My perspective on the blog is they should know that I’m an advocate and I like to speak about different things that are important in life. It’s a fun thing to do, and it’s important for people to know what Cow Tipping does and helping people with disabilities in the community.
– Shaunte Martin
Mooosings: A Cow Tipping Blog
November 2024
Interview With Ocean C Poet
By Shaunte Martin
“In my animated world justice would prevail.
Acceptance and truth would live strong.”
– Ocean C Poet, “My Animated World”
Shaunte Martin: Hey my name is Shaunte Martin. I’m interviewing Ocean here and I’m going to ask some questions. My advocacy experience is that I’m an Inclusion Associate and I love to do self-advocacy with ACT. I do a lot of stuff in the community and I enjoy doing stuff with people with disabilities and without people with disabilities in the community. We’re here because Ocean is a poet and he does stuff with self-advocacy in the communities and stuff like that and believes in disabilities and stuff like that. That’s why we’re here!
I’m happy to finally meet you, to get to know you better, and ask you some interview questions, and see how things are going with you. My first question is: Where did you live and where did you grow up?
Ocean C Poet: I am originally from Houston, Texas. I came here to Minnesota in 1999 after somebody read a story I wrote in the magazine, and somebody told me that Minnesota was a great place for me to venture creatively. So I came out here to visit, and I fell in love with the weather. Texas is too hot. So that’s how I ended up here.
SM: What is the best art piece that you have written or read?
OP: Basically any of my books. I’m a graphic artist and I’m also an artist where I use acrylics and all painting. I also like books.
SM: What made you decide to do art? When did you start painting? What was your vision?
OP: I would have to say my first love was music. When I was young, my mother got tired of me beating on the pots and pans, so she bought me my first drum set. Ever since then, I’ve been playing the drums in band in high school. I still have an African drum here that I play sometimes too. I think it was 2004, I was at the Interact Center for five years. I started there painting acrylic – they showed me the ropes on how to do that situation. But once they find out I play the drums, they put me on the performance part. So I started playing music on stage when they have the showcase and all that.
Most of my paintings have been sold whenever they have an exhibit around the Twin Cities. My vision in painting – I like the liveliness of oils. Right now I’ve already created about eight paintings. Basically three are completed, and the rest I’m taking my time to finish. My artwork right now is at the Mill City Museum. It’ll be there until January with the other artists. It’s called the Art of Disability Justice Now, right now at the Mill City Museum. My piece is up there so I try to tell everyone to go out and give us some support.
I also just completed my tenth book. This is my second graphic novel, and it’s called Love Is Love. It’s a transgender male love story. The release date is going to be December 12. My vision is to basically show them a better way to live. Advocating for yourself, and if you want to be the change you want to see in the world, you got to show it. So I do that in my work to show that, hey, we can make a difference by doing this, and that’s what I like to have my work show.
I’m happy to get back in the Cow Tipping classes again because they help me so much when it comes to my writing. It keeps me writing and it helps me figure out different things and how to be. It helped me to complete the second book. I think it’s very important when you’re writing to take a break and learn a little more. By the time you get back to that story, you’re going to see a whole different view. Cow Tipping classes helped me a lot, their vision and what they teach.
SM: It’s really cool, your art just shows who you are, and you’re just not afraid of who you are as a self-advocate as well.
OP: Yeah, and I’m looking forward to doing more self-advocacy. I’m right now waiting for a grant to see if I can do some teaching for people with disabilities. There are two grants that I applied for. The first grant is basically teaching a class online, but the second grant is for me to do a documentary film. So I’m working on that. I’m hoping that will come about, too.
SM: I see self-advocacy as standing up for yourself, believing in yourself, not giving up, and saying what you wanted in your life and in the disability community. How long have you done self-advocacy and when did you start doing self-advocacy and how is that life experience?
