![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ferineYes, it's my favorite time of the year again - the Jerry "cripples should stay in the house" Lewis Labor Day Exploitathon.
I was on the telethon when I was 21, against my better judgment. Needless to say, it did nothing to improve my views.
What's my beef? The FAQ for StopPity.org says it best:
1. What's wrong with pity?
2. Do you oppose the mission of the Muscular Dystrophy Association?
3. Do you oppose research? Don't we need to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy?
4. Did you create this Web site just because Jerry Lewis used the word "cripple"?
5. What happens when Jerry Lewis' statement about people in wheelchairs is applied to other minority and disadvantaged groups?
6. Wait, didn't Jerry Lewis and MDA apologize?
7. Has Jerry Lewis made other comments about people with Muscular Dystrophy?
8. Hasn't Jerry Lewis raised a lot of money with his approach?
9. What happens to all the money that the MDA raises?
10. Doesn't the MDA support disability rights?
11. Isn't it good to help people with disabilities?
12. How can I give money to help people with MD and not support the telethon?
1. What's wrong with pity?
Pity is a deceptive emotion. When people pity a person or a group of people, it may seem like they care about them and are interested in improving their lives. But beneath this seeming benevolence actually lies rejection, fear, discomfort, and a strong sense of the inferiority of the person who is pitied.
Pity should not be confused with love, compassion and empathy - ways of genuinely connecting with other people, of seeing them as similar to oneself and identifying with their suffering. Love, compassion and empathy recognize their objects as fundamentally equal to the person feeling these emotions. They recognize that, whatever difficulties people might go through, all humans have the ability to be happy and the right to pursue that happiness in their own way. Further, love, compassion and empathy seek to help people achieve personal happiness.
Pity is condescending. It distances those pitied from others. Pity assumes that the pitied can never be happy, equal or free. It confines people to stereotypes. Pity is about pushing people away, even if one throws a coin in their direction.
Think about it. Can you imagine offering a good job, one with responsibility, to someone you pity? Would you trust that person to make decisions that have a real impact on your business, your life and the lives of others? Can you imagine having a person you pity as a real friend, someone you trust, confide in, and go to for advice? Can you really imagine a person you pity as your equal, entitled to the rights and privileges you enjoy? Can you imagine this person's life being as meaningful as your own? Can you see that person as one capable of helping others?
Probably not.
As Gary Presley says in his online article "Pity Party":
o Pity implies inferiority.
o Pity allows real concerns to be dismissed.
o Pity reinforces negatively.
o Pity classifies you as a victim.
o Pity robs you of optimism.
o Pity turns you into a child, to be petted and dismissed.
o Pity debilitates.
o Pity humiliates.
This is why disability rights activists object to portraying people with disabilities in ways that exploit the emotion of pity. This is why the seminal book on the history of the disability rights movement is called No Pity. And this is why disability activists are so outraged at Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon -- because they willfully exploit pity to raise money, and in doing so encourage millions of viewers to see people with disabilities as tragic and childlike, whose only hope for happiness in life lies in being cured and receiving handouts from charities.
Most people with disabilities are capable people - people who are capable of helping others and contributing to society when they are given the opportunity. The Americans with Disabilities Act realizes that with reasonable accommodations, integration into the rest of society, and protection against discrimination, people with disabilities can show that what counts are their abilities.
The Pity encouraged by the Jerry Lewis Telethon is condescending, hurts people with Muscular Dystrophy and should be ended.
2. Do you oppose the mission of the Muscular Dystrophy Association?
No, not generally. We are primarily concerned about the way MDA presents people with disabilities during its fundraising activities.
We do, of course, have other concerns. We question MDA's priorities. The association's emphasis is on research - finding a "cure" for MD. Although we believe research is important, we think more attention should be paid to improving the quality of life today for people with MD. Summer camps for kids, clinics, and help paying for wheelchairs and braces are all valuable services MDA currently supports. We urge the association to expand these programs to include other areas of life.
