Haben Girma: Lawyer, Activist, and Advocate for Equal Opportunities for People with Disabilities

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Today's remarkable guest is Haben Girma. Haben was born in Oakland, California to an immigrant Eritrean family. In her early childhood, she began to lose her eyesight and hearing. She graduated from Skyline High School in Oakland and went on to graduate magna cum laude from Lewis and Clark. After college, she obtained a law degree from Harvard Law School. She is the first deafblind person to achieve this distinction. After law school, she joined an organization called Disability Rights Advocates. She was part of the team that filed a lawsuit against SCRIBD because its digital reading system did not accommodate blind people. President Obama named her to the White House Champions of Change, and she received the Helen Keller Achievement Award from the American Federation for the Blind. She was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list and a speaker for the Time 100 talks compared to other episodes of Remarkable People, there's a longer delay between the end of my question and the guest's answer. That's because what I said was typed in by a transcriber and converted for Hobin to read on a braille keyboard. I did not delete the delay and the sound of typing so that you could experience how our interview actually took place. This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by Remarkable, the paper tablet company. Yes, you got that right. Remarkable is sponsored by Remarkable. I have version two in my hot little hands and it's so good. A very impressive upgrade. Here's how I use 1. Taking notes while I'm interviewing a podcast guest. 2. Taking notes while being brief about speaking gigs. 3. Drafting the structure of keynote speeches. 4. Storing manuals for the gizmos that I buy. 5. Roughing out drawings for things like surfboards, surfboard sheds, and office layouts. 6. Wrapping my head around complex ideas with diagrams and flowcharts. This is a remarkably well thought out product. It doesn't try to be all things to all people, but it takes notes better than anything I've used. Check out the Recent reviews of the latest version. I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is remarkable people. And now here's the remarkable Haben Girma. I have to ask you, how is this interview even happening?

So we have a typist listening in to the audio, wearing AirPods or headsets and listening in and typing what's being heard. And that's coming out on my Braille display. So I'm reading it in braille and then responding by voice. So you will notice a delay between when you speak and when I respond. And that's because the typing is coming through.

I'm just going to assume that that is you thinking of a thoughtful answer with great care and feeling.

That works for me. You can interpret the pause any way you like.

Does she type? Laughter? What happens then?

So all audio is transmitted. So laughter comes through sometimes. Lol. Sometimes ha. Just converting sound into text form.

Why can't we go from voice to braille? Not that I want to eliminate the person helping you, but why can't we go from voice to Braille using AI and machine learning and all the good stuff?

Oh, that already exists. It's absolutely possible. It's just that AI is not at a point where we can rely on it for professional real life important things. So you can. There's so many text to speech, speech to text tools out there, but if you look at them, they make errors, they mistype names, such as my name. Haben is always misunderstood and other important details are mixed up. And that's not something I want to rely on for professional settings. That's why I don't rely on AI. Maybe in 10 years it'll be accurate enough to rely on, but right now it's not something I rely on.

I'm going to ask you my first questions. Okay?

Wait, what was all of that you've been asking? Didn't you ask questions?

Yes, but I was trying to understand the situation before I ask anything. But yes, you're right.

All right, what's your next question?

Clearly you're a Harvard Law School trained person. I know that you've probably explained this 50,000 times, roughly the same amount of time that I have explained what it was like to work for Steve Jobs. But can you just give us the story of Eritrea to the United States? I know you were born in the United States, but just give us a little bit of the family heritage there.

What part of it interests you?

Three generations ago my family was in Japan and yours was. Or was it two generations ago your family was still in Eritrea. And I want to Know, how did it go down that you're now on the east coast of the United States?

I live in California. Where did you get the idea that I'm on the East Coast?

Oh, I. I assumed you were stuck in Massachusetts because you went to Harvard Law School.

Come on, deafblind people can travel. Where did you get the idea that I'd be stuck in Massachusetts for the rest of my life?

All right, can you just take me back a generation into Reacher and bring me to the United.

Absolutely. But going forward. Guy, please, better questions. Put more thought into your questions. Okay, so my mother was born in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. My dad was born in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. It was a completely different world back then. The two countries had about a 30 year war. Right now in 2021, there's a completely different situation. The two countries seem to be aligned in a war against a region in northern Ethiopia. And it's a six month ongoing humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia right now. My parents traveled to the United States. My mom came as a refugee going through Sudan. And I was born in California in the San Francisco Bay area. Then I went to college at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon. After that, Harvard Law School in Massachusetts. When I graduated, I immediately left. Guy apparently is very surprised by this, but I don't like snowy winters, so I left Massachusetts.