OP: I started with the Minnesota Arc. I’ve been with them for about six years now. In the beginning, I was there and I learned some things. It wasn’t until later, when I started experiencing things and lot of issues going on in my life, and I really started paying attention to what it meant to be a self-advocate, to be able to advocate for yourself. It really opened my eyes to the work that those that came before us have done to help us move forward. I know we still have a long way to go, but I’m glad that I’ve been given the opportunity to be in that fight too. And there’s so much that I pay attention to now, especially when it comes to people with disabilities.
I’m also self-advocating with the Rainbow Support Group – that’s for people with disabilities who are part of the LGBTQ community. I’ve learned a lot researching stuff that’s happened in the past. I’m also right now going to meetings at the mayor’s advising committee. I like being part of an organization and being able to change laws, being able to put the word out, being able to know that disability rights are human rights. That’s important for people to know and give us some attention here because we are human too. That’s really important to me to continue this fight.
Every day I’m on social media and I’m putting different things out, especially when it comes to advocating for people with disabilities, advocating for people of color, and also advocating for people what are part of the LGBTQ community because I am a multi-racial transgender male. So for me, self-advocacy, I look forward to hopefully doing for quite some time.
SM: That’s really good to know. And to know that people with disabilities support the LGBT community – I do as well, I support the LGBT community as well.
OP: It’s important that we all support each other. When I was younger, my family didn’t really speak about what’s going with your life. It didn’t happen like that in Texas. But for me to learn this, and see all this right now, it has opened my eyes. My disability is that I have hearing loss in both of my ears, I have a traumatic brain injury, and I also have AS – I’m taking injections now, but without it, the stiffness in my body makes it hard for me to move and walk. But that’s not going to stop me from letting my voice be heard. And hopefully to help other peoples’ voices be heard through art and poetry, or any situation I can get into to help.
Learn more about Ocean, his art, and his books here!
October 2024
A Scary Fate for Babies with Down Syndrome
By Maeve McDevitt
Do you know anyone with Down Syndrome? The population of babies with Down Syndrome being aborted in Iceland is nearly one-hundred percent. In Denmark, the population is around ninety-eight percent. In France the population is seventy-seven percent and the population in The U.S. is sixty-seven percent. In this blog, I’m going to focus on why aborting babies with Down Syndrome is a problem. The medical community and the rest of able-bodied society are failing to recognize disability as a form of diversity. Some may argue that a woman has the right to make her own choices. This may be true but the reason for this kind of abortion is because of the prenatal screening tests, and women may be unaware of the sources out there to care for a child with Down Syndrome.
The reason for this attitude stems from how society sees people with disabilities as a burden. In one article, a person thought that aborting a child with Down Syndrome was ending a life of “complications.” However in my view and experience as a person with disabilities, doctors have played only a small part of my and many other people’s lives. It’s the families/caretakers, friends and educators of the person with Down Syndrome who are a major part of the child’s life. In this case it’s not the role of the doctor to assume that a child with Down Syndrome is going to lead a difficult life.
The truth is everyone disabled and not is going to have some complications in their lives both big and small and does that mean that humans should never be born just because they may encounter barriers in life? For a lot of people with disabilities especially those with Down Syndrome their disability has little to do with the cause for difficulties in their lives. What the real problem is that able-bodied people are not working to address the lack of accessibility for people with Down Syndrome and on changing their attitudes towards them.
I happen to know a few people with Down Syndrome and they seem pretty content with their lives. One of them is the first ever volunteer police officer in my state of Minnesota to have Down Syndrome. You may think well that’s an exception. However there are people with Down Syndrome who are doing countless things that enrich their lives such as getting married, going to college, getting a paid job, playing sports and traveling not that I think that people with Down Syndrome doing these things makes them a novelty.
