A Look into the Viral Tik Tok Allegations Against Helen Keller

**Discussion begins at 4:15**

Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to a prominent family.  While the family was well off, much of their wealth was lost during the Civil War, and they lived rather modestly.   At 19 months, Helen became ill with a high fever due to what many presume to be Scarlet Fever, resulting in loss of eyesight and hearing.  As she grew up, she was frustrated and unruly, prompting her parents to write to the Perkins School for the Blind to request help.  The school sent Anne Sullivan, a 20 year old graduate of the school who suffered serious vision problems.  Anne removed Helen from the home for a few weeks and the two lived in a cottage where Anne taught Helen to communicate with her hands.  Over the next several years, Helen learned to read and write.  Anne Sullivan remained Helen’s companion until her death, even helping her to earn a BA in 1904 from Radcliffe College, the female sister school of Harvard.  Helen Keller went on to write over a dozen books, including an autobiography which went on to be adapted into The Miracle Worker.  She also campaigned for social causes like women’s suffrage, labor rights, world peace, and was also a vocal advocate for those with disabilities.   She was also a pacifist, a supporter of female birth control, and…. a eugenics supporter!   She was a member of the Socialist Party and a founding member of the ACLU. S he worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for over 40 years, influencing policy and public perceptions of disability worldwide, and traveled to more than 35 countries to promote education and accessibility.  She died in 1961 after suffering a series of strokes, and was celebrated posthumously… Until 2020 when hashtags like #helenkellerisfake and #helenkellerisoverparty started trending on Tik Tok.  Conspiracy theorists claimed that Helen Keller either didn’t exist, wasn’t truly deaf and blind, or didn’t accomplish the things she’s famous for—from writing books to earning a degree or speaking publicly.  Some videos even suggested she “faked” her disabilities or that her teacher Anne Sullivan was pulling the strings behind the scenes.  What started out as satire quickly came to be believed as truth by many.  But what is the truth?

Transcript

Hey, guys.
Hey, guys.
How's it going?
Back for season three, episode two.
Episode two. We are recording on September 11th. Just a moment remembering those who were fallen during the tragedy, the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which is close to home here.
We're just remembering the people who lost their lives in that tragedy, the families, and remembering all of the public servants who, the firefighters, the animals just say that we don't forget you.
We remember.
We remember. One more thing. Yesterday was a pretty big day.
We had a school shooting where three people were injured and one has passed away, which is just sad because there continues to be a lot of school shootings, and I wish that this was not our reality.
Charlie Kirk was assassinated in a crowd full of people, and the video went viral, and it was horrific. There was earlier this month, this week, a woman was stabbed to death on a bus in Charlotte. I'm just sad, Megan.
It's heavy. It's a heavy week.
It is heavy, a lot of violence.
I'm not quite sure what's going on, but like humanity needs to be restored. We remember those people, we remember the family, our thoughts and prayers are with the family.
So yeah, sorry that that was kind of heavy, but we just wanted to remember those people. It's sad. Anyway, it's just been a heavy day and heavy week, and hopefully this podcast can cheer you up and we can make you laugh a little bit.
So thank you for that, Kait.
I hope that today's does make people laugh and not offend, but before we get into it. So is it time for our drink check?
What are we drinking here, Maggie?
We've got a on-theme drink. Our story today takes place in Alabama. So we're having Alabama Slammers.
I had to sort of adapt a little bit. We did OJ and Amaretto, and then it was calling for slow gin, which is like a liqueur. It's not actually gin, and I couldn't find that at ABC.
So we used a little grenadine. Google told me to substitute grenadine. And then it called for Southern Comfort, but didn't have that either.
So we put a little bourbon in there. But I actually can't imagine how much sweeter this would have been with Southern Comfort.
Right. This is the definition of like a toothache. Yeah.
It is like I won't be repeating this.
No.
It's like fruit punch.
It's like jungle juice.