You definitely passed the IQ test there. Get out of the snow. Yes.

And let me take the time to point out that IQ tests are ridiculous and meaningless. It's one person's idea of intelligence. It's a very narrow idea of intelligence. There's so much different variation on what it means to be intelligent. And we need to embrace that diversity.

Okay. At least I didn't say you passed the lsat.

We won't mention the LSAT.

To show you how little I know, which clearly I've been demonstrating already. What's the proper and acceptable vernacular? Is, quote, unquote, disability the right word?

My recommendation is to always ask people, because everyone has different takes on this. Some. Some people think disability is a dirty word and feel ashamed. And they will do everything they can to avoid saying the word. They will say special needs, differently abled, and other extreme linguistic efforts to avoid saying the word disability. For me, I associate the word disability with civil rights. Americans with Disabilities Act. It's not Americans with Special Needs Act. So there is stigma associated with the word disability. It's the stigma that's the problem. The word itself is not the problem. And more advocates today are celebrating disability pride. That word disability connects us to civil rights and connects us to other disabled people and builds this community of disabled people across disability community. Deaf blind people who use wheelchairs, people with psychiatric disabilities. It's incredibly diverse. Different races, different ethnicities, different languages. So if you use disability on Twitter, you'll find a variety of different voices.

So do you think the word disability is tied to civil rights as opposed to charity, empathy or sympathy?

Empathy is a good thing. Charity has its place in society. Disability should not always be tied to charity. I argue disability is an opportunity for innovation. If you can't do something one way, find another way to do it. And that other alternative way of doing things can benefit not just disabled people, but also non disabled people. And who knows what exciting innovations you'll find that moves our entire society forward.

So if someone said to you, I empathize with you, first of all, is it possible for someone to empathize with you who has sight and hearing? And secondly, can it not be said that empathy is feeling sorry as opposed to literally empathizing?

Let's do a test case. So, Guy, you read my book. How do you feel?

I feel admiration. It's not empathy. It's not sympathy. It's not charity. I feel admiration.

Why do you feel admiration?

Because I like to consider people's accomplishments based on what they had to overcome.

I'm going to step in here and add that there's this common thing of framing disability experiences as overcoming the disability. And I want the world to know that for me, I have not had to overcome my disability. I'm still disabled. I'm still deafblind. The biggest barrier for me has been ableism. Ableism is the widespread practice of framing disabled people as inferior to non disabled people. So, for example, my disability does not stop me from practicing law. A big part of law is reading. I can read in Braille. Reading in Braille gives me access. There are computers and software that quickly convert printed to Braille. So blindness is not the problem. But when institutions like courthouses refuse to provide materials in accessible, readable formats, that becomes the barrier. I have the ability to read. But when society puts out content that's inaccessible, that's the barrier.

But you had to and continue to have to overcome those barriers.

Yes, I have to overcome ableism, which is not what society traditionally frames the disability experience. Usually it's framed as the disabled person has to overcome their own disability to be successful. But for me, my disability has not been my barrier. It's ableism. That's been my barrier. I know you like surfing. And you've shared many surfing. You've shared many surfing stories. I read your memoir, by the way, and I know you. You were surfing in Santa Cruz, which is where I first learned to surf. But when I first started and I was talking to different surf schools, they would say, we've never heard of a deaf blind surfer. We don't know if we can teach you. We've never heard of a deafblind surfer. Then I found one school that said, let's figure this out. Surfing is a tactile experience. You're feeling the water, you're riding the waves. It's very physical. So the instructor took the time to figure out, how do we make this accessible? What can we change? What can we teach? That's inclusion. So I hope more people in society, from serve schools to tech developers, learn to treat disability as an opportunity for innovation. If you're not sure how to do something or you've never heard of it, disabled person doing a specific activity, that's an opportunity to deepen your understanding of that field.

How do you feel when people tell you that you are inspiring?

If people tell me I'm inspiring, I ask them, what are you inspired to do? Inspiration is an emotion if it leads to action. Excellent. Sometimes non disabled people tell disabled people we're inspiring, when in fact it's a disguise for pity. They're feeling uncomfortable and awkward around the disabled person, so they just blurt out, you're inspiring. They're not thinking of changing any of their behaviors. They're just trying to say something because they're feeling awkward and uncomfortable. That's not helpful. If you're feeling awkward and uncomfortable, take a moment to figure out why. What are the assumptions you're making? What questions can you ask to clarify the situation? If you're not sure what to say, ask how do you identify? What can I do to assist? That's how we grow and learn. So if you do find someone inspiring, connect that emotion to action. I'm inspired to learn surfing. I'm inspired to make my website accessible.

