At this time, Justin is a sports journalist for The Daily Times, a digitally circulated and printed newspaper based in Maryville, TN. Justin is also studying at the University of Memphis in a Masters degree program based in Journalism and Strategic Media.

Justin Braden's research is deeply rooted in the mental health problems that plague American men. Alcohol, drugs, sex, and violence - these are not the medicines that suppress as much as they are the tools that enable men in this country to walk among you. 

Tim's Story  

In 2011, Tim graduated from East Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Sports Management. Born with cerebral palsy and scoliosis, the 37-year-old man works as a security guard in Maryville and Knoxville. He warns me early in the conversation that “if my right arm breaks, I'm in so much trouble. It's not even funny. I would pretty much be a paraplegic.” Living with a disability involves living a life of fragility that is unknown to people without disabilities. Tim commented on his partially mobile left arm, “If I break it. Or if something happens to where I lose it, I'm done. There's no. OK, we'll just wait. No, there's nobody to take care of me. I guess I have family, but that's a burden on them that it shouldn't be there. So, if my right arm breaks, I'm done. I'm stuck in a facility I don't want to be in.” 

I asked him if he had been dating around, trying to start any relationships, but he said that he felt awkward trying to see himself as a husband to a woman when he could not do common household repairs and chores as he felt that some other men could. He went on to comment on the condition of his cerebral palsy, “It's not to where I need 24/7 care, but if I needed it, I'd have to get on a waiting list and that is an issue.” Although I often encounter a waiting list at the doctor, I have never had to wait for multiple days for treatment as many disabled Tennesseans have. 

Tim lives about half an hour from Knoxville with his sister and his dog. I asked if he could afford to live on his own, and he said that he could, but it would be tight. Although he partially blames the limited financial options on his choice to stay with his security guard position for over a decade, he adds that "more disabled people probably have a harder time depending on their disability on whether or not they can get adequate work." Tim is part of an often-forgotten demographic of working disabled people. When I asked if he graduated from ETSU and started in security, he laughed, "Yeah, I went right back into security, I didn't know what to do. I thought, and I guess this is a societal mindset and a mindset of my own that when I got my college degree that it would be easier to find a career." 

He asked me though, “How is a disabled person supposed to get to work if there is no public transportation?” Tim makes a great point in a town that looks at walking like, what are you walking for, not where are you walking to. I asked him about the role of the government in some of the disabled people's struggles before our conversation shifted toward concerns of disabled citizens that typical residents may not know about. “They see us as people, but they don’t treat us as people. Tennessee doesn’t surprise me as being at the low end of the totem pole when it comes to services and ability to help disabled people. It is really hard for someone to make their way in society, Look at Blount County.”

When Tim was asked if he could remember any positive portrayals of disabled children in media, he could not think of any instances of young children being represented at all. “A lot of people see disabled people as a prop to society not a part of society. That’s a lot of the times the same in media.” Most people, including me, are out of touch with the struggle of disabled people in our communities. “You’re trapped and in a way it’s not you’re trapped because you’re disabled, you’re trapped because peoples’ perspectives on disability haven’t caught up to 2023. People, for the most part, society in large, don’t’ treat disabled people as people. That’s all we want to be is treated as normal functioning individuals.” 

Tim has a reasonable expectation for this treatment too, given he contributes to our society just like people without disabilities. I went on to ask him about society's misconceptions of socioeconomic conditions, and he tied that back to the media's portrayal of disabled people. “There isn’t an accurate representation of people in the media because if there was, we would see people that are confined to wheelchairs being in more media outlets, news reporters, various movies and tv shows.” 

Conclusions

I met up with Tim again the week before finalizing this project. We caught a baseball game together, but we talked most of the time instead of watching the game. He loves his job as a security guard, but the irony of a man securing the safety of others in a world that does nothing to secure his socioeconomic safety is a sad rescind of the important family values that the Governor and other Tennessee politicians allege to uphold. 

