#5SmartReads - June 1, 2022

For those who live in the United States - have you called your senators and representatives (state and federal level) to advocate for common sense gun laws (in the Senate - Manchin-Toomey bill and Congress - red flag laws)? Have you called TODAY? Please do, and please do every single day until we have common sense gun safety laws on the books and the ATF has the leader and resources it needs to enforce them.

Disabled workers are struggling to get jobs, even in a labor shortage (Axios)

We don’t think about people with disabilities nearly enough. We barely consider some needs in how we design buildings and homes, and we tend to erase their needs when developing safety plans in school in case there’s a shooting, or in the clothes we design and sell, or transportation.

Another erasure is in the job numbers - and when so many businesses are able to offer flexibility and working from home, we would think it would be a booming market for people with disabilities - and we would be wrong.

This matters, both because people with disabilities deserve the same dignity and comfort many of us take for granted. AND because of COVID (and the impact of long COVID on so many), we have more disabled people than we did before.

If you or your company is hiring, it’s important to take the time to think about how inclusive your recruiting and retention efforts are, and how people with disabilities are represented and given the tools they need to succeed in your company.

At a micro-level, it also means including creators who are disabled into your feed and seeing them for who they are - amazing, smart, people who love the things we live and value. I highly recommend following Heather, Shashi, Sarah, and Qudsiya (a #5SmartReads contributor).

Modern Royal Romance Novels Show a Darker Side of the Fairytale (Town & Country)

As someone who spent the better part of last week lost in contemporary romances to cope with the news (the F1-inspired Dirty Air Series and two of Kate Canterbury’s backlist titles), I appreciate authors who weave real issues like mental health disease and trauma into their happily ever afters.

Royal romance is certainly one of my favorite sub-genres in this space, and every author mentioned here - Tracey Livesay, Alyssa Cole, Sonali Dev, and Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan - are among those I recommend often and loudly.

Reading romance has singlehandedly improved my quality of life - the books make me really happy (though The Idea Of You did destroy me for a solid few weeks) because both people in the relationship are loved for all their multitudes, the characters are complex and nuanced, and it celebrates love in all its messy glory.

I’m grateful to Emily to writing this incredibly smart piece and celebrating this genre, which deserves our respect as well as our dollars.

A new clinic offering abortions is set to open in Wyoming, despite a looming ban (NPR)

…and the facility has already been targeted by pro-forced birth activists and set on fire.

But that hasn’t deterred Julie Burkhart, one of Wellspring Health Access’ founders and a tenacious, brilliant activist bringing reproductive healthcare to abortion deserts - starting in Casper, Wyoming. And they’re preparing for the day Wyoming’s abortion trigger ban is activated.

You Don’t Know Jay Sean (The Juggernaut)

If you went rushed on the dance floor when the first chords of “Down” hit the speakers back in 2009 (and hell, still do it today at weddings of your peers)….well, I want to be friends with you. This was me, then:

Today, I’m picking the Peloton workouts featuring Down or Do You Remember on the playlist, because I’m still fangirling over Jay Sean 13 years later.

But there’s more to Jay than these two songs, or his early music as a part of the underground Asian music scene in England, or being one of the first South Asian recording artists to become mainstream.

He’s also bloody brilliant on TikTok - both in the videos he creates, and that he’s using the platform to find and sign new talent to his label.

As a fan, I really love seeing the different sides of the artists I follow and how they evolve, and I am thrilled to see Jay Sean kill it - online, on stage, and soon to be behind the camera.

Baby, I’m still down, down, down, down, down.

South Asia’s intense heat wave a ‘sign of things to come’ (Associated Press)

Transitioning from one South Asian bringing the heat to the region feeling it…hello, climate change.

Cheesy transitions is how I cope in this day and age. Just humor me, please.

There’s nothing funny about this article. It’s actually tragic and a sign of worse things to come unless we take action (and yes, we are all tired of taking action with little to show for it).