Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
It was very terrible making Billy Broke His Head because of PBS. PBS would only talk to
David, the other guy. He didnÕt get it, he never got it. HeÕs a technician. And he never
knew what was going on with the, heÕs a smart guy, but heÕs a control freak. And I was
just terrible because I was constantly being treated like the down person, as the disabled
person always is in a number of contexts. Instead of being treated like a mensch, you
know? And so I was constantly being the one that was talked to through someone. We know
better than you. This is the way you do it. Whatever it was.
I wrote it, I was Emmy nominated for it. For the script.
Those were your true words coming through on the film. It was pretty miserable. This
guy got a lot of the credit for. I mean, he did some stuff. He did a lot of stuff. He
did a lot of cool stuff. But it wasnÕt his film. It was my friends. It was my disability
and he got the career. He got to work at PBS.
ThatÕs what happened. For example, ITVS which is the organization I was funded through had
these two Chinese guys running it, David Liu and Jim Yee. You know their names? You know
who they are? You know their names? Jim Yee died of cancer, but the idea was that ITVS
was to fund independent productions for PBS and the idea was congress said to serve un-served
and underserved populations. Well, there are 54 million disabled people in America. They
did 60 on persons of color because David Liu and Jim Yee were Chinese. TheyÕd done 30
on Asians or 10 million Asians. TheyÕd done 20 or 30 , I canÕt remember, on African Americans
and there are 30 million African Americans. The same number on Hispanics. TheyÕd done
60 all together on persons on color and theyÕd done 8 on the 54 million disabled people.
I wrote the head of Independent Programming at PBS Cheryl Jones I think is her name, I
think , I canÕt remember for sure, that we needed to do this and a letter from senator
Paul Wellstone and she wrote back that Disability is not a priority. Disability
is not a priority.