Tim brought something to my attention that I had never thought of before. Tennessee has no income tax, but it has above-average sales tax to accommodate for that. This disproportionately burdens people with disabilities who cannot work and live on a fixed monthly income. He reminded me also, that with current inflation, this means that people on fixed disability incomes have it harder than anyone in the state. In all the research and reading, the conversations with fellow students, and coworkers in academia about this research topic, not one person mentioned the disproportionate tax issue.

The perspectives provided by taking the time to walk in another's shoes are unparalleled. Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally referred to the media as, “the guardians of freedom,” (McNally, 2023), in response to a question at the Tennessee Press Association in Nashville in February of 2023. It is up to the media to be the guardians in this case also, and there are shining examples of realistic portrayals of disabled people in the media already. The burden of living with a disability in the state of Tennessee is extraterrestrial. It has made strangers of people living in their homeland. The mounting factors have left Tennessee’s disabled living in a state that does not have the infrastructure to accommodate their needs. In a time where the governor is welcoming in people from all across the country, this creates a level of social isolation that sends an overt message to the disabled – get out.  

Tim has a couple of strikes against him in this community. He realizes the limitations in his life from his disability, but there is also isolation he experiences from his family, who he describes as lashing out against his education. At the end of the night, he told me a story about how his sister told his nephew once, "whatever you do when you grow up, don’t be like Uncle Tim.” He mentioned that she apologized later after lamenting she felt that he had come back different from college, but her words were damaging.  

The greatest limitation of this research is the small sample size of interviews. Additionally, constraints of the methodology are the narrow scope of the explored population – disabled Tennesseans. Further, there are few literature materials available specifically exploring the socioeconomic impacts of media's portrayal of individuals with disabilities. Tim's influence on the conclusion also, his personal experience have deeply influenced the research, and it should be reminded that his experiences and perspectives are limited to his personal experiences throughout his life in Tennessee. 

There is not yet enough widely available research on the socioeconomic impacts of media portrayals of individuals with disabilities. To more accurately represent this population in media, their opinion needs to be evaluated more thoroughly. Furthermore, the representation in government of individuals with disabilities is greatly diminished, and the overt socio-economic conditions resulting from the state's population increase have made it impossible to live in most of the state for disabled people. Research on their economic conditions and lack of livability should be a goal for a state legislature that prides itself in surveying its constituents and creating laws that reflect their opinions. If surveyed, I firmly believe, that most people in Tennessee would support measures that protected disabled residents from being forced out of the state, but I am not certain as to where that falls on a long list of growing priorities for Tennesseans trying to tread turbulent financial waters also. 

Barnes, C. (1992). Disabling Imagery and the Media. The British Council of Organisations (sic.)  of Disabled People. https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp- content/uploads/sites/40/library/Barnes-disabling-imagery.pdf

Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research. (2022). Big Numbers: Tennessee’s 2022  Population Gains Pushed by Record Domestic Net Migration. The University of  Tennessee. https://tnsdc.utk.edu/2022/12/22/big-numbers-tennessees-2022-population- gains-pushed-by-record-domestic-net-migration/

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023). Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics –  2022. United States Department of Labor.  https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/disabl.pdf

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McNally, R. (2023). personal communication. Tennessee Press Association Winter Convention  2023. 

Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. (2023). December Unemployment  Down in Nearly All Tennessee Counties. https://www.tn.gov/workforce/general- resources/news/2023/1/26/december-unemployment-down-in-nearly-all-tennessee- counties.html

Tennessee Disability Coalition. (2022). Tennessee Disability Scorecard.  https://www.tndisability.org/tennessee-disability-scorecard

Tennessee Office of the Governor. (2021). Gov. Lee Makes Nationwide Pitch to Join Tennessee  Highway Patrol. https://www.tn.gov/governor/news/2021/11/17/gov--lee-makes- nationwide-pitch-to-join-tennessee-highway-patrol.html