Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 1 (03:27):
Welcome or welcome back, everybody to another exciting episode of
Aaron's Opinion, the podcast for blind people where we speak
about critical issues in the blindness community and all other
issues from across the universe and galaxy. Boy, oh boy,
oh boy, As I like to say, this is gonna
be a lot of fun. Trust me, you don't want
to miss this one. Of course I would say that
(03:48):
with every episode, but this time you don't want to
miss this one one two four zero six a one
nine eight six nine one two four zero six eight
one nine eight six nine Aaron's Opinion six at gmail
dot com. A A R O N s O P
I N I O N six at gmail dot com.
And that's the number six, by the way, Aaron's Opinion
six at gmail dot com. And one two four zero
(04:09):
six eight one nine eight six nine that's the number
to be added to the WhatsApp group. And of course
that's our wa business number. To get in touch with
the show, don't forget about following along on Instagram as
many if you do at Aaron's Opinion, and of course
join the private Facebook group if you belong in it,
Aaron's Opinion podcasting community. Absolutely. As we always like to say,
(04:30):
if you ever stopped at the border by border patrol,
please do let us know and we would be more
than happy to help you join the group. Remember, there's
always little technical things that can happen, so if you're
ever you know, if you're ever stopped at the border
by Border Patrol, and you know you're and you're not
able to join the Facebook group, Please do let us know.
We do have many admins in many stations from all
(04:50):
over the world who are helping us out in that group,
and they're doing a magnificent job. So you know, just
let you know. You might be let in by me,
or you might be let in by one of the
other guests who has follow here to be an appen
and basically create a bit of a bit of a
as we like to say, a bit of a station
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(05:11):
Don't forget about following, liking, and writing a review of
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we're doing here on the podcast is for you at
home to rate and review, rate and review. That's the
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us on Apple, which most of you are, or Spotify
or Anchor or you know, iHeart, wherever you choose to
(05:31):
download the episodes. We're really pleased that you do, and
We don't care where you're downloading from, and rather we
don't care what platform you're using to listen to these
episodes on as much as we're glad that you're actually
playing the episodes and enjoying them. So we do thank
you for that. This week, of course, we have a
bit of a new country, a bit of a new shift.
As I said, keep pushing download and one country did,
(05:52):
a country that we've never mentioned in the audience before.
So first place this week in the downloads, United States.
Second place Sarah bias Oh, Third place Brazil. Welcome aboard.
We've had over the years, we've had very few listeners
and very few downloads from Latin America, South America in
that region of the world, so welcome aboard. We're glad
to have you. Of course, don't forget about joining the
(06:14):
Patreon At Aaron's Opinion. You can be a free member
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we do, you'll be the first to know, So don't forget.
You can be a free member of the patreon here
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and think about it, five dollars a month, sixty dollars
a year, that's actually quite a bit. But really, just
(06:36):
be a free member of the Patreon and you'll actually
get a lot of great content and all of that. Okay,
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Remember when an episode is premiering on YouTube, that's exactly
when you can download it on Apple or wherever you
choose to download the podcast. All right, well, today's guest
is a complicated one. But before we get into the guest,
we have to thank the person who led me to
(07:19):
this guest. If it was not for as we like
to call him in the community, Blind Security. Joseph Fleeks
from Blind Table Talk, thank you so much, Thank you
so much, to Sayda Victoria PSI blind Butterfly, as she
likes to call herself from Blind Table Talk. We want
to take a moment and thank Blind Table Talk for
(07:41):
introducing me to somebody who came into their seat and
he sat down at their table for a little fifteen
minute talk. And when he did, I was one hundred
and one percent sure that not only did Blind Table
Talk to a magnificent job interviewing this man, which they did.
I promise you they did a great episode with him.
I promised myself, I need to give this man an
(08:03):
hour and a half because he deserves it. Not only
did he speak for much longer than an hour and
a half, but it was one of the most moving
conversations I've ever had on the podcast. He's from West Virginia.
He has several different master's degrees, which we might have
to do follow up episodes so that I can interview
him just about the topics that he studied in university.
(08:26):
You know, we might have to do an interview about cybersecurity.
We might have to do an interview about criminal justice.
We might even have to do an interview about washing dishes. Huh,
washing dishes at Chick fil a? Who is this person?
Because They started out washing dishes at Chick fil A,
and today they're leading a healthy, happy and successful life
(08:50):
as the leader and founder of Divine Visions Consulting and
Paralegal Services. I will certainly put the website in the
description for you, because the name of the company is
actually quite long, and I might eve even butchered the
name of that company. But what I'm sure about is
that you want to know who this person is. He's
doctor Charles W. Powell, the Second. This man is fascinating.
(09:13):
I'm just not exaggerating. It really was the best conversation
we've had in years. It truly was, and every conversation
is the best, but but Charles really really moved me.
He really was able to connect all the dots, and
he was really able to express his life in a
way that made sense to me. And he was able
(09:37):
to talk in a meaningful way about everything that has
happened to him in both a serious way, emotional way,
and just a kind way. And that's really what stood
out to me. He speaks from his heart. He's easy
to understand. He talks about serious things, but we still
have the courage to laugh. You know. We talked about
you know, a lot of serious stuff, and I was
(09:58):
still able to tell him how much I love milkshakes
at Chick fil A, Right, so you probably want to
know that basically, he'll get into it. But basically, his
blindness journey began when he discovered one day that he
could not see. And he was very angry and very
resentful and just hating the world until he started to
(10:19):
learn about everything that blind people are able to do.
And one day, one day, something strange happened. One day
he went to a job fair or some sort of
training course at a university. And I'll let him tell
his fascinating and beautiful story. By me telling you that
(10:42):
you're listening to the Aaron's Opinion Podcast. My name is
Aaron Richmond, and I really hope that you take the
time from wherever in the world you're listening to spend
some quality time. Look at how long this episode is,
to make sure that you have the time to listen
to word that comes out of this man's mouth, because
(11:03):
this is absolute wisdom. I'm Aaron Richmond. This is the
Eron's Opinion Podcast, and now let's go talk to doctor
Charles W. Powell. The second. By me telling you that
again you're listening to the Erin's Opinion podcasts, and today's
episode is called moving Forward with a Divine Vision with
doctor Charles W. Powell the Second. Welcome or welcome back
(11:29):
everybody to another exciting episode of Aaron's Opinion, the podcast
where Blind People, where we speak about critical issues in
the blindness community and all other issues from across the
universe and galaxy. First of all, we want to extend
I want to extend a huge hand of appreciation and
thanks to the Blind Table Talk podcast and Joseph Fleekes
(11:51):
for producing an episode where they got where they put
on here doctor Charles W. Powell the Second of the Repair,
Legal Services and many things like that. And if it
wasn't for Blind Table Talk, I never would have known
of a doctor Powell. So I've come to understand that
(12:13):
you obviously you didn't form your company that now helps
blind people all over the country in one night, and
certainly you didn't become doctor Powell in one night. So
you started out as a Charles W. Pow the Second.
You've had quite a life journey so far, and I
want to give you an hour and a half on
my microphone to really dig into the essence of your character,
who you are, and the whole life story. And I
(12:35):
promise you probably one episode, one installment's not going to
really suffice, so you'll definitely be back here for I
can definitely hear a part two and three out of
you all about other stuff. But so who are you? Okay,
let's turn over the microphone and who's Charles W. Powd
the second? The whole life story go.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Thank you very much, Aaron. Definitely definitely honor and a
privilege to be on your show. Aaron's opinion. Definitely respect
the work as a door in the community for the
blinding sight impaired, and of course a big shout out
to Fleeks and Saeita, the Sasy Butterfly, a blond table Talk.
I great relationship with those that podcast and really respect them.
(13:16):
Who is doctor Charles W. Powder Second, first, and foremost,
I am a totally blind individual. I lost my sight
twelve thirteen years ago twenty twelve to ret night is
pig intosa, which everyone knows as a hereditary eye condition.
When I lost my site thirteen years ago, I was
(13:38):
just Charles basically every day individual out there working, raising
a family, being a father, being a husband and just
all around normal person. Well, the day I woke up
and had no vision, it was basically a nightmare. First
(14:00):
and foremost, I had no idea what was going on.
I knew that I had read not his picment Sosa up.
My site has been getting worse over the last few years,
but I never imagined that I would lose it completely.
So that was a hard time for me. I would
love to say that, you know, at that time, when
(14:23):
I woke up and found that I couldn't see, I was, okay,
I have to do this, I gotta do that, I
gotta change my life. No, that was not the case
at all. Basically, it was a disaster. I screamed for
my fiance. I didn't know what was going on. I
had no idea what happened. So of course my fiance
(14:47):
was running out making appointments to my eye doctors, the
specialists and all of that, because I just thought it
was something that was going to reverse itself or it
was just a temporarily problem. So basically, when I found
out that there was no revers in that I was blind,
(15:07):
that was a big, big, life changing event. I would
love to sit here and tell your audience in the
world that I was okay with that, but I really wasn't.
I got mad at the world. I cried, I screamed.
I went on a downward trajectory, as a spiraling into
(15:31):
the depths of depression and despair. I drunk every day.
I would wake up with a bed, wake up with
a drink. If I can do it, if it was there,
I was drinking it. I didn't care about nothing. I
didn't care about no one or anything. At that time,
my daughter was five years old. She was the light
(15:52):
of my life, the joy of my world. I even
neglected her. I didn't want to play, I didn't want
to talk my fiance. If she said good morning, it
was a argument. If she said if there's anything I
can do, my first thing was, yeah, you can give
me my sight back. So every day drinking, arguing, fighting,
(16:14):
hating myself, hating the world. And people don't understand when
you lose your sight, it's more than sight you're losing.
I lost my whole identity. I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had
no idea of what life had to offer. I truly
(16:39):
would have never imagined I'll be sitting here today with
the title Doctor Charles W. Powell. But that downward trajectory,
unfortunately lasted me a good nine months to almost a
year of basically drinking and this giving up on life.
I didn't care about nothing, no one. So that was
(17:03):
the beginning part.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So then what happened? So after all that? Then what?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
After all that? I mean, it's amazing when you hear
TV shows like the the things out of mouths of babes,
or what children will say, or the funniest things children
can say. They don't tell you the things that a
child can say that will break anyone. My daughter asked
me one day, Daddy, why don't you love me no more?
