If I'm Honest with keisha osborne
If I'm Honest with keisha osborne
Lost Files: A Conversation with Dane Lentz
On today's episode, we are reviewing a lost file. So let me give you a little bit of background. I'm not going to give you too much cause Baby, the situation was traumatic. So last year I had a conversation on the buzz corner, which is hosted by Bucky and Andrea of there's a platform that has a name that I don't even remember right now. LinguaBeeee, of LinguaBeeee, and the conversation was a little traumatic, right? They invited me on the show to talk about some of the topics that I talked about on the podcast. And so we were having this conversation, but they didn't prepare for it. And. They assigned a white interpreter to be my voice for this episode. And so there was a huge debacle about quality, about, representation. There was a number of things. And so I had that conversation and then I debriefed it with Paris and Tiffany. And then I had a follow up conversation and I talked about what our responsibility is. And in this file that has been lost, just to be found today, is the conversation that I had. with Dane Lentz, the interpreter who voiced for me. And I'm just going to let you listen to the episode, and then I'm going to talk to you about why I didn't post it. Well, hello. I hope you are well. Thank you for being willing to talk to me. Yeah, of course. You know, I consistently haven't named you Yeah, so how do you feel about like being revealed
Dane:Well, I mean here I am. My name is Dane.
keisha:How are you doing Dane? Thanks folks. I'm
Dane:Doing great. Thank you very much keisha for having me.
keisha:Yeah. Yeah, so Honestly, I think you know, I I'd already recorded a kind of response, and I kind of came to my own conclusions. I asked you to listen to that before you would be willing to talk to me. And so I try to piece as much of it together as well as humanize you. But I'd love to hear, you know, from your perspective, how did you even go about taking the job? What did you see?
Dane:Right. Okay. So what I saw from LinguaBeee was the email that came up. It said this request at this date, at this time, strong voice are needed, which After my career, I consider myself a strong voicer. We're Buzzcorner. Team. Yes. That's it. No other context. Nothing.
keisha:Okay, so I asked LinguaBeeee for what they said, what they sent to you. Or actually, to the entire team. What did you send to them? And they sent me this screenshot of the The blast. And then they also sent me these text messages. Did you get those texts?
Dane:I did not get those texts.
keisha:I did not think you did. I did not think they were real text messages. So I appreciate you for confirming them. The, the texts, I don't know if you were following the podcast. Are you following the podcast?
Dane:I, I only recently started following the podcast.
keisha:Okay. So I, I, when I reached out to LinguaBeeean, I asked them, you know, what they sent to you. They, they told me they sent some, some text messages and essentially the text messages were the kind of important context that I think would have been needed for the job. But when they sent it to me, I knew they knew I was talking about them. And so I thought it was a bit of a CYA. And I. I said, you know, I tried to operate in integrity, so I'm going to post it. I know that they're watching, so I'm going to go ahead and post it. And I did post it, but I'm so glad I had the opportunity to ask you if you actually got them, because
Dane:Absolutely, yeah. Because I feel like that context would have been very, very important to know well enough in advance. I mean, you said that they, that you reached out to them, what, a month in advance?
keisha:Yeah, they booked me. They booked me like June or July.
Dane:Wow. Yeah. So that is no excuse for them to go about how things played out.
keisha:Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, I felt like they were underprepared, but I also feel like because of how they handled it, they set you up for failure. So what, so once you got into the job, like, what was your, you know, what was your mindset? What were you thinking about?
Dane:So basically, like, I got into the job maybe three minutes before we started recording. Okay. Bucky came on, he's like, Okay, Dane, you're going to interpret for keisha. I'm like, Who is this person? Who is keisha? What are they talking about? What's the subject matter? This was before you had logged on, I think. Sure. Before you logged on. Then you logged on. I'm like, Oh, okay. You want this to voice for this human being?
keisha:Sure. Yes.
Dane:Really?
keisha:Yes.