While we're on surfing. I'm still in Santa Cruz, so if you ever want to surf again, I guarantee you that I can find the right people to make this happen. It would be quite a fun thing to do, so just let me know.

I didn't know you're still in Santa Cruz. I love Santa Cruz. So the organization that first took me surfing is called Ride a Wave. They're based in Santa Cruz and it's a group of volunteers that does tandem surfing. They Focus on kids with disabilities, and they will take kids out on tandem boards. Kids with different kinds of disabilities, mobility disabilities, they have tandem boards with seats on them. So if someone can't stand, they can sit and still experience the process of being out on the water and surfing. For so many people, the beach is not accessible, and communities don't do the work of creating ramps down to the beach or having support systems so that you can go and enjoy this rare and precious part of our planet. So Ride a Wave is an amazing organization and there are other great groups that are working to make beaches accessible.

A very hypothetical question. If we went back in time and that food services guy at the Lewis and Clark cafeteria had immediately emailed you the menu, do you think the arc of your life would be different?

So. So for people who don't know, in my memoir, there's a story of an inaccessible cafeteria at college that moves me to becoming a civil rights lawyer. There have been so many barriers throughout my life, and experiencing those barriers was really frustrating. And at college. When I first started at college, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Could I go into computer science and mathematics? That was my original plan to major in computer science and mathematics. There were so many barriers, I chose to highlight the cafeteria story in my book. If that hadn't happened, another barrier would have sparked me toward law school.

Just tactically, can you explain how you were a law student?

So people first need to understand that before I was a law student, I was a college student. Before I was a college student, I was a high school student. So I had many, many years to practice my learning techniques and study techniques so that they could be polished enough to work well at the Harvard Law School environment. When I was in first grade, I started learning to read Braille, and then I improved my braille skills over time. First it was hard copy paper braille, then braille displays came out and you can instantly have braille on your fingertips. I've been using these braille computers. This specific one I have is called a Braille Node Apex by Humanware. It's old. It's about 11 years old, which is ancient. To protect these days, it still works. And I will keep using it until. Until it stops working. There are about a hundred different kinds of these braille displays, some smaller, some larger, and they bring braille right at your fingertips for communication. I have one of these paired with a keyboard. So someone can type on a keyboard and what they write appears on the braille computer. So if I'm chatting With classmates, friends. That's one form of communication. I had interpreters in class who were relaying what was being said and also what was being written on the board. Content like handouts, textbooks, was all provided to me in accessible formats like Microsoft Word files. And my braille computer could immediately convert those into braille at my fingertips. So I had all these different tools. The main thing is that the school was willing to. To investigate and discuss what are the different ways we can present information so that you have full access to it. For most of its history, Harvard was not willing to do that. Helen Keller wanted to go to Harvard, and back then, Harvard only admitted men. Over time, the community changed and opened its doors to women, people of color, disabled people. Harvard has put up many arbitrary barriers over the years. Some of those barriers have come down. That school still has more work to do, and all of society still has more work to do to be fully accessible.

Do you view your success as well? Do you view it as your proof that the system works, or do you view it as it was so difficult that it proves that the system is not working?

Which system?

Let's just focus on the American education system and ableism in general. Should there be more of you examples like this, or so that would say the glass is half empty, or is it? Look, I succeeded. It was even possible. I could not have done this in another place. So I'm a success story, and it proves that the system work.

So the American education system is incredibly broken. I was very lucky to go to a school where there were teachers willing to do the work of removing ableism, removing barriers. If I had gone to a school one city over, chances are I would have probably failed high school, and I doubt I would have ever gone to college. I'd probably be among the many disabled people who are unemployed and underemployed. I know many deafblind students who tried going through the education system in California, and the schools refused to provide books and braille and because they didn't have access to books. Books are so critical to learning, yet so many schools deny access to books. Only about 10% of blind students learn braille. Most schools do not teach blind students braille. So there's so many barriers in the United States education system. My story is an example of what could happen if the barriers are removed. But for the most part, those barriers are still there.

Can you give us an overall assessment of in 2021 where we are in terms of ableism?

