And Now We Hear From "Stoppity" and other Telethon Protestors
from Justice for All, a Free Service of the American Association of People with Disabilities ( www.aapd-dc.org.org, www.jfanow.org)
More on MDA's Labor Day Telethon & Protest
As anticipated, my JFA posting of apologies by Jerry Lewis and MDA President Robert Bennett prompted many responses from JFA subscribers. Some respondents expressed outrage that I/JFA would even recognize these apologies, especially since it is not the first time such negative exchanges about "pity" have taken place.
The JFA Email Network has two main roles. One is to issue alerts and calls to action: situations and issues where AAPD and its allies in the disability rights movements urge the disability community to support a specific course of action. This includes opposition to the long-standing use of "pity" in telethon fundraising. A second function of JFA is to share information with subscribers that can provide context for disability community priorities and debates. In the case of the MDA Telethon, I thought it important that people knew of the Jerry Lewis and MDA apologies -- irrespective of any judgment about those apologies -- because it is part of the dialogue around the quote that is fueling much of this year's activity. Being aware of these apologies can help individuals respond to the Telethon more effectively. The letter introducing the apologies can help in understanding what some segments of the disability community believe. For those who are supporting the protest along with AAPD, the apologies and expressed support for the telethon can help in refining arguments that anticipate potential counter-points from reporters and various telethon supporters.
The following article by Rev. Rus Cooper-Dowda is offered as another contribution to the dialogue about MDA's Telethon. Although it was not submitted as a response to my previous post, it does a great job in capturing a common theme: that the recent Jerry Lewis comment is just one of many in a long history of using demeaning comments about people with disabilities to raise money.
For an update on the Telethon protest, see the Press Release from StopPity that follows. AAPD encourages JFA subscribers to sign the petition at www.stoppity.org
Jonathan Young, JFA Moderator
Jerry's Giant Checks vs. Disability Reality Checks: The Labor Day Telethon
Rev. Rus Cooper-Dowda (uudre@aol.com)
The first weekend in September giant checks will stalk the land again, as they do every year. No, it won't be some sort of "War of the Worlds" coming. Yes, it will be the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) telethon hosted by Jerry Lewis. Again. He will talk, weep, moan and sing about "Jerry's Kids." Companies, large and small, will give him giant bank checks on the air. But another newer tradition will also be taking place in front of many telethon sites around the country. These are becoming an ever bigger reality check on the MDA's "beg to pay" ritual.
I am referring to the annual protests against Mr. Lewis' "Pity-thon" by "Jerry's Orphans," many of whom are former MDA poster children. These adults, parents and children are a gutsy group. Some have disabilities. Some do not. All seek a more respectful, fuller life for the disabled community. That's the entire mission of the group. Right there. Mr. Lewis' years of pity-pitching has made that goal harder, not easier, to achieve.
Here is evidence of that from my Telethon file over the years:
"Dystrophic illness...this curse that attacks children of all ages." -Jerry Lewis
"Telethons treat people with disabilities without dignity, showing us poster children who wind up dependent on help from adults and having no future." -Ed Roberts, late activist with a disability
"Lord knows nothing's less dignified than sitting in a wheelchair." and "...sitting in a steel prison...." -Jerry Lewis
"My wheelchair isn't an imprisonment -- it's a tremendous vehicle of liberation." -Carol Gill, activist with a disability
On thinking about using a wheelchair: "I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I may be a full human being in my heart and soul. Yet I am still half a person." -Jerry Lewis
"People with disabilities are portrayed as helpless and hopeless objects of charity in order to pull the public's guilt strings. Adults with disabilities commonly lead normal lives and want to be productive members of society..." -Marilyn Golden, activist with a disability
"My kids cannot go in the workplace. There's nothing they can do." -Jerry Lewis
"It was news to me that people with MD have nothing to offer in the workplace. I certainly hope no employers heard that. I guess, too, that this full-time job I have been doing for 12 years is a mirage." -Mike Ervin, activist with a disability
"If you found out you had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, you might as well put a gun in your mouth." -Jerry Lewis
"The disability rights movement and the telethon pity parade are on a head-on collision course." -Marta Russell, activist with a disability
"...Pity. You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in your house." -Jerry Lewis
"The image is really counterproductive. If you work, that's the stereotype you have to fight, that's ingrained in every employer's mind: poor little pathetic child." -Maria Caudill, activist with a disability
"If it's pity, we'll get some money. I'm just giving you facts." -Jerry Lewis
"...We are way beyond pity..." -Alana Theriault, activist with a disability
People with disabilities know that prejudice and hurtful old thinking cannot be legislated away. But, there are many positive ways to respond to the MDA's negative imagery.