The typical attitude that able-bodied people have towards people with Down Syndrome and those with other disabilities sadly is not new. It goes back a long time to the time of the Eugenics movement which was started by a man named Francis Galton in 1883. He claimed that people with disabilities or other “undesirable” traits were most likely to do bad things or produce children with illness or negative personality traits. Eugenics comes in different forms. At the time, women with mental illness and other kinds of disabilities were forcefully sterilized. I watched a documentary once about gene editing which is another type of eugenics and a man said that Eugenics means good genes but what does good genes really mean? If there are no genes for kindness, humor or intelligence and creativity and no genes for being mean then scientists shouldn’t consider a gene for Down Syndrome or any kind of disability to be a bad one. Unlike the common depiction of disabled people as villains there are both good and bad people with disabilities like everyone else. A disability doesn’t determine what someone’s personality is going to be like.
If you want more information on this topic you can email me at: maeve0601@gmail.com
An Advocate’s Fight for His Community: Interview with Nick Papadopoulos
By Maeve McDevitt
I interviewed Nick Papadopoulos a Cow Tipping Press author who’s been featured in Remember The Octopus, Casino Queen, My Beloved Son of a Gun, South Georgia Surprise, and The Best of Cow Tipping Press: Volume 4. Nick is a Greek American New Yorker living in Georgia. He is a prolific aspiring writer with big dreams.
“Room 130 is kind of like a meditative space. When I am here I spend large portions of my day contemplating events and moments in my life. From the moment and I wig. I am on a blue mattress that is filled with air. The air mattress is located on the frame of a hospital bed. It feels like sleeping on a cloud.”
– Nick Papadopoulos, “Room 130″
Maeve McDevitt: How has Cow Tipping Press benefited you?
Nick Papadopoulos: It’s a way to express my thoughts.
MM: Do you otherwise not have a way to express your thoughts?
NP: I feel just dark, pain, and a lot of thoughts and feelings that I can’t normally express. A lot of those feelings get locked up because there’s no avenue to express them, and there’s not really anyone to talk to about them. So when Cow Tipping Press came and said, we’re allowing you this platform to talk about your feelings and express your ideas, this was the perfect avenue to do that.
MM: Have you been doing any advocacy work lately?
NP: I’ve done podcasts with other advocacy groups. I’ve done outreach with L’Arche, which is another advocacy group in Atlanta. I’ve done work with the GAO. Georgia Advocacy Organization. Basically they’re a government-run entity that supports advocacy organizations in the state of Georgia, and I think every state has their own organization that works the same way.
MM: In the state of Minnesota, we have really good disability services. So the groups that you have done work with, what do they advocate specifically for people with disabilities?
NP: We advocate for people to have their own voices. We advocate for people with disabilities to make their own choices, work at their own jobs, to have their own employment, and to have supported employment. We advocate for people with disabilities to vote – voting is big for our work, and I suspect nationwide. We advocate that people with disabilities use and become fluent with technology services. I just advocate that people with disabilities have as normal and functioning a life as possible, like everybody else, so they can shoot for the stars and have the best life possible. I advocate that they can become the best version of themselves.
MM: That sounds like great work. So, are you living in a nursing home?
NP: Yes and I’m currently a couple of months from leaving. In the state of Georgia, we have what’s called a Medicaid waiver. So I’m allowed to have the same services that I have in a nursing home, but in my own home. We’re transferring the services I have here into a home, into the community.
MM: So you’re going to be able to live on your own with some support.
NP: Correct.
MM: I’m so happy for you! What was your experience at the nursing home? Some people were very overworked, and missed a lot of things?
NP: That’s true that people in the nursing home, they’re very short-staffed. There’s a lot of people who live here, and there’s just not enough staff to cover the amount of people. So what happens is the staff become over-worked, frustrated, and they become aggressive and unhappy. The patients end up getting the brunt of that frustration.
MM: Since you’re going to be moving out in two months – is that correct?
NP: That’s what I’m hoping for.
MM: I pray that you will. If you do get to move in two months, do you have plans for what you’re going to be doing?
NP: I plan to carry on my advocacy work. I plan to carry on writing. I really want to start an adventure blog, like a travel blog, and share my experiences with people, show them that I have been through the system and I have come out and survived. Show them the lessons I learned and become a motivational speaker. Maybe inspire people to keep on fighting, and show them not to give up.
