Kevin Williams on Overcoming Blindness to Find His Voice in Politics and Podcasting

Let's say there's a water park that's coming in down the street.

And you don't want that out there. That's politics. Or let's say there's a big high-rise being built. The apartments don't look that great or whatever. Well, you need to know is there a deeper reason why this is being built? Can't you stop it now?

I don't think we're going to be able to stop a lot of things that are happening in this country. However, at least you could be informed and make decisions based on what you know, based on make decisions where to live, make decisions on, do I want to live in the country versus a city based on what I know?

“I think that's why I think it's very important.”

Yeah, if you can try to stop things, I don't think we're going to be able to stop a lot of things like I said. And I do think we still have the ability to slow things down. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. Hey, but I don't welcome to the American Potential Podcast. I'm your host David Frost.

Most of us take a grand little thing. We do every single day. Simple things like reading the menu or walking around a city without needing someone to explain what's around you. But imagine trying to navigate a world built for those with sight when you can't see. I mean, I know about this my mom is blind.

And I see every day how that impacts her and the ways that she tries to accommodate that. But what's interesting is, as technology keeps evolving, it's making everyday life easier. But for some, it leads to being less dependent on others. Today's guest has experienced how the advancements in technology have not just been something that's cool, but has made the world around him more accessible.

I want to welcome to the podcast Kevin Williams, who's a blind man who hosts the podcast Rocky Mountain Freedom Zone, where he likes to say even a blind man and see what's happening. Kevin, welcome. Hello, great to be on the podcast. Well, thanks so much for joining us here excited to talk.

Yeah. So, hey, tell us, you know, we, we born blind and, or did you lose your sight and talk to me a little bit about growing up,

“and you, how you kind of learned to navigate the world?”

Well, I was born blind and the funny thing happened. I was five years old playing with the neighbor kid who happened to have gone to church with me back in the day. And I wanted to do something and I can't remember what that something was that I wanted to do. I just remember, I wanted to do something. And this neighborhood kid who ended up being a friend of mine said,

"You can't because you're blind. Why didn't believe him?" Because nobody, as far as I knew, nobody told me that I was blind. I'm sure they did, but it didn't register to me. I was really little more small than five years old. So, I just remember going home after being at my friend's house and asking my mom,

"Am I blind?" And she said, "Yes, and I still didn't believe her." Because as far as I knew, I could walk around and walk to people's houses and all that, just like anyone else did. So, I didn't understand. I knew that being blind, but that you couldn't see, but I just assumed that, because I did everything anybody else did, I could see.

Even reading Brown, I just assumed that that was probably what I was supposed to do for whatever reason.

I'd never registered to me that I was blind. I didn't understand it until I was probably seven,

well, seven and eight years old is what it really started registering to me. Well, inside of your kid, you kind of come to that realization,

“but yet you're like living a pretty empowered life, like how did that affect you?”

Well, I think that people were nicer to me because I was the blind kid. I remember hearing stories about certain people I knew that people around me thought they were mean, but I was always puzzled because they were always nice to me. And then when I'd say, "Well, so-and-so's nice to me." My brother, or somebody would pipe up saying, "Kevin, everybody's nice to you.

You're blind." And I didn't understand what that meant, till I became well into my teens. Well, maybe 13, 14. So that was interesting.

So I just got older. I understand that radio has always played a role in your life,

but really started to play a role in your life. What did that look like? Yeah, so when I was six years old, I want my dad was listening to a football game while doing yard work. It was a local high school. They made the state championship. So obviously, the game was being broadcasted elsewhere into the studios there at my hometown.

And I could listen to this ballgame or a ballgame without having to rely on my dad or whoever.

And so, I requested a radio for Christmas. That year, the back in 1986. And I got one. And I was really fascinated by what was out there. I used to think that listening to the music and everything was done live at the concert and our local town. And one day I was thinking, "This can't be correct."

“Because if it was correct, that how would all these singers just automatically come on stage in our stage?”

