Using words well

There are very few people whom I trust enough to let them convince me not to say somethings.

Mid-ish last year I started a meeting for all the accessibility folks at my company. It is mostly an opportunity to disseminate news, projects, and interesting ideas. It is, also, a chance for me to speak in public. I very much enjoy it. I like inspiring and motivating. I also like putting words together in interesting ways.

Sometimes, I start writing something and then decide to change direction. Or I write something and decide it would be better used elsewhere. Or I sometimes write something and people suggest that I don’t say that thing either with those words or with that {emotion} I’m so obviously feeling.

Here’s a speech I did not give the meeting after the 2024 election after some trusted folks suggested I not. I do not regret the choice.

This is mostly unedited from November.

Untitled thoughts on community

I’ll preface this by saying this is me speaking as Me and will not say I’m speaking for any aspects of the company.

I’ve not had a great week. I imagine many of you had similar. I was not relishing the idea of another four years of chaos but that looks Ike what we’re getting so I wanted to take a minute to talk about it and what it means to me. That we are here again is just…

I’m very disappointment in my demographic, honestly, the white, cisgendered demographic that seemed to get us here? We have a lot to reconcile with our country, our friends, our family, and ourselves. That we are here again is just fucking wild.

In 2016, It felt unimaginable that racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and what have you would win. When it did, it was like a trapdoor opened under me and I feel into quicksand. I spent the first few months very depressed, despondent, distressed, numerous other D words not directly related to democracy. When you get like that, it is incredibly hard to pull yourself out of it.

I didn’t do it by myself. I couldn’t do it by myself. What saved me from suffocating under the weight of it all was this: community.

Tyranny relies on division. Isolation. Hopelessness. Hate and anger directed within the population rather than at the sand pouring over you. If we let it seep in, we get stuck while havoc is wrecked around us.

Community is a direct act of defiance in the face of tyranny. The best people, the best humans I have ever worked with are in this room and they very much kept me going. This is all of you. It is trite, maybe, but I think of you as a community. We are all here because accessibility - the ability to access and interact with the world - is important to us.

I want you all to know that the steering committee, that I, am here when you need us. There’s nothing but uncertainty in the future and itt is going to get rocky. Really rocky. The work we do and both the people WITH and FOR whom we do it matter. Accessible software means a person isolated because of disability still has a lifeline to job, a paycheck, a community.

It’s easy to think that “saving lives” with software is an empty platitude but I think in times like this it is very true and very real.

So. The work we, all of us in this room and the developers on our teams and leadership at tis company, do is important. The work we do is an act of defiance. Staying connected with each other is an act of defiance. Standing up for it is an act of defiance.

I don’t regret setting this aside then; I’m glad I found it now while doing some noter cleanup. It may be more important now that we are very much immersed on even more chaos that we could have expected.