MM: That sounds wonderful. Is it true you’re from New York?
NP: It’s true. I love New York. It’s a great state.
MM: So what were you doing for a living when you were in New York?
NP: IT work, and I did some real estate investment.
MM: I hope you don’t mind me asking, but were you always disabled?
NP: Yes, I have had Cerebral Palsy since birth.
MM: If you had known that you would end up in a nursing home, would you have moved to Georgia or would you have stayed in New York?
NP: That’s a tough question. I don’t like the fact that I was in a nursing home, but at the same time, I’ve grown a lot as a person through my advocacy and the connections I’ve made while being in a nursing home. I wouldn’t want to change that part. I would go through it again, because there are hardships, but I’ve touched a lot of people’s lives and was able to be part of the 6,000 Waiting documentary, which touched a lot of people, and was very educational for a lot of people. The way I look at it is, everything I’ve been through in life has brought me to where I am. If it wasn’t for the nursing home, I probably wouldn’t have learned about Cow Tipping Press.
MM: That’s a very good point.
NP: What doesn’t kill you in life makes you stronger. And this is definitely a learning experience.
MM: It really is, yeah. So, if you were a motivational speaker, where would you present it?
NP: I would love to be able to give a TED talk. That’s my ultimate goal.
MM: A TED Talk. Just make sure it’s captioned.
NP: But yeah, anywhere that I can tell the audience my core message, which is to never give up on your dreams. Just be motivated to keep going.
MM: What’s one thing you would change about the state of Georgia in terms of how they approach disability?
NP: The three things I would change are: fund our direct service personnel more, provide more funding for disabled accessible housing (I mean, really accessible housing), and fund more money for mental health services.
MM: And voting too?
NP: Yes, voting.
MM: Is it more difficult for people with disabilities to vote in Georgia?
NP: It’s not the easiest. We have a good support system, and we have good advocates out there, but there’s more that could be done. I think in our state in particular, there’s a lot of laws that make it difficult for people with disabilities to vote, or provide unnecessary obstacles. But I think that someone who’s determined to vote can vote, and they should. I also encourage people with disabilities all across America to contact their legislators and fight for what they believe in in their state.
MM: How do the disability rights laws compare from Georgia to New York?
NP: I think there are more advantages for people with disabilities in New York because it’s a big city and it’s more liberal. It has more government programs and state programs because they have more money – New York City in particular, which is where I’m more familiar with. Georgia doesn’t have that many programs that I’m familiar with.
MM: Overall, would you say New York has better disability programs than Georgia does, especially New York City?
NP: New York City has more availability in those programs, more money for those programs. They have more open slots for programs and people.
MM: I’m sure Georgia has been lucky to have a disability activist like you.
NP: I’m glad to do my part. I’m always going to fight for people who don’t have a voice.
Nick Papadopoulos is a 45 year old self-advocate with cerebral palsy from the great state of Georgia in Franklin County in the great town of Royston. He joined this class for self expression and to help advocate for others. He enjoys adventures of all sorts and meeting people everywhere and anywhere he goes. He loves to make people laugh, he wants to make people smile, he wants to leave an indelible mark on the world and his motto is “never give up, never surrender, always keep swinging and keep your eye on the prize. You’ll always come out ahead if you work hard enough and keep at it.
August 2024
Shaunte Martin’s Journey: Don’t Accept Bullying
By Shaunte Martin
When I think about bullying it’s not right to do that to people because it can hurt their feelings. It can hurt other people’s feelings because that’s not okay. I don’t think that’s right.
When I was like in high school, it was really hard to make friends. I was bullied because of my culture. I don’t feel that people with disabilities should be treated different from everyone else. They’re not the same as everyone else, but they should be treated equally as everybody else.
I thought my family just didn’t believe me, and I said that I was being bullied. That they didn’t care about my feelings and about how I felt. But I realized that family does love me, and I shouldn’t think about the negative. I should just think about the positive, because I know the family loves me a lot, and I do appreciate that.
