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This is an extract from Sam Drummond's speech at the launch of Powerd in Adelaide on 2 November 2023. You can spool down to see and hear the full speech.
We're here today to raise the voices of people with disabilities. I am an author. I also work as a human rights lawyer - and under the laws that I work with every day, there are extra requirements to make sure people with disabilities can participate in decisions that impact their life.
And the same is required for First Nations people. And it's with deep sorrow that I saw the opportunity to do that within our constitution missed in last month's referendum. And so I just want to pay my respects to Elders past and present and recommit myself to ensuring that First Nations peoples are heard in other powerful ways around our community.
Too many people don't see themselves when they turn on the TV or open a website. Growing up, I had no problem finding people like me in the media. The problem was, what I saw was the overrepresentation of one-dimensional characters. These were people on the sidelines without power and without a voice. I was a single emotion of one of Snow White's dwarfs. I was an Oompa Loompa ripe for exploitation by an eccentric billionaire. I was a hyper-sexualized Mini-me, a voiceless object of ridicule.
This shaped the views I had of myself and it also shaped the views that others had of me and what they thought I was capable of. In the local paper of my hometown, I'd often make an appearance - but it was a sports star bending down in a photo op, or an award for excellence in being disabled. There was a distinct lack of agency. It was charity through media.
I moved from the country to the city to pursue my studies. But away from the safety provided by my mum in our admittedly many houses, I found the views that others had absorbed from representations of disability flowed through the suburbs like a cancer through the bloodstream. People at bars and clubs ridiculed me or made sexualised jokes. Drivers yelled abuse out their car windows. Potential employers looked me up and down and said “We'll call you” - but they never did. This is the reality for so many people with disabilities. We were talked about, written about and portrayed, but rarely were we given a pen or a microphone.
My life to that point is the subject of my book, Broke. And a spoiler for those who haven't read the book or got to the end: there is no neat ending. Life for people with disabilities so often doesn't have a tidy conclusion.
Perhaps because of this, the most common question I get from people who read the book is “When's the sequel coming out?” And I'm not sure about writing the second book yet - but I can let you all in on a little secret:
The sequel is community media
I was down and out. I couldn't find secure housing, had no money, my health was suffering. And I hadn't found my people. Folks were giving me all sorts of advice on what I should do.
But it certainly never occurred to me that I could have my own voice. That's until I started listening to my local community radio station. The invitation was made on air for people to do the radio training course, and I signed up. I did the course. I got a show. It was about cheese. I did more shows - about blues music, about sport, a radio show about TV shows. About my favorite musician, Jack White. About sex and relationships, much to my dad's dismay. But these were all things that I wanted to talk about. I'd never been empowered to do that before and it was revolutionary. I'd found my people, this bunch of misfits who found solace in a rundown studio.
Most importantly, I'd found my voice, something that never seemed possible for this disabled kid from the country. It led me to working alongside some of the most experienced media makers in the country. It led to a workplace where every day without fail, I'd hear the wheels of a powered chair coming up behind me, and a voice telling people who already had a national platform that they wanted to talk to me and not them. The wheels belonged to activist, Stella Young, who was working at ABC Ramp Up at the time while I was working down the corridor. ‘What are you going to write for me this week?’ she'd ask.
Suddenly my perspective was unique and it was powerful. My voice was being heard. But still it felt like some secret society of disabled media makers pushing our message after being told our whole lives there was something wrong with us - when it was, in fact, society that had the problem.
We whispered words of encouragement to each other. How are we going to tell our stories to get this message out there?
Which brings us here today. Powerd - it's no longer a whisper. It's a space to give our stories and our perspectives.
If there's one thing that everyone in this room can do today, it's find someone who otherwise wouldn't be heard and ask - What are you going to write? What are you going to say? What are you going to create this week?
Powerd opens up a new world to achieve this. And it's not just for the usual voices in the disability sector. Ask these questions of people we wouldn't normally hear from. Ask young people and older people, people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, different genders, different sexualities, country people, people who live remote. People from public housing, First Nations people, and from different disabilities. We've heard already today voices from people with intellectual disabilities, autistic people, psychosocial disabilities, people who are vision impaired, from the deaf community, neurodiverse people.
When we do this, Powerd will achieve its potential to make people see themselves differently when they have a disability and for the outside world to see what they're capable of.
I want to thank everyone who's made this possible. I It's a huge effort and I can't wait to see what change it makes - that's the really exciting thing for me.
Watch Sam's full speech
Watch Sam's full speech