioned your parents feeling like they’d done their job when you graduated from law school, what advice would you give parents?
Laura:
I think being in touch with other parents who are also raising either blind children or children with different disabilities is super key, and also if you can find young blind people, like young adults or- it doesn’t actually matter what age they are, I think so many of us are just so happy to help and to pass on the torch. I think sometimes, like what I learned from doing social work is just having someone who is listening to you, who is not- let’s say you’re having trouble with your child’s teachers and you feel like they’re just giving you the back of the hand or dismissing you, even just having someone to talk to who is not doing that can give you so much more energy to keep fighting because it just gets really tiring, I know, hearing over and over again “You’re being unreasonable” or “We can’t provide this,” you know they can. I think finding blind people to talk to or parents who are raising blind kids is so important- yeah, I think that’s my main advice. And then the other thing, too, is just, you know, I think having peers who don’t have disabilities- this kind of happened naturally with me and my sister because we’re twins and she’s sighted, but I think having peers who do not have disabilities, it’s a good way if you don’t have other children to know that your child is acting age appropriately. You know, there are definitely some things that I had to get corrected out of my behavior when I was a child, just doing things at the right time. So, like, a good example is, when I was a kid, I started reading Braille when I was like three or four. Well, now, kids start using tablets and things when they’re two, and maybe you’re a parent who decides “I don’t want to do that, I want to delay screen time,” and that’s fine, but if you’re not, you know, then your two-year-old blind child needs to be playing on a tablet because that’s what two-year-olds are doing. You can sub in anything for that, whatever it is, if it’s like “Okay, we live in a suburb, and there’s, like, at the end of the street there’s this town center, and all the kids go there and they hang out.” Well, if that’s what 13-year-olds are doing, and you feel comfortable, and you would make that decision for a sighted child, then that’s what your blind child should be doing. And so I just think having close able-bodied peers for your children is a really good way to know whether you might be holding your child to a different standard than you otherwise would if they were sighted.
Jeff:
Great information. Laura, congratulations on all your accomplishments and you’ve still got a lot more to go, looking for housing! What another level-
Laura:
Yeah, I’ll have to check back with you to see if this ends up being successful, but I’m hoping it will be.
Jeff:
Oh, I’m sure it will be. Another address for you.
Laura:
Exactly.
Jeff:
Well, thank you so much for sharing your story on Blind Abilities, and thanks for taking the time to come on here. It’s great talking to you, and-
Laura:
You too!
Jeff:
-we’ll continue staying in touch.
Laura:
Awesome, thank you so much.
Pete:
Thanks so much to Laura Wolke for joining us on Blind Abilities. Her story of achievement and rising to the level that she has this early in her career is inspiring, and the special friendship that she and Jeff Thompson share is refreshing. I’m sure that Laura will be joining us again in the not-too-distant future to give us an update on her law career, and any other words of wisdom that she chooses to share. In the meantime, thank you all so much for listening, and from all of us here at Blind Abilities, through these challenging times, to you, your family, and friends, stay well, stay informed, and stay strong. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.
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