(17:35):
Why don't you play with me no more? And every
day up until that point, my excuse was, I'm blind,
I can't do it, Daddy can't see Daddy is daddy
that I didn't want to, but my daughter was very persistent.
She would nag me every day. She would say, Daddy,
I'll close my eyes and I'll be blind like you
(17:56):
and we can still play. And that that was the
catalyst that broke the that broke my back. That was
the straw that broke I mean, here's a little girl
with so much ambition. She didn't see me as a
blind individual. She still didn't see me as her dad.
So that right there gave me a sense of purpose
(18:20):
and I was like, Okay, I have to deal with this.
So I cut back on the drinking. I started looking
into different things. Well, I'm as well say. My fiance
started researching, you know, wheren is speaking Matosa blindness, and
you know, different organizations. She found the organization, the National
(18:42):
Federation of the Bond. She found a chapter which was
right here in our community, in a little town that
we liveing in West Virginia. She reached out to these people.
She found out when their next meeting was, and she
took me to it. Now, mind you, I did not
want to I don't know these people. I did not
(19:03):
want to go to this meeting. I'm still fighting the
fact that the reality that I'm blind. I didn't want
nothing to do with these people. I don't know them,
I don't want I don't care what they gotta say.
But just for the strength of you know, trying to rebuild,
I went to the meeting. When we went into this meeting,
it was so crazy because one of the biggest things
(19:26):
that I was fighting with was the telephone. I was
used to text message in. I was used to everything
on my phone. Now, mind you, I wasn't a young
child when I lost my sight. I was in my
early forties, so basically I had a whole life full
of sight. I knew every everything I knew was done
(19:46):
by sight. So when we went to this meeting, the
first thing that my fiance noticed was everyone in this
meeting had a smartphone, and I'm like, impossible, So I
asked one of the members, can I see the phone
or what kind of phone was it? And of course
it was the Miraculous's iPhone. It's like big up to
(20:09):
Apple iPhone because it's very accessible. I asked to see it,
and when I heard Siri talk for the first time,
I was amazed. This individual was just swiping left and
right and showing me everything. When my biggest thing was
how am I gonna send a text message or you know,
just gip phone calls. I was about to go out
(20:30):
and buy me a flip phone that I can just
fill the buttons and call people, and I wasn't worrying
about text messages. So basically I got involved with the
National Federation of the blind. I left that meeting and
when I got my iPhone that day and just playing
with that iPhone let me know that, Okay, maybe life
(20:52):
is not over. Maybe it's not you know, the end
of life. This little phone can make a difference. Let's
see what else I can learn from there. I my
fiance did more research found the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
here in West Virginia. I've reached out to them and
I was just like, okay, who are you? What can
(21:15):
you do? I had a meeting there. They were telling
me like, okay, we can get training and you can
learn this. You can learn that. They sent me off
to nic To West Virginia to one of their training programs.
When I went down there, they basically had me and
(21:36):
mobility training, computer training. That's when window ours was at
And hold on, hold on one second, can we pause
the recording? Please?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Sure? Sure, yes, we'll pause here.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Hold on, yes, Like I was saying, I got my
fiancee got me in touch with the Vocation of Divisional
Vocational Rehabilitation, which sent me down to Nitro, West Virginia
to their training where I take mobility training and computer training. Now,
(22:23):
mind you, before I lost my sight I was not
the computer person. I was basically the hands on the laborer.
I wasn't even on social media at that time. I
didn't even have a Facebook account because the computers just
wasn't my thing. So when I actually went down there
(22:43):
and got the training at Nitro, and this wasn't the
one time thing. I think the first time I went
down there was for two weeks. Then I went back
down for another month month and a half. When I
was going down there learning all of this stuff I made,
I was just amazed. The screen readers, like I said,
back then was window wise, but now it's Jaws. But
(23:06):
between the mobility trading, the screen readers, and the assystem technology,
the bill identifiers, the victor reader, things that they're showing
me was like really amazing. So I appreciated that. And
the more I learned through that, the more that my
(23:29):
vision became clearer. I had a vision that I can
make a difference. I can live without sight. So the
more I learned on the computer, I came back home
and my fiance again doing the research, I found the
Hadley School for the Bronde out of Illinois. I reached
(23:50):
out to them. I started taking little classes with them,
for little certificate kids such as typing and keyboarding, business
law things like that. I was just taking little certificate programs,
just learning a computer, seeing what I can do. Now.
All of this was in the mind that Okay, I
(24:12):
want to go back to work. I don't want to
sit here and just depend on, you know, disability benefits
for my financial stability and to feed my family. So
as I went through Hadley, I know that Hadley is
a recognized school in a blind community. But telling people
that I have a certificate and keyboard in and a
(24:35):
certificate in what they call business law one and two
it willly it really didn't impress them and didn't move
them to give me the job. So the whole time,
I'm still thinking like, Okay, I appreciate that the disability
benefits are out there and they was helping. But when
(24:56):
I was getting I'm a family man, I'm a grown man.
I could and live off of it. So we're still
going through the day to day life. I'm adjusting. It's
been like a year and a half now since I
lost my sight, and I was adjusting to it. I
was really getting the hang of the white cane, getting
(25:17):
the hang of you know, dressing myself and doing different things,
and I was just now my focus was on adapting
or reinventing my life. We went to a festival called
the BlackBerry Festival here in West Virginia, and I'm around
(25:37):
the crowd, my daughter and my fiance is leading me around.
We're enjoying the festival, and there's a young lady out there,
Kimberly Blair. She was the administra admissions representative for the
West Virginia Business College. The woman changed my life. She
stopped my fiance and was making a pitch to my
(25:59):
fiance joined the Business College because they had a medical
program and a parent legal certificate program. Now, my wife
was already in the medical field. She was already a
nervous self. She wasn't interested, but I was listening while
she was doing a pitch for my fiance. I was listening,
and I questioned about the parent legal certificate program and
(26:23):
it was just a conversation and we went on and
enjoyed the rest of the festival. And then you know,
when we got home and my fiance we was talking
about it and I was like, Okay, para legal, I
don't need sight to do that job. I think I
can do this because I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey,
and Brooklyn, New York. And you know, I had a
(26:46):
couple of experiences with the Lawnwood people in the neighborhood
was falsely accused or they was arrested or whatever. So
everybody was a foight outur lawyer back then on the corner.
If you lived in a project, so you lived in
inner city, everybody they knew more about the law than
what they actually did. So one day me and my
fiance went down to the West Virginia Business College and
(27:13):
we walked into the admissions office to put the certificate,
the parent Legalism certificate. Her first thing was, it will
give you that you know what give you that idea?
Why do you say that? She actually helped me fly
(27:39):
up the paperwork and I actually got I think two
or three weeks. So when I came to start the
big in this college for eighteen months, parent a bus which
picked me up and dropped me off at my doorstep
in at the doorstep of the school. Talk of the schools.
(28:05):
So first thing they says, I never toret the blind person,
and so I guess we're gonna learn this thing together.
So to make a lot administrative assistant who worked. She
(28:29):
helped me do things that I love system down and
then gave me a sight of the assistant to go
to and time the first it was a aighteen months
(28:54):
months went past me and the professor's in my sight
of the I learned about, you know, the digital talking
books from Bookshare, which is the educational textbooks. I learned
about the Victor Reader, which I could take notes on
and play back. I can record the lectures and everything.
So we basically made it through the Business College. When
(29:19):
I got up to about sixteen to seventeen months, like
a month and a half or two months before I
was due to complete that course to get my little certificate.
I'm really really excited at this time because I'm gonna
have a pair of legal certificate I can hopefully get
a job with that. I was invited down to Salem University,
(29:39):
which is the big college that's associated with the Business College.
It's in Selthem, West Virginia, and I was invited to
come to the campus. And at that time, I was
just like, Okay, I get a free day out of school,
that's to go visit a college campus. And I don't
got no work.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
To do.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
So I'm good. Me and my cited assistant. He drove
me down there and since I was in paralegal, I
met the Dane of the criminal justice program, doctor cam Downsbury,
very respectful, highly highly educated man. He was putting on
his crime house, which is well known. That is a
(30:21):
house on the campus that they will have a crime
tape place in there and he will take his students through.
He'll have his students go through there who's in a
criminal justice program and they supposed to evaluate the scene
and tell them what happened. So again I was heard
of the dane of the program, the criminal justice program
(30:44):
had already heard I was coming. And he walked me
through the crime house himself personally. It was me and
him and my sight of assistance, and he told me
everything that was in the house. He described everything to me.
And when we got to the other side of the house,
and you know, we completed the house, he asked, well,
(31:05):
what do you think happened? What would you if you
was investigating this, what would you think? And I gave
him my opinion. So when I gave him my opinion,
I wasn't one hundred percent right. I wasn't dead on
but he was like, it was so impressive that I
was within the top five percent of the students from
(31:28):
bachelor's the master's program who was already at the university
who came close to what actually happened and how I
would investigate it. So we left the crime house and
went straight to the dean's office. I said, in the
dan's office, never met this woman a day in my life.
We sat in there with the dean of the whole
(31:49):
institution the university, and the dean of the criminal justice program.
We sat in there for about forty five minutes, and
to make a long story short, I walked out of
there and in their bachelor's program for criminal justice. Again,
I was this was never my intention. I just wanted
to get an eighteen month para legal certificate to get
(32:12):
a job. So once I got my para legal certificate,
I went on to sell the university to take my
which would become my first bachelor's degree, and criminal justice
specialized in their crime scene investigations. When I got through that,
I went for another bachelor's and homeland Security, which went
(32:36):
to my master's degree which I would triple master's degree,
and criminal Justice administration cybersecurity and forensic science. And I
topped that off with the twenty twenty four graduation with
my doctor's degree and business administration and specializing in finance
and management. So we started off as an eighteen month
(33:05):
program just to get a job. I ended up with
a doctor's degree, a triple master's in the dual bachelors,
and an associate's degree in paralegal study my certificate. And
like I said, the whole thing was when I was
going through these stages of education, it wasn't perfect. It
(33:28):
wasn't easy. I mean, learning without sight was a challenge.
