#5SmartReads - April 6, 2023

Qudsiya is the creator and host of the podcast, Down to the Struts, which explores disability, design, and intersectionality. She’s excited to share Season 6 of the show, dropping into podcast feeds over the next few months. You can subscribe to Qudsiya’s newsletter, Getting Down to It, for updates. When she’s not podcasting, Qudsiya loves organizing adaptive sports adventures through the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes.

“Work Until You Die” Is Not a Retirement Plan (The Nation)

Like so many people across the disability community, I was absolutely gutted by the sudden loss of disability rights leader and icon, Judy Heumann. I had the privilege of interviewing Judy on my podcast—an experience I will never forget. Her kindness, generosity, and good humor reflect the values I cherish most deeply about this community that I am so proud to be a part of. But why should people like Judy have to “work until they die”?

This powerful piece explains how lack of adequate home and community-based care services, asset limits for the receipt of disability benefits, and Medicaid cuts converge to force disabled people into lifelong precarity as they struggle to remain in their communities, rather than being relegated to institutions. If Judy didn’t work tirelessly up until her death and was forced into an institution as the only means of receiving proper care, she never would have led the movement that has paved the way for so many of us who came after her to live and thrive in the world around us.

This cannot be the reality anymore.

Gaming Gets More Accessible for People with Disabilities (North Jersey Media)

I’m not a gamer, but this article about disability and video game design was absolutely fascinating. For many disabled people who encounter enumerable mobility barriers, video games offer an opportunity to connect with millions of people around the world through play, and gaming companies are increasingly interested in upping their accessibility game, which is exciting.

Reading this article, and interviewing game designer, May Wong, about how she and her team at the startup gaming company, Interior Night, built access into their debut game, As Dusk Falls, filled me with nerdy excitement about the new worlds we can create through inclusive play.

The Unwinding of Medicaid Coverage Will Be Difficult for Disabled Americans, Leave More People Uninsured (Teen Vogue)

I’m thrilled that disability justice oracle, Alice Wong, now has a regular column in Teen Vogue. With her usual no-nonsense clarity, Alice drills down on the consequences of the roll-back of a pandemic-era expansion of Medicaid access for disabled people, particularly those who rely on personal care in order to live in their communities.

Starting this month, millions of people will have to undergo Medicaid eligibility re-determinations, and hundreds of thousands will lose coverage as a result. Alice also highlights the endless burdensome procedures, involving complex forms and vigilant advocacy, necessary to file for Medicaid renewal every year, and the potentially deadly effects if something goes wrong with the process and coverage is suspended.

This is a horrific failure of our healthcare system, and deprives us of the gift of having people like Alice and countless others living and thriving among us.

Harm Reduction or Abolition (Ijeoma Oluo: Behind the Book)

I am a huge fan of Ijeoma Oluo, and highly recommend her newsletter to anyone who is not already a subscriber.

I wanted to lift up this particular meditation on the difference between harm reduction and abolition, as it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about, both in my role as a lawyer and a disability justice activist. Because the structures of racism and ableism are so powerful and entrenched, it’s easy to think you are moving towards liberation, when you might actually just be spinning your wheels trying to reform existing structures.

I’ll leave the explaining to Ijeoma, who articulates the issue far better than I can:

The Long History of Black Street Vendors in DC (DCist)

I moved to Washington DC in 2014 from New York City, and among the many things I missed about NYC when I relocated to the nation’s capital was the rich culture of street vending. I leave you with this wonderful account of the history of black street vendors in DC, centered around the story of a 19th century Black street vendor named Alethia Tanner.

In the present day, the DC city council has introduced a bill that would decriminalize unlicensed street vending and create more zones where black and immigrant community members can bring culinary delights to neighborhoods across DC, helping local cultures and communities thrive.

This certainly isn’t a solution to the gentrification and other market forces that have been driving black and immigrant communities out of DC for decades, but it would be great to have more of the colors, flavors, and textures of our country’s cultural diversity more present in the city, and in cities all over the country, for that matter.