And how can nobody see these people live by thinking didn't make sense? And so one day, this was the Saturday after Thanksgiving of 1987. We were driving home from Salt Lake City to our hometown in Eastern Oregon. And I asked my dad, "How is all this getting on to the radio?"

And to my dad's credit, I don't think he knew how to explain everything to a seven-year-old

as far as how transmitters worked and how they're way up on a mountain top on FM. And I am so glad to his credit tried. And I think he did a pretty good job at explaining to a seven-year-old about transmitters. And how there are transmitters at radio stations. And they transmit the signal that radio's can pick up.

And I just assumed that anything I heard was coming over the microphone. I didn't realize the sound boards were any of that until I got into my teenage years. But I just remember thinking, "Well, I think it would be really neat to have a transmitter in my bedroom having a microphone and putting the microphone on the record player and playing records that I had and then talking between the music."

“And then I remember that week, the following week, it was on a Saturday.”

So I think it was probably not following Tuesday or something back in 1987 after Thanksgiving. I went to a concert that my sister had. And she was singing in this choir, the college choir. And I thought, "Well, it'd be nice if I had a transmitter in my bedroom, but then I could take this transmitter and broadcast my sister's concert."

And the whole community would hear it. And they would hear me before and after the concert. And then we went to my brother's basketball game for the church that I went to. And I still go to, "I thought this would be neat if I could just carry this transmitter or phone.

I could announce my brother's ballgame." So that's really what I got into radio. And decided, "I wanted to do this as a career." Awesome. I'm from a young age.

What did you study that in college? I did. Yeah. I graduated from Southern Utah University back in 2008. I studied, I got my degree in communications with an ethicist of broadcasting, and I had an odd-air shift.

I will say this, so the odd-air shift was a little difficult to do, because I'd have someone in the studio with me read me the music. What was coming up? Because incidentally, the software did not work for blind people. However, I was able to intern at a radio station in Idaho, or a broadcast company in Idaho back in 2007.

I actually just put things into perspective. Cedar City back then, because the speed limit wasn't as fast as it is now, even though it was 2007. So it probably took probably a 10-hour drive. We broke it up in sports. But it was about a 10-hour drive total to Boise, and I had a friend from back east who thought I was absolutely out of my mind.

Spending most of my money on moving up to Idaho. I'm not kidding. By the time I got to Idaho, I probably had about $25 to $30 to my name. And thank God I had a sister that watched out for me about me a whole bunch of food because I guarantee you I would have been hanging out the soup kitchens for about a good week. And I'm not kidding.

“Yeah, so you want to Idaho to kind of launch your career in radio?”

I did. Yeah, and I got to be honest. Even though I only had about $30 to my name, it was a badge of honor to me because I felt like a true broadcaster.

Because I've always heard these stories about how broadcasters were barely making it when they first started out.

Even though I had only $30 to my name, that changed over a week's, where the time, but I felt like it was a badge of honor. Because I was now one of those broadcasters. You're in a radio. And you know, over that time, I'm sure technology has changed a lot. And I know that you rely on technology to accomplish lots of things.

And that you know, you can go and have a radio show podcast. It's amazing.

“What are, you know, how has technology impacted your life in your career?”

Well, I have a screen read. Well, it's been, it makes it easy to do my job. I can do my job. And almost as good as a side of person by what I do is, the screen reader makes it really easy to access information. Some of the articles that I get based on some magazines I'm subscribed to or whatever for the podcast. They come at a PDF file.

And fortunately, the PDF is easy for my screen reader to use. And if it's not, I'll just open it up in a web browser and it'll read it like a web page.

But what I have done is I pasted the whole article or the whole entire issue of a magazine into a Microsoft Word document. And put it on my thumb drive that I transfer it to a Braille tablet that I have, that I can read the article in Braille. And that way I can say, okay, I need to find this word or whatever while I'm on the recording while I'm recording the podcast. And do a fine command and find that word that read from that word or. Somewhere I something real quick before I say it on the podcast episode.