We're in a terrible place. It's depressing, but during the pandemic. There have been so many stories of experts saying how we need to sacrifice the lives of disabled people. If there's a shortage of health resources, then disabled people, well, do they even have good quality of life? They'll go to the back of the line of resources if there's a shortage on resources. This has been coming up in many states throughout the United States, and disabled lives have been lost because of ableism, the assumption that our lives are not valuable. And this assumption exists in our healthcare system. And it's come up again and again during the pandemic.

This is a rare moment of silence for me. But are you kidding me? Like, who could? What, by what logic is a disabled person's life not as valuable as any other person's life? Walk me through, man. You probably don't. Obviously you don't agree, but what kind of thought, train of thought, that may be giving them too much credit. How could you arrive at such a conclusion?

People who have this point of view, It's hard for me to explain since I don't agree with it, but it seems to come from a place of fear. So, for example, people have told me, gosh, if I were deaf and blind, I'd kill myself. There's no way I would live like that.

Oh my God, are you kidding me?

No, I'm not kidding. This is something a lot of disabled people hear over and over again. And it comes from a place of fear, assuming that all the things you love and all the things that bring you joy would disappear if you could not walk or could not see or lost one of your other abilities. Lots of disabled people, however, come up with alternative solutions. They find ways to do the things that bring them joy. Humans are inherently adaptive. We adapt. But if you're only coming from a place of fear, you're not thinking of adaptation and alternative techniques. You're just operating and speaking with fear.

I interviewed a woman from Nigeria, and in the course of that, I learned a great Nigerian insult, which I would suggest is a good response to someone who says something like that. And the Nigerian insult is that if I wanted to commit suicide, I would climb to the height of your stupidity and jump to the level of your intelligence so you can use that.

My instinct is not to try to insult people, but to try to guide them away from their fear.

You're a better person than me.

Let's not compare. You have things and talents that I don't have.

Just a bit of post interview information. The Oscars were being awarded just around the time that I Did the interview. One of the films, Feeling through is about a handicapped person and his relationship with a teenager. Haben recorded a video with very strong opinions about this film. And that's what this question is about. Has the director of Feeling through reached out to you?

Yes, he reached out in 2018, before the film was created, and he reached out specifically to ask me to help fundraise for the film. I looked at the website for the film. I, I read the transcript for the trailer and I told him, I'm concerned that this is sending harmful messages. Would you please reconsider? And the response was very defensive. And they went ahead and created a film that turned out way worse than I expected.

Oh my God. There's like a lot of show stopping moments in this particular episode. So that's difficult for me to wrap my head around. Now as I understand it, what's fundamentally the problem with that film is that it depicts a disabled person who is using a white cane and despite using the white cane, trips on something and then goes to a store and is so totally helpless that he has to hand his wallet to this stranger, which you would never do. And then the stranger is, I guess, the smart person who can buy stuff because the disabled person can. So is that the gist of the things that are wrong in portraying a disabled person in that film?

So the film Feeling through has received a lot of praise from everyone from the New York Times to being nominated for an Oscar. And it features a sighted hearing black teen helping a deafblind man. However, if you actually watch the film or read the transcript, the disabled man is taken advantage of. So he's taken advantage of in multiple ways. The sighted hearing teen steals money from him. The sighted hearing teen takes his notebook, opens it and reads through it while the man's asleep. There are private messages in this notebook. Imagine someone taking your phone when you're asleep and reading through your private text messages. It's very invasive. And this film is told from the teens, from the sighted hearing teens perspective. The audience is asked to have compassion for the sighted hearing teen. And there's no justice for the disabled man who, who has been stolen from and his privacy has been invaded. There are more things that are horrible with this, but it's deeply disturbing to me that the New York Times says this film is a window into the largely unknown world of deafblindness. It's not a window window into our world. How this guy handles money, walks with a cane, interacts with people that does not represent deafblind people. But most sighted hearing People watching the film will think, oh, that's what deafblindness is like. And that's. That's terrifying.

I am flabbergasted that the director actually, first of all, credit to him that he asked you in advance, but then what would go through his brain that you told him this is all wrong? And he proceeded. His intentions were good, probably. Hopefully.

I can't speak to his. His internal thoughts or feelings. All I can say is he asked me to help with fundraising. He actually didn't ask for my feedback on the messages of the film. I gave him that feedback anyway. And it seems like it was just disregarded.

And so now, God forbid, it wins an Oscar and millions of people watch it. That's just more. More inaccurate information out there about this.