Dane:Hmm. And so it could have gone like one or two ways. Either way, I feel like, and forgive me for swearing, but I feel like I would have looked like a jackass.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:Because do I Voiced the job thinking that a cisgender heterosexual white male is Going to be the voice of this african american Woman or do I say no, I'm not gonna be comfortable with that And do I make myself look like somebody who's violating the code of ethics? Yeah. Yeah That's my own personal work ethic being like I get a job. I keep the job
keisha:I love that you're setting off these, like, visual
Dane:I didn't know how I did that.
keisha:Yeah, yeah. I appreciate the perspective of, like, I, I felt like, what do I do? I feel like I'm going to violate the code of ethics. It's such a hard place and it's very honest. I think real regular people would be like it's three minutes before the job.
Dane:Right.
keisha:I do. Yeah. So once you got into it, though, I think, I think the other thing is, I don't I want to be honest and say, I was very anxious about doing buzz corner because I don't talk about this stuff in ASL and it was my very first conversation that I'd had an ASL and of this kind. Right. And so I was like, I didn't know who my audience was going to be. I didn't know who would be watching. I didn't know if I was going to be clear. And so I was very unsure about it. And even through like listening, I kept saying, I don't, I don't know if I was clear. Was that clear? I'm not sure if it was clear. I don't know if it was clear.
Dane:Oh, you too, huh? I'm the whole time I'm voicing you. I'm thinking, am I being clear? Like, like,
keisha:yeah, yeah, yeah. So are you normally having conversations like this?
Dane:Not normally. No. I mean, if it ever does come up, it's usually well enough in advance. I mean, not just with LinguaBee, but with any other agency that I'm working with saying, Is this, is this person going to be a good fit for this interpreter? It's like, Like, I've, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten to a job where I show up and the client isn't exactly what I was expecting, but I just went ahead and did it anyway.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:Just because especially in a medical setting, it's so hard because you know how deaf people have always been fighting for the right to access for their proper medical care, but it's been delayed so far because of a lack of interpretation for people to fulfill the job.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:So, I mean, one of the tenets is do no harm. And if I were to step out saying, I'm not the best fit because I'm not a woman or I'm not black or I'm not this, I'd be causing further harm. Sure, sure. I think, yeah, I think, I think this is, I think this is a very honest place and, and I wonder how often we cause harm when we stay, you know but I, I, I, I kind of alluded to this and said something to this fact, but I really appreciate you're like, you're confirming my thoughts about it because I, I think we aren't trained to say, sorry, deaf people, we're just going to delay your access. We are going to further oppress you. We don't have to know how long you've been fighting for this appointment to happen. It's finally happening for you. Could be like, we have never know. And then we get there. So our normal practice is to just kind of push through. Exactly. Yes.
keisha:Yeah. So what do you wish Linguabee, would have shared with you?
Dane:What I wish would have been shared was basically everything that you had mentioned, like, Going into your background, not even like, anything like that, just like a little snip, like what you do, how you, how long you've been doing this, what you've been doing this, and also about the subject matter as well. I mean, it would have been nice to have just even more context of what we were going to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So I had heard that there was, is no teaming situation and I'd heard this over repeatedly, but did you have a team? Were they your team, your actual team? Did you have like a separate channel where you're feeding each other? So what it was is there were three of us one one person was voicing for each of the people. There were there were two other folks i'm not going to mention their names But one was waiting for voicing for bucky one was waiting for voicing for andre and I was voicing for you and we all kind of Came up with a little group chat group text like, kind of, sort of, before, and then afterwards. And we all felt the same, same way that you had alluded to in your, in your subsequent podcast. Just the amount of just uneasiness going on because there was no adequate fit. Like, it wasn't a perfect fit because we weren't given context and we're kind of, like, throwing together, be like, okay, here you go.
keisha:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I thought, I thought to reach out to them and then I thought, man, this is, it's just rough. It's a really rough thing. But I also felt like I was the, the harder end of the stick is going, going to you because, right. I didn't really care about anybody else. And I said this in the podcast that, in the podcast that I said One, I started to reach out to you and say, hey, let me fill you in because I'm an interpreter and so I understand the job of an interpreter, but I decided that for this situation, it would have been, unfortunately, it hung you out to dry, but I decided for this situation, it would be better to expose the system and how the inadequacies happen in the system, then to, Do labor that I think the interpreter or the agency is supposed to do. Right. And I have also, this is my sec. That was my second time being interpreted for. So I got no one's voice for me except in my master's thesis at Gallaudet. So it was, you know, like, I, I don't actually, I don't know. I also don't present either. So I think that's the other thing outside of the realm of education, I don't present. So like, it was very new for me and it was creating some additional anxiety. So I am sorry that I didn't reach out to you. And also it definitely exposed the system for that's happening. Well, you know, it's across the board and all across the country and all the agencies all doing it. Yeah.
