#i wouldn't be so mad if we weren't always preaching about DEI

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

cw: ableism, mentions of substance use disorders, professions being shitty about mental health and me being problematic about it under the cut

tldr; social work can be sanctimonious and self-righteous and still perpetuates ableism and oppression and i decided to be a problem about it and called it out :)

ok so i was at a webinar earlier today that was talking about getting licensed as a clinical social worker in the state that i'm in. 1) it was useless and i learned nothing so i'm already pissed about that, but 2)

they had a slide about potential reasons that your application might not be considered and there were two that specifically stood out to me. they listed "a history of substance use disorders" and "having a mental health diagnosis". i would also like to note that this presentation was from the licensing board, so this isn't a case of misinterpretation of information

now, i wasn't really paying attention for the most part because i realized by this point that i wasn't learning anything but then i saw this slide and i guess it ripped me out of my stupor because then i deadass typed into chat that it was discrimination and a clear violation of our code of ethics and questioned their rationale

and they got SO defensive and dodged my question, immediately saying that it's only a *potential reason* and that it's for "safety concerns"

i was tired as fuck because it's one of my fatigued days so i didn't respond but i really REALLY wanted to ask them to explicitly define what "safety concerns" means and watch them dig themselves into a hole that forces them to admit that they're being ableist shits because what the actual fuck

whats worse is that we're ALWAYS talking about advancing social justice (it is LITERALLY stated in our code of ethics) and then turning around and pulling bullshit like this.

anyways, my comment disrupted their presentation and forced everyone to realize the weight of their statement and the board kinda proved to everyone the epitome of how our field still perpetuates oppression despite claiming to fight in dismantling it