A photographer explains how federal DEI programs provide crucial support for disabled people and veterans through hiring preferences, vocational training, and individualized education plans. He trains disabled students as assistants and editors, and argues that cutting these programs harms the people who depend on them most.
Let's talk about DEI. Now I know that this is a photography channel, so mostly what I talk about is photography, but I think it's really important because this topic impacts a lot of people that I care about. I'm not going to touch on the racial side of things because one, I think that a lot of people that are more in tune with that side of things, you know, have created much better content than what I could. I want to talk about another group that is really seriously affected with this anti-DEI rhetoric and legit anti-DEI cuts and things that the federal government is doing. So, if you are somebody who is thinking, yeah, like, we need to get rid of DEI, blah blah blah, maybe you think that, you know, people of color are unfairly getting jobs that should go to white people, you know, I don't know. If that's you, then please continue watching because again, I'm not gonna berate you or I'm not gonna, you know, try to— I'm not gonna try to convince you you're wrong there because I'm just some guy on the internet, right? So instead, like I said, I'd like to talk about a different group of people, and that is people with disabilities. And keep in mind, that includes veterans. There are a ton of veterans in this country who have numerous disabilities. Uh, combat-related injuries, um, amputations, and so on and so forth, who directly benefit from DEI. In addition to that, because of rules that the federal government put in place to prioritize hiring veterans because they have a harder time transferring their skills from the military to civilian life, they receive a lot of assistance that falls under that DEI umbrella. So if you care about military vets, then, you know, I hope that you will write to representatives and senators and let them know that you care about DEI. I hope you'll rethink your anti-DEI stance if you have one. It's near and dear to me as a topic because, well, one, I have ADHD, and ADHD is a disability. There are things that I have struggled with my entire life as a result of my ADHD. Now, I wasn't diagnosed until later in life, so I didn't receive direct benefits with like an individualized education plan, an IEP. I don't know if they call them that in every state, but essentially in Pennsylvania they do. If you know anyone who has needed an IEP, an individual education plan, That's a benefit of DEI. I work with a lot of folks with a variety of disabilities that need vocational training. My role is to help those folks to be able to go out and work as a photographer's assistant. So if you think back to like your wedding or senior pictures or whenever the last time you had photos taken, there's normally somebody there who's holding, you know, some, something up, a reflector or handing cameras to the photographer or whatever. So I help people to be trained for jobs like that, or to sit in an office at a photographer's studio and do all the editing, or to edit video. Now you might not think that that is very exciting, or that, you know, maybe I'm just making this video because I get paid, and that's fine, you can, you can think that, but these vocational trainings are something that Go well beyond what I'm doing. If you've ever seen somebody with a disability, like, bagging groceries, for example, that's because of vocational training programs. Just the other day, not one of my students, somebody I've never seen before, was at the grocery store with one of their coaches teaching them how to— not how to bag groceries. This was— they were learning how to shop for themselves. Because that is something that, that they struggle with. You know, a lot of us, we kind of figure it out on our own, right? How to go to the grocery store. But some people, that's a real struggle because of whatever disability that they have. Coaches help with things like that. I have had students who had bachelor's degrees but really didn't know how to transfer those skills to a job in their field or a related field. My point is, if you are anti-DEI because you think that there's this anti-white racism or whatever it is, right, I really urge you, desperately, desperately urge you to think about the other folks who are being affected when DEI programs get cut. Because maybe you're hurting the people that you want to see hurt, maybe you're benefiting the people you want to see benefited, but There are so many more people that are gonna be hurt when DEI programs are cut. It's something that I can't even imagine the impact that that's gonna have on those individuals. You know, you think somebody who gets up every day, they, you know, who's aware of their struggles, who gets up every day and has somewhere to go, has a job to do, how rewarding that is for them. If you support anti-DEI stuff, you are locking those people into their apartments and preventing them from having the resources they need to get out there and live their lives and be productive members of society, right? Um, so please, again, please think about that and write to your senators, write to your representatives, Write to your governors and make sure that they are not cutting DEI programs. Thanks for watching.