Yes, jungle juice. Remember when you would go to a party in college and there would be like a cooler and it tasted, it was like jungle juice. That was the name of it.
That is what this drink tastes like.
Agreed.
Yeah. It's like high C with amaretto and make it alcoholic.
So not a repeat. Probably Colleen would have loved this.
Yeah. I think Colleen would have been like, oh, this isn't bad. And then taken another sip and then been like, she wouldn't have been able to finish it because like it's too sweet.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So what's the story that takes place in Alabama, you might ask?
Yeah.
Is this about that no good dirty cheat Nick Saban?
Close. This is about Helen Keller.
Oh, yes. So the blind and deaf girl. Yes.
Deaf, they used to say deaf, blind and dumb, but you can't say that now.
Now it's like deaf, blind and mute.
Honestly, she wasn't mute, was she?
Well, we're going to talk about that.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
She actually did learn to speak later in life.
Okay.
We're trying to remember, we think that Colleen first told us about this.
Yes, it was our annual Christmas party, and we were all standing around the bar talking, and we're talking about our favorite conspiracy theories, and she was the one that brought up Helen Keller.
And I think one of our friends, Kathy, was like, you can't talk about that, that's offensive.
Yeah.
And then that's when Lori got mad, but doesn't remember it.
Well, then I was talking to a young coworker at one of my jobs, and she was saying, she was from Alabama, and she was like, oh, this is like a very popular theory in Alabama.
Oh.
But Colleen didn't want to present this with us, because despite the fact that she is of the age that seems to believe this, right, she was like, but like, we don't want to offend.
Yeah. Typical nine.
Yeah.
So type nine over there.
So Kait and I are the ones who are risking the wrath.
Yeah. We're risking it for the biscuit over.
But this is if you are someone, an older listener who does not follow TikToks. Yeah.
This started circulating a couple of years ago online, and all these theories where these kids were like, I don't believe that Helen Keller could have accomplished everything she accomplished if she was really blind and deaf.
Right.
So there's different theories out there, and we're going to talk about them. We talked about our elementary school obsession type, like the weird things we got into. I did have a Helen Keller phase.
Really? Well, I think I presented her for biography day. I learned how to sign.
Oh, yeah.
Hi, my name is Helen Keller.
Okay.
Well, I had a Jane Goodall phase. Oh, with the money. Yeah.
Yeah.
So Helen Keller was born June 27th, 1880 in Alabama. She was one of five children. Her mother, Kate, was a descendant of a number of prominent people, including a Virginia governor.
Oh.
Her father, Arthur, was a captain in the Confederate Army and was editor of the local newspaper, The North Alabamian.
Oh. So while the family was pretty well off, much of their wealth was lost during the Civil War, and so they lived rather modestly.
Obviously, they lost their slaves.
They lost their land.
Yeah.
So at 19 months, Helen Keller became ill with a high fever due to what many presume to be scarlet fever.
Okay.
Resulting in loss of eyesight and hearing. As she grew up, she was frustrated and unruly, prompting her parents to write to the Perkins School for the Blind to request help.
Fun fact, it was Alexander Graham Bell who put the Kellers in touch with Michael Anagnos who is the director of the Perkins School for the Blind.
Alexander Graham Bell, he's the one who invented the telephone.
Yeah. Apparently, Alexander Graham Bell was quite the advocate for the deaf. Anyway, the school sent Anne Sullivan, a 20-year-old graduate.
She had suffered serious vision problems.
Okay.
She graduated from the program and she gets sent out. She actually removed Helen from her home for a few weeks. The two lived in this cottage and Anne taught her not really American sign language, but how to communicate with their hands.
She quickly learned the language, but didn't seem to be associating it with them. Like she knew what water is the famous one. She knew the word for water, but she couldn't figure out that that meant water.
Okay.
Then April 5th, 1887, that was the date when she famously learned to associate water with the word.
If anyone's ever seen The Miracle Worker, we've all seen that scene. Over the next several years, Helen Keller learned to read and write. When she was 11, she began to learn to speak, and she learned the Radoma method to hear speech.
