"Carla is a mother, a lover, a friend, a poetess. She is a speaker, and she is a disability awareness advocate. I strongly believe in making us more visible. Not just for the idea to see, but for the mind to see and embrace. Not just the abled-body community, but within our own community. We have to become the awareness and inclusion that we speak of."
Chattanooga Tennessee
Carla P. Elliot
Ryan Roach: Could you tell us your name and how you identify?
Carla Elliot: My name is Carla Elliot and I am a fierce, fabulous, Black, disabled woman. I am proud of that. My disability does not define me but it is an extension of me. It has helped me where I am today. A fierce fighter who will not shake hands with no and welcomes hello.
RR: And would you give us a little background on to who Carla is.
CE: Carla is a mother, a lover, a friend, a poetess. She is a speaker and she is a disability awareness advocate. I strongly believe in making us more visible. Not just for the idea to see but for the mind to see and embrace. Not just the abled-body community, but within our own community. We have to become the awareness and inclusion that we speak of.
RR: What has your experience been like during the pandemic?
CE: You know, it’s been liberating. It’s been liberating in so many ways. It has made me reflect on times in my life as a child where I had to be isolated from my own family due to illness. So I knew what to expect from this time, that it would make me anxious and scared at times. But I saw that other people
who maybe did not have a medical background or knowledge, per se, of the severity of things, and they were not taking it seriously, so to speak, and not adhering to wearing a mask and social distancing. And I knew what the outcome could be. So this time made me reflect on those times, and as a mother, even though my daughter isn’t at fault, I’m concerned and afraid that she’s running errands for our home. Am I sending her out, you know? She is representing our home, subjecting herself to this, and possibly coming back to be a part from me. And I knew I would not be able to be with her and care for her.
But it’s been a reflective time, a liberating time. I have been able to start on projects that I have thought about and talked about. Now I am being about them. And one of them is my social awareness disability group here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called DRIVEU. So I am excited about that.
RR: What has your day to day been like during the pandemic?
CE: Day-to-day, like anyone else, my emotions at times have been all over the place, no? And I have gotten into my writing poetry. And a lot of Zoom meetings. [Laughs]. Yeah, and you know what else I’ve enjoyed? I’ve always been proud of my daughter. She is a billing and coding specialist in the medical department at her job. She got that job, and she said, “In my interview, I told them that I always wanted to do something in the medical field from going to doctors’ appointments with my mother as a little girl, and seeing her and her friends with how they take life by the horns and don’t let anything stop them. So I want to be a part of that.” I like being able to walk to the kitchen and see her at the desk, so attentive, so fixed and focused. I now get to see my daughter in action helping someone get an assistive device or a wheelchair, which is an extension of their legs. That has been something that I will take to my grave with me. I know she gets it, but to see it has meant so much.
RR: What has your experience been like coping during the pandemic?
CE: To cope with everything, there are some days where I just lie down and rest. Just rest, just sleep – a lot of prayer. And I am a social butterfly, almost like a pixie in a way in my nature, buzzing around everywhere. So social media has been a gift, and that I have continued on. But as I shared earlier, being an artist, I have missed either being on the stage or in the auditorium or venue where there are other people for that energy. That energy – I’ve missed that.
RR: As you were saying you are an artist and you do perform in front of crowds and obviously that has changed during this time. How has this time period impacted your work as an artist?
CE: As an artist, it has really broadened through things like Zoom and Facebook live. We are able to – and I’ve really enjoyed being able to – experience the work of others because I love supporting fellow artists. And when you are out and about, you can’t attend everybody’s show [laughs] on the same night. That’s just not feasible. So because of this, I have been able to attend sometimes three shows in one day. You know that’s to support my fellow artist friends.
But one of the negatives that has concerned me is not being able to pick up one of my prescriptions. You have to go to the office to pick it up, but they can mail it to you. So if it’s mailed, that’s a couple days, right? So that really unnerved me. I had to wait days beyond the actual time that I would be taking the medicine for it to come in the mail, therefore causing an adverse effect physically on my body. So that made me angry, afraid, concerned, and scared. Society has been gripping about putting a covering over your mouth when there are people who are ill or have a need that they can’t access because of the virus.
RR: Touching on that idea of your medication and receiving your medication in a new way. Are there any other accommodations or supports in your life that have been impacted or interrupted by this pandemic?
CE: With my disability, that has been the only one. ‘Cause as I stated, as far as going to the store, accommodations have been made for the elderly and disabled. That was beautiful and so appreciated that we can come in an hour early. Even though early in the morning ain’t so good for us because our bones got to warm up. [Laughs]. But there have been other people willing to go to the store for individuals who don’t have a support system. I am fortunate that I do. But otherwise, it’s just been not being able to go to my physician’s office when I need to and feeling safe in that. And of course the salon and the barbershop, I don’t like that being cut off. [Laughs]. I am very blessed that my physician’s office and the rheumatology department have been very accommodating. Very accommodating.
RR: What has your experience been like accessing information about COVID-19 and the pandemic?
CE: It has been stellar. Because, as I said earlier, I am a social media fanatic. I am a social butterfly. Sometimes it has been an overload. I’ve had to put myself on discipline. Like a punishment, “No, nope, you can’t watch the news today. No social media for you today.” Because I am also very passionate. I have had no difficulty at all with finding out information or getting information. I’ve always been a curious person and a seeker.
RR: During the pandemic, the government and media have deemed the chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised communities as “vulnerable.” What are your thoughts on the terminology of “vulnerable”?
CE: I am getting warm now. From day one of that announcement, it bothered me so bad. Till I went on an hour rant live on my feed on my Facebook page. Because as soon as it came out, I knew the impact it would have. To say that and not finish it leaves the mind to think, “Well, I’m excluded because I’m not elderly or disabled.” This is part of the reason why, at this very moment in time, we have people being defiant and unwilling to comply with wearing a mask to protect themselves and those around them. Now when you say the disabled and the elderly are vulnerable, that means everyone else is excluded. This virus has no respect for a person’s age or ability. What they were saying is true! We are more susceptible to getting it because of the weakened system, but they can’t explain that because the media’s purpose is news. And we got to sensationalize it, we got to dress it up. Even if it means we got to lower someone else or fluff someone else. And that’s dangerous. This has been instrumental in putting us in a dangerous situation, and I don’t like it.
RR: During the pandemic, society has been able to accommodate the general public with accommodations, like work from home, that have been asked for previously by the disabled, chronically ill, immunocompromised, and neurodiverse communities, yet these communities were typically denied. Why do you think society has been able to accommodate the general public when these accommodations have been denied previously?
CE: Because the major difference is you’re asking me to accommodate you, which means I am going to have to do more than just send the IT tech to set your work station up. Now, during the pandemic, I am in jeopardy of my whole company being shut down and losing money. You see, supply and demand so I can shift my employees home. That’s still my resources coming in. That’s money coming in. It’s all about the economy. Supply and demand. Supply and demand.
RR: Moving forward, how would you like to see the government and society start responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?
CE: I am a very structured person but not rigid. I am a very disciplined person. I would like to see them continue with mandating masks or coverings. There is nothing we can do about science, so we have to ride this thing out until a solution is found. But during that time, what people have been talking about – their constitutional rights – we also have a constitutional right to serve and protect one another. So that, I feel, is all the government can do is continue to work on the economy. I don’t know what the treasury situation is, but we got to find a way to keep people employed. And if they can’t be employed, find some type of resources. People are hungry, people are dying, people are sick. Yeah, so that’s all we can do. Stay vigilant. The media needs to show more of the actual patients in the beds. They need to show what it’s like to be in the hospital with all the tubes and things on, and the way you have to be at the mercy of others. They need to see this because humans are visual creatures. We are visual creatures, so maybe they need to see. They need to see the staff broken down and tired and afraid themselves. They need to see more of that.
RR: In addition to the pandemic, the United States has experienced uprisings across the country in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police. Uprisings in physical spaces are not always accessible to all folx. Have you been involved at all with the uprisings over the past few months? And, if so, what has that looked like for you?
CE: I have not. Nor have I wanted. And I’ll tell you why. I respect anyone’s rights to their belief and their choices and how they act on those. But as a Black woman – I wrote this down because I want to get my numbers right – in 1865, the 13th amendment freed my race, the color of my skin. 1990, beyond the liberation of my disability, and that’s July the 26th. Here we are 30 years later, and all of me is not free. Where we are is not bad as disabled people. Where we are going is even going to get better. I’m saying all that to say this right here – Black Lives Matter, when will my life matter as a Black woman? At the Black Lives Matter protest, you have not heard them advocate for all disabled Black people. We are still invisible, even within the Black Lives Matter movement. Now before the emancipation proclamation, the physically disabled were either killed at birth, or put out in the field or the woods to fend for themselves to die. We aren’t even mentioned in the Black history books. You understand where I am coming from with that? See, I can not support. And then Mr. Floyd’s murder, which is what it was – I knew when I saw it on TV, that it came from my eyes – this was not racially motivated. This was a lack of integrity, unaddressed behavioral problems on the job – this was a lack of accountability and a system that needs to address these situations. What I saw was inhumanity, and I also knew that very hold they have been trained to do, which means someone above them gave them permission to do it. And it’s happening all across the state, all across the world. Now, I also knew that same hold had been inflicted upon people of other colors, other races. So for me as a Black woman to have Black lives matter without a meaning also on it, I am offended for other races. I do support standing up for inhumanity and injustice, so I have done that through social media and we are breaking chains and becoming new links. You need to break chains, but what are you going to do after you break it? Are you going to be a new link in change? I am a “link in change” kind of woman. And we have been linking up on Instagram, on Facebook, on the phone – we are educating one and other of all races. So do what works for you.