{"id":569,"date":"2022-01-12T14:54:30","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T22:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/?p=569"},"modified":"2022-09-06T12:29:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T19:29:04","slug":"resource-group-for-mozillians-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/resource-group-for-mozillians-with-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Disability@Mozilla, a resource group for Mozillians with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s <\/i>our mission<\/i><\/a> at Mozilla to build an internet that includes everyone, regardless of demographics and opportunities, and we\u2019re building our team the same way. We believe our growing list of Mozilla Resource Groups (MRGs) \u2014 <\/i>Afrozillians<\/i><\/a>, Disability@Mozilla, <\/i>Latin Pride<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Mozilla API<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Pridezilla<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>Women of Mozilla<\/i><\/a> \u2014 are critical to our success.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

We also believe that the best way to understand these groups is through the people in them. Below, Kim Bryant, Head of Operations for <\/i>Mozilla Rally<\/i><\/a>, explains how and why she recently co-founded the group with Hillary Juma, Community Manager for <\/i>Common Voice<\/i><\/a>, and what they and their fellow members have in store for the months and years ahead.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

What is the origin story of Disability@Mozilla?<\/b><\/p>\n

I coincidentally expressed interest in an MRG for people with disabilities a few weeks before my brilliant co-founder, Hillary Juma, did the same. I asked in Mozilla\u2019s Diversity Slack channel whether one existed, and someone from the Diversity & Inclusion team immediately reached out to ask how they could help. Then they connected me with Hillary, and then Kelsey Carson from the D&I team helped us set up and run a formal working group, which is when Jamie Teh, Tech Lead for Mozilla\u2019s Accessibility team<\/a>, joined us.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kelsey encouraged us to start by writing a charter, and I learned so much from that process. Our experiences \u2014 including where we live \u2014 fed into the language we chose; different cultures think about disability in radically different ways. One value we included is that ableism<\/a> is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. But it\u2019s immediately followed by another value: We make space for growth, and we expect to make, and learn from, mistakes. Anyone may become a person with a disability in their lifetime, so we also wrote it into our charter that we are \u201cwildly, determinedly intersectional,\u201d which for me has roots in the U.S. disability civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

For example, the Black Panthers provided meals at the 1977 San Francisco 504<\/a> sit-in because protestors Brad Lomax and Chuck Jackson<\/a> were Black Panthers themselves and asked for help. Disability@Mozilla members have already created other definitions of \u201cintersectional,\u201d including the fact that you don\u2019t have to be out as a person with a disability, or conform to any particular criteria or label to join us. We\u2019ll continue to iterate on the charter, and I\u2019m excited about that because it means we\u2019re learning and growing.<\/p>\n

Tell us what the MRG has been up to so far.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Hillary came up with our MRG\u2019s name just in time for our public launch last October, which is National Disability Employment Awareness Month in the U.S. and ADHD Awareness Month worldwide. We\u2019ve started a Slack channel for Mozillians with disabilities and caregivers, and we\u2019ve started posting some documents and educational resources on Mozilla\u2019s wiki \u2014 things like Stella Young\u2019s TED Talk<\/a> where she coined the phrase \u201cinspiration porn,\u201d and the new autobiography<\/a> from the disability activist Judith Heumann. We\u2019ve also shared our vision statement, which is that \u201cIt\u2019s safe for Mozillians with disabilities to share their disability at work and be seen and treated as whole people,\u201d and we put out a call for ideas about which projects we should work on next.<\/p>\n

My research for company-wide Slack channel posts has been an unexpected source of personal energy and learning, like this terrific quote from an interview<\/a> with the Deafblind human rights lawyer Haben Girma<\/a> that I included in a celebration of the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities<\/a>: \u201cA lot of disabled people are called \u2018inspiring\u2019 by people using the word as a mask for pity. If you feel inspired, ask yourself what you feel inspired to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why was it important to you to start this group?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important for so many reasons, but the initial catalyst was last summer, a few months after I joined Mozilla. I\u2019ve been partially sighted since birth, but I had never been out about that professionally. It didn\u2019t feel safe to be. When you grow up seeing things like the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon, well-intentioned as it is, it creates a stigma that discourages you from talking about disability. I\u2019ve had to ask for accommodations at work a few times, but I always did it in a roundabout way.<\/p>\n

But then in June I had a horrible eye infection. For the first time in my life I truly couldn\u2019t see if I used electronic screens more than 2 or 3 hours a day, and I had to ask for help. Luckily, I had a fantastic boss, Rebecca Weiss<\/a>, who made it safe for me to share. Instead of telling me what Mozilla could do, she asked, \u201cWhat do you need?\u201d We came up with a plan together, and the whole Rally team was so supportive. I was able to keep being creative and work full time while I was recovering.<\/p>\n

That was such an amazing experience, and I thought, \u201cI know I\u2019m not the only person who\u2019s trying to navigate this stuff.\u201d And even beyond Mozilla \u2014 culturally, there\u2019s been a shift over the past 5 or 10 years that has made it feel safer to come forward. The way people think about disability is starting to change; for a lot of younger millennials and Gen Z, it\u2019s completely normal to talk about these things. But it was only last year that I learned about the social model of disability<\/a> versus the medical model \u2014 and I realized how much of my life had been framed by the idea that there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed, rather than that society needs to level the playing field so that everyone has the same access and the same opportunity to do their best work. It seemed like Mozilla was an environment that would welcome, and benefit from, having a group like ours. So that\u2019s when I reached out \u2014 and also when I became officially out, professionally, as a person with a disability.<\/p>\n

How would you describe Mozilla\u2019s current moment in terms of D&I?<\/b><\/p>\n

A lot of companies have good intentions but no follow-through. Here, I\u2019m seeing follow-through all over the place. It\u2019s really encouraging. When I started working in tech in the late \u201990s in the Southeast U.S., I was frequently the only woman in the room \u2014 and gender was the most you could talk about in terms of differences. Years later, I did have one other boss I had to tell about my disability, and he was fantastic and supportive. But culturally, even then it was nothing like it is today. At Mozilla, though, I got the sense right away that Rebecca\u2019s approach to my situation was just how the company operates. Several other MRGs were already up and running before I arrived, and the amount of programming around D&I is inspiring.<\/p>\n

Part of that is the way equity and inclusivity are embedded in our day-to-day work; making the internet accessible to all is literally part of Mozilla\u2019s mission<\/a>. So while I do feel like my work on Rally comes first relative to the MRG, they inform each other. It\u2019s the Rally team\u2019s job to help people understand what data is being collected about them and how it\u2019s being used, which is one of many areas where people in marginalized communities are disproportionately negatively affected. So the more diverse the Rally team is, the more we can tap into those communities, and that will make our product better.<\/p>\n

What are your goals for Disability@Mozilla going forward?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b>Events-wise, we have Disability Pride Month in July. I aspire to the level of programming Pridezilla<\/a> did for their Pride month this past June, and I think we can do it. The members of our other MRGs have been so welcoming; it\u2019s a very intersectional community, so you feel like you\u2019re joining more than just your group. I\u2019d love to help pay that forward, and it\u2019s motivating to see what they\u2019ve already done. They make me think bigger.<\/p>\n

More broadly, our goals are to provide community and networking, to develop and support Mozillians as leaders in the wider disability community, and to connect Mozilla to more people with disabilities. That includes having more people with disabilities on staff, so recruiting is absolutely on our list. Onboarding support is important, too, but to hire people with disabilities in the first place, you really have to make it safe for them to share what they need upfront, as candidates. The Rally team has been working a lot with the People team, and they are so receptive to trying new things. I\u2019m looking forward to talking with them about experiments to attract and retain people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also looking forward to bringing in more members and seeing Disability@Mozilla grow. There have been great conversations in our Slack channel, and at some point we hope to launch a channel we can share with our allies, too. There is so much joy in our group already \u2014 it\u2019s very much counter to the narrative that having a disability is a sad, terrible thing. Really, we\u2019re humans like anyone else, and we just want everyone to have a shot at doing their best work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s our mission at Mozilla to build an internet that includes everyone, regardless of demographics and opportunities, and we\u2019re building our team the same way. We believe our growing list … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,466909,318942,30710],"tags":[466911],"coauthors":[306191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}