Ad Council "Crutches" PSA

The Ad Council has a campaign called "Don't Almost Give" and a series of public service announcements that includes one called "Crutches." Here it is with the other five ads at their website -- it's the second one. And here it is at YouTube:



Description: The 30-second ad shows a outdoor cement staircase and a man on wooden crutches slowly climbing the stairs one step at a time. He climbs about 6 steps during the brief ad. The male voiceover: "This is a man who almost learned to walk ... At a rehab center that
almost got built ... By people who almost gave money ... Almost gave ... How good is almost giving? About as good as almost walking."

I heard about this ad on a disability listserv, but eeka at One Smoot Short of a Bridge has already written on the condescending attitude. She sums it up very well:

Sure, the guy deserved to have better care, and presumably could have recovered more fully. But the inaccurate and pitying language needs to go. What's he doing right there in the film clip? He's walking. He's getting places. He's living his life. Even if the reason for his disability was something preventable that we should be fighting to change, the way to accomplish this isn't by describing the way he gets around as "almost walking." I suppose it might be different if he were a real individual who personally describes his disability in this way, but since he's an archetype, it comes across as describing people with disabilities as "almost" doing things. This kind of view can be dangerous, because when we're all sitting around a table, if we're stuck on the idea that one of the people "almost" walked to the meeting, we're going to unconciously feel that he has less to offer than people who fully got to the meeting, even though we're all there in the end.

Another insult and apology

From the Washington Post. Jerry again, during yesterday's telethon:

The 81-year-old showman -- prowling about the stage during the live telecast Monday in Las Vegas -- was goofing around and dodging his cameraman, then went into a ramble about imaginary family members.

"Oh, your family has come to see you," he said, speaking to the camera and gesturing toward thin air.

"You remember Bart, your older son," he said, and motioning toward another unseen character, "Jesse, the illiterate f-----.

"No," Lewis said, quickly stopping himself before continuing.

Jesse is, apparently, the gay relative. I'm guessing he rarely comes to Lewis' imaginary family functions when the bigot himself is there. After all, Bart gets to be "the older son" and he is, well, illiterate. . . .

Here's CNN with the video clip. I can't imagine what he'd have said when he got to the sad, crippled little imaginary grandchild with MD.

Wait. Yes, I can.

But it all seemed to work out well for everyone in the end.

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President Neil G. Giuliano criticized Lewis this morning:

“Jerry Lewis’ on-air use of this kind of anti-gay slur is simply unacceptable,” said Giuliano. "It also feeds a climate of hatred and intolerance that contributes to putting our community in harm's way. Our nation’s media have done an admirable job this year holding public figures accountable for their use of anti-gay slurs, and I hope they continue to do so with Mr. Lewis."

Giuliano said that GLAAD is contacting Lewis’ representatives today to request a meeting with him. "We want to sit down with him, help him understand why these words are so hurtful, and give him an opportunity to raise public awareness about the destructive impact of these kinds of anti-gay slurs, even more so in attempted humor.”

And by this afternoon, all was forgiven after Lewis issued an apology for a "bad choice of words."

GLAAD responded:

“GLAAD thanks Jerry Lewis for his swift and direct apology for this incident,” stated Giuliano. “We join millions of Americans in applauding the important work of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and wish MDA and Mr. Lewis much continued success in their efforts.”

Whew! I'm happy that's over!

He didn't mean it. He's a nice guy. He would never purposely say anything rude about cripp-- I mean, gay people. Everyone carry on! Nothing to see here but a little annual nationally-televised pity party for some dying kids.

Yes, the road to hell is paved, but that doesn't mean it's accessible

Good intentions are tricky. With philanthropy, you can get so invested in your own self-righteous helpfulness that you fail to see you aren't respecting the objects of your charity and their needs. On a personal level that could be called narcissism. On a broader level, it is the annual MDA* Telethon in the United States, hosted by comedian Jerry Lewis.

The telethon has historically relied on pity to sell the need for a cure and Lewis is the unabashed champion of portraying disabled people as pathetic victims and unemployable "half-persons" for the cause. He's also completely unapologetic about demeaning disabled people to raise cash. Never mind that pity never helped any disadvantaged group of people gain their own place in the world. Never mind that he's raised billions for that still-elusive cure while disabled folks languish in institutions and remain largely unemployed because of societal barriers maintained by attitudes like his.

