#5SmartReads - March 2, 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.

To Mask or Not to Mask? COVID-19 Experts Share Their Advice (NPR)

This is perhaps the most thoughtful, nuanced set of perspectives on masking in this new phase of COVID that I’ve seen.

Personally, because I’d prefer not to have COVID again (I’ve gotten it twice now), I’m concerned about the prospect of long COVID, I do not want to expose those who are immune-compromised in my life, and its nice not to contract other respiratory illnesses as much, I continue to mask on public transportation, in grocery stores, and other crowded indoor locations where there is a likelihood of encountering many unvaccinated people.

Unlike in the past, we do have some element of personal preference when it comes to masking, but the common sense considerations in this article offer some helpful tools to assess what works best for you and others in your community.

Nurses at GW Hospital Are Organizing a Union (DCist)

There’s been a nationwide shortage of qualified nurses, due in part to burnout across healthcare professions after the height of COVID, and also because healthcare workers are tired of working in challenging conditions and not earning enough to recover from the economic fallout of the pandemic.

As I’ve written before, the crisis of care in our country requires us to look on both sides of the equation to identify solutions that honor the dignity of care workers and receivers of care alike (of course this is not a binary—we all give and receive care in equal measure). Labor organizing can be a powerful tool to achieve this balance, and this article tells a story that is playing out in healthcare systems across the country.

Your Superbowl Chicken Wings Have a Surprising Origin Story (Vox)

With apologies for any trauma resulting from the Super Bowl reference, this article is absolutely fascinating and definitely worth a read. Who knew that the massive chicken farming industry in the U.S. grew out of a single clerical error?

Though it may not have pushed me into vegetarianism, this piece certainly reshaped how I think about food production in this country, particularly the environmental, health, and labor consequences of mass producing meat.

For Someone Like Me, Power Outages Are Not an Option (Mother Jones)

Speaking of the environment, natural disasters like wildfires and storms are only going to become more frequent, and will continue to result in power outages that will endanger the lives of countless disabled people who rely on machines to live.

This is why, as Alice Wong powerfully points out, disabled people must have a seat at the table when it comes to disaster planning. I’ll leave you with the words of the late disability justice activist, Stacey Park Milbern on this score: “A lot of activism work is trying to shift people to think about interdependence rather than independence. I believe if you view the needs of the most marginalized people impacted by an issue, then ultimately the entire community benefits.”

New York Times Story on John Fetterman Gets Disability All Wrong (MSNBC)

Eric Garcia puts strong words to the amorphous blob of rage that courses through me every time I read articles by nondisabled journalists getting it all wrong on disability.

The NYT piece that Garcia references is this ableist coverage at its worst. John Fetterman is an example of what is possible when we get a little creative about what political representation in the halls of Congress looks like. His “special needs” are what everyone deserves, and what should be baked into the design of workplaces—access.

Access is what Fetterman (and all disabled workers) need so that they can bring their talents and ingenuity to the workplace every day. Inaccessibility in the halls of Congress has a long history, and if you want to learn more, check out my interview with Senate staffer Stephanie Deluca.