That's when you place your fingers over someone's mouth, and you feel the movements of their mouth.
Wow.
Anne Sullivan remained Helen's companion until Anne Sullivan died in 1936. Even helping her to earn a BA in 1904 from Radcliffe College which was the female sister school of Harvard.
Oh.
After her death, their secretary Polly took over as her companion. And then I think at some point there was like a nurse who was her companion at the end of the life. But for the most part, Anne Sullivan was it.
Helen Keller went on to write over a dozen books, including an autobiography which went on to be adapted into The Miracle Worker, which is a film and a play.
Right.
She also campaigned for social causes like women's suffrage, labor rights, world peace, and was a vocal advocate for those with disabilities. She was also a pacifist, a supporter of female birth control, and a eugenics supporter. Yeah, who knew that?
You know what else she was? She was a member of the Socialist Party.
Oh, I'm not surprised.
And she was a founding member of the ACLU. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for over 40 years, influencing policy and public perceptions of disability worldwide.
She traveled to more than 35 countries to promote education accessibility.
And her life work left a lasting impact on disability rights and social reform movements across the globe, even earning her the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Cleveland.
Wow. I didn't even know Cleveland was a president.
Grover Cleveland. I've been to his house.
Grover? What a name.
I can't believe you just said I didn't even know he was a president.
Megan, I know like 10 presidents, and I think six of them were during my lifetime.
She died in 1961 after suffering a series of strokes. But people still celebrated her, right? People loved her.
She was a hero.
Yeah.
Until 2020. When hashtags like, hashtag, Helen Keller is fake and hashtag, Helen Keller is over party, started trending on TikTok. Oh.
Conspiracy theories claim that Helen Keller either didn't exist, wasn't truly deaf and blind, or didn't accomplish the things she's famous for, from writing books, to earning an degree, or speaking publicly.
Some videos even suggested she faked her disabilities or that her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was pulling the strings behind the scenes. What started out as satire quickly came to be believed as truth by many. But what is the truth?
Yeah, I do want to know.
We're going to talk about it.
I do want to know how she made, she wrote books if she was blind and deaf.
So I'm going to tell you all about that.
I don't not think she wrote the books.
I'm curious in the, like, how she did it. Yeah, someone clearly, she, it was her idea, but she didn't like physically write them.
You would be wrong. Really? So I'm going to tell you how she did some of these things that people question and hopefully we can convince the Gen Zers and the Gen Alphas who believe this.
The Gen Alphas are the ones that are like 6, 7.
I don't know that because I don't have a nine-year-old son, so I wouldn't know that.
Right.
Low taper fade.
So where did this whole rumor start, this whole TikTok?
This is, yeah, this is interesting to me. Where did it start? It seems like it came out of nowhere.
Oh, wait, hold on. You're telling me this happened in 2020 where people had too much time on their hands?
December 2020.
Yeah.
So this all started with the guy Keith Runk. He was a TikTok user, Runk19. I think about Justin Timberlake back in my NSYNC days and he, that was his word.
It was always like, it's crunk.
Oh, I remember that. Let's get crunk. Yeah.
Yeah.
And he said, the post was, I've heard, I've heard it my whole life. She's deaf, she's blind, she's amazing. No, guess what?
She lied. So he says, this is the first TikTok, which has been viewed 2 million times and shared over 34,000 times. In later interviews, he said, you know, this was all satire.
This is a satire account. It was supposed to be a joke.
Yeah.
But a bunch of people ran with it. So he said, the joke started because he and his co-workers saw a picture of Helen Keller's signature and thought it was too perfect.
So again, people have gone back to try to kind of buster as being, you know, a fraud. Right. But I'm going to go through some of her accomplishments and we're going to discuss.
Okay.
So I'm going to start with the rumor that started it all.
How did she have such good handwriting?