“Wow, you know, I mean, clear that host of podcasts and my life is not that difficult.”

You're, you're doing a lot more than I am to bring people good content. That's awesome. What are what other technological events are there that that you've found to be helpful? Well, I use a software called gold wave. Now, gold wave is a pretty primitive software. And if any blind people are listening, they're going to say, well, Kevin, you can use Reaper. I know. I just haven't learned how to use Reaper. I know Reaper is a lot more advanced, but gold wave does what I need it to do.

And the reason I can do Saturday is because I can put brackets. They're markers of the left bracket is left marker, the right bracket is the right marker. And then I can edit by using the shift control key and the right arrow that moves the right marker. And the shift key and the left marker or the shift key and the left arrow really moves the left marker. And then you probably know this. I can do scrubbing where I can listen right before the marker. And if I do it just right, I can just chop whatever is in those between those markers.

So outside of the radio show and the or the podcast, how else I, you know, have you, you know, I mentioned in the intro, my mom locked she was sighted, then she lost her sight about 15 years ago. And now it's a different situation. She's kind of struggled to figure out, you know, she's older to figure out how to, you know, leverage technology her phone somewhat helpful.

“What have you found just in everyday life that's beneficial?”

Well, I'm glad that I have a cell phone that talks to me. My iPhone talks to me. In fact, anybody. Who has an iPhone can get it to talk all they have to do is go into accessibility has settings accessibility and voice over turner on now you're going to be using your iPhone very differently when you turn that on.

But I never ever thought that a blind person would be using touch screen anything unless something was brawl, but even then with this new touch screen technology.

You can't even do that. So I thought that we were in the dark forever, but then the iPhone came the iPhone Apple decided to use the screen to use a screen reader make their own screen reader called voice over. And whoever did this was a genius because all I have to do is flip my finger around until I find what I need and then I can double tap and it'll activate whatever I need now not all applications are user friendly for that, but a lot of them are. And I've also learned how to cross busy streets by listening to parallel traffic and things like that.

What about a, have you used any newer stuff like medical classes or any other advances? I have. In fact, I have a pair of medical classes and I'm subscribed to a service called IRA artificial remote intelligence agents and what happens is somebody will answer at the other end and say how can I help you and I just need to say what's around me and they'll tell me or.

And I just learned this a few weeks ago, I hadn't tried it yet, but apparently I can say hey meta for the record I'm blind and then it'll be more descriptive. I didn't realize that.

Well, because I have another application of my phone B by eyes, and there's a tab in there called B by A eyes and I can run a picture through that and it'll describe the picture and really good detail or that's cool. Sometimes I can just take a picture with that app and it'll describe what's that picture's like. Well, so your podcast that you currently do is is on politics.

“How did you start to pay attention to politics and why did you choose to start talking about it?”

Well, my parents were very politically minded. They were never involved in the process.

But they were politically minded and I remember being eight years old listening intently this is back during the 1988 election. And my dad was constantly watching the news. He would come home from lunchwatch the midday report on our local TV station there and Idaho. We could get an Ontario Oregon, but it was out of Idaho. And my parents were constantly talking about news and politics and I was extremely interested in what they were saying. So I decided at eight years old I was going to listen to news on the radio. I would listen to top of the hour news. I would listen to talk radio, which was very different back then than it is now.

And I could just listen to my parents talk about politics and my dad was a real ardent rush limbo fan. And so was my mom eventually took my mom a while to come around, but she did. And I just got interested, especially the 1992 elections matter fact. I'll tell you because my parents were so politically minded. And my dad was such a rush limbo fan. And so was my mom's best friend. My mom was coming around. And I remember when Bill Clinton won, I knew that rush was such an ardent bush supporter. Just from listening to him from time to time. I remember the next day I wanted to skip school.

Just to hear what rush limbo had to say about the election I was 12 years old. So I have to credit my parents for getting me interested into politics.

“I'm sure I would have gotten interested without them, but it would have taken a while longer, I think.”

