Good riddance to the Labor Day telethon

[KamaAina]

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/good-riddance-to-the-labor-day-telethon-1.10797771

As a person with muscular dystrophy, I'm relieved to know that this will be the first Labor Day weekend of my adult life without a muscular dystrophy telethon....

I spent many past Labor Day weekends joining other people with disabilities in protesting the telethon. We objected to the telethon's damaging narrative that depicted disabled people as nothing more than helpless victims. It implied that as long as we remain disabled, we have nothing to offer or contribute -- that our only hope was a cure....

I found this message to be not only insulting but also destructive. By pandering to pity, the telethon nurtured the very stigma of helplessness in which disability discrimination is rooted. It undermined the hard work of disability rights activists who have fought for decades to debunk that oppressive stigma.

These activists correctly portray people with disabilities as a community engaged in a struggle for our civil and human rights. They put forth the message that disabled people have much to offer, and that it is everyone's responsibility to create a society that welcomes and accommodates us as we are.

[still_one]

1. Did the funds received from the telethon help or hurt?

[KamaAina]

3. Some people with MD are conflicted about that

They want the leg braces and stuff, but not the treacly pity.

[still_one]

5. It is a shame that feedback wasn't either listened to or solicited

[Mosby]

2. DMD isn't just a disability, it's a death sentence.

[KamaAina]

4. The author is, I guess, in his mid-forties

I met his partner at an ADAPT disability rights action in DC a few years ago. Of course, he may have a different type of MD than Duchenne.

But Duchenne now has a non-MDA fundraising organization of its own.

http://www.endduchenne.org/

[Pastiche423]

6. It makes me so happy that the

Pity the Poor Cripples marathon will be no more.

I am especially thankful that Mr. Jerry "Pity, if you don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in ya house!" Lewis will no longer be able to spew his sick words.

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/extra/jerrylewis052401.htm