But the mission of this site is help make MDA (and the public) aware of the damage that the Jerry Lewis Telethon does to people with disabilities. By encouraging pity, the telethon makes it difficult for people to see those of us with disabilities as equals who deserve the same rights and privileges as everyone else. We ask MDA to stop pandering to emotions that hurt people with disabilities.
As Attorney Harriet Johnson put it, "There are ways to do the good without doing the harm. A responsible charity will not exploit the people it's supposed to serve."
3. Do you oppose research? Don't we need to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy?
We support research. Indeed, research into muscular dystrophy (much of it supported by MDA) has definitely improved the lives of people with some forms of MD. What we object to is the idea that the lives of people with disabilities are worthless until they are cured. We all would like to see a cure for every form of muscular dystrophy, but that day is in the idyllic future. (The MDA has been "very close" to finding a cure for almost 50 years.) But people with disabilities face many challenges that can be addressed TODAY.
People with disabilities have many daily concerns. We need to make their lives better by
1) improving access for people with disabilities in society
2) assuring personal care assistance so that people with disabilities can live in our communities and not be forced into nursing homes
3) extending lives through available medical technology such as ventilators (which MDA does not pay for)
4) and removing the cloud of fear and discomfort that surrounds disability, to allow those with disabilities to become full and equal participants in society as employees, friends, volunteers, members of congregations, activists, spouses. . . . wherever their abilities lead them.
4. Did you create this Web site just because Jerry Lewis used the word "cripple"?
No. It is not Mr. Lewis' use of the word alone that has caused outrage. Although many people strongly object to the word "cripple," some people with disabilities actually embrace it and are attempting to reclaim it to denote disability pride -- similar to the way gays and lesbians have reclaimed, and thus transformed, the word "queer."
What DID outrage people with disabilities was Lewis' admonition to "Stay in your house!" The whole history of the disability rights movement (click here to go to the Disability History Project) has been dedicated to allowing people with disabilities to get OUT of their houses, to see the world and participate in it as equals, rather than being shut in and kept out of sight and out of mind. Lewis' alternative, his brand of unmitigated pity, would create second-rate citizens.
For an analysis of the media's misreading of the disability community's reaction to Lewis' statement, see Gary Presley's article More on Martin and Lewis: Two Cases About Disability Rights and Misinformation.
5. What happens when Jerry Lewis' statement about people in wheelchairs is applied to other minority and disadvantaged groups?
To give you some perspective, here are a few examples:
--"You don't want to be stopped by cops just because you're black? Stay in your house!"
--"You don't want to be bashed because you're gay? Stay in your house!"
--"You don't want to be paid less than your co-workers just because you're a woman? Stay in your house!" *
Do you think the NAACP, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, or the National Organization of Women would ask the person making these statements to host a fundraiser for them?
We doubt it.
*(Note: Mr. Lewis has made far more demeaning comments about women than this, he once said that he found no female comics funny, and that he found a woman doing comedy was objectionable because "I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies into the world.")
6. Wait, didn't Jerry Lewis and MDA apologize?
Yes, they did. For the first time ever, MDA and Mr. Lewis apologized for Mr. Lewis' crude remarks.
For years Mr. Lewis and MDA have denied that they encourage telethon viewers to pity people with disabilities. This year, after MDA received hundreds of letters from people with disabilities, they were finally forced to cover themselves and apologize. However, note they have not promised to change the telethon's course. Although MDA reprimanded Lewis, the association is not removing him from his position as spokesman for the organization. Had Lewis been representing any other minority group, we believe he would not be welcomed back to raise money and continue his shameful stereotyping.