I had digital books. I read the digital books. I
turned in all of my work through emails and correspondence
through you know, digital formats, and a lot of people
(33:51):
was respectful and you know, accommodating, but I didn't have
those professors who didn't care about my blindness. And I
actually had one professor threatened to fail me or kick
me out of his class because I asked for extra
time due to the things he was given was not accessible.
(34:14):
And at that time, I think I was more mad
that he was treating me like that, and that made
me look into what he kept saying. What he was
saying he's gonna fail me. I'm gonna have to drop
the course. I knew that wasn't right, so again I
researched Americans with Disabilities Act. I found out that, okay,
(34:36):
you're right, you can't do that. So I sent the
email to the dean. I went to my disability advocate
office on campus, and I was like, look, what he's
doing is wrong and it's not fair to me. Now,
since I'm the first blind student that came through his school,
he figured that, Okay, he don't have to change nothing.
(35:00):
It's my responsibility. But in reality, it was his responsibility.
So I think that was the first move that I
made that really got me interested in advocacy. Now, mind you,
I was doing all of this to get a job,
and when I finished my second bachelor's I sent out
(35:24):
resumes to every law firm, every legal anything to do
with law. I sent out a resume to within a
twenty mile radius to where I lived. And once I
sent my resumes out, I got phone calls, I got emails,
I got invited to interviews. But once I walked into
(35:48):
those interviews, it seemed like a whole atmosphere change. It
seems like when they seen the cane, the sunglasses, and
that I was blind. It seemed like all of the
interests went out the windows. I did the interview, I
went home, I sent to thank you letter email for
(36:11):
you know, having me in for the interview, and I
was looking forward to hearing from so on. But unfortunately
a lot of those places I did not hear from.
And one instance, I actually knew someone who told me
to apply for this law firm because they actually worked
there in a different position and they thought that I'd
be a great fit in this law firm. When I
(36:33):
sent them my resume, oh my god, they called. They
email if I couldn't make it in this week, They're like,
when could you make it in? And when I actually
made it in the same thing happened. The atmosphere change.
And then I heard from the same individual who asked
me to apply that they hired someone else with not
(36:54):
even a paralegal certificate, with no experience in the law
industry at all. So I figure then I was gonna
have a problem. Regardless of the education I had, people
were still not gonna give me the opportunity that I requested. So,
(37:14):
still knowing that the disability benefits was not gonna be
It wasn't gonna be enough to survive on. I was
putting in applications and resumes everywhere. I came across that
Chick fil A was hiring for a dishwasher. Now, mind you,
at this time, I have a dual bachelor's and I'm
(37:35):
working on my first masters, and I put my application
in at Chick fil A. I called up there and
I'm like, listen, I understand that you're hiring for a dishwasher.
And the manager said, yes, I am. And you know,
we talked and I told them to be totally transparent.
I am blind. She's like, what, like, I'm blind? And
(37:59):
then they said usually impaired, which I hate that name.
I will get into that a little bit later, but
I hate when they say visually impaired. But she till
she still told me to come in for interview. I
went up there. I sat with the young lady who
with the manager. She called another manager out there. We talked,
and their whole thing is you're blonde. So I had
(38:22):
to do something that you know, was going to turn
the tables. I'm like, listen, if you can take me
back to where I will be working at, explain what's
around me and what I'll be doing. I can tell
you if I can do it or not. So they
took me to the back in the wash area.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Simple, small, I will say ten feet by ten feet area.
I mean, it wasn't big at all. The dishwasher wasn't
I mean, I knew that I could get a method
to getting this done. So after they showed me that,
we went back and talked at the table and I
told them, I'm like, listen, right now, you have no one.
(39:03):
You give me three weeks. If I can't do it
to live up to your expectations, what are you losing?
You have no one washing dishes right now. So I
know that I'm better than nothing. So you know, I
guess it was that initiative and that determination that you know,
they gave me the job as dishwasher. Long story short,
(39:25):
I stayed there for like a year and a half
up was two years, and I think still today I'm
considered one of the best dishwashers that they had. Now
at this time, I'm still in school, I'm washing dishes
at night. I'm still going to school for my triple
Masters at this time, and I got to the point
when I was coming up on my third Masters, I
(39:48):
was like, okay, twenty and twenty one, I was just
to the point. In August in twenty twenty one, I
opened up the Vron Visions Consulting and Paralegal Service LLC. Basically,
I got tired of applying for these jobs and law
offices and law firms and legal ways. So I'm like, Okay,
(40:10):
if you're not going to give me a job, I'm
going to create my own job or going to be
a business owner. Now at the time, I don't know
that much about business. So we opened divonn Visions in
twenty twenty one. I'm still in school and I'm still
washing dishes. I get a couple of people acting, Okay,
we made our cards, we put on social media posts,
(40:33):
and we're introducing divon Visions consulting and pair of legal
services what we do in our education. So I'm getting
a couple of people from the neighborhood talking about, well,
do you do this? Do you do that? Legal research? Yes?
Do you do legal document preparation yes? Do you know
about our disability law? Yes? So I was getting work,
(40:54):
but it wasn't a lot of work. I'll get something
for like, okay, I'll preparely go documents for you for
like one hundred and fifty dollars per document, or I
can't do this research for this much. It wasn't static.
So I'm still washing dishes and going to school, like
to say time December twenty twenty one. January twenty twenty two,
(41:17):
I had talked to my fiance. I'm like, okay, I
got all this education. I'm about to finish up my
last master's degree. I got a business started legally on paper.
We are in business, but I'm not doing nothing with
the business. I'm not focusing where I need to because
I'm washing dishes for that steady paycheck. So I made
(41:40):
the you know decision and January twenty twenty two to
quit my dishwashing job and then throw all of my
focus on you know, Divar Visions. I'm taking a leak. Now,
I'm gonna just leave a regular paycheck and reach out
on Davar Visions. So I started into that January. I'm
(42:02):
on social media. I'm promoting myself. I'm putting out business cards,
I'm talking to everyone. I'm getting business, but I'm not
getting a business that I think I'm gonna need to,
you know, survive and be financially stable. So again, by
the grace of God, I got a phone call an
email matter of fact in February from a young lady
(42:27):
who works for a oil and gas company. And this
individual told me, well, like seeing your profile on indeed
dot com, we are interested for you to come in
as a legal position. And the oil and gas company
they represented it was exciting because it's one of the
(42:47):
largest in the country. So I'm running through wind visions.
I quit my dishwashing jobs, so right now I can
tell them up front like love, thank you, but no
thank you. I'm blind. So I'm doing my thing right now.
And when the lady when I told her that, she's like,
yore blind, I'm like yes, and I was ready to
(43:10):
hear you know, a bunch of excuses why I can't
come in for the interview, But she said, well, I
respect what you're saying. I respect the fact that you're
working on your own business, but can you come in
for this interview anyway? Can we have a conversation. So
my theory is a conversation don't hurt no one, It
don't cost me nothing, it's not going to hurt no one.
(43:32):
So I went to the interview. I walked in the
interview and the two office managers was in there. So
at this time I'm like, okay, I sit down. We're
talking a couple of questions, and within ten minutes in
the interview, both of them stopped me from talking and said,
(43:55):
could you excuse us for a minute, And then I
was like, have we go They're like, would you like
a coffee of water? And I'm like nah, And in
my mind I'm just like whatever, have we go again.
I'm ready to grab my briefcase and my cane and
walk out the door. When they came back in, they
actually asked me. They're like, well, do you mind if
(44:16):
another coworker sits in on this interview? To me, I'm like, okay,
it's your interview. Sure. The young man introduced itself first name,
only shook my hand and sat down. I didn't hear
nothing else from this individual the whole the whole time. Now,
this interview lasted, mind you, about forty five minutes to
(44:39):
an hour. When we got to the point where they
told me this is what we do, how would you
do it? I took out my laptop, I turned it on,
turned my hotspot on and the first thing that they
heard was Jaws. I logged into my Jaws and I
got off my computer. Now they're captivating because they never
(45:01):
seen or heard about Jaws. I said, okay, what do
you do aill in gas Law? I started researching all
in gas Law. I'm like, what do you want to know?
Why I'm researching this and showing them that I'm capable.
They're listening to Jaws and they're just amazed. Then they
was like okay, and they gave me a couple of
(45:24):
futile tasks like minute task to do. When I did
it ball, I explained what Jaws was and when it
was doing and how I use it, and I told them,
you know, in the office setting, I'll use airphones or
a headset. So we got that out the way. We
(45:45):
finished up the interview. They thanked me for coming in
and I left there. When I left there, I did
the routine always sent then thank you message the email
thanking them for having me in for the job. Went
about my merry way. They told me they'll get back
to me within that week. So I'm all excited now
(46:06):
because I have the opportunity to get a job. But
I didn't let it go to my head, so I
went home and continued to run dron visions. So I
didn't hear nothing that week, and unfortunately I didn't hear
nothing the following week. But the week after that, I
got an email and the lady asked. She sent me
(46:29):
the email apologizing that they'd haven't gotten back in touch
with me, and one of the office managers was sick,
the one who's supposed to call me. She was out
for a week and a half, two weeks, and they
asked when can I started. So I ended up starting
to following Monday. And it was so funny because when
I got to the office. I got there and I
(46:50):
met the office managers that I had the interview with,
and when they were showing me to my office, I
was I heard the young man who came in, and
of course I was so happy to hear a voice
that I knew. I was like, Hey, how you doing
such a sun and he was like, well, Charles, I'll
(47:10):
be with you in the second. So the office manager
showed me into my office, introduced me to a couple
of people who was gonna be working on my team,
and one of the individuals who came in. They asked
that I know the individual that I spoke to in
the hallway, and I was like, yeah, I mean he
was in my interview. And before they can go any further,
(47:34):
that individual knocked on my office door and he came
in and the other individual left out. He shut the door,
and he actually introduced itself. He was actually the CEO
of the company. He was the owner of the company.
And I was like, oh, I felt like really, I
felt stupid then because I'm acting like he does another employee,
but this is the big boss. And he laughed it off,
(47:56):
and like he said, he didn't introduce itself as that person,
but he told me once he heard that, his two
office managers come in there and tell him that he
had to come into this interview and listen to this man.
He told me the first five minutes he sat there,
he knew that he was going to hire me. He
(48:16):
told me that the week that they gave me, I
was gonna start the following week if the office manager
didn't get sick. But he said he used that week
and his team used that week his managers to explain
to the rest of the team that I was blind
and finding out the best place to strategically place my
office near the kitchen and the bathroom and stuff like that.
(48:38):
So he was so impressed on how I presented myself
and how you know, I came in there, showed him
the software, and I actually worked for this company for
like a year and a half at that time. I'm
going for the time that I work with for them.
I'm still pursuing my doctors in business because when I
(48:59):
was running Divine Visions, I know, I knew, I knew
a lot about the law. Was there nothing you could
tell me about the law from performing my job? But
again the strategic move, I could not afford to hire
the people to do the business aspect of my own business.
So my thing was okay, to learn business. I'm going
(49:23):
to go for my doctor's degree in business. And while
working at the Oil and Guys company being a legal,
a parent legal and a legal practitioner for that company,
I was still running Divine Visions, and basically, like I said,
I worked for them for a year and a half,
almost two years, because I think I finished up with
(49:44):
them on twenty twenty three, and from that point on,
I have been just focusing Divine Visions and launching in
twenty twenty two, I launched a blind but not Broken movement,
which is a movement that I feel like the blind
in sight and past community really need it. And that's
(50:05):
what we are.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Now, and that's how we got all the way up
to twenty twenty five. You know, Charles, when I heard
this story on Blind Table Talk, I just knew that
I just had This is just too fascinating. You're just
absolutely fascinating. And I'm not going to say. I'm not
(50:29):
going to say that you're inspiring, because you know how
that is in the blindness community. What was I to say, Wow,
you're inspiring, Well, you know what, No, not really, but
what you are is the epitome of what happens when
you decide to be a success story. That's what you are.
So that's what you are. You're not an inspiration, You're
just a success and that's what I celebrate. You know,
(50:52):
it's absolutely fascinating. I will tell you that this entire time,
by the way, for the you were just about to ask,
there was a question was about to occur to you.
You wanted to know how much I love the milkshakes
at Chick fil A. I love them. Second thing. Second
thing a lot of times during this conversation, you were
talking about how you you know, companies wouldn't hire you,
(51:15):
you know, just because you're blind and things like that. Well,
I'm a young guy, I'm thirty three, and a funny story,
the same exact thing happened to me, and I learned
very quickly just as you did that it seems as
if some of us blind people just need to go
about our own way in life and start our own
companies and start our own businesses. And you know, there's
(51:35):
a part of my heart and soul that loves that,
because when I'm not doing this, I actually have my
own teaching business. I do a lot in the community.
I'm in my Lion's Club. I'm a leader in my
Lions Club. I do a lot in my community, which
is all fine and wonderful, and you know, find in
Dandy Cootton candy. But it does speak a lot to
you and I as successful people that society still refuses
(51:58):
to hire blind people, even when we have appropriate credentials.
I I really, I'm really baffled by that, even me,
even me at the age of thirty three, I'm still
mind boggled by that. So I mean I'm agreeing with you.
This is this is a serious problem. It's a serious
problem that they don't hire blind people, and that they
(52:19):
that they use the blindness as an excuse not to
hire us. It's also interesting how we basically have to
start our own businesses, which is fine to some extent,
but I think what I'm saying is it shows a
lot about the American collective and the American psyche and
the society being unwilling. That unwillingness, that inflexibility really puzzles
(52:43):
me and really does bother me. The other thing is,
we're definitely going to have you back on the show
to give us a deep dive into criminal justice and
criminology and cybersecurity. But those topics are really fascinating. So
it's another very endearing moment my mother. My mother's start
criminal justice for her bachelor's degree, and she hated it.
So I'm also fascinated by criminal justice. I think for
(53:07):
a blind person, actually, I think if you want to
go to law school, there's a lot of blind there's
a lot of things a blind person can do in
criminal justice. So you really really kind of do a
little bit of a kind of walk in that direction.
For a bit, talk a little bit more in depth
about your knowledge in regards to the criminal justice field.
What you've learned about the field you know? So have
(53:28):
you certainly, I certainly hope that you have been admitted
to the bar. Certainly you should be an attorney in
West Virginia. What can you tell me about you know,
criminal justice and the field and the study and what
people do in that field. Really break it down.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
Well and when basically the criminal justice it is a
lot we can do in there. And there's a lot
that I've learned in criminal justice. Like I said, I
basically when I started off with the parallegal certificate, it
was just to get a job. But as my education
grew and I started learning more about the system, I
(54:03):
wanted to change the system because America's criminal justice system
is broken. They say justice is, you know, blind, It's
really not blind no more. Because I have seen so
many people go through the court systems and just because
they did not have the financial means for a high
(54:25):
priced attorney or the legal knowledge to know what's right
and what's wrong, they're not getting justice they have. You
have individuals who make mistakes. Okay, first and foremost, I
do not condone in breaking the law. And I am
not saying that a criminal should get a free ride.
(54:46):
But when you see an individual, a young man probably
seventeen years old, not even eighteen, that's beginning his life,
make a mistake and break the law, he get caught
just because he can't afford a high price attorney or
don't have the legal knowledge to you even know what's
(55:06):
going on. He gets stuck with a public offender who
comes and offer him a plea bargain. They can say, okay,
we'll offer you this seven years if you plead guilty,
but if we go to trial, you can get twenty years.
Now the average individual is thinking seven years instead of
(55:27):
twenty that's a deal. That is not a deal with
the maximum sentence that you get for the crime that
you committed. It is two years or probation for the
first time offense. I mean, our justice system today is
so unfair and unjust, it's pathetic. You have individuals out there.
(55:50):
You know that the wrongfolk conviction rate is up to
sixty four percent in this country. They say that the
overcrowded and overpopulations of prisons and correctional facilities is detrimental
because there's no rehabilitation or reforming in these institutions. No more.
(56:11):
We have privately run prisons. Prison has become a business.
It's like they are locking people away and then using
them for cheap labor. The crminal justice system, for what
we know it should be, is not there. There's a
shortage of lawyers. And I must state for the record legally,
(56:33):
I am not a license attorney. The ron Visions Consulting
Impair of Legal Services is not a law firm. We
do not provide legal advice, but we provide legal research,
legal knowledge, legal translation, and legal document preparation. The criminal
(56:54):
justice system, when you start to learn it, one is
interesting because you know what's going on. When we think
criminal justice or we think the law, we think of criminals,
but the law is so much more than criminals. For
(57:15):
my doctoral thesis, my doctoral study, I wrote my dissertation
on the financial challenges in law enforcement. We don't think
about how the finances play a role in criminal justice.
We don't think about, you know, the equipment that can
(57:36):
help the criminal justice system as far as we come,
like the DNA test and the new technology, the new
you know, advanced formats that can stop these errors. It's
like if you get convicted of a crime twenty years
ago and it was based on DNA. As soon as
(57:58):
they say the word BNA, everybody thinks that would say,
you know, a perfect science. It's not a perfect science.
It wasn't back then, it is not now. DNA can
be corrupt, then they can be misread. So when you
think about the criminal justice system, what are we saying
(58:21):
if a person supposed to be innocent until proven guilty,
why are they offering these outrageous and outlander's plea bargains
to individuals? And it's sad to say they're not bringing
these plea bargains to the rich and the wealthy, They're
bringing it to the financially challenged, the lower income. And
(58:45):
it's no longer a black and white thing like everybody
want to say. They say, oh, the criminal justice is
hard on the black people in the ghetto distance and
that No, the criminal justice is about to have and
have nots right now. And it's a long is we
allow this to happen. We are in trouble if our
(59:07):
children are being caught up in the wrong place the
wrong time, or they simply make a bad decision and
get involved with the criminal justice system, should they sacrifice
the rest of their life for that. I mean, honestly,
we have all been young, carefree and plainly stupid at times.
(59:32):
I haven't done a lot of things in my past
that I regret, and if I would have gotten caught
for those things, it probably would have turned out worse
than it would have done. But again, I am no
way condoning the breaking up any laws. But if you're
going to provide justice, make sure it's equal across the board.
(59:56):
Don't tell me when you have a individual out there
who broke a law. If you steal a sandwich because
you have an eight and five days and you hungry,
the sandwich costs five dollars, petty theft, no guns, No,
it wasn't a robbery. You shoplifted because you was hungry.
(01:00:19):
But now you got to go to jail for three years.
Where in the law it says under the statue that
petty theft, okay, you get a fund community service, But
now you have prosecutors and lawyers offering plea bargains for
three years. You're telling the person I'm gonna give you
(01:00:40):
three years because you have not eight and five days.
And then when you take this individual and put him
in the criminal justice system what they are supposed to
reform and rehabilitate, they come out worse than they went in.
If you take a in this ain't gonna say innocent.
(01:01:01):
If you take a first time offender and unjustly put
them in jail for more time than the law say
that they should be there, you're putting them in prisons
with heart in criminals. So they got to adjust to
their environment to survive the time that you unjustly gave them.
(01:01:25):
So if you take them and put them away for
three years, when they sweet kid, come out of jail
within three years, come out of prison, he's a heart
in man. He's a heart and criminal. Every day in
there he has to survive. You're not giving him education
while he's in there. You're not teaching him a trade
(01:01:45):
while he's in there to re enter into society as
a productive member. You're throwing them in there with other
heart in criminals where he has to learn to survive
in the jungle. So when he comes back out, he's
gonna be even worse. You have those who go in
and who takes the initiative to be like, Okay, I
(01:02:09):
don't want to be I don't want to go back
to jail, so I'm gonna change my life. But again,
with the criminal justice system, let's look at it like this.
You and I both have seen it. I have family
members who's in jail wearing four hundred dollars sneakers. I
have family members who's in jail who will right and
(01:02:31):
asked me to send them a TV, to send them
money for a conversation, send them food packages. I'm like, one,
you're in prison, why do you got on four hundred
dollars sneakers? Why do you need a TV in yourself?
Why do you need this? This and that? We the
book and society at large, and the criminal justice system
(01:02:53):
is making it so comfortable in jail. There's no deterrent.
People don't care about going to jail because some of
them live better in jail than they do on the street.
So criminal justice is a broad topic. It is a
big problem, and basically we can look at it from
(01:03:16):
two ways. Divine visions. Consulting in paralegal services is here
to help. We want to help people who don't have
all the money. We don't want to have you taken
out a second mortgage because your grandson, your granddaughter, your
son and your daughter have made a mistake and you
(01:03:37):
got to pay this high price lawyer when really only
thing you need to do is father certain paperwork or
have certain knowledge and you can take care of it
at a much cheaper rate. So when you talk criminal justice,
we can go on for hours of the interestedness in it,
(01:04:00):
you know, the politics of it. Criminal the criminal justice
system in America is not about justice no more. It's
politics and finance. And that is sad. We replace rehabilitation
and reform with the words politics and finance. Now, is
(01:04:21):
that fair to those who are being unjustly sentenced or
unjustly incarcerated. No? Is it fair that we have an
individual who is actually innocent but they can't afford the
financial you know, responsibilities to get that high price lawyer,
(01:04:43):
to get the research done that they need. No, And
that is where divine visions come in. Divine visions. We
do criminal law, civil law, disability law, employment law, We
do it all. We research, we create documentation, We do
(01:05:08):
business law. If you wanted to do a business and
start a business, we can follow all the paperwork, We
can tell you what it is, We can explain to
you how to go about it the structure and know
your business. So when people here law, yes they think
of a criminal justice system, but there's so many different
(01:05:30):
laws out there that has nothing to do with criminals.
You have torque law, which means if you have an accident,
a slipping fall, a defective product. I mean, it's so
many things out there. When you're dealing with civil law,
What is the can your landlord evic you for this reason?
(01:05:51):
What are your landlord responsibilities when he's rent in the house?
What are your rights when it comes to the fair
you know Housing Act? What are your rights when it
comes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act? So when
you talk in law or you talk in criminal justice,
is so many different aspects that we can look at,
(01:06:14):
which I said, like I say, we can go off
with days with.
Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Yeah as you are, you are so right, You are
so so right. How many public speaking classes have you taken?
Because you're you You speak beautifully. I could listen to
you all day. You you have a beautiful way of
organizing your thoughts and the way you deliver your speech.
You are you are so so gifted in that And
I really mean many people don't have public speaking skills,
(01:06:44):
but you have them like, Wow, all right, other thing, No,
we'll definitely cover that because I think a lot of
blind you're you're by the way, you're correct, by the way.
I think a lot of blind people and a lot
of people, whether you're blind or not, people should learn
from you, Charles, because you you you, you're, You're there.
You're there mentally, uh, spiritually, you're You're all plugged in. Man,
(01:07:07):
you know so many people are just not not there,
but you're there. What about the other topic, speaking of
a business that makes a lot of money for companies,
what about this whole cybersecurity stuff? Kind of walk in
that direction for a bait. That's because cybersecurity, that's a
business too. Holy moly, talk about cybersecurity.
Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Uh. First, to answer your question, how many public speaking
classes that I have took in my life? None?
Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
I had a feeling. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
I just basically I am me. I am what you get.
Take off the doctor title, take off the education. I
am me. And that's why I think I can relate
to people and people are drawn because I'm just like
everyone else. I am from the projects, I am from
the inner cities. I they don't didn't go somewhere to
(01:08:02):
learn how to speak or learn how to connect with people.
I thank God that I've always been a people person,
so I have taken no public speaking classes, and I
am I guess I'm comfortable talking about what I believe
in and everything that I do I have passion with,
so I think that's what contributes to my speaking abilities
(01:08:25):
and how I come off to people.
Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Wonderful, Absolutely wonderful. So cybersecurity, what can you tell me
about that? But I tell us about cybersecurity.
Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Cybersecurity is basically a degree and a job that will
never go away. Everything now is digital. We're on a
computer so much, We're on our smartphones, our tablets so much,
and we have no idea with the risks that we're taking.
(01:08:54):
Every time that we enter our credit card number to
purchase something from Walmark or Amazon, it is a risk
of a hacker getting that information and financially destroying you.
Cybersecurity basically can teach you or either check your system
(01:09:16):
to make sure you are secure and to make sure
that you know. It's different things that you look out
for or you use your computer for, like the different defenders,
the software defenders, the cyber attacks, and things of that nature.
(01:09:36):
Cybersecurity has a multi fascinate or multi dimensional definition. When
we talk about cybersecurity, we can teach things such as
how to keep your computer safe, what things you need
to look for when you're in a using public Wi Fi.
And that's one of the things that I never, ever,
(01:09:59):
hardly do. Don't use hot spots that's from stores or
different places, even the library, because if you're on a
public Wi Fi, you are taking a risk every time
you log it to your computer with all of your
private information. Me and myself personally, if I'm not home
on my personal Wi Fi or Internet, I have my
(01:10:22):
own portable hotspot, which I am the only one that's
on it, me or my daughter at the time of course,
but if you're on a public security public internet or
a hotspot, anyone who's connected to that hotspot can have
access to your computer and all your information if they
know what buttons to hit or what combination of clicks
(01:10:45):
to me. Cybersecurity it teaches you not only how to
protect yourself online, but you can do diagnostics tests and
you can basically see how secure it is any websites
or any domains that you go on. And another thing
that people does not think about in cybersecurity a lot
(01:11:10):
of the things that's not accessible with screen readers or
you know, due to the blind and site impaired. We
learned they're not labeled in there to say this is
how you make a website you know accessible. But in
the different courses or different classes we had in cybersecurity,
(01:11:31):
it has that it has helped me, you know, navigate
different websites that's not usually you know, accessible to the
blind and site impaired or accessible web screen readers. Cybersecurity
is another one of those topics that I just don't
mean one thing. When you think of cybersecurity, you think
(01:11:56):
of hackers, you think of keeping yourself safe. But it
teaches it teaches you weigh more than that. It teaches
you to break down of the systems that we're using.
It teaches you the digital aspects of reality. Like if
we go on to Facebook or any social media siting,
(01:12:16):
we are putting up information and we're opening ourselves up
that you can never take that back. A lot of
people feel like if you send an email or you
put a social media post up, if you don't like it,
you delete it. But that is some things that will
stay up there. It's never deleted out of the CyberWorld.
(01:12:37):
The cyber fear is basically a big cloud that you
cannot delete nothing from. Once it's out there, it's out there.
I have this discussion with you know, younger women, a
younger man, or the younger generation, when you're putting pictures up,
when you're putting things on social media, you baseasically need
(01:13:01):
to think before you do it, because if this is
something that you don't want the whole world having access
to forever, don't do it. If I am online, especially
in social media or any other you know, applications, I
put out there exactly what I want to put out there,
(01:13:25):
and I make sure is not opening myself up to it.
Because you can do something as simple as take a
picture of where you live. If someone can get that
picture and break it down to the microscopic, you know,
dimensions of it, they can see everything behind you. They
can see the address you have, or they can look
(01:13:47):
at the type of lock you have on your front door,
if it's a computer lock, or if it's one of
those smart locks, which I did not recommend for anyone
because they can be hacked very Easilycurity on the smart
locks and things of that nature. This is your house
you're talking about. Okay, in the old days, we had
(01:14:08):
people who knew how to pick a lock and get
into your house. And it may sound crazy right now,
but it will take people less time to hack your
digital locks or your home that it will take someone
to pick your dead boat. You are at more risks
of lack of security within an electronic lock than you
(01:14:33):
are with an old fashioned dead boat. So as much
as they say they teach cybersecurity to benefit and to
help protect people, every class that I took in cybersecurity
to learn how to defend against hackers, the hackers took
ten more classes that make them better at breaking my
(01:14:57):
defenses than I can defend it. You will hear so
many times when people go through and they have degrees
in cybersecurity, they're more who take those degrees than use
them for the wrong reasons than they are that they
do for the right reason. You can never have one
hundred percent security with digital or online formats. The best
(01:15:21):
thing that we can do is learn how to protect
ourselves to the best of our ability. But again, it's
like the law. As much as society make laws, or
you know, we make stronger laws, the criminals find ways
to break them they find loopholes. Is same with cybersecurity.
(01:15:42):
I can tell you how to protect yourself online or
how to protect your computer, but nothing is one hundred percent.
All knowledge is great. Knowledge is the foundation of you
know everything, but they will never be one hundred secure
(01:16:03):
space online. If you're in the cyber world, you can
learn to protect yourself, you can learn to keep things
up to date, you can do all the diagnostics and
analytics that you know how, but there's no guarantee that
you're always gonna be safe online. So the biggest thing
(01:16:24):
is we're moving towards a digital future. Everything is digital now.
It may be more convenient, it may be more quicker,
but I will never say that it's more secure or
more safer.
Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
I certainly hope that everybody in my audience listen to
every word that he just said, because that is so true,
so accurate. We are we are no, we are no
better off. At very least, we are certainly not better
off today as far as cybersecurity goes, and at most
were in a very dangerous and a very unstable moment
(01:17:06):
in cyber and personal security. And I completely agree. I
could not agree more. And there's so many I mean
you know, you know just as well as I Charles.
There are so many videos on YouTube where people always
say and I know, I don't know any of these
people personally, but there's all sorts of videos you can
watch where you know, law enforcement police officers say yeah,
(01:17:26):
you know you're applying for the department, and then we
do the background check, and then what we find out
WHOA you have this picture, this picture of that picture.
My theory, I have a secret. I have a secret theory.
Don't don't post your pictures online. Just don't do it.
Just don't post the picture. There would be or at
very least if it's a picture of just normal stuff, Okay,
(01:17:47):
having a barbecue Fourth of July celebration, everybody's normal. Just
with your family and friends, that's fine. Keep it to
your friends on Facebook, post it to a specific audience,
but don't share. Number One, your friends don't really to
be really blunt with you. Your friends don't give a
damn about how great you look at the picture anyway,
so don't share it with them either. They don't really
nobody really wants to see that. Nobody wants to see it,
(01:18:10):
and it will almost always come back and haunt you.
You know, almost one hundred and one percent of the time.
I can't think outside of producing wonderful content like you
and I produce. I cannot think of an excuse where
something should be shared unless you're a podcast or in
producing knowledge that's worth sharing. But if you're not producing knowledge,
then it's probably not worth sharing. And it's probably and
(01:18:32):
it probably will come back to haunt you in the future,
almost certainly. But this has been But I also think
in these trying times that this is something that we
need to deal with as a society. I mean, not
only is it telling people don't share that picture, it's
also deciding, over a period of time, how we approach
sharing pictures. So I mean that one's a two way
street too. You know, over time will decide, well, here
(01:18:54):
are the rules, here are the social norms. You know,
we're changing so much in our society. It's truly, truly terrifying.
