Bitch Listen, a rewired newsgroup podcast hosted by Imani Gandhi.

This is Bitch Listen. So bitch, listen.

Welcome to Bitch Listen. I'm your host, Imani Gandhi, angry black lady, if you've ever argued with me online.

This is the place where we unravel identity, power, and social injustice. And if you're feeling a little squirmy already, good, let's lean into it.

Now, I'm going to start with a confession, one I suspect a lot of

you might recognize. When it comes to true crime, I've always gravitated towards cases involving

white victims. I used to tell myself that this was just coincidence. It was habit. But once I

actually sat with it, I realized it wasn't accidental at all.

Stories about white victims are framed as shocking anomalies, protected lives disrupted.

They're mysteries you can consume from the couch without having to confront the systems that

produce that violence in the first place.

Now, when the victim is disabled or black or trans or undocumented

or poor, the story stops being escapism and turns into a mirror. It becomes about social failure,

not just one bad actor. And most of us, myself included, haven't been taught to think of these stories as true crime.

We've been taught to think of them as issues or context or something too messy for prime time.

Disabled people are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than non-disabled people.

And yet, when disabled victims appear in true

crime at all, their stories are often framed around caregivers, stripped of agency, or

explained away through the language of so-called mercy. This conversation ended up being bigger than

one episode. So what you're listening to now is part one of a two-part

limited series on true crime and disability. And it starts with disability justice. My guest today

is Viila Thompson, a disability justice advocate and social worker whose work directly confronts how disabled victims are

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