Posts filed under 'organizing'
Protest the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon by blogging about the charity model of disability and why the telethon oppresses people on Labor Day!
Jerry Lewis is the host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Annual Telethon, a telethon that occurs every Labor Day to raise funds for cures by using disabled people as posterchildren. Disabled people protest the telethon because of its outdated, negative portrayal of disabilities. These images that the telethon promotes sticks in people’s minds and continually serve as a barrier for disabled people. Disability is not the problem, but rather the attitudes and barriers that society places on us.
What can we do? Protest. Write a Letter to the Editor. Tell people about the charity, medical, and social model of disability. Blog. Kara and I, along with the Disability Activist Collective (website coming soon) are organizing a campaign against the telethon and the charity model of disability. We need bloggers (not only disability bloggers but all! feminist, queer, woc, environmentalist, activists, great time to build alliances) who will agree to write about this! The campaign will work much like a blog carnival and will be heavily publicized in listservs and other sources of media. We encourage you to participate! To participate, please a comment or email us a consciouslycrip@gmail.com We will be announcing the campaign on Thursday via media and will tell them to check the website postings on Monday. The campaign will be posted on Kara’s site.
Here are more links you can check out to find out more:
- “When I sit back and think a little more rationally, I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person … and get on with my life.” –Jerry Lewis on what disability must be like.
- “People with disabilities are proud citizens, not objects of pity! We will not stay in our houses. We will protest the Jerry Lewis Telethon this Labor Day!” —cripcommentary.com
- The Kids Are Alright!
- “Pity? [If] you don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in ya house!”—Jerry Lewis
A template letter the Disability Activist Collective wrote for you to use:
To the editor,
We write in protest of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)’s Labor Day telethon. The telethon is based off of the ableist idea [discrimination shown by favoring people who are not disabled] that people with disabilities are tragic victims. The disability community refers to this as the charity model of disability because it categorizes disabled people as nothing more than the objects of pity.. As people with disabilities, we do not need pity. We want and deserve equal access to public space and services and respect as fully participating members of society.
Many non-disabled people believe that exploiting people with disabilities on TV (through actions such as this telethon) is okay, as long as the funds go to “helping” to find a “cure.” We want the world to hear directly from us. We want the world to know that no amount of money can make pity and discrimination okay. Our society would not promote a cure for gender or race; why is disability any different? We fight for disability to be viewed as a natural part of life and not as something that needs to be changed.
With disability pride!!
Disability Activist Collective
54 comments August 28, 2007
crossing isms
this is something BFP told me a month ago that i’ve been thinking a lot about lately, especially about issues that cross more than one “-ism” (because most times they do; i.e. a lot of the disability issues are also feminism issues and race issues). in the end, we reach the same point— that X needs to change— even though it’s from a different point of analysis because our analysis is going to come from our experience and beliefs. Below stems from a rant I was having about disability being included in woc (women of color) activism:
I think most of the women that I know about came to their understanding of disability through a woc analysis more than a disability rights analysis–so, what I’m thinking of is that in the case of that group C.R.A.C.K.–a lot of woc will look at a disability angle by saying that:
1. there is a historical need by white power structures to control woc’s bodies,
2. this group is continuing that control over woc bodies,
3. they are doing it by using ableist rhetoric (language) that makes a disabled body the worst thing a body could be.Whereas I think that a disablist perspective would probably go the opposite way, right? It would start on the ableist rhetoric and work from there. —BFP
Add comment August 26, 2007
it’s the little things
Mmm yeah, one of my close friends called today to tell me his friend’s girlfriend, who lives in Portland, is queer and into disability activism. Neither of us know this person (Portland is pretty much the other side of the continent) but we cheered over the news and then tried to think of ways that we could explore the intersections [things people share]between the two communities a bit more.
Looking back on today, it’s funny how “little” things like this are huge when you’re in the early stages of things and you don’t know a lot of people with similar interests. : )
This friend and I were interviewed for an article about crips and queers back in June. (Page 14 of the pdf).
3 comments August 11, 2007
Just your everyday queer disabled Corean girl living in the South... I admit to being a 