Yeah, it isn't credible. I think our experiences growing up are probably similar in that my parents were never politically evolved.

In fact, I remember I was out of college when they got their first yard sign ever, but we talked politics and listened about it all the time. And I was in so that caught with me and I lit something in me and then that was kind of watered or kind of cultivated by a great history teacher in high school. But it was my parents kind of talking about, especially my dad, I've funny story. I remember you remember the 92 election. I remember one of my earliest memories. Certainly early as political memory was in 1980 the Reagan Carter election. I was a little boy and I remember I went into the booth with my dad, my brother younger brother one with my mom.

“We're driving home and my dad goes, so you vote for Reagan, right? My mom goes, no, I thought we were voting for Carter and he was like, what?”

I can't believe it. We voted for Reagan. Oh, no. I can't say, well, my brother's name was Brian. Well, Brian hit all kinds of buttons. So maybe probably didn't take. Oh, no. They at least canceled themselves out. But that was one of my earliest political memory. But the news was like lifeblood to me back then, you know, I couldn't wait to watch the news. You know, even then the talk radio news, like the top of the hour news, whether the chimes or whatever would come on the music, I get all excited. I still hear it and I have a Pavlovian response.

Yeah, so it's interesting. So now you've done more than just talk about politics. You've actually been involved in politics, snap, something tax increase and all. How do you have you gotten involved? Well, I used to be a member of the National Federation of the Blind and we went to Washington to see to lobby on behalf of the blind community. They still do. And I went because I was a student. And so every year they have the Washington seminar and so I used to go with the National Federation of the Blind to Washington DC. And why would meet our congressmen that we're in the certain states that we lived in and I would meet our senators and really enjoyed that experience. I had a really good experience course.

And as you know, when you lobby in front of politicians, they can take 10 or 20 years before you get anything done. But I feel like we got some things done and did some good for the blind community.

And that meant that the hybrids or whatever need to have noise makers. I think that they've actually done that now because I've heard cars driving by that are electric, but they have something they sound like a regular car. And we did that. We as the National Federation of the Blind pushed for that legislation. I'll tell you a story. I was in orange hatches office back when he was a senator. And I am not kidding. We spent first of all orange hatch was notorious for schmoozing us.

He'd come in and tell us how great we were and how much he admired us and got us picture taken and he always came in at the very end of our lobbying.

It was never, no, hi. It's nice to see you. Let's talk what he need. It was he always schmoozed us. But this particular time. It was well, it was in the late afternoon. He listened to us intently. And we had a fourth grader read her story about how she almost got killed by one of these hybrids. And if it wasn't for her sighted cane travel teacher, she would either be seriously injured or dead and believe it or not. We actually put an orange hatch into tears. He was actually crying.

Wow. So I thought that that was interesting. Not only that, but we probably spent. I'm guessing about an hour and a half is in his office, which was unusual.

Now the skeptic and we did say, you know, yeah, well, he's a politician, but I wonder if there is some sincerity there. Sure. So what are the you.

“I think again, I think we talked about you bought a tax hike locally and just kind of got involved on locally to how did that materialize.”

Yeah, it was in the Americans for prosperity. And yeah, we did. We fought a tax hike. I think it was a sales tax or something like that. It was some sort of tax hike. I actually went to a press conference and wore a shirt and I was on TV. I didn't say anything, but I was on TV. What I did do though is you may remember this American's prosperity had a 360 application. And if you remember that, that you could install on your iPhone. Yeah, 360 up. And I don't know if they still use it, but it was actually pretty user friendly to a blind person as long as I have my bro display there.

I could call people and find out if they were for against something and I could give them my little spill about why I am against it.

“And that's what I did, in fact, that particular one of the months, I think it was in the month of November October of 2018. No, 2017, I was awarded to have the most calls that month.”

Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, and I also went to their classes, because as you know, they put on classes. That's how they approve your membership and whatnot. Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, you got to decided to get involved with the Americans for prosperity and try to make a difference. That's what we're talking about and yeah, helping people do. Why do you think it's important for people to be well informed about what's going on and then get politically active? Well, I think it's important because it affects you.

Let's say there's a water park that's coming in down the street and you don't want that there. That's politics. Or let's say there's a big high-rise being built and the apartments don't look that great or whatever. Well, you need to know, is there a deeper reason why this is being built? And can you stop it now? I don't think we're going to be able to stop a lot of things that are happening in this country. However, at least you can be informed and make decisions based on what you know, based, you know, make decisions where to live, make decisions on, do I want to live in the country versus a city based on what I know?

“I think that's why that's why I think it's very important.”

Yeah, if you can try to stop things, I don't think we're going to be able to stop a lot of things like I said, but I do think we still have the ability to slow things down. Yeah, maybe I'm naive at thinking that, but I think if enough people got involved, we at least have the ability to slow things down. Well, I mean, you know, clearly you guys made a difference in the tax hike and going or lobbying at Senator. I mean, it's an example. One of the things that we talk a lot about on this podcast and at America's prosperity is people taking that one small step.

Historically throughout our nation, that's how things have changed, you know, I'll go and go back to the founders taking that one step to get involved and make a difference and that's a ripple effect throughout our communities or state or nation.

What would you say to somebody who has that point of view?

“Who thinks that they are, who thinks that they have a disadvantage because they're senseless or anybody, yeah, who has something that's standing in the way of them getting involved?”

Well, I would just say that think about how to overcome that. And even though I've not involved with them anymore for various reasons, but the national Federation of Blind actually really helped because they taught me through their training. And I'd love their training centers that also they have awesome training centers. I've encouraged blind people to go to their training centers today, but they taught me that my blindness is only a physical nuisance with proper training. I agree with that 100%, I didn't understand it until I finished their training center.

It was nine months of real rigorous training. It was a lot like boot camp in the military, but I came out of their really confident.

“And that's how that's what I knew by blindness was only a physical nuisance with proper training.”

Do I like being blind? Well, I've never thought about it, but do I wish I could see sometimes? Yes.

But I also have to think of all the adaptations that are out there and how I've been able to take advantage of them. So I'd just say, figure out what you can take advantage of. Rather, you're a sighted or not. Well, Kevin, I appreciate you telling sharing your story with us and how you got involved, you know, how you've come to, you know, be a podcast host and they're politically involved, the difference that you're making. Any final, any final thoughts before we say goodbye? Yeah, I just think that if you want to get into a podcast, maybe you can start out small, maybe you can just buy a microphone headset combo, may not sound very good, but maybe you can buy that.

You can buy those at any electronic store. I don't want to give names out there because I don't want to run into plugging issues and all that, but you know what those are. Yes, start there. Then if you like it enough, then save up money or somehow figure out how to make money off this podcast or your podcast and you can buy professionally equipment.

“So start out small. That's what I did. I started out with, I mean, years ago with a little tiny headset might combo didn't sound that great at all, but that's how I got that's well, started out on the phone.”

And then as far as recording files and all that for my podcast way back in 2006, I started, I bought a plant electronics headset. It's a cheap thing, but it worked for the, for what I was doing, but I just upgraded from there. Yeah, take one small step in your own podcast. Yep. There you go. It's exactly right. Well, Kevin, who is sure the best of luck. Hope folks tune in to your podcast.

Isn't it Rocky Mountain freedom zone, right? Yes, Rocky Mountain freedom zone. Yep. Awesome. Well, folks, could make sure you make sure you take a listen and check out what Kevin has to say. Kevin, they're so much for joining. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Thanks. Well, folks, if you like this episode and like to stay connected with the podcast, be sure to like and subscribe to our channel as well as following us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

And always remember, liberty and freedom are easily taken for granted.

Don't take them for granted. Go out there and defend freedom and liberty. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to American Potential. You may listen to more stories from Americans working every day to expand freedom and opportunity in their communities by visiting Americanpotential.com.