I wonder if it had to do with the movements. She was probably very particular about the way she moved her hand because of that sensory processing. You don't have your eyes, you don't have your ears, you have that tactile.
I think you're nailing it.
Oh.
Okay.
So this is her signature.
Honestly, it's not bad. It's a pretty good, it looks very...
It's like very like square.
Yes. It looks almost like a fun little font that you have in Microsoft Word.
I think you're right.
Yeah.
I mean, if you just look at it, it's like there are no curves really, right? Everything is just like blocky.
And you can tell the spaces are very like...
Precise.
Precise and like, what's the word? Specific. Like she's trying, she's being intentional of the spaces.
So I mean, for sure you could read it.
So I guess on that hand, you could argue like that's really good for someone who can't see, but it's not like this beautiful loopy cursive handwriting.
And I would not call that perfect.
No. So we're going to talk about how she learned to type and write in more depth later. But basically, Anne Sullivan gave her a writing board, which you put under your paper and it makes grooves.
So it's like if you had 3D filler paper. So it has like raised lines. And so that's how she was able to write like so straight on these lines.
Her lines are very straight.
Oh, that makes sense.
And the writing, like I said, is really boxy. So while it's impressive that she learned to write, it isn't giving like she could see when she wrote that to me.
No.
It's actually giving more what you described, like she's probably being very, very kind of slow and precise about where her letters are because she has to track where her letters are.
Where her movements are, yeah. Exactly.
And the fact that her lines, like the text lines are so straight, makes sense to me that she had something underneath it with a bridge that wouldn't allow her to go off of her line.
Right.
The other question that people who believe Helen Keller School of it propose is that, like, how could she have known what items were if she couldn't see and she couldn't hear, so maybe she could learn words, but again, how was she able to figure out
So you said she was 18 months when she lost.
I think that's part of it too.
Or 18 months. I think she, it's not like she had never heard. I mean, she probably wasn't old enough to really learn, but like she had heard things, right?
She had like seen things.
Seen things, yeah.
But actually, before there was Helen Keller, there was Laura Bridgman.
Oh.
She was a young girl who had scarlet fever and she lost her sight, sound, smell, and much of her sense of taste.
Oh my. Sight, sound, smell, and much of her taste.
So she sounds like touch.
Wow. That's like partial taste and touch. Yeah.
Wow.
What's there to live for?
Food.
I mean, but if you can't really taste.
Yeah. Spicy food.
In 1837, she went to what would later become the Perkins School for the Deaf and Blind, and she was able to learn via finger smelling and hand gestures and raised print.
She remained at the school for many decades, and she eventually met Anne Sullivan in 1880. So Anne Sullivan, as I mentioned, was the teacher that was hired for Helen Keller.
Yeah.
She lost her sight in childhood due to a bacterial infection and she was really poor, but she actually wrote to the state of Massachusetts and was granted a seat at the Perkins School for the Deaf and Blind.
So while she was there, she had to learn how to finger spell in order to communicate with deaf students and she would talk to Laura Bridgman. So Helen Keller was not the first deaf and blind person that she had to communicate with.
Anne Sullivan eventually did regain partial sight after a number of surgeries, and she went on to graduate as valedictorian of her class.
So when Anne Sullivan came to Alabama to work with Helen, again, it did take several weeks for them to have that breakthrough.
Anne would finger spell words into her hands, but it took weeks for her to really understand that these words she was learning were names for things or actions.
And then, again, we've all seen the famous scene where she spelled water and then put her hand under the water spout, and that's sort of what caused it to click for Helen.
Right.
And then she said that she just started asking the name for everything. She learned like 30 words in the first day. She word hundreds of words in the coming weeks, and she just became obsessed with knowing like what everything was.
So that was how...
Kind of amazing.
It is.
Yeah.
And also just like what are the odds that there was this other girl very similar to Helen Keller that Anne Sullivan was able to meet her and interact with her and had to learn how to communicate with her so that she was later able to go on and
It sounds like Anne Sullivan had a very good gift she wanted to use to help people, which is honorable.
Yeah.
Helen Keller reminds me like she's inspiring because she's like super intelligent.
And she, I think that's why people are inspired by her.
But it makes me think about like when her parents were saying she's like so frustrated and thinking about like someone who is that highly intelligent and there was no way to communicate and no way for, or not no way, but like in a way that her
parents don't know how to communicate and show her the different parts of the world. And someone who just wants to learn, like of course she had these like frustrations.
I mean, I feel like that right just around like young children. They're so emotional and you're like, yes, have so many feelings and so many thoughts and they can't communicate them. And then, yeah, now think about she was an older child.
Right.
That's for the same thing, yeah.
So then the next thing is again, I mentioned she graduated from college. So people are like, there's no way that this girl could have graduated from college if she was blind and deaf.
And if she did do it, like if she really was blind and deaf, it's probably because Anne Sullivan got her through it. Anne Sullivan was like cheating.
Wait, so did Helen Keller, could she read Braille?
She did eventually learn Braille, but things like American Sign Language and Braille, she was kind of, she kind of preceded that.
Oh, okay.
So she had to learn other ways, and then eventually she did go on to.
Okay. I just think it would be really hard to teach Braille to someone who didn't have their hearing. So that was just like a second step.
That was it.
So after Anne Sullivan spent some time tutoring her, Helen Keller convinced her family to let her move with Anne Sullivan back to Boston so she could attend the Perkins School for the Blind.
And Mark Twain, she had all these like famous people who were invested in her.
Right.
So Mark Twain was impressed by her.
Wow.
And he introduced her to standard oil magnet, Henry Rogers, who actually paid for Helen Keller's education. So she went to Perkins School for the Blind.
After that, she went on to attend the Cambridge School for Young Ladies and she was taught by Arthur Gilman. Anne Sullivan would attend classes with her and translate lectures.
So she would sit next to her and she would fingerspell and translate the lectures. Then Helen would go home and she would use a typewriter to write down everything she remembered. But Anne Sullivan couldn't proctor her exam.
So this, I think when people say Anne Sullivan probably just cheated to get her through the class. They took a lot of steps to make sure that that wasn't the case.
So even though Anne Sullivan was sort of like helping her interpret what was being lectured, she could not be present for the exams.
So Arthur Gilman actually learned the alphabet and would translate the questions and then she would type her responses into the typewriter. And so that's how she took her tests initially.
A lot of accommodations for her. Yeah, that's neat.
And then she finished and she said, okay, now I want to go to Harvard, but Harvard's all male. So instead, in 1900, Helen Keller entered Radcliffe College, which was the kind of women's school affiliated with Harvard.
Right.
And it was kind of the same deal. Anne Sullivan again would translate, but she would have to leave when exams weren't processed. And so she would leave the building and then the school had two people that they paid to proctor these exams.
Right.
It was like someone to proctor Helen and then someone else to proctor the proctor.
And they said that people were so sceptical even like at this time. They just had all of her academic records in the dean's office and people would just come in and review them because people were like, I don't know how she could be doing this.
Isn't is this before they were like the HIPAA laws of education? What is this called?
Yeah, this was pre HIPAA laws of education.
Yeah.
But the point is that they were even sceptics back then, but no one was ever able to find any evidence that any of this was fraudulent. Wow.
So then the way that they would proctor these exams at Radcliffe is that a former Perkins teacher would use a braille typewriter to translate the questions for Helen. The proctor would spell the questions to Helen.
She would spell them back and confirm she understood and then wrote her answers with her braille typewriter. Proctor spelled her answers back to her so she could tell them what, if any, edits to make. That's how it started.
She was in school for two years.
How long would this take?
Very tedious.
Yeah.
But then by the time, they think they had it down by the time she graduated. For the two years, they got more efficient. They would just translate the exam in a braille for her so she could do this all by herself and didn't need proctors.