And I I'm concerned as a successful blind person, just
like you, I'm concerned for all the people around me
who don't want to work and don't want to make
a contribution. You know, I'm concerned about that. You know,
we have a very concerning future. Have you thought about that.
(01:19:17):
You know, what do you think? What do you really
think our future holds? If you know, if you were
to stop and think about it, I have some concerns.
Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
What do the future hold? Are we talking in the
aspects of a blind and cite and pay a community
or society as a whole all of the above, Okay,
let's start with the one that we hold there and
there the blind is sight and pay community. Our future.
To me, if I had it in my way, it
(01:19:47):
will hold every opportunity that a sited person have. This
gives me the perfect opportunity to jump into the blind
but not Broken movement? What is the blind but not
Broken movement? Is exactly what it sound like. I am
out educating and informing society as a whole that we
may be blind, but we are not broken. I am
(01:20:09):
promoting the knowledge, the facts on how there are blind
individuals out there, qualified and educated and still getting looked
over for jobs, housing, education, everything that we are allowed
and we do the blind but not Broken movement. I
am steadily posting and promoting it on social media. And
(01:20:32):
I'm not telling you what I think. I'm not going
up there saying I think just because I'm blind I
should do this, this, and that. What I put up,
I put up what I can do, what I have done,
and what the law says I'm entitled to. I've been
doing the Blind but Not Broken movement now three almost
(01:20:53):
four years, and we are starting to get recognized people
such as yourself, the Blind Table Talk, we are the
Blind Chick podcast. We are going nationwide. And when I
go out there and I go in to the blind
social media groups and I see a hashtag blind but
not Broken, or I seen hashtag blind but not Broken
(01:21:15):
from a sighted person not too long ago, and that
this makes me feel like, Okay, now we are making process.
I have companies looking at the fact that, okay, why
why we can get this individual opportunity when they don't
(01:21:35):
know about the blind community, When you got it in
their face, Okay, why should you hire a blind individual
or siting pair one. We're gonna work twice as hard
than any other employee you got because we gotta work
two times and three times. It's hard just to be
seen as equal a blind individual. I'm letting society know
(01:21:58):
we have something to prove to you individuals who don't understand.
So what other person is gonna work harder for you.
You give us the opportunity we're gonna show you. When
I started at the Business College, I had no idea
that I was gonna end up with a doctor's degree.
(01:22:18):
You got people telling me that's not possible. And this
is sad. Now to be totally transparent, when I went
to people in organizations, I'm not gonna well, I will
say it the blind people that I met from the
National Federation of the Blond And this is not a
jab at the federation or the organization, because the National
(01:22:40):
Federation of the Bond is a very good organization. I
believe it what they stand for. I respect a lot
of individuals who represent it. But when I went to
these individuals and told them that I'm gonna go back
to school to try to better myself, to make myself
more employable, the first thing they said was, well, if
(01:23:00):
you do that, if you get a job, you're gonna
lose your disability check or they're gonna cut your check.
And my thing was, so what I'm doing it so
they can take this check. I want to get a
regular pay check. Now, we may not be the ones
that want to say it, but the proof have to
be the truth. Just like it's me yourself, Fleece Saeeda
(01:23:24):
the blind Chick. For every one of us who are
out there saying we can and we will, We're gonna
do this, there's ten saying why should we for everyone
to say, every one of us to say, Okay, we're
blind but not broken. We can't do this even though
(01:23:45):
we are blind. There's tend to saying we can't do
this because we are blind as a community, as blind
as sighting and paired individuals. We don't want that stigma.
We hate it when we hear a stereotype that you know,
depicts us in a negative or uh dependable theory or sight.
(01:24:11):
When you hear a blind person, the first thing people
think about is standing on a curve with a cane
and a white cup, begging for change. When you hear
blindness in the restaurant you see, you think about, you know,
people sitting there spilling food all over their place, making
a mess because they can't see. When you hear the stereotypes,
(01:24:33):
now this is one that I hate. Oh, you got
a blind person who dressed that person? Did that person
get dressed by a blind person or they get dressed
in the dark this morning? I hate to hear those stereotypes.
But as every time individuals like yourself and I are
out there breaking those stereotypes, there's ten others that make
(01:24:54):
that stereotype real. These stereotypes was not born. I can
say they was born. Not a lack of knowledge or
lack of education about blind incited the pair of people.
But I can also say that it's some blind incited
them pair of people who made those stereotypes of reality.
I've heard blind people tell me, well, I get up,
(01:25:17):
grab a pair of shorts, pair of jeans, pair of
pants and shirt, and a pair of shoes and run outside.
I like, well, do you take thought of what they
look like? I can't see it, so why do I care?
I'd have been at restaurants with blond people who's sitting
there eating knowing they making a mess. And when you
(01:25:38):
say something and someone say, well you spilled that on
your shirt or you drop something, Well, I'm blind. They
gotta understand that. No, they don't. You don't have to
do that when I wake up. I hate when people
say to my fiance, she hated, Oh you dressed him
nice today, he looked good today. She's like he dressed
(01:25:59):
his Oh, here a grown man. I'm like, well, how
do he you don't match his close up? So good?
It's called color renal. We got color identifiers, we got
technology that helps us. Or when I go to a restaurant,
I am so subconscious. I get to the point where
(01:26:20):
I get food that I know I can manage. I
take my time where not eat. I mean, people, you've
been eating all your life? How do you miss your mouth?
We don't want to say. So many people want to
play the victim because they are blind and they want
those stereotypes to be a reality that they don't care.
(01:26:46):
So again, when we at the Blind but not Broken movement,
everything that we fight for is to educate society, to
inform society about our capabilities or even you know, little
things about us so they won't see us that way.
(01:27:07):
But again, as much as we strive to say, okay,
give us the job, give us the opportunity, we want
to work, there's ten more people out there who saying
I'm not gonna work. I just want to be. I
want them to raise the disability benefits. I want them
to raise the checks. And then you have society who
(01:27:31):
want to be out there. Well, we work for our
disability and our retirement fund. I don't think a blind
person should get disability. I don't think they should be
living off the government. And at the same time, you
have employees who employers who won't hire us because we're
blind people. You can't have it both ways. You can't
(01:27:52):
say we don't deserve a check when you don't give
us the opportunity to work for our living and for
those blind the viguals and cite and pay in the
viguals out there. You're not you're not you're not. You
know you can work. We have the if you want
(01:28:12):
to do something, the determination and the dedication and discipline
you put within yourself, you can do it.
Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
We have.
Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
Telecommunications. Everybody say, okay, we can work in telecommunications. You
got the business industry that they have to sew on factory.
They got blind jobs out there. Now. I don't agree
with that. A blind person must say, okay, only thing
I can do is telecommunication or work at one of
the blond factories. No, you can do anything you want
(01:28:45):
to do. Educate yourself, prepare yourself and show these people.
When I went out there and I felt like, okay,
you're giving me, You're not heard me because I'm blind. Okay,
I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna cry and say
(01:29:08):
bull who you're not gonna hire me. I'm gonna keep
knocking at your door. I'm gonna keep sending my resume in.
And now the funniest part to some of those same
law firms or lawyers who did not give me the
opportunity when I sent my resume out, when they going
in the court and they're getting hit with paperwork with
(01:29:30):
prepared by Divine Visions consulting the Pair of Legal Services LLC,
they looking at, well, who is this person? I never
heard of them. But when they hear doctor George w
Pot a second, Oh he applied for our law firm
four or five years ago. Yes, now you should have
hired me. Then when I get a phone call or email,
(01:29:52):
do you do independent pair of legal services? Yes? Who
is this? Oh this is such a such law firm.
Oh a smile hit my face because they turned me down.
And now the quality of work I do, I can
double charge you, or I won't do as cheap as
I will for anyone else. Because you had the opportunity
(01:30:14):
to let me work at your job. You had the
opportunity to have me as an employee. But you that's
seen that one thing, You seen the cane and my sunglasses,
and you didn't get me that opportunity. But now my
name is around town. You're hearing my name in the courthouses,
(01:30:34):
you're seeing my name on paperwork that's going against you.
I used to sit back and go to the courthouses
and sit in the courthouses and I will watch certain
lawyers or law firms defend their case or do what
they're doing, and when I apply to their job, I'll
(01:30:57):
tell them, well, you lost that motion, did this this,
and that you probably would have won it, or if
you would have looked at it like this, this and that,
you probably would have had a different outcome. And now
they're sitting there thinking like, wow, So where do I
see the future for blind inciting pair of individuals. The
(01:31:18):
future for us now is what we wanted to be,
is what we're gonna make it. We are in their face,
not blind but not broken is out there. Then you
got ETIB even though blind is out there. I mean,
you got people who's bringing the reality of blindness to society.
(01:31:40):
And we never had that. We had Ray Charles, We
had Stevie Wonder, we had Helen Keller, We got people
who make it in different You know, we all know
Ray Charles can see. We all know Stevie Wonder can sing.
Rob Jones the Creator, a blind R and B singer
that's out today. Entertainment is a good thing. But we
(01:32:04):
don't have to be stagnated in certain fields. We can
go to school, we can work in different fiels. Did
everyone know that the top lawyer for Google is blind?
So it's time to stop making excuses and stop saying
we can't when we can. And if you want to
(01:32:27):
make a difference, if you're trying to do something, if
you don't know how to go about it, or you
don't know where to start, reach out. You can reach
out to blind but not broken. You can reach out
to divine visions. I am here and I'm always available
to make a difference in our community and educate society.
(01:32:51):
So that question, what did the future hold for us?
It holds whatever we want it to hold. You got
to invest in yourself. You're not gonna take yourself serious.
Society is not gonna take you serious. If we're not
gonna support and give our give our own community, the opportunities.