What really bugs me is that disabled people are already concerned for our safety. There's this fear that people are going to take advantage of us. And this film features a sighted hearing teen stealing from and taking advantage of a deafblind man. And there's no justice, there are no consequences for stealing from a deafblind man. What is that teaching society? Is there going to be an increase in crime now after that film, now that that film is out there?

Let's get out of that cesspool. What would you like changed in the ada?

Don't mess with my ada. That's my civil rights law. And people have discussed changing it over the years. And those conversations usually result in bills where if you actually read the bills, they would reduce the effectiveness of the ada. So if anyone talks about changing the ada, I immediately get suspicious.

But I asked you, what would you like change? Not what other people like. How would you make it better, in other words?

So there's an assumption in the tech community that the ADA does not apply to technology. Websites, apps, robots. That's not true. The ADA was passed in 1990. The Internet as we know it didn't exist the way we think of it back in 1990. However, the law was written to be broad and evolve with society. There have already been multiple cases applying the ADA to modern tech. And I worked on one of those cases. I worked on National Federation of the Blind versus Script. Blind readers wanted access to books and documents on the script library. And originally Script argued that they thought they didn't have to make their library accessible. My team disagreed. It went to court and the judge ruled that the ADA does apply to online businesses like Script.

Just for clarity, people who are listening to this, you're talking about scribd, right? That's the Plaintiff in this one.

Defendant.

Excuse me, Defendant. Defendant. I only went to law school for 10 days. What can I say?

That is your excuse for everything, isn't it, Guy?

It also has empowered me. But, yes, you could make that case. But wait, I. I refuse to let you off the hook on this. There is nothing that you would do to the ADA to make it better.

So the ADA made a promise that disabled people are equal and deserve full access to society. That promise has not been fulfilled. That fault does not lie with the law. The fault lies on all the different businesses that fail to comply with the ada. The burden is on plaintiffs like the National Federation of the Blind to bring these cases, and it's exhausting to have that burden. It's so much easier if the businesses choose to make their services accessible rather than waiting for lawsuits. There are over a billion disabled people around the world. That's a huge market. So if you invest in making your business accessible, you'll reach more people. You'll tap into over a billion potential consumers, potential listeners, larger audience. So it's in your best interest to invest in accessibility.

Let's suppose that there are people who are listening to this and they're totally relating to what you're saying because they have a quote, unquote disability, or somehow they're having to overcome external factors. The problem is not them, it's something external. What is your advice to them?

So you're asking what is my advice to disabled people who are struggling with ableism? Is that the question?

Yes.

So if you are out there living with a disability and struggling with ableism, my advice is to make sure you take breaks for yourself. Figure out what are the things that bring you joy, take breaks to recharge, and then come back to the fight for justice. It's exhausting work to continue fighting ableism. It feels like we're swimming in it all the time. Every day there are new barriers. So a lot of people are trying to get vaccines during the pandemic. A lot of the vaccine registration websites are inaccessible to blind people. So even just trying to get a vaccine, you come up with another barrier. So take breaks, recharge, build community. Have allies who can step in and fight for you if you're too tired and overwhelmed with all the barriers to do the fighting and build up your skills. Study the ada. Study advocacy skills. Keep learning from activists who have been working on this for many, many years.

Do you have any recommended reading? When people ask me about writing or being an entrepreneur, I always tell them to read a book by Brenda Uland called if youf Want to Write. So that's the source of much of my courage and creativity. Do you have such a book or any resource that has been just a cornerstone of your success?

I'm not sure I have a book like that. My recommendation for people interested in learning about disability justice read a book called Disability Visibility. It's a collection of short stories and articles from disabled people. One of my articles is also in the book Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong. I also recommend reading my book. It's a memoir called the Deaf Blind Woman who Conquered Harvard Law. And people always say to me, you overcame your disability to go to Harvard Law School. Nope, I didn't. It was Harvard that had to overcome their ableism to make their school more accessible. And I introduced people to ableism through the book.

So the important message to hammer through there is that the problem is not on your side. It's on Harvard's side. Or it was on Harvard's side.

Harvard still has more work to do. Harvard and MIT were sued for not making their videos accessible to deaf people. They were relying on Google's automatic captions, which were full of errors. And that's not accessible if you have to try to puzzle through a document littered with so many errors it made no sense. Add professional captions to videos, especially when you're institutions like Harvard and mit. Yes, they still have more work to do to remove barriers. All of society, from health organizations putting up inaccessible vaccine websites to companies working on autonomous delivery robots. All of that should be accessible.