Don't watch the telethon. Tell your local station ahead of time why you won't. Give directly to the MDA and not during telethon time. Tell them why you are choosing to do that. Also tell the MDA that Jerry Lewis has got to go. He has had years to change the message and has chosen not to do so. Their mailing address and phone number are at their website. (http://www.mdausa.org)
Look up the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada (MDAC) and see how fundraising can be successfully done without pity.
Check out the Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation (MDFF). It was founded by people with MD and their families. They provide the same kinds of services as the MDA. Their pitch is based on empowerment. (http://www.mdff.org) Their spokepeople are rock musicians who have had MD since childhood.
Compare Lewis' MDA pity pitch to that of Easter Seals with their focus on discrimination and architectural barriers; United Cerebral Palsy with their emphasis on careers, education and family; and the United Negro College Fund with its focus on the wrongness of wasted human resources. Tell other people about your conclusions.
Do your own pitching. Pitch in wherever you can to help enforce existing disability access law and to lower the disabled community's 90% unemployment rate.
It isn't: "Jerry's Kids" vs. "Jerry's Orphan's" here.
It is:
pity vs. accessible employment,
pity vs. accessible public transportation,
pity vs. accessible public services, and
pity vs. accessible and full community involvement.
In a television interview once, I said (while my kid squirmed in my lap), "The worst day of the year to be a person with a disability is during the Jerry Lewis telethon. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an employee...I am not one of Jerry's juveniles."
The author Charles Pellegrino wrote in GHOSTS OF THE TITANIC that "We must never follow people into anything we believe may lead to evil." New choices are called for because the prejudice Mr. Lewis stokes leads to such badness. The method the MDA uses to earn those giant checks costs way too much for the people they are meant to help. Time for Jerry to be bounced for Insufficient Respect.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Taylor Hines
www.StopPity.org
contact@stoppity.org
Disability Activists to Protest Jerry Lewis Telethon!
Washington, DC, August 30, 2001- With less than one week remaining until the Labor Day Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, disability activists have announced their plans to protest the event. Lewis, who has repeatedly outraged activists with frequent offensive comments and his "pity" approach to raising money on the telethon, has drawn renewed fire recently for responding to telethon protesters by saying, "If it's pity we'll get money. . . . Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"
In response, activists have set up www.StopPity.org, a web site dedicated to removing Lewis from his position as chairman of the MDA, and asking MDA stop using misleading stereotypes of people with disabilities in its fundraising. Included on the site is a petition, located at www.stoppity.org/petition.php, requesting MDA to make these changes. The site also aims to educate visitors about the disability community's objections to Pity, and the Telethon's part in promoting it. In less than three weeks since its launch, over 550 people have signed the StopPity.org petition -- many of them people with disabilities who have left strong comments about the telethon and the Pity it promotes. In addition, major leaders in the disability community, including Justin Dart, Andrew Imparato and Alan Reich have made comments on the telethon for the site at www.StopPity.org/comments.php
"We hope that people around the country will hear and understand the message of this campaign," said Taylor Hines, the founder of the site, who has a neuromuscular disease covered by MDA. "The pity Lewis and the Telethon promote hurts all of us in the disability community. It encourages others to see us as pathetic, childlike and useless and thus interferes with our quest to obtain real equality and respect in society. People with disabilities must speak out for ourselves this Labor Day, or Jerry Lewis will speak for us."
Activists are also planning to get out on the street and protest the Telethon this Labor Day. Laura Hershey, a former MDA posterchild who has led protests of the telethon over the last nine years, has set up a website dedicated to promoting and coordinating Labor Day protests at http://www.cripcommentary.com/LewisVsDisabilityRights.html.
Said Hershey:
"At this point, we are expecting protests in at least a dozen cities throughout the U.S., including Denver CO, Washington DC, Chicago IL, Atlanta GA, Charleston SC, Salt Lake City UT, western Massachusetts, northern California, southern California, and other communities as well. In each of these areas, activists will be sending the message that pity is a form of prejudice; that people with disabilities should not be forced to appear pathetic in order to have access to necessities like medical care and adaptive equipment; and that the Jerry Lewis Telethon is no longer an acceptable fundraising tool. People with disabilities want justice, not charity. We want rights, not pity. Protesters will include people of all abilities and disabilities.
"The MDA Telethon conveys the idea that disability is a terrible tragedy, rendering the person a 'victim' with nothing to contribute to society. This Labor Day weekend, the disability community will counter that lie, and tell our own truth -- that we are proud and worthwhile people who are unwilling to accept second-rate citizenship in the name of 'helping Jerry's kids.'"
Any protestors across the U.S. planning or looking to participate in a Labor Day protest should contact Hershey at LauraHershey@compuserve.com. All are encouraged to sign the petition at www.stoppity.org/petition.php.
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