Actor Michael J. Fox, who lives with Parkinson's disease and raises funds for research on it, once said "I feared pity because pity is a step away from abuse." Fox has also stated that his life goes on without a cure, and he's been his own spokesperson, forthrightly showing his impairments while engaging the public thoughtfully and open-mindedly on the related politics of stem-cell research. He's been anything but a pitiable victim, even though he is fighting the clock.

Fox knows pity is harmful, and he's not wrong about it's relationship to abuse. For one thing, a life that is considered hopeless without a cure is held rather cheap. But more to the point on good intentions, when told repeatedly over the years by many former MDA poster children that the telethon experience is demeaning and damaging, Lewis shifts directly from pity to verbal abuse. Over and over again.

Don't believe it? Here's one vague apology the MDA issued to try to shield itself from the damage it's spokesperson causes**, even as they keep him on the job. The offensive remark the apology doesn't really mention is when Lewis said: "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"

Jerry Lewis has good intentions, you say. The money is for a good cause so it doesn't matter what message brings in the dough. Not every disabled person agrees -- we're a very diverse lot -- but I say the price of pity is far too high. Jerry Lewis has good intentions? I know where he can go with them.

Image descriptions:

The banner at the top of this post is for this Blog Against the Telethon event. It reads, "Until There's a Cure... There's a Telethon: Blog Against the Telethon -- Abolish Charity and Cure Mentality". The text is bold over a black-and-white photographic background of a little blonde girl's face close-up at right and Lewis in a tuxedo pointing a finger toward her downstage at left.

The second image is a color photograph of a person in a manual wheelchair wearing a black t-shirt with bold pink lettering that reads "Piss on Pity" while holding a sign that reads "Dump Jerry". It's taken in 2003 by Tim Wheat of MCIL.

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* Muscular Dystrophy Association

** Other damage? In 2000, Jerry Lewis said this at a comedy festival: "A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world." The Chicago Sun-Times report says that he apologized later to avoid a backlash in fewer telethon donations. Here's the humorous response from several female comedians.

Anti-telethon blogging

Sigh. It's that time of year again. Miss Crip Chick and Kara Sheridan are leading the online protest against this tiresome Weekend of Celebrating Pity through the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon by asking bloggers to write about charity, pity, the medical model of disability, the tyranny of the belief that we all need a cure, and the asshattery of Jerry Lewis. That's for tomorrow, Monday, the United States' Labor Day.






Image description: A yellow banner with black type reads "SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2007, join the campaign against the MDA telethon, write against ableism, charity & medical model of disability, see: http://crip.power.com for more information"

I'd encourage everyone to discuss this. Even if you're unsure of what it's all about or how you feel about it, it's past time everyone was aware that telethons are problematic and contribute to the oppression of disabled people.

Update: Norwegianity readers, welcome! My post for the blogswarm is here. The main page for the blogswarm entries is at Kara's place.

Movie review: Emmanuel's Gift

I didn't expect to like this 2005 documentary, the story of Ghanaian Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, born without a tibia in his right leg and one of the two million people in his country living as a second class citizen.

Why did I dread watching this flick? Yeboah "overcomes adversity." That tired inspirational trope that dominates stories of disabled people's lives. He rides a bicycle across Ghana. I've never really understood athletic endeavors meant to be attention-getters for some cause. Go pound some nails instead, okay? Do some activity with actual value beyond it's celebrity. And the film is narrated by Oprah Winfrey, who has never before uttered the words "disability rights," though she has no problem exploring the medical aspects and social misfortunes of impairment. Oh, Winfrey's had guests who happen to discuss ableism and crip rights -- Chris and Dana Reeve (to some degree) and William H. Macy* (eloquently) are celebrity examples. Never once did I see her take that bait and follow the thread of social injustice or call for people to demand change.

So I had reservations aplenty.

But here's the thing: In Ghana, where an astounding one in ten citizens have some sort of disability, infanticide of visibly disabled infants is common. If they aren't killed or hidden away shamefully, disabled Ghanaians become beggars on the street. That is the range of options.