I was trying to be an advocate for the school, so the bullying can stop, because I don’t appreciate it. I thought, I’m going to do something about that, so I told the principal that there’s bullying going on in the school. I told the principal, and he came down and said, why are these people with disabilities and without disabilities getting bullied in the school? I think we should have a meeting with all the juniors, seniors—freshman upwards—in the gym.
I was blindfolded and I didn’t know what was going on. The principal did something to honor me, and I got flowers and posters. They had a lunch for all of us. It made me so happy and I started to cry. I was so happy with what the school did for me and the family, and I really appreciated that. That’s a memory I will always cherish for the rest of my life.
Then they had me come into the gym and I made an announcement in the gym to everyone that I was very upset that they were bullying people with disabilities. It doesn’t matter who we are, we should be treated equally in every school. The bullying just has to stop.
Being a woman of color, I shouldn’t have been bullied. I shouldn’t have been bullied because I believed in Christianity and because of my color, and being bullied because of the color of my skin. There are some days I didn’t want to get up for school at all I felt lost I felt undetermined.
I felt like it was going to continue to happen. I felt like I didn’t belong in the school, and that I wasn’t wanted as a friend. And then the next day, I finally made some friends. The next day I went to school, my friends waited for me at the door of the gym. They gave me flowers and cards to say that they were sorry for what they did and made a poster with all their pictures and names on it.
There was an anti-bullying movement when I lived in the Rondo community, and I was really glad to be a part of that, so we can make it a law in every school that doesn’t accept bullying. it was really great to know that I wasn’t the only one who was dealing with that.
I just want kids to stay in school and not be fighting and learn from their teachers that they should stay in school. Graduate with a diploma and be safe out there in the communities. Do the right thing and stay in school.
I’m happy to just be out of school, don’t have to worry—bigger and better things going on. Focus on the positive things. I just leave my past behind me and focus on my future.
Being bullied as I grew up and the years went by, I was bullied as an adult because people didn’t really understand what my disabilities are. They don’t understand that being bullied in different ways as an adult can be hard as well.
I deserve positive people who are friends, who are going to be supporting me in all the things that I’m doing, and be here for all the things I’m doing in my life. Be there whenever I need them. I just need to be around positive people in my life. Even though I lost a lot of people, I still keep the friendships closer.
July 2024
Interview with Strive founder Mary Taris
By Maeve McDevitt
When I first caught sight of Strive, it did not look like what I had expected for it was this elegant looking old building. I thought that it would be in a modern looking building nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised being the history buff that I am. The building wouldn’t look out of place in the art deco era. When I entered the building, I saw tables littered with books. Behind the counter stood an African American lady with eye glasses and long curly black hair. I got right to explaining the mission of Cow Tipping Press. She gave me the impression of a nice soft-spoken woman. The space looked somewhat cozy with the addition of aqua armchairs. I later learned that Strive has held events in their space.
Maeve: So this bookstore specializes primarily in Black literature?
Mary: Yes, and we are trying to reach across cultures, so we lift up other underrepresented voices—voices from other cultures, abilities, and gender identities.
Maeve: How long has this store been in business for?
Mary: This is our one-year anniversary this month. We opened last June.
Maeve: So the store is that new.
Mary: Yes, it’s new. We have a mini-bookshop that we’ve had for three years. It’s in the IDS center. That’s the one that has only Black literature.
Maeve: The other one?
Mary: Yeah, it’s in the Sistah Co-Op in the IDS center.
Maeve: Is it still around?
Mary: It’s still there.
Maeve: As far as what I have read online—I learned about the store, like how the owner of this place wanted to open a bookstore that would sell books featuring characters like her.
Mary: Yes, and that would be me. I’m the owner of the bookstore. When I was growing up, I didn’t see books that affirmed my identity. And then I got into teaching when I was 40, and there still weren’t books for children who looked like me. That’s why I started publishing.
Maeve: That’s great. So what’s the best-selling book here?
Mary: It’s called All About Love by bell hooks. That’s our best-seller.