Dane:Yeah. I mean, trust me, you don't need to apologize for it, for anything because I mean, you didn't do anything wrong. I mean, all you did was just, we were asked to present on a specific topic and you did it. Yeah. And like you said, it's the system being exposed that are showing all these gaps in the communication between the agency that is taking care, that's facilitating these requests to the people who are fulfilling them.
keisha:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. What do you, what do you want us to know? What do you want my audience to know?
Dane:It's never, for, for me personally, it's never my intention to cause any harm. And why are the fireworks going off? What is going on? It's crazy. All I can say is I mean, for me personally, looking back, I should have definitely done my homework. I should have asked the proper questions. I should have done this. I should have done that. And for me to see the lack in my personal process on how things go, I am probably just as complicit in, you know, perpetuating this, these gaps that we see in the system. So, I have to apologize for that, for not doing my homework beforehand. In knowing who the subject matter is, what the subject was about, and not saying no when I should have, which was, you know, should have been well enough in advance for them to find someone else a better fit.
keisha:I appreciate that, and we do that all the time. We all do it. We all do it. And it would be all the time. We do it all the time. I walked into a job just yesterday and I was, when I was assigned, I was like, I don't have any prep. I don't know. I don't know. This, this is about ghost stories. I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. And there's no, and so I started asking questions, but they didn't have any answers for me. And I think that's not different from You being able to ask the questions or you being able to do the work and just normally it's okay, you know, we go into the jobs and it's okay. And you know, this is one of. the times that it wasn't, you know.
Dane:Yeah, definitely.
keisha:Very human. Also am thinking about if the, if the text message group worked. Did the text group work as support?
Dane:It basically worked as a support channel for us after the fact. Sure. I mean, there was nothing really exchanged during because all three of us were so into the job. We're like,
keisha:yeah,
Dane:okay, we got to get this done. This is for Buzzcorn. This is for Lingweed. This is a guy who, this is for the people who. Are asking us or trusting us to do as good a job in presenting the information in the most accurate and professional way.
keisha:Yeah, that's good.
Dane:Yeah.
keisha:Yeah, that's good. I appreciate that. That, that is something I think I overlooked at the added pressure of being hired by an agency and then working for them to do a good job on, on their product. That's very, it's, it's a very special ask and it certainly adds a lot of pressure to it. Yeah, I mean, well, I haven't done it. I haven't done it, but I can see that's certainly something I overlooked. What about. What about what, what, if, if the world was perfect and you could have things, you know, your way, and you could have prepped, do you, do you feel like you would ever be in a situation where you would say, no, this is still, I'm still not a good fit. I am, I watch keisha's podcast, I am fully engaged with her content, and this is still not a good fit. Do you think you'd be in that place too?
Dane:Well, in a perfect world, of course, which, as we all know, it never is. I would say the only time I would say yes to a job, such as the one we had, is if nobody else was available.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:I know that there are other interpreters, interpreters who are people of color, who are just as qualified as I am to take another. And only if nobody else were available when I had said yes.
keisha:Yeah,
Dane:yeah. If I, if I had the proper context.
keisha:Sure. Have you done the Buzz Corner before?
Dane:I have, yes, once before. And it was, it worked fine. You know, there were no, there was no, the response wasn't as big as the one we had.
keisha:Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that also goes back to, and speaks to, like, kind of the lack of prep. Like you've actually done this job before and may not have had as much prep. Did you have any prep that time?
Dane:That time? No, it was the same one. It's like three minutes in. It's like, okay, you're going to voice for this person. Go.
keisha:Go. Yeah. So I think it's interesting because like, even in the notes, it says for one of the deaf presenters. So it seems like it's like a copy and paste job, you know, they just keep uploading the same thing. It's not clear, but yeah. You know, you just think, okay, I'm, I'm voice. It's a voicing job. Like I gotta have strong voice and skills. I show up to the job, I'm ready to go. And that time it worked. And this time it didn't. If, if, if we could go back to the perfect world though, how would you have wanted to be, how, how would you have wanted LinguaBeeee, to make sure that you had a team?
Dane:Ooh, that is, yeah. I think what LinguaBeee could have done to ensure that. First of all that a team would have been there. Oh, that's that's such a tough answer because
keisha:yeah,
Dane:I don't know
keisha:Yeah,
Dane:like there's so many things that could have been but like which option would be the best option.
keisha:Sure yeah, I don't know. I don't know about the best option, but just just a sheer amount of specific voicing, right? I think It's just a hard job to do solo, like feed me or something, like catch what I'm saying, tell me how to say something right. Like anything would have been better than, you know, a text message that's going to come in at a delay, right? So that's what I'm thinking. Like, just if there was a way for even the three of you to kind of, you know, come together and I don't know, I don't actually know, but I've heard this, it's a consistent thing that I've heard over and over again is like, there is no support.
Dane:No, and like you said, if there was support, it would have been delayed five seconds, and it would have been like, already trained, go, sorry.
keisha:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it sucks to be you, right? Too bad. Okay, well I don't know, how did you feel about the content? Right? So like, I don't know if you can listen. I am a, I am the kind of interpreter that can listen and process, right? So I hold on to the conversation, even after I leave. And I know interpreters who can't do that. And so I'm just wondering if, how did you feel about the content of just the entire conversation? Not, you know, Just what you're voicing for.
Dane:The conversation was definitely an eye opener. Especially for me, kind of like, going into my own processes of like, how do I go about I mean, like we've done, prepping for a job. How do I feel about ensuring the right context is there? How do I ensure, like, I'm understanding whatever culture I'm interpreting for? Like, There's just so many little factors that go into such a conversation that I'm thinking, okay, what do I need to think about giving as much prep for myself as possible to ensure that everything is portrayed as accurately as possible?
keisha:Yeah. Yeah. That's rough. Our job is so hard. It is so hard.
Dane:It is. It really is. I don't think people understand how difficult our job really is.
keisha:Oh no. I have no idea.
Dane:It's not just taking ASL and turning it into English. I mean, just thinking about all these different factors that go into it. And it's, it's exhausting.
keisha:Yeah, well, can you tell us a little bit about your background like Anything you want to share you don't have to
Dane:sure sure. I mean, I'm I really don't have anything to hide I mean I am a cisgender heterosexual caucasian male. I grew up in the san francisco bay area My dad mother father deaf. I'm a coda. That's right My dad Both my parents worked at the deaf school in Fremont in Northern California. My mom was a teacher. She's now retired. My father was a football coach, a cottage counselor, worked in the IT department. My stepdad worked at the Indiana deaf school as a teacher, retired. Now they, now my parents live at now, mom and stepdad live in Riverside. Father unfortunately passed away about 18 years ago. So yeah. No, thank you. And my background personally in, I've been working as an interpreter for close to 18, 19 years now.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:I work in a lot of athletics. I work in theater. I've done all the other freelance stuff that pretty much any other interpreter can have done, educational, medical, all that.
keisha:Yeah, I probably should ask you this first. I'm just winging it, so if it's not clear, that's exactly what's happening.
Dane:Go for it, yeah.
keisha:That I appreciate, also understanding your background, because that goes back to you saying, you know, this isn't something that you do regularly. It's very different than, you know, what you normally do. But do you feel like your background prepares you for jobs like this?
Dane:Nine times out of ten, no.
keisha:Yeah,
Dane:it's like because Like only probably it other than my theatrical background like anything else I could ever do It doesn't really prepare you for what you're about to face when you're in that assignment.
keisha:Yeah
Dane:You know, whether, whoever is with and whatever the situation, whatever the setting is.
keisha:Okay. So another question I have is I asked you to watch the debrief that I had with Terp Tap in and then the follow up and you know, I got some bad, some, I got some flack for it, but I would love to hear what your perspective is on, on how that went, like, as. The person that we talked about as one of the people that we talked about in both of those episodes, you know, how did you feel and like, how did you want, how did you respond to those episodes?
Dane:Right, right. Everything that was said or discussed in both of those episodes was 100 percent accurate. I mean, just kind of knowing that the potential damage that would have been caused as a result of what happened was there. And, And knowing that I was the one who perpetuated it was just like, oh my gosh, that's just something that I did, but my work ethic basically prevented me from not doing it. So it's like, it's just the ultimate catch 22. It's like, do I do the job and cause the damage, or do I not do the job and make myself look like a jackass for leaving everybody high and dry?
keisha:Sure, sure.
Dane:And, It's, oof, it just adds another layer to the fact that our job is very difficult, but just knowing that we, that, kind of going back to what prepares you for it, it's like, you just make do with what you got, when you get it, and it really kind of gave me, like, that gut check moment of, okay, how do I be better? Not just as an interpreter, but as a human being, you know?
keisha:Yeah, well, tell, what's your answer, what's your answer? Do your homework. Yeah.
Dane:Do your homework. It's like, I gotta do, I gotta make sure that I know everything about, like, as, as enough details as I can find in order to be the most effective person to be that. If not, then knowing when to give the assignment back, saying, hey, I'm not the best fit, find someone else.
keisha:Yeah. What would you, other, other than that piece, would you do anything else differently?
Dane:In that context, you know, would I, would I have? I don't think I would have.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:I don't think I would have because, I mean, I'm human and I'm trying to do the best I can.
keisha:Yeah, that's good. That's good. I think, I, I think that is one of the things that I wanted people to know and I want, One, one of the reasons I want to talk to you is because you are human and, and we are, we're always trying to do the best that we can. Sometimes we don't realize the impact of the decisions that we make, but that is human, right? Like that, if we could predict the perfect response every time we would do that. And so I appreciate, you know, just that honesty. And what I think is. is really effective for us to be better humans is to have the compassion that we're doing the best we can. And I love that that's what you're saying. You're doing the best you can.
Dane:And I definitely appreciate your compassion in this whole situation. I mean, we knew that it wasn't perfect, but having the openness to, to discuss it, first of all, and not be so closed off and just being here, being open and having that face to face, even though we're through it through a screen right now.
keisha:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Dane:seeing what we can do to make it even better.
keisha:Absolutely. It's hard for me too. I think because The field is so messy when it comes to having these kinds of conversations and the way that we see them typically happen is like you get posted on social media, you get named, and then people just dog you in the comments. And I'm like, how do we? Change the field and make it more constructive and productive and that starts, I think, with humanity like recognizing people's humanity and compassion and being empathetic, like tell you lying. If you tell me you hadn't done it, you lying, you lying. And if you haven't been in his shoes, you're lying. And we not lying here. We're going to be honest. And I appreciate that. So I appreciate that you were even willing to have this conversation. Like, I wasn't sure if you were gonna be comfortable recording, but I I'm glad.
Dane:I got nothing to hide, honestly. Like, if there's anything that we can do to help people understand what goes into our job exactly, I'm all for it.
keisha:Yeah, yeah. Is there anything that you wish I didn't, I'd done differently?
Dane:Honestly, no. I mean, you had done, you had done everything you needed to. I mean, you had given all the information that you needed to, to give to the agency, but ultimately it comes down to what the agency is willing to share with those that are on the blast.
keisha:Yeah. Yeah. But what about the podcast? You know, I record these videos kind of against your will. What do you think?
Dane:No, I mean, It's on your mind. You say it. I mean, it's your, it's your podcast and you do whatever you need to do in order to make the podcast yours.
keisha:Yeah.
Dane:So I appreciate you actually taking the time to, you know, to air what happened, what went down, how, what your perspective is, and also talking to me saying, Hey, this is what my perspective is and really kind of seeing both sides of the ball here.
keisha:Yeah. We appreciate that.
Dane:Yeah.
keisha:That's important. All right. Well, I'm going to talk your head off, but I am grateful for you. If there's anything you want to say, any parting words or.
Dane:Just peace and love, y'all.
keisha:I appreciate that. Thank you so much. So why not post the episode, right? If I thought it was a good episode, why not post it? And here's why I posted it. Because I had it recovered well. And so we just had an episode of Recovering, and I thought this was a great episode to follow up and release a bonus. One, because you had to see the first episode. You had to be a part of that whole debacle, right? And I don't know who watched what and who was a part of that whole trauma experience, but I knew that's what was required and what was achieved for you to kind of understand this episode. But the other reason is because we just had a conversation about recovery and this thing that I did not cover well. And I don't know if you remember this, but last season I was carrying around this fear That I, in my podcast, in my content, was gonna have these conversations about racism, about providing good access, about making sure that we call out and call in and we talk about some of these really, really difficult conversations, right? And still, somebody invariably would perceive me as a bully and anti white. right And so when that happened, even though it was a fear, I was not prepared. And I was particularly told that I was a bully, when it came to how Paris, Tiffany, and I debriefed the episode. And they said that I bullied him, and so, I was tore up about it. I really was. And this is the thing about recovery, right? Is, I use it as an opportunity to say, Two things about recovery. I want to say is that sometimes we have these negative, internalized beliefs about ourselves that we are afraid of being confirmed. Right? Now, here's the thing about that fear. It doesn't make true. It doesn't mean that it's something that we truly struggle with or are. It is just fear that we're hoping doesn't come to fruit. And so we're walking around, scared that somebody's gonna say that I'm a reverse racist. I'm still carrying it. I'm not even gon hold you. I'm still carrying it. But recovery doesn't always look like this big, huge thing where you're in the moment, you're triggered, you're like, I'm missing, missing, missing, missing, missing, all the information this deaf person is signing to me for me to provide this access. I don't understand, it's over my head, and I'm having this momentary freakout. It doesn't always look like that. Sometimes it is this kind of tenuous line that we walk in fear, and we work very hard to present ourselves in a way that is contrary to the image that we don't want, right? We have this vision of who we want to be. That aligns with our views, and our values, and who we are. And it represents us as our best selves, right? And the fear is antithetical to that. And the fear in people's opinions is antithetical to that. Anything that might come up to Produce a conflict with who I think I am, what I believe I am, what I how I see myself, right? Anything that comes into conflict with that is a trigger, and I, and I go into this trauma response. And so for this particular situation, I was afraid. And so when I got to the Dane episode, I was not able to focus on the conversation, right? And this is what I talked about in the last episode. Sometimes we can't focus on the conversation at hand. We can only focus on us. And in that moment, I was trying to use him to realign me with me, right? I was trying to use his Conversation is input and I felt terrible about that when I kind of realized that's what it was. I was like, man This was a wasted conversation. I was completely wasted but like there were different questions I could have asked There were more ways for me to be involved in this conversation and engage him instead of realizing That I'm still in this kind of place, where I'm triggered, and I'm going through this motion of trying to find a way back to the self I know, and also trying to get rid of the fear that someone's going to misperceive me, right? And so, That's just one thing I want to say about trauma. Dude I love this drama. But, there's one thing I want to say about recovery. The next thing I want to say about recovery is and there's something I didn't say in the last episode I had a plan to say it, but we know what happened there. But the other thing I want to say is that Sometimes, when we're in a state of recovery, we do all of our not recovering well in the presence of witnesses, right? And so, if you remember, The conversations that we've had, is that when Dane was struggling, he was really having a hard time with the episode, and he talks about that in this episode. So he's having a hard time, he didn't have team support because there were no teams set up. Right, he didn't have team support, and that was just a problem. But he was also like missing it, and he didn't have any way to like, get the support that he needed. But he also didn't stop and say, hey, I'm all for this. Whatever the case may be, whatever he could have meant it to help him kind of be more who he was, he did that in the presence of witnesses. And here's the negative reality of that, right? Is I feel like having this conversation with him last season was helpful because right now it's mostly to his humanity and I see his heart, but let's say I never talk to him. Let's say, I don't talk to him, no one else talks to me, we don't know him. Now we don't trust him from Adam. And now he has, his, his employer who he accepted this job doesn't trust from Adam because of the reviews that they got, right? And so you now have all these people, the trust and the relationship has been violated. Alright, so when we are struggling and we are not recovering well because we're focused on ourselves and not the harm that we are causing which in this case is a misrepresentation of a black woman and the inaccessibility of the hearing audience I might want to have typically it happens in the reverse and it's the people that we're harming and people who have been harmed but let's not be unclear that as a black woman I experience a lot of oppression in any way. Right? We're not playing the Oppression Olympics. I am not comparing myself to another people group. Let's just talk about keisha in that moment. And in that moment, I, the black woman, might have wanted to share this video, this interview, with my family, my friends, if I was unable to do so. Able to do that because one was not represented well, come on, come on. One, two, because the interpreter that I had didn't understand me. For whatever reason he didn't, he didn't understand me. He wasn't familiar with my content, he wasn't prepared when we talked about it last season. He didn't understand me, right? Three, Because he didn't share my lived experience, and when we talk about representation on this channel and why it's so important, I don't know why I'm calling this a channel now, but just go with it. And so, these are things of recovery that we really need to focus on, but I didn't share because I was ashamed of my lack of recovery. I was ashamed that I used him, right, and I used this kind of external thing to validate who I think I am. Because I didn't have internally. And this is my therapy session. I do want to say this. We have to be the voice of validating. Ourselves to ourselves, right? And when we do that, right, and we are aligned mentally, emotionally, completely aligned with who we believe ourselves to be, we will make decisions that honor that. And when we stay in a place where we're not recovering well, we dishonor who we think we are. And so, this is true for the relationships you have at home with your partner, with your friends, with your spouses, with your kids, with your dog, with your boss, with the people that we serve and provide access to on a daily basis. This is true for every relationship you have, personal or professional. This is true with you. You with you. And so I didn't recover well, and I've done a lot of processing and thinking about how I could have done the entire thing better. Even from the beginning of being called a bully. But even from before that, because I kind of knew this fear was carrying around. So these fears that we carry around that govern our shame response, that govern the reason that we are in conversations, and we are doing things and making decisions to try and reduce the experience of shame, while causing more shame. Right. We can do that better. One, because we are aligned through our actions with who we are, but also we can be able to say, this is not about me right now, this is not about me. This is about providing access to the oppressed people group. Who has been hard pressed to find good access to people who know how to push themselves aside and to value and to respect and to meet their needs in the way they deserve to be met. I was at a workshop today that talked about the ADA requiring effective communication. And the words effective communication have a legal precedent and there's a way that we understand that. But it means that sometimes VRI has to change. To meet a certain set of standards, right? In order to be effective communication and writing back and forth might be effective, it might not be effective. And so the measure of effective communication for us, the on on us is, can we do this job well? There a variety of things we need to ask ourselves. Can we also stay on aligned with ourselves enough to put ourselves aside and to have done enough work internally to say. Am I causing this Deaf person more traumatized decisions I'm making? Or am I able to value, and respect, and make a decision that might be painful for me, but is much better than in their experience? And anyway So we're doing this on the internal level, and I feel like today's episode is more about how we recover internally within ourselves. Like, I don't want to make the kind of decision where my team doesn't trust me and the deaf people that I'm working for don't trust me. I don't make those kinds of decisions. But more so, now I don't trust me. Now I'm around believing I ain't shit because I just confirmed it with myself by the decisions that I made. I stay in a situation of shame because I didn't make a better decision. For the deaf person, and I'm ashamed of that, I'm carrying that shame, right? And now, I've been told two different parties that I ain't shit, but the biggest party of all is me. And so now I continue to carry that around. Interactions cause more harm. than good. This has been If I'm Honest. For joining me.