So a guy with one working leg riding a bicycle across the nation -- 380 miles -- and calling for disability rights and opportunities had an incredible impact on a society that thought it had everyone in their rightful place.

When Yeboah was born, his father saw him and promptly abandoned the family. His mother was encouraged to kill her son, but instead she sent him to school and taught him he deserved all the privileges and opportunities nondisabled people have. When Yeboah had trouble getting the other schoolkids to let him play with them, he ingeniously saved his money (no easy feat) and bought his own soccer ball -- a rare commodity. The price of playing with it was letting Yeboah join in the game using his one full-grown leg and crutches.

With his mother ill and medical bills to pay, young Yeboah shined shoes for money. He left his village and family behind to go to Accra, the nation's capital, to earn $2 per day shining shoes instead of just $1 per day back home. So, he's a teenage boy on crutches shining shoes far from home to support his family -- mom and two younger siblings, I believe. Yet after his mom dies and he applies to the Californian Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), he asks not for cash but for a bicycle because he's thinking big. He wants all Ghanians to see that disabled people can do more than be street beggars.

Yeboah's bike ride makes him a national hero and celebrity. The film follows his visit to America, where he competes in some athletic events and decides on amputation of his limb so he can wear a prosthesis. He returns home without his crutches, but with political momentum. We see him meeting with tribal chiefs, disabled beggars whom he encourages to reach for more, and most poignantly, the father who abandoned him.

The film's slick editing interferes with the story, but the celebrity created by Yeboah's bike ride forces public officials to reconsider national disability policy and respond, as one canny bureaucrat notes, that ''we may have underestimated the urgency of the matter." Returning to the United States, Yeboah meets with fellow Ghanaian and then-U.N. President Kofi Annan, and also receives grant money for his goals of helping other disabled Ghanaians and starting a wheelchair basketball team for the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

In a historic meeting at King's Palace in Kibi, Ghana, where because of superstition and stigma no disabled person has ever before been invited, King Osagyefuo praises Yeboah and throws his support as leader of 2.5 million people in Eastern Ghana behind efforts to improve the lives of disabled citizens. Says King Osagyefuo:

“The society and country are not set up to take care of handicapped people. Emmanuel has tenacity, endurance and he has a strong heart to do the things that he is doing and to use what he has done as an example for other disabled people. We will support him and tell the government that they are also part of us—they may be physically challenged, but mentally and intellectually they are the same as us.”

The King's statements are nothing short of revolutionary in a culture where disability is commonly believed to be the karmic result of immorality.

Yeboah hopes to become a member of the Ghana Parliament one day. In the meantime, he's married -- to a nondisabled Ghanaian woman, which is apparently a feat of disability acceptance in itself due to cultural stigmas -- and has a daughter. The film fails to show these last and most ordinary achievements in his life, but Yeboah's story shines through any directorial shortcomings to show what a single person can achieve when he is taught his own self-worth.

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* IIRC, Macy appeared on Oprah after the release of Door to Door, his award-winning made-for-tv true story of Bill Porter, a man with cerebral palsy who confounded all expectations by becoming a top door-to-door salesman. Macy had become a national ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and when prompted by Oprah about his volunteer position he spoke eloquently and at length specifically about disability prejudice and discrimination.

Cross-posted at Echidne of the Snakes

The betrayal of ability

So here's some YouTube video of a Brazilian Candid-Camera-type show where pranks are pulled on unsuspecting passersby. This five-and-a-half minute clip shows a man in a clunky manual wheelchair at the corner of a busy urban intersection. After enlisting someone to help push him across the street, the man stages a tumble out of his chair in the middle of the crosswalk. People rush to help, dragging him fully across the street and attempting to help him into the chair again. At that point the man stands up on his own, revealing that the whole drama and his disability are a prank. Over and over again, throughout the clip, these tricked pedestrians turn violent with the actor, and several times he runs to avoid real injury and assault.