(01:33:13):
Why should we worry about what societies? Why? How could
we expect society to give it to us? Not too
long ago, it was some negative comments made on a
radio talk show by an individual. Do you know that
our community? Every time you turned around, they're on podcasts,
(01:33:37):
they're on the NFB news line, they're on everything saying, Oh,
he shouldn't have said that, he shouldn't have said this,
He shouldn't have said that, just because this individual was
a star or a quote unquote fame and recognition. I
didn't give that individual the time of day. I never
(01:33:57):
brought up his name. I never rest the comments that
he made. Still, I put a post on blond but
not Broken, not saying that this individual thinks this because
you can't. You can't change or break ignorance without educating them.
If I say, uh, I'm not gonna do this and
(01:34:20):
this to a blond person and I don't know who
am I to get mad at that person if they
don't know I feel when I go on restaurants today,
I frequent a lot of different restaurants in my town,
and I'm known there. I got waitresses coming up to me.
Now talk about can ask your question like, yes, would
(01:34:43):
it be better for you if when I came up,
I would, you know, introduce myself, tell you my name
and I'll be serving you. Or when I'm bringing you
your drink or your plate, how it is best to
you know, communicate with just be like, well, Charles, I'm
sitting your drink here it is on your left side,
right above your plate. Or Charles, I'm sitting in the
(01:35:04):
rolls here is in the middle of the table. And
when the waitresses come out and they talk to me
like that, the next blond person that come to that restaurant,
they're gonna get that same treatment. And we can't get
mad when they ask us questions. You got waitresses. I
(01:35:25):
don't see people come in and if a waitress ask
them something because they seriously want to know the answer,
the blind people get offended. How could they ask me
that question? Why did they they asked you because they
didn't know? I mean, what harm is it? I used
to hate to the fact when they came Like if
(01:35:49):
I go to a restaurant, they see me with Mike
Cane and they see me with you know, my sunglasses,
they still put the menu down. Blind people got mad,
like they giving me a menu. Don't they know I
can't see. But that's showing me respect, because if I
go to a restaurant and they give me a menu,
I use the meta smart glasses, I mean the way
(01:36:11):
bad matters. I can read the menu. Or if I
don't got my smart glasses on my or camp or me,
I understand and they be like, well, Charles, you know
we got a new special today. People don't understand that
it's so much that we can make so easier for us.
Like did everyone know that it's the law that restaurants
(01:36:35):
got to at least have one brown menu, they got
to have one large print menu. Or if you go
to a restaurant and you by yourself, you can ask
the waitress or waiter listen, this is my first time here,
could you tell me what's on your menu? Now, individuals
such as myself and others have technology to read menus,
(01:36:57):
or they have family and friends to go out with
them and can tell them. But you got that individual
who don't have those things, or those people who don't
go out because they don't want to be a burden
or they don't want to be out of place by
asking someone to read the menu. So therefore, they're locked
inside and they're not getting that experience when we can
(01:37:17):
go out and just act that. Let's stop using our
blindness as a crutch or as an excuse and embrace it.
Yes I'm blind, but I'm not broken. Yes, it's gonna
be times when you know, I need help door things
like I didn't have. Every time I go out and
(01:37:41):
I'm by myself, I got people running up to me
want to help me cross the street, and I really
wasn't going to cross the street. I had to tell
them when you approach a blind person, when you three
four feet away, excuse me, sir, excuse me, ma'am, which
do you need some help? Let's don't go grabbing them
or you know, alert then when they walking up on you.
(01:38:03):
Just don't try to walk upon a blind individual and
help them, because you're liable to get hit with something.
I know me if I'm out there along without my
daughter or my fiance and someone running up to me
as soon as you get cause I know you coming
towards me, I'm swinging my cane or something to stop
you because i don't know what your intentions are. So
(01:38:27):
I feel that the future for the blind inside of
the impaired community. It relies and stems on the way
we educate society, the way we represent ourselves, and the
dedication and discipline that we have to what we want
(01:38:50):
to do and how we want to do it. That's
where our future lay at. I did an episode on
another podcast, advocacy for the youth, the younger generation. We
got to teach our younger generation and even the older generation,
if they don't know how to advocate for themselves, how
(01:39:10):
to stand up for what is right within our community.
You can't say I think I want to do this.
You know how many blind students get out of high
school and don't think about going no further because they
think they can't do it. You know how many blind
people out there who don't start podcasts because they can't
(01:39:32):
think they can't do it. I feel like it's time
for people like yourself and I and other people from
the blind incite and pair of community to go back
and show these younger generations, show people that it can
be done. We are quick. Every year they have a NFL, NBA, MLB,
(01:39:53):
They got draft for all the top athletes coming out
of college. They got everything going on for that. So
we don't have to be athletes. Where is it for
the scholars? Where is it for the success stories? Like
Aaron's opinion, your podcast, you're putting it out there, you're listeners.
(01:40:15):
We need to start networking with bigger, you know, production people.
We need to get this story out, not my story,
not your story, not the blond chick story, not blond
table talk story. We need to get the story of
educating the people in society that we're blown, but we're
(01:40:36):
not broken. We're not disabled, We're different. I don't call
a My blondness is not a disability. It's a differ
ability because I just do things different. I'm not disabled.
I'm different and that difference makes me unique. And that's
(01:41:00):
basically how the future is going to go if we
want to change the time. It's just like everything else.
We gotta make change be the catalyst of change again.
The future for the blind and sight impaired is what
we make it. And we first need to destroy and
(01:41:22):
demolish all the negative stereotypes and stop trying to be
so politically correct, like I'm blind, I am not visioning paired.
When you say I'm vision impaired, you say I don't
have a vision. I do My vision was never so
clear until I lost my sight. I may not have
(01:41:43):
a vision that can see the world and the color
is and the beauty of it, but I have a
vision that will change the world. So we as the
blind community, take away vision impaired and put sight in paired.
Our site is impaired. Our vision is a vision to
be equal and be treated the same as everyone else.
Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
And if anybody has forgotten what you're listening to, you're
listening to Aaron's opinion. My name is Aaron Richmond, and
from my heart to yours, I support your message. I
got to tell you the truth, as I always do.
I'm not politically correct about anything I say. Actually, most
of the thoughts that are in my head are never
politically correct. That's why I think of it. But I
(01:42:31):
will tell you something that's accurate. Either this is the
truth or it's just an opinion. I've been interviewing many
successful people blind insighted for the past five years, and
I will never stop interviewing people because interviewing people is
my calling. Nothing makes me happier than to produce knowledge
for other people. But I also have to tell you
the truth you Truly, I have not had someone on
(01:42:55):
this show who has done a more eloquent, beautiful, humble,
and powerful way of explaining things that are so true.
The way you talk is so beautiful and it's so true.
You've got it, and that's just what I want to say.
I also want to say that before we walk to
(01:43:16):
the end of a beautiful episode of Aaron's Opinion, and
this was a beautiful one. My god, La, La, You're there,
You're you. Truly I'm not exaggerating, I'm truly touched. I mean, yeah, okay,
you're not inspirational, because we don't like to say that,
but yeah, you're inspirational. Okay, you're definitely blind, but definitely
(01:43:43):
not broken. I mean, you're I would hire I would
if you were cited, I would still hire you because
of your spirit. But what I really want to know, Charles,
Charles W. Powell the second, if you can ask me
only one question to really make me sweat, to see
if I'm worth myself as a podcaster, and trust me,
(01:44:04):
I don't know is not going to suffice. What do
you really want to ask me about my podcast? About
who I am as a person? What do you really
want to know?
Speaker 3 (01:44:15):
Ah, this is great. I'm glad you asked that question, Karin. Actually,
when you first reached out to me first and foremost,
I was honored, and I did my due diligence, and
I did the research because that's what I do. I
research anything I get into or involved. I want to
know basically, from Aaron's opinion, you state that you're not
(01:44:35):
politically correct. The thoughts in your mind is not politically correct.
We know that many podcasters or talk show hosts or
people who do what you do is edit for the fame,
the fortune or that's the airtime. What makes Aaron different?
What makes Aaron's opinion stand out above every other podcast
(01:45:03):
out there? Why do you do it? And how do
you feel that this stage or this you know, platform
that you have here is making the difference? And what
is your goal and what difference do you want to make?
Speaker 1 (01:45:19):
First of all, we are not above any podcast, We
are not beneath any other podcast. We are all in
this together, and we are all equally wonderful podcasters, but
never above and never beneath, just with you. That's the
first thing. Why do I do it? Because each episode
(01:45:41):
that I record, each connection I make makes me feel better.
It gives me the sense that I'm truly doing the
right thing. As I always say, help one person today,
help one million people tomorrow. That's the why, because sure,
you and I will listen to this episode. Sure this episod,
so we'll get tinkled around throughout my network, It'll get
(01:46:02):
passed around all over the world. But the irony of
all of it is thirty and forty years from now,
we'll look back on it and we'll say, yeah, there
was that Charles W. Pile, the second guy, and we
were still learning from him forty years from now. So
it's not about the today, it's about the tomorrow. And
that's why. Apart from that, I just feel better when
(01:46:25):
I help you. I feel better, And that's the greatest answer.
That's a perfectly good reason. If I feel better and
I'm making you more knowledgeable and I'm helping you, that's
the right thing to do. So I do it because
I just want to do the right thing and I
love doing it.
Speaker 3 (01:46:41):
I get that, and I respect that you said the
key word, and I knew you was going to say
it is the knowledge base put in out there. I
have watched so many talk shows or listen to so
many podcasts. That's very entertained, and do not get get
me wrong entertainment. Entertainment is a beautiful thing, but my
(01:47:06):
thing is each one teach one. If I go on
a podcast or even a talk show, I'm not okay.
It's great that you know. I've been blessed to obtain
several degrees and do different things in life, but it's
(01:47:27):
not all about that. I think the fact of life
is life is about educating, and it's basically is about
educating and making a difference. If I can say why
(01:47:55):
I show up on podcasts, it's not too is not
to promote myself or my business to be financially enhanced.
Is about educating, whether it is society or the ways
of the blinding side of the impaired community, or educating
(01:48:19):
members of the community how to advocate for themselves and
how to strive forward. And the feeling good part is
always a good reason. To feel good. To do the
right thing is always a good reason. But I think
the greatest joy that I get about appearing and meeting
(01:48:41):
people such as yourself and other podcasters. We're not doing
this for entertainment purposes only. We want you to walk
away from this episode enlightened, educated, informed, and I thank
you for the standing, you know, invitation to come back,
because I hope this is a relationship that will continue
(01:49:04):
on and come back and I can.