She graduated cum laude in 1904. She was the first deaf-blind person ever to graduate from college. In 1955, when she was 75, Harvard acknowledged her with its first honorary degree ever granted to a woman.
That's nice.
They were just 55 years behind.
Then again, Helen Keller's written over a dozen books, so people are like, well, how could she have done that?
I mean, I guess if you have nothing else to do, might as well write a book.
Well, and I think too about, did you ever read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?
No.
Okay, so this guy was locked in, right? He had a basilar stroke, so he's completely locked in. If you're truly locked in, the only thing you can do is move your eyes vertically, up and down.
Right. But like, you're just like completely paralyzed, but completely neurologically intact. Like, if you put an EEG on these people, completely normal.
That is my worst nightmare. And then there's all these debates, too, about when they question people who survive, and they're like, do you wish you had died? Most of them say, no, I live a really satisfying life.
But also, these are the people who chose to live, so it's not really...
How do you live a satisfying, I guess, I don't know. You're an observer?
Our friend Cathy said if she can read her books and watch her Hallmark movies, that's her line, you know?
That's her line?
Yeah. What's yours?
Probably walking.
Oh my gosh, if Kait couldn't move her body.
I mean, not walking in general, but if I could not move my body, I think I would be ready to go.
So, but this guy actually wrote an entire book, just moving his eyes. So we had an assistant that had like a board of A, B, C, D, E, E of letters and she would just like touch each letter and he would like look up and down.
It was sort of like blinking to write an entire book.
Right. Wow.
And there's a whole novel written that way. So she's not the first person who's had to like overcome, you know, handicaps in order to write a book.
Right.
So when she first was learning, you know, with Anne Sullivan, Anne would read books to her like we read to children, but instead of using her voice, she would fingerspell the words. And then Anne taught her to read raised print.
So this was, you kept asking about like, did she read Braille? This was before Braille existed. It was just sort of like raised print.
Right. But this required very large font and it would flatten over time and wear out.
Right.
So not ideal, right? There were actually six different writing languages for the blind. And Helen Keller was like, this is like too much of a good thing.
Like, I'm glad that people are adapting and like giving us a way to read, but like six different languages, that's too much.
That's too much. They only need one.
She actually wrote, there is nothing more absurd, I think, than to have five or six different prints for the blind. It wasn't until the 1920s and 30s that braille really became the standard for blind people.
And Helen Keller, of course, as I mentioned, was able to read braille. And she actually had a braille typewriter and also a regular typewriter. So she would keep her pinky on the edge of the keyboard so that she could keep her location.
And she had the keys memorized, which I mean, right? We all type on our computer without really looking.
Right.
Yeah. So it was like she just had to keep, as long as she kept her pinky, so she knew like where the keyboard ended and could keep her hands on.
Right.
She knew where she was typing. She also learned to hand write by Anne, and they used that writing board I told you. So anyway, she definitely had, right?
We know that she could hand write using that writing board with grooves. We know she had a braille typewriter. We know she had this typewriter that she'd memorized where the keys were.
So not out of the realm of possibility to believe that she could have written a book. She had a lot of different ways.
But she did say that most of her writing was done using the regular typewriter because that was the fastest, least cumbersome method. Then she would have her companions like Anne Sullivan, or again, later life.
She had some other companions, but they would proofread and edit for her. But all authors have a proofreader who edits. So again, I don't think you could say Anne Sullivan wrote these books.
I think definitely believable to me that Helen Keller was able to do it. For sure.
Especially as soon as you said she could type on a Braille typewriter. I mean, you can write a book that way.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's just the matter of learning it. That's an interesting.
Yeah.
But she had a lot of accommodations to help her learn, which I find awesome.
Then Helen Keller knew Latin, French, and German.
So people think like, okay, how could this blind deaf girl actually?
I feel like Latin is understandable.
Well, she'd have to speak Latin, right?
No. It's just something that you read.
Yeah.
Then French and German, it's interesting too because it uses the same alphabet as English.
It's not like she's learning Mandarin or something.
Right. So did Anne Sullivan help her learn these languages? Or is this something that she did on her own, teaching herself after she learned how to read Braille?
I'm so happy you asked.
Yeah.
She learned the same way by using a translator to finger spell, Braille books and that Todoma method, where she put her hand on their mouth and felt their lips move.
She did have a German professor, however. So again, most of this learning was done. She goes to a French class and Anne Sullivan sits there and translates into her hand, finger spells into her hand, and that's how she learns.
But she had one German professor who actually learned how to use a finger spell just so they could teach Helen. This is the language that Helen Keller ended up being most proficient in because she's like, I didn't have to deal with Anne Sullivan.
Yeah.
Like hearing it, interpreting it, relayed it to me. I just had a teacher who directly interpreted for me.
There was no middle man.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So she said that was her best language. Wow.
German is hard. German is hard to learn.
Then the TikTokers are like, there's so many pictures of her out there riding a bike. How could this girl ride a bike? The feel.
It's all about balancing.
Yeah.
Well, she would talk about how her favorite thing to do is ride a bike because she could feel the woods in her face. But if you actually look, there are no photos of her on her own bike. She's always on a tandem bike.
Oh.
So to be clear, she was an expert tandem bike rider, not a normal bike rider.
Oh, OK.
That makes sense.
And she's always photographed in the front of these bikes. But the tandem bikes were kind of a hot thing back in her day for couples, for couples to ride together. And so you wanted the stronger person to be in the back, which would be the man.
Right. But women could never be trusted to steer or be in control. So they would actually customize these bikes so that the front person, like the person in the back, was doing all of the steering.
Wasn't it like very big in the front?
Like there was a big arch?
Oh, it looks like maybe the front wheel is slightly larger.
Yeah, it's like a little...
Look at that memory you had.
Look at me.
Because here she wrote, oh, you probably can really relate to this. Next to a leisurely walk, I enjoy a spin on my tandem bicycle. It is splendid to feel the wind blowing to my face and the springy motion of my iron steed.
The rapid rush through the air gives me a delicious sense of strength and buoyancy, and the exercise makes my pulse dance and my heart sing. Sounds like something cheesy you would say.
I don't know if I would talk about buoyancy or my iron. What does it call it?
My iron steed?
My iron steed.
But you do love a leisurely walk. I do.
I do love the wind on my face.
The pulse dance and your heart sing.
Yes. I love that the wind in my hair. I have the sun on my face.
Again, she was a great bicycle rider, but all she had to do was pedal.
Then she had someone in the back who was steering them. Believable, I think, that she was riding a bike. Then the big one, the most famous one, the one that everyone uses to try to to accuse Helen Keller of being a fraud.
She flew a plane.
She flew a plane.
I didn't know that she flew a plane until Colleen brought it up all those years ago.
I don't think I was well-versed on Helen Keller.
Because you obviously didn't have a second-grade obsession. No. You know?
No.
In fact, it was the chimpanzees for me.
Yeah. Yeah. There's some term that's been floating around about the weird things that we all were-
Obsessed with?
That we all had, yeah.
I liked whales.
Well, and then it was laces.
Later on, it was like Titanic. I mean, I know we had the movie, but I'm like, we went to all museums, read all the books.
N-Sync.
We had N-Sync, but that's just like a-
That was a tweet thing.
A crush. But that's not like some weird historical thing that people got. There's some phrase for like the weird historical things that we were all weirdly into.
So, the story is that in 1946, Helen Keller flew, I use the term flew in quotes, a four-engine Douglas Skymaster airplane over the Mediterranean Sea while traveling from Rome to Paris. So, there are photos of her. Okay?
Yeah. But this, I'm like, I think we're giving her way too much credit. She didn't, first of all, she did not fly the plane alone.
Her companions sat next to her and signed instructions into her hand. But also, she was like at cruising altitude. And I feel like we talked about this in like our MH370.
Yeah. But I asked Captain Fred, the pilot. I was like, is there really, once you're at cruising altitude, like how much work is actually being done?
He's like, yeah, pretty much you're like cruise control. You've plugged in where you want to get your cruise control and you just like ride. So it's not like she was taking off or landing this plane by herself.
Right.
Although I did see that there is recently a deaf-blind young girl who did do that.
But that was not Helen Keller. Helen Keller took the reins, took control while they were just cruising over an ocean at elevation. How hard is it to just sit there with your hands holding the controls?
Right.
So I don't think she was like taking off this airplane and doing a real flight.
Right.
So anyway, I think I didn't find anything that would tell me that this was-
Sounds like she is pretty-
A fraud.
Yeah, I think pretty legit also. But I think also she had a lot of strong people in her corner. She had parents who didn't give up on her.
She had Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell looking out for her. You got Anne Sullivan, one of the odds that she found this girl who was partially blind, but mostly had her senses and had training communicating with people who couldn't hear or see.
Not only that, the sheer determination it takes to have done all the things that she did. Yeah. I mean, that's the most impressive to me.
Yeah.
Just like she was determined.
It's like she could have learned English and been happy, but then she had to learn three other languages.
Well, I guess also like what else are you gonna, you can't be like, I'm gonna spend my Saturday watching TV or reading a book or going to watch a soccer game.
Yeah, that's true. Like what else did she have except for learning?
Exactly, and riding the bicycle.
Yeah.
Her metal steed, what do you call it? Iron steed.
Iron steed.
There was also perhaps part of what contributed to this is that when we look at picture, again, we've all probably seen The Miracle Worker, seen stills from it or whatever. You've seen pictures of Helen Keller as a child and that famous water scene.
Maybe we infantilize her because that's just what we picture our mind is like, how could that person have done all these things?
Right.
Again, maybe some Gen Z'ers are ableist, I don't know, or they just see something on TikTok and they believe it.
It seems to me, there's a lot of seeing things on TikTok and believing it.
Yeah. No proofreading, no fact-checking.
No critical thinking.
Yeah.
No challenging thoughts.
We can't speak for Colleen, but these two Scheme Queens are not buying it?
No, I'm not buying it. She's a total, legit person with determination, probably more than mine.
You know, she also lived her, Anne Sullivan ended up getting married, and they let Helen Keller live with them. Like she had a real companion for life.
Yeah.
Helen Keller almost, she had her own romance.
She did?
And she almost eloped, and her family put the kibosh on that.
Did they think that she was being taken advantage of?
I assume so.
Yeah.
But also, I'm like, look, was it a male or was it a male? That's what we've got. So, yeah, we respect Helen, we believe her.
Yeah, she's pretty amazing.
Yeah. I liked this little history lesson.
Thank you. It wasn't very funny, but.
No.
But I hope we, if we could just change one, Jen's ears mind.
Yeah, about this, then that's a win.
That's a win. Yeah.
Yeah. Or if somebody listened to it and then engages in a debate with someone who says Helen Keller is like fake and you can spit all of these facts.
Well, that takes us into, I guess, Kait, what should the people do?
Yeah. So the people, they should scroll on down, leave us a five-star review. Share us with your friends and family.
Interact with us on our social media platforms. And if you want, you can take out your phone right now and text three people that could possibly be ableists in your lives.
Three people who don't believe Helen Keller was blind and deaf and accomplished all the things she accomplished. And then don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens.
That's the number three, SchemeQueens, all one word. We're also on Reddit, same username.
If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, and our contact page where you can engage with us and share any updates
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As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes.
Next week, we'll see you and it'll be the three of us again.
Yes.
Hopefully. Yeah. Colleen will have gotten back from her exploration of Scotland and-
Her hunt for the Loch Ness.
Yeah, the hunt for Nessie.
Nessie.
We'll see you then.
Is that how you would say it? All right.
See you next Tuesday.
See you next Tuesday.
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A Look into the Viral Tik Tok Allegations Against Helen Keller
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