7. Has Jerry Lewis made other comments about people with Muscular Dystrophy?
The "stay in your house" statement is not the only demeaning statement about people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities Mr. Lewis has made. He's called children with Muscular Dystrophy "half-persons" and described people with neuromuscular conditions as "mistakes that came out wrong." And these are only his public statements. Every year on the telethon, he uses a vast array of devices to assure that people with neuromuscular conditions are seen as "poor," "abnormal," and completely dependent on him and the money he raised.
8. Hasn't Jerry Lewis raised a lot of money with his approach?
Yes. In fact, he's helped raise over $1 billion for MDA. Some people think that this end justifies Mr. Lewis' approach.
We disagree. This sort of "ends justifies the means" thinking neglects the harm inherent in Mr. Lewis' approach. By manipulating the attitudes of people without disabilities towards those who have disabilities, and encouraging them to both pity and fear, the telethon is helping build attitudes that will further lead to the isolation and marginalization of people with disabilities, and to the perception that those lives are inferior in quality and usefulness to those without MD.
Many people with MD who have participated in the telethon in the past now believe that the experience demeaned and hurt them (see From Poster Child to Protester, by Laura Hershey). Many people with disabilities have found that rejecting and overcoming the implicit messages of the telethon has been crucial to their ability to succeed in the world and to have a positive and realistic outlook on their lives.
9. What happens to all the money that the MDA raises?
We are not certain. Stories and reports vary. To see the results of one person's investigation, click the following link and scroll to the bottom of the page from Laura Hershey's Guestbook. See Laura Hershey's full anti-telethon site here.
10. Doesn't the MDA support disability rights?
MDA's approach to disability rights seems to have two faces - the one MDA reveals to people with neuromuscular diseases and the other that is shown to the general public.
To those with neuromuscular disease, the MDA exhibits a realistic and respectful attitude about disability rights. Its magazine for people with neuromuscular conditions, Quest, does an admirable job of balancing information about research and medical care with positive stories about living in society with a disability. The MDA recently formed its Task Force on Public Awareness, made up of successful adults with neuromuscular conditions, to "advise" MDA on issues of concern for the disability community. (One can only wonder what advice this task force has advised MDA after Lewis' recent statement. They've made no public comment).
However, MDA's apparent ability to understand the disability perspective is what makes its Telethon all the more troubling. Although MDA often uses the above examples as evidence of its support for disability rights, it continues to downplay, and when possible, ignore these issues when it comes to the telethon. There, most of the depictions of people with neuromuscular disorders center around desperate pleas to be cured, while sentimentalizing other aspects of the person's life into tragic, if brave, attempts to live with the unbearable, until that cure is found. This portrayal is unrealistic, and hurts people with disabilities far more than it helps.
11. Isn't it good to help people with disabilities?
In many cases, yes. But help takes different forms.
Sometimes, some people with disabilities do need HANDOUTS.
More frequently and in more cases, people with disabilities need a HAND UP.
But what people with disabilities are fighting for now, and really need more than anything else, is a HANDSHAKE.
The MDA gives some handouts and provides occasional information to people with neuromuscular conditions about how they can help themselves, but MDA continues to fund its operations by using stereotypes that interfere with people with disabilities getting a real "handshake" from society and those around them. This is unacceptable.
12. How can I give money to help people with MD and not support the telethon?
There are a several ways.
Contribute to MDA on any day other than the day of the telethon, and with
your donation note that you would like to see the telethon eliminated or
improved.
Give to the Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation (MDFF) instead. The
Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation is not associated with the MDA or the
Jerry Lewis Telethon and helps people with muscular dystrophy and their
families get the products and services they need to stay active and live
well, such as wheelchairs, braces, wheelchair lifts, van conversions and
respirator care. They do this on a budget far smaller than the MDA's and are
proud that they do not waste their money on high salaries or unnecessary
expenditures like the MDA does. For further information on the MDFF, go to
www.mdff.org, call 800-544-1213, or email mdff@mdff.org.
Lend your support to general disability groups that are fighting to ensure
that people with disabilities can be equals in society. Consider the
following groups:
The National Organization on Disability
ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today)
The American Association of People with Disabilities
I was on the telethon when I was 21, against my better judgment. Needless to say, it did nothing to improve my views.
What's my beef? The FAQ for StopPity.org says it best:
1. What's wrong with pity?
2. Do you oppose the mission of the Muscular Dystrophy Association?
3. Do you oppose research? Don't we need to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy?
4. Did you create this Web site just because Jerry Lewis used the word "cripple"?
5. What happens when Jerry Lewis' statement about people in wheelchairs is applied to other minority and disadvantaged groups?
6. Wait, didn't Jerry Lewis and MDA apologize?
7. Has Jerry Lewis made other comments about people with Muscular Dystrophy?
8. Hasn't Jerry Lewis raised a lot of money with his approach?
9. What happens to all the money that the MDA raises?
10. Doesn't the MDA support disability rights?
11. Isn't it good to help people with disabilities?
12. How can I give money to help people with MD and not support the telethon?
1. What's wrong with pity?
Pity is a deceptive emotion. When people pity a person or a group of people, it may seem like they care about them and are interested in improving their lives. But beneath this seeming benevolence actually lies rejection, fear, discomfort, and a strong sense of the inferiority of the person who is pitied.
Pity should not be confused with love, compassion and empathy - ways of genuinely connecting with other people, of seeing them as similar to oneself and identifying with their suffering. Love, compassion and empathy recognize their objects as fundamentally equal to the person feeling these emotions. They recognize that, whatever difficulties people might go through, all humans have the ability to be happy and the right to pursue that happiness in their own way. Further, love, compassion and empathy seek to help people achieve personal happiness.
Pity is condescending. It distances those pitied from others. Pity assumes that the pitied can never be happy, equal or free. It confines people to stereotypes. Pity is about pushing people away, even if one throws a coin in their direction.
Think about it. Can you imagine offering a good job, one with responsibility, to someone you pity? Would you trust that person to make decisions that have a real impact on your business, your life and the lives of others? Can you imagine having a person you pity as a real friend, someone you trust, confide in, and go to for advice? Can you really imagine a person you pity as your equal, entitled to the rights and privileges you enjoy? Can you imagine this person's life being as meaningful as your own? Can you see that person as one capable of helping others?
Probably not.
As Gary Presley says in his online article "Pity Party":
o Pity implies inferiority.
o Pity allows real concerns to be dismissed.
o Pity reinforces negatively.
o Pity classifies you as a victim.
o Pity robs you of optimism.
o Pity turns you into a child, to be petted and dismissed.
o Pity debilitates.
o Pity humiliates.
This is why disability rights activists object to portraying people with disabilities in ways that exploit the emotion of pity. This is why the seminal book on the history of the disability rights movement is called No Pity. And this is why disability activists are so outraged at Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon -- because they willfully exploit pity to raise money, and in doing so encourage millions of viewers to see people with disabilities as tragic and childlike, whose only hope for happiness in life lies in being cured and receiving handouts from charities.
Most people with disabilities are capable people - people who are capable of helping others and contributing to society when they are given the opportunity. The Americans with Disabilities Act realizes that with reasonable accommodations, integration into the rest of society, and protection against discrimination, people with disabilities can show that what counts are their abilities.
The Pity encouraged by the Jerry Lewis Telethon is condescending, hurts people with Muscular Dystrophy and should be ended.
2. Do you oppose the mission of the Muscular Dystrophy Association?
No, not generally. We are primarily concerned about the way MDA presents people with disabilities during its fundraising activities.
We do, of course, have other concerns. We question MDA's priorities. The association's emphasis is on research - finding a "cure" for MD. Although we believe research is important, we think more attention should be paid to improving the quality of life today for people with MD. Summer camps for kids, clinics, and help paying for wheelchairs and braces are all valuable services MDA currently supports. We urge the association to expand these programs to include other areas of life.
But the mission of this site is help make MDA (and the public) aware of the damage that the Jerry Lewis Telethon does to people with disabilities. By encouraging pity, the telethon makes it difficult for people to see those of us with disabilities as equals who deserve the same rights and privileges as everyone else. We ask MDA to stop pandering to emotions that hurt people with disabilities.
As Attorney Harriet Johnson put it, "There are ways to do the good without doing the harm. A responsible charity will not exploit the people it's supposed to serve."
3. Do you oppose research? Don't we need to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy?
We support research. Indeed, research into muscular dystrophy (much of it supported by MDA) has definitely improved the lives of people with some forms of MD. What we object to is the idea that the lives of people with disabilities are worthless until they are cured. We all would like to see a cure for every form of muscular dystrophy, but that day is in the idyllic future. (The MDA has been "very close" to finding a cure for almost 50 years.) But people with disabilities face many challenges that can be addressed TODAY.
People with disabilities have many daily concerns. We need to make their lives better by
1) improving access for people with disabilities in society
2) assuring personal care assistance so that people with disabilities can live in our communities and not be forced into nursing homes
3) extending lives through available medical technology such as ventilators (which MDA does not pay for)
4) and removing the cloud of fear and discomfort that surrounds disability, to allow those with disabilities to become full and equal participants in society as employees, friends, volunteers, members of congregations, activists, spouses. . . . wherever their abilities lead them.
4. Did you create this Web site just because Jerry Lewis used the word "cripple"?
No. It is not Mr. Lewis' use of the word alone that has caused outrage. Although many people strongly object to the word "cripple," some people with disabilities actually embrace it and are attempting to reclaim it to denote disability pride -- similar to the way gays and lesbians have reclaimed, and thus transformed, the word "queer."
What DID outrage people with disabilities was Lewis' admonition to "Stay in your house!" The whole history of the disability rights movement (click here to go to the Disability History Project) has been dedicated to allowing people with disabilities to get OUT of their houses, to see the world and participate in it as equals, rather than being shut in and kept out of sight and out of mind. Lewis' alternative, his brand of unmitigated pity, would create second-rate citizens.
For an analysis of the media's misreading of the disability community's reaction to Lewis' statement, see Gary Presley's article More on Martin and Lewis: Two Cases About Disability Rights and Misinformation.
5. What happens when Jerry Lewis' statement about people in wheelchairs is applied to other minority and disadvantaged groups?
To give you some perspective, here are a few examples:
--"You don't want to be stopped by cops just because you're black? Stay in your house!"
--"You don't want to be bashed because you're gay? Stay in your house!"
--"You don't want to be paid less than your co-workers just because you're a woman? Stay in your house!" *
Do you think the NAACP, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, or the National Organization of Women would ask the person making these statements to host a fundraiser for them?
We doubt it.
*(Note: Mr. Lewis has made far more demeaning comments about women than this, he once said that he found no female comics funny, and that he found a woman doing comedy was objectionable because "I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies into the world.")
6. Wait, didn't Jerry Lewis and MDA apologize?
Yes, they did. For the first time ever, MDA and Mr. Lewis apologized for Mr. Lewis' crude remarks.
For years Mr. Lewis and MDA have denied that they encourage telethon viewers to pity people with disabilities. This year, after MDA received hundreds of letters from people with disabilities, they were finally forced to cover themselves and apologize. However, note they have not promised to change the telethon's course. Although MDA reprimanded Lewis, the association is not removing him from his position as spokesman for the organization. Had Lewis been representing any other minority group, we believe he would not be welcomed back to raise money and continue his shameful stereotyping.
7. Has Jerry Lewis made other comments about people with Muscular Dystrophy?
The "stay in your house" statement is not the only demeaning statement about people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities Mr. Lewis has made. He's called children with Muscular Dystrophy "half-persons" and described people with neuromuscular conditions as "mistakes that came out wrong." And these are only his public statements. Every year on the telethon, he uses a vast array of devices to assure that people with neuromuscular conditions are seen as "poor," "abnormal," and completely dependent on him and the money he raised.
8. Hasn't Jerry Lewis raised a lot of money with his approach?
Yes. In fact, he's helped raise over $1 billion for MDA. Some people think that this end justifies Mr. Lewis' approach.
We disagree. This sort of "ends justifies the means" thinking neglects the harm inherent in Mr. Lewis' approach. By manipulating the attitudes of people without disabilities towards those who have disabilities, and encouraging them to both pity and fear, the telethon is helping build attitudes that will further lead to the isolation and marginalization of people with disabilities, and to the perception that those lives are inferior in quality and usefulness to those without MD.
Many people with MD who have participated in the telethon in the past now believe that the experience demeaned and hurt them (see From Poster Child to Protester, by Laura Hershey). Many people with disabilities have found that rejecting and overcoming the implicit messages of the telethon has been crucial to their ability to succeed in the world and to have a positive and realistic outlook on their lives.
9. What happens to all the money that the MDA raises?
We are not certain. Stories and reports vary. To see the results of one person's investigation, click the following link and scroll to the bottom of the page from Laura Hershey's Guestbook. See Laura Hershey's full anti-telethon site here.
10. Doesn't the MDA support disability rights?
MDA's approach to disability rights seems to have two faces - the one MDA reveals to people with neuromuscular diseases and the other that is shown to the general public.
To those with neuromuscular disease, the MDA exhibits a realistic and respectful attitude about disability rights. Its magazine for people with neuromuscular conditions, Quest, does an admirable job of balancing information about research and medical care with positive stories about living in society with a disability. The MDA recently formed its Task Force on Public Awareness, made up of successful adults with neuromuscular conditions, to "advise" MDA on issues of concern for the disability community. (One can only wonder what advice this task force has advised MDA after Lewis' recent statement. They've made no public comment).
However, MDA's apparent ability to understand the disability perspective is what makes its Telethon all the more troubling. Although MDA often uses the above examples as evidence of its support for disability rights, it continues to downplay, and when possible, ignore these issues when it comes to the telethon. There, most of the depictions of people with neuromuscular disorders center around desperate pleas to be cured, while sentimentalizing other aspects of the person's life into tragic, if brave, attempts to live with the unbearable, until that cure is found. This portrayal is unrealistic, and hurts people with disabilities far more than it helps.
11. Isn't it good to help people with disabilities?
In many cases, yes. But help takes different forms.
Sometimes, some people with disabilities do need HANDOUTS.
More frequently and in more cases, people with disabilities need a HAND UP.
But what people with disabilities are fighting for now, and really need more than anything else, is a HANDSHAKE.
The MDA gives some handouts and provides occasional information to people with neuromuscular conditions about how they can help themselves, but MDA continues to fund its operations by using stereotypes that interfere with people with disabilities getting a real "handshake" from society and those around them. This is unacceptable.
12. How can I give money to help people with MD and not support the telethon?
There are a several ways.
Contribute to MDA on any day other than the day of the telethon, and with
your donation note that you would like to see the telethon eliminated or
improved.
Give to the Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation (MDFF) instead. The
Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation is not associated with the MDA or the
Jerry Lewis Telethon and helps people with muscular dystrophy and their
families get the products and services they need to stay active and live
well, such as wheelchairs, braces, wheelchair lifts, van conversions and
respirator care. They do this on a budget far smaller than the MDA's and are
proud that they do not waste their money on high salaries or unnecessary
expenditures like the MDA does. For further information on the MDFF, go to
www.mdff.org, call 800-544-1213, or email mdff@mdff.org.
Lend your support to general disability groups that are fighting to ensure
that people with disabilities can be equals in society. Consider the
following groups:
The National Organization on Disability
ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today)
The American Association of People with Disabilities