Speaker 1 (01:49:06):
There's no way you're gonna lose me if you so,
if you thought that one episode would just make me
go away, you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:49:14):
Well you got the guy.
Speaker 1 (01:49:15):
I'm very hard to you. See, you don't understand I have.
I have a whole team of people all over the world.
You had a team. You didn't know what team I have.
We'll be checking in on you, We'll be there'll be
all sorts of people all over the place. You know,
you can't possibly lose me.
Speaker 4 (01:49:28):
And honestly, it was so funny because you say your
team was heated and Flex, I mean, I had a
great time on this show.
Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
Oh they're wonderful.
Speaker 3 (01:49:40):
Great thing. When you reached out and said, well I
heard you on Round Table Talk and I had to
talk to Flex and all that, I'm like Fleet, and
I'm like, I never heard of this guy in my life.
Who was he? When I listened to the voicemaid, I'm like,
where'd he come from? But you're right, you guys do
have a network out there, and I will put this
in the atmosphere to anyone on your network or anyone
(01:50:03):
in your team who want to reach out for a conversation.
If it's uplifting the blind, incited and excited and pay
a community, or even just putting it out there that
we are blind without broken, I will always appear. If
it's a positive movement, I'm always there. If it's educating,
(01:50:25):
informing and enlightening individuals, I'm there. Not saying that I
won't do a strictly entertainment podcast, but honestly I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
You are very by the way you're very entertaining to
the way the way you deliver your knowledge is so fun,
you know, but you you would be you need to
be a professor. I would, I would take I would
take a lecture class from you. The way you deliver
is so fun and so so kind, just so sweet.
Like the way you deliver I I I understand you.
And we'll certainly put the put the description into the
(01:50:56):
end of the episode. I will certainly put the description
to make sure that I also can promise you that
other parents of blind children will certainly want to learn
about your company and what you do, because you're you
were very right there's a lot of people that are
you know, there's a lot of people that need your knowledge,
that desperately need knowledge, and this is a disturbing problem
(01:51:18):
that I'm seeing more and more frequently. So we'll certainly
put this in the episode description.
Speaker 3 (01:51:24):
We definitely I don't know I sent you as far
as what we do, but we when it comes out
of Divine Visions, we are doing a lot of things.
We do college prepared readiness. If you have a student,
whether blind or cited, that's about to walk to college
and you're looking at US admissions essays, different scholarships, we search,
(01:51:48):
We search scholarships, and we help people apply for that.
When you come to Divine Visions, we are a one
stop shop, you know, person We are involved in a
lot of things. So definitely, if anyone needs to reach
out to us, I'm pretty sure Aaron will put the contact,
the email information and things in there and we're all over.
(01:52:10):
Like I said, it was a great it was a
great conversation. You love being here, and if there's anything
advocacy or anything out there within the community, outside of
the community, I'm always willing to help. And one thing
I would like to say to if you're listening to
this podcast with Aaron out and myself. Whether you're blind
(01:52:32):
or cited, I will always be a representative of the
blind and citing pair of community. But my services is
open to everyone. This is not us versus them. Society,
stop looking at us and then we are all one.
We are all one society. So many times I hear
(01:52:54):
members of the blind and citing pair of community always say, oh,
them cited people or then people stop making it a difference.
We are all God's children, We are all people. We
society has a thing to make at us and them.
It has since back in time. It used to be
(01:53:16):
a black and white thing. It used to be a
rich and poor thing. Now was a site in blind thing.
Stop at people. When you meet the constitution, it says
we the people, not we the black, not we the white,
not we the blind, not we decided, not we the rich,
not we the poor. It's we the people. If we
(01:53:37):
can get over that hurdle and stop classifying and separating
one another, we can move forward as one. Because the
state that the world society is in. Stop looking at
each of each other as being different, and look at
(01:53:58):
the big picture of what is going to be best
for us as a whole. We are the people, we
are all the children that are most high. So we
need to stop basically making it us versus them. That
is old, that is dead. That's one of the stereotypes
I want to destroy. It's not sighted, is not blind.
(01:54:21):
We are all people. We are all doing the same thing,
trying to maintain and survive this craziness that we call life.
Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
There you go, absolutely all right, everybody, Well, thank you
so much that I could not have asked for better
in my entire existence. Really, I'm not exaggerating. Thank you
so much. We'll certainly, yeah, we'll certainly keep in touch.
If you can just stay here for another minute or
so after I end this, that would be good. But
until next time, thank you so much. He's doctor Charles W.
Pow the second Divine Visions. I'm Aaron Richmond from Aaron's opinion.
(01:54:54):
That was a blast. We will sack next time. And
as we always like to say to remind ourselves and
why we're doing all these wonderful things, it's all a
ways to help one person today, help one million people tomorrow.
You've been listening to moving forward with a Divine Vision
with doctor Charles w Pal the second right here on
the Aaron's Opinion Podcast, the podcast for blind people where
(01:55:14):
we speak about critical issues in the blindness community and
all other issues from across the universe and galaxy. Charles Man,
I gotta tell you that was ridiculous, that was incredible. Well,
we'll get back to you in this in a second,
and I am sure that that was not the only
time we'll hear from you. I think I think you'll
have to come back for chapter two or chapter three,
because I just can't stop learning from you. Man one
(01:55:36):
two four zero six eight one nine A six nine
one two four zero six eight one nine A six
nine Aaron's Opinion six gmail dot com A A R
O N S O B I N I O N six.
That's the number six at gmail dot com. Don't forget
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(01:55:59):
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care what platform it is that you're using to listen
to the show, but whether you're on Apple or Spotify,
you can also rate a review, write a review right
(01:56:23):
there on those apps. Two and that's really really good too.
It's just on the Facebook side. It's more noticeable and
actually really creative the way that the Facebook review system works.
So that's pretty cool. Anyway. We want to take this
time to thank those of you from the United States.
Thank you Serbia, thank you m Brazil for taking time
out of your busy lives to download enough episodes this
(01:56:43):
week to be in our top three of the download contest.
So thank you. And we've noticed. I've noticed that ever
since I've started this friendly competition, we have a lot
more countries that are shifting around in the download so
I think somebody is listening to that. I think it
is working anyway, don't forget about that. Thank you so
much to those countries, and thank you to all the
countries who participate by downloading this and many other episodes
(01:57:05):
of Aaron's Opinion, so thank you for that. Don't forget
about possibly joining our Patreon for free. We couldn't do
it without you there, and you would be the first
to know if we ever produce a video on Patreon,
which I haven't done it in a while, but you
know that's still fine. You can always join for free.
I would never post publicly, so for you to see
anything on Patreon, you would need to be in the
(01:57:27):
free free category there. Don't forget follow Following along on
TikTok will also help you, although we don't really post
much on TikTok. And if you need any of the
QR codes for anything I'm saying, just let me know
because I'm giving out a lot of contact points and
so if you need a QR code, just send me
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along on x and on YouTube at Aeron's Opinion TV
(01:57:49):
like the video comment below of course, and tickled up
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be ready for the next premiere on the channel, which
is exactly the same time as you can download the
episode on Apple podcast or wherever you choose to play
the episodes. Don't forget about that. Don't forget if you
if you have questions for doctor Charles w pow the Second,
you should definitely type them into the into the comments
of this YouTube video because I know that we're going
(01:58:10):
to be getting a ton of questions, and of course,
don't forget. We want to take this time before we
go thank Charles. Before we go today, we want to
say thank you, seriously, thank you Blind Table Talk. I
couldn't have done it without you. I never knew of
a Charles w piwle the Second, never knew of that,
never knew of a doctor Charles w piwed the Second,
and I never would have known of them. So thank
(01:58:31):
you for bringing this to my attention by producing a
great episode of your own. It's important to remember that
all podcasts have a great value and that we need
to listen to all of all these great podcasts because
they're all doing so many great things. So thank you
to you know, you know, sigh, the blind Blind Butterfly
and the Blind Security Joseph Leeks for taking their time,
(01:58:51):
taking time to sit down for just a few minutes.
But doctor Charles w pawed the Second that really means
everything to me again, if I had never known, if
you guys weren't doing such a great job with your stuff,
I never would have known of them. So thank you, seriously,
thank you to doctor Charles'll be paw of the second
for taking it seemed like nearly two hours and the night.
I loved it. By the way, I love doing these
(01:59:12):
long form content. This is what I love so so
the longer you can talk and with as much meaning
and as much emotion as you can possibly talk, that's
exactly what I want. So thank you for taking that
time to make sure that we could have this conversation today. Again,
that meant everything to be Charles, And we will certainly
have you back on the show anytime you like, or
we'll certainly have you on at some point. I don't
(01:59:34):
know exactly when, but I would definitely want to have
you back to talk to really geek out about cybersecurity
and criminal justice, and I think we'll have to do
maybe shorter form episodes there to really kind of focus
in on those sections and educate people about that, because
people really need to know about those topics, and you
alluded to it that there's a lot of people that
needed that information and You're glad that you have that knowledge.
(01:59:56):
So it's an absolute honor to learn with you, and
I would learn from you any day. I really mean
it from my heart yours. Keep up your great work
and we will certainly be in touch. And you, Charles,
are forever welcome in the Aaron's Opinion family. Don't forget that.
We want to take this time to thank all the
other podcasters from all across the universe and galaxy for
taking this time to download this in many other episodes
(02:00:18):
from our catalog. We couldn't do it without you, and
we really appreciate it. We also want to take this
time to thank all the other guests, past, president future
who continue to share your knowledge with us each day
or each week here when you come to the show.
We couldn't do it without you either. And of course
thank you to you at home, the great listeners from
the United States, Serbia, Brazil and many other countries. Because
we know there are millions of choices out there in
(02:00:40):
that podcast catalog, and we thank you for choosing Aaron's Opinion.
It means the world to us. I have a very
strong suspicion that we will be doing some very interesting
interviews coming right up. I don't know exactly who, but
we're probably going overseas for the next one. So of course,
thank you again to everybody for participating. Today was an
(02:01:01):
absolute honor of a conversation. And of course you're listening
to the Aaron's Opinion podcast. Keep podcasting out there, everybody.
My name's Aaron Richmond. And then until next time, don't
forget Help one person today, help one million people tomorrow.