kennethson’s avatarkennethson’s Twitter Archive—№ 28,139

              1. I'm applying to a DEI-related program at work and I've hit a question I've long struggled with: Do you have disabilities? The answer should be yes because I have protanomalous color vision (a type of red-green colorblindness), and in this case that's what I answered. 1/8
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            1. …in reply to @kennethson
              But I always feel guilty when I do say that, because for the most part I'm not really affected by it in my day-to-day life. Even when I do have issues, I can only think of one time I wasn't able to work around them trivially: reading resistor color bands in EE lab. 2/8
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          1. …in reply to @kennethson
            I'm in just about the most privileged class of people in the world, so it feels like entitled whining when I say yes, because so many people have things so much worse than me in so many ways. If I just say no and go along, it probably wont matter. 3/8
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        1. …in reply to @kennethson
          But if I'm feeling that kind of guilt, surely people whose situations are more impactful than mine are feeling the same way. And then there's the very legitimate fear I'm sure many have of the ableist othering that saying yes will bring on. 4/8
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      1. …in reply to @kennethson
        And the realization I'm having is that it's probably that fear that's really driving me to say no, and the guilt is just the conscious justification I have. I don't *really* feel guilty about it, deep down, I'm just afraid I'll lose some of my privilege if I say yes. 5/8
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    1. …in reply to @kennethson
      I'm realizing now that for me answering no to that question is, and has always been ableist. I need to do better to take advantage of the privilege I have to fight ableism, and that starts with answering yes, but certainly doesn't end there. 6/8
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  1. …in reply to @kennethson
    Bigotries of all kinds are so pervasive, so latent in our society that we can only eliminate them if we actively work against them. That starts with working against them in ourselves, even -- maybe especially -- in cases like this where we're our own victims. 7/8
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    1. …in reply to @kennethson
      And to make sure I'm working beyond myself I'll keep listening to other victims of those bigotries, acknowledging the harms they've faced, and doing what I can with the privilege I have to try and stop them. I'm sorry for the harms I've caused. I'm trying to be better. 8/8
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