This next question is brought to you by the Remarkable Tablet company. The Remarkable Tablet is a single purpose device. It helps you take notes. And it does this by forcing you to focus on taking notes. You can't check your email, you can't check social media. You can't look at websites. You can only focus, focus, focus, focus. How do you do your best and deepest thinking?

Well, the thinking happens in my head and I don't need to be in a certain place or a certain kind of environment to do my thinking. So the where I do my deepest thinking is inside my head.

And there are no conditions that foster the best and deepest thinking. You just turn it on anywhere.

I have the ability to turn off the outside world. I know a lot of people struggle to be able to do that. It's one of my gifts.

I would say that's a treasure. Okay, I lied. I. I actually came up with one more question, which is a question that you posed to me so that I know I should ask it, which is what Can I or what can a listener do to help?

If you feel inspired by this podcast and conversation, take time to study your community, your business, your organization, identify barriers and work to remove those barriers. So for podcasts, one of the biggest barriers is a lot of podcasts don't have transcripts. I can't hear the audio, but I can read the transcript. So my ask for people who create podcasts, included transcript. Do you do that, guy?

I do one and I will fall on the sword here and tell you what I was thinking. So I, I, I did some and it's a lot of work. So, you know, the automatically translated ones are not that great, especially when they come to proper nouns. And so we did one and we figured out it took about five or six hours per hour of actual podcast and not that many people were using it. So I question whether I should do it. And I know you're going to condemn me now, but that that was what the thinking was. But now I do, I do provide something. Yes.

So my response to that is, as an entrepreneur, you've identified a problem. The services that exist to make, to convert audio into text, it's littered with so many errors. How can we make it faster and more efficient? Because this is a service that should be out there and there are people working on this. But how can we make it better? Who's doing it best? Has it changed since the last time you checked it out?

I'll check. We'll see. But let's just say that preparing for this interview and actually doing the interview has certainly heightened my awareness of my shortcoming in this area.

Yeah, so there are lots of shortcomings in this area and opportunities too, to help this area grow and make it better.

You got anything else to add? Because this has been quite enjoyable, actually. And this is going to be the only podcast where we're not going to remove the sounds of typing and extraneous noise because it's part of the context and part of the fabric of this episode. Usually we spend so much effort trying to eliminate background noise, but this one, it's part of the deal, actually. That's value.

Thank you for recognizing that. Some people might feel ashamed and try to hide the things that make them seem different, but they, they provide more character and, and ambience and personality. So thank you for recognizing that.

I also, I want to thank whoever is doing that because that's an empowering technology, if you will.

The keyboard itself is very basic and nothing special about the keyboard. The Braille computer is pretty neat. It's Old. And personally, I'm frustrated with the lack of innovation in the braille hardware industry. I wish there were more people working in this field so that the devices would be smaller and lighter and more powerful. But that's another conversation.

So whoever is typing out there, I just want to express my appreciation for your efforts today. Thank you. This is another inside story. When Haben visited the White House, she couldn't take her usual escort up to the podium. The White House forced her to work with someone. That someone was a U.S. air Force officer. He's not the guy from the U.S. air Force, is he?

No, no, no. Definitely not. I hope he's still working for the Air Force.

I was just amazed that whoever was the person telling you that, no, you can't take your person up there with you or, you know, and, you know, it's got to be one of us. I don't understand, like, what's the big deal? If this is how it works, this is better for her, let her do it. What is the big deal?

Yeah, that made no sense to me. The White House works in mysterious ways.

And that was the Obama White House. Imagine. Imagine if. Well, I don't know if you would have gone to the Trump White House, but we won't get into that. You probably don't like Big Mac, so you probably wouldn't have gone, but that's a different discussion.

Trump. Who's trump? Conversation guy.

I hope that Haben's story inspired you as much as it inspired me. Inspired you to support the 1 billion people with disabilities, inspired you to support laws and regulations that will make the world a more equal place, and inspired you to see the awesome potential of disabled people. An action item that came out of this episode for me is a commitment to creating high quality transcripts. So for the past few weeks, I hope you've noticed that the quality of our transcripts has significantly improved. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is remarkable people. My thanks to Mitch Jackson for making me aware of Haben and for even helping me make the interview happen. My thanks to Jeff C. And Peg Fitzpatrick for making another remarkable episode of Remarkable People. Until next time, mahalo and aloha. This is remarkable people.