Dear friends,
Happy Disability Pride Month! And a warm welcome to new subscribers—I’m so glad you’re here. While I’ll be back in your inboxes later this month with more thoughts (and a new season of Down to the Struts), I wanted to share a couple of links with you:
The one on disability pride (Only Smart Things)
This month, I was honored to take over Hitha Palepu’s newsletter Only Smart Things to share my thoughts on disability pride month, and accessibility as an expression of love. Head over to Only Smart Things to read the rest.
Access and love have very much been on my mind this Disability Pride Month as my partner and I prepare for the celebration of our wedding. Oftentimes, when people think of accessibility, they focus on things like technology, transportation, employment, and other very important things that are essential to life.
But what is so often forgotten is that disabled people do more than just work and survive. We, like everyone else, have rich, complex lives.
We crave adventure, as well as the mundane everyday joys that make life worth living—from being able to experience nature to enjoying a great meal with good friends at a restaurant. For me as a blind person and those in my disability community, being able to do those mundane everyday joyful things requires a commitment to access. And when that access is afforded, it is perhaps the greatest gift of love we can receive. It is also the love that we, and everyone, deserves.
Alice Wong on voice (from Ten Thousand Things)
I’m so excited to share this amazing episode of Ten Thousand Things from our friends at KUOW in Seattle, featuring a meditation on voice from disability justice activist, oracle, and cyborg, Alice Wong. We’ve uploaded it to the Down to the Struts feed as a bonus episode, so head on over to wherever you listen and check it out.
Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai is an acclaimed podcast that amplifies heartfelt stories from Asian America. You should definitely check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen—and tell them we sent you!
To hear more from Alice Wong, check out Qudsiya's conversation with Alice in season 3, episode 1 of Down to the Struts.
If you're enjoying the podcast (or this newsletter), I have a small favor to ask - please share it with someone you think will love it too. This can mean forwarding this email to a friend, following and tagging us @DownToTheStruts in a post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcast app.
As an independently-produced podcast and small team, your support is crucial to us spreading the word about these important conversations on disability, accessibility, and justice. Thank you for sharing, and thank you for listening.
And finally, mark your calendars: the first episode of season 7 of Down to the Struts is dropping August 8.
Yours in solidarity,
Qudsiya