There are several voices in Portuguese commenting during the course of this, laughing at the events, but all I can think of is the anger of these nondisabled people assuming they are helping, assuming things about some stranger that turn out not to be true. There isn't enough time in these encounters for the actor to reveal much of his true intent and the violence is instantaneous upon learning the man can stand and walk. I can't help wondering how someone with legitimate impairments would be treated in the exact same situation, given that we sometimes get assistance thrust upon us unwanted, and given that not all people in wheelchairs are completely unable to stand or even walk.

Various NPR disability stories

Label falls short for those with mental retardation by Joseph Shapiro. Excerpt:

The term mental retardation was supposed to be an improvement. But the fight over language keeps going on. That becomes clear if you ask those with mental retardation what they think about that description.

"I hate that word — mental retardation," says Thelma Greene of Washington, D.C. "I wish they would change that one, because it sounds so institutional, like you can't do nothing for yourself and you're depending on somebody else to do everything, from putting on all your clothes down to your shoes. And that's not right."

"Retardation is not the good word," Anthony Vessels, also of Washington, says in agreement.

"I never did like that word 'retardation' or 'mental retardation,' adds Victor Robinson. "Because everyone has called people names about that. And no, none of my friends did like that name or any other name, being called 'stupid, dumb.' And it hurts a person very much."

"Poster Child" Emily Rapp about her life and her book, Poster Child: A Memoir

A look at an autistic savant's brilliant mind from Talk of the Nation, about Daniel Tammet's memoir Born on a Blue Day.

Saturday Slumgullion #23

Flea at One Good Thing answers an email with questions about raising a child with obsessive compulsive behavior. Scroll down to the "December" heading for just this part if you must.

An old post by Chris Clarke at Creek Running North on "Wheelchair Invisibility":

I got Herb situated at the section where his chair could slide underneath, and we chatted for a while until the bright college kid waiter came to take our order.

Twenty bucks says that any disabled folks reading this know exactly what happened next.

What part of "Nothing About Us Without Us" don't they understand? Kicking the gimp off the panel in Camden, UK.

A Scottish charity launches ad campaign comparing folks with Down Syndrome to pets. Their rationale seems to be that since more Britons give to animal charities than charities for the disabled, this will prick people's consciences. Or something.

In Sydney, Australia, "Have Wheels, Will Travel. It's a Joke."

A story of disability and marriage in Nigeria. Cringe-worthy English and attitude here, but hey, a detailed story of living with a disability in Nigeria:

Mr. Pam narrated that after the accident, there were various forms of challenges especially from his parents and few friends who saw no reason in marrying a lady that could not make use of her legs, adding that his insistence to forge ahead with the relationship was followed by denial and rejection from his family and some friends.

Pam stated that after the accident, he always realised that she could not use her legs anytime because she could no more escort him as she used to do, stressing that in spite of the unfortunate situation, nothing changed concerning her character and attitude towards him.

Performer Claire Cunningham on her dancing and artist's philosophy:

"The idea I put forward was about finding a performance style that used the abilities created by my disability - the upper body strength I have as a result of using crutches. To me that meant exploring aerial techniques, because, like with my crutches, I'd be bearing my weight on my arms. I thought I would concentrate on using equipment like ropes, slings or maybe trapeze. See if there were ways to make my crutches part of that equipment. Maybe devise a performance piece. And in the process, through Waterbaby - the company I've formed with my colleague Linda Payne - perhaps create movement training programmes for physically disabled individuals."

"For every fatality in Iraq, there are 16 injuries." An op-ed on the war from the Hartford Courant.

New Jersey may remove ableist language from state constitution. The language in question was added by amendment in 1844: "No idiot or insane person shall enjoy the right of suffrage."

A special ed student is told by his school principal that he can't compete in a spelling bee because he doesn't "have the brains":

The controversy at the East Flatbush school began in December when Lamarre, who won his class spelling bee, was declared the school's winner after no other class held a competition.

Lamarre got a laminated "school champion" certificate, but he says that later that day, Brown told him he couldn't move to the next level because he was in special education classes.

Looking for Harriet

For the many people googling Harriet McBryde Johnson because of her Christmas Day editorial in The New York Times, she's mentioned on this blog here, here, here, here and here.

International Day of Disabled 2006

December 3 -- today -- is the International Day for Disabled Persons as declared by the United Nations some years ago. At the very least, the declaration obligates countries and organizations around the world to take note once a year of the state of disabled persons in their midst. Here's a sample of that news:

From The Jerusalem Post: Disabled Arabs suffer extreme difficulties. Most notably, the women, of course:

Arab males with disabilities face extreme difficulties, the study reported, but women with disabilities are socially isolated, unable to marry and, in many cases, confined to the home by their own sense of shame, social pressure and the family's reluctance to be seen with them in public.

"Some of the women with disabilities are illiterate, which limits their access to information and increases their dependence on relatives.

Among Beduin women in the Negev who have disabilities, the situation is even bleaker," said the report.

"The situation with disabled women in the Arab sector disturbed me every time it came up," Avital Sandler-Loeff, who authored the report along with Yiffat Shahak, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. "Women with disabilities are forced to stay at home and are really not involved at all in the community," she said.

A little less balanced report (italics mine):

Arab children more likely to be disabled

The proportion of children in Israel's Arab community who are blind, deaf or have physical or developmental disabilities is double that of the Jewish population, according to the first report on disabilities in the Arab population in Israel. The report is being released today by the Joint Distribution Committee-Israel in honor of International Day for Persons with Disabilities today. The authors attribute the high incidence of disability to the high rate of inbreeding, genetic diseases, childbearing at an advanced age and a high incidence of accidents.

"Inhuman treatment" of the disabled in rural India:

Girdher says, cases of physical abuse of the disabled are rampant in rural area citing cases where a visually challenged girl was raped in Dahod and another woman with visual impairment in the same district was rejected by her physically challenged fiance.

Also, chaining physically challenged people is common in Unjha and Makhtupur, says Girdher adding that in some other areas like Chandroda, polio patients are called “mastans” and revered by family with the belief that the person has absorbed all the ill fate of the family through his disability. “During our study, we have also come across a number of mentally challenged people who have been abandoned by families near Piradata Mazar in Mehsana district.” These are made to take mud baths by the people of the mazaar, he says. “After a thorough situation assessment in districts of Gandhinagar, Anand, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Mehsana, Anand, Baroda, Katch and Surendranagar, we realised that while on one hand there is very low level of awareness regarding issues pertaining to disability among both the civil society and the health workers, on the other hand, stigma attached to disability is proving a great hindrance in their rehabilitation. For many, disability is only orthopaedic. They are not aware of other forms,” he says.

Angola's Social Welfare minister pledges to help disabled folks reach fuller partnership in society. This could be a news report from the U.S. or anywhere, but it's not easy to find Angolan news on the disabled. Also, Malta.

In Islamabad, Pakistan, a reporter gamely notes that this year's International Day theme is "E-Accessibility," which is certainly important for any person to be part of this global society, but it also highlights the enormous disparities when life is so direly about survival for so many disabled people around the world. Likewise, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

E-Accessibility is the theme for IDDP 2006 but here in Malaysia, if the disabled simply have basic accessibility, they will be genuinely delighted and the nation will be one step closer to eventually being a developed country.

A Kuwaiti report on governmental observance of the day reveals typical tensions between focus on charity and a more evolved understanding of what disabled people need from their communities.

In a poignant report on war-caused brutalities and disability in Sierra Leone, a Reuters report shows the connection between violence and disenfranchisement from society:

When Bambay Sawaneh came face to face with the man who had ordered rebel fighters to cut off both his forearms three years earlier, he asked a baying crowd not to lynch his attacker.

"I told the people if they kill him it will not make my hands come back," said Sawaneh, who recognised the man during a physiotherapy session to help him use prosthetic limbs in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown.

In what became a trade-mark mutilation during the country's 1991-2002 war, the rebels first tried to cut off the then 15-year-old Sawaneh's arms with an axe. But the blade was too blunt to cut through the flesh and bone, so they resorted to using cutlasses -- local parlance for machetes.

"I have forgiven him," Sawaneh, now 22, said of the man he once swore to kill, wiping sweat from his brow with his left stump after a bible class in the steamy coastal city.

Thousands like Sawaneh have learned to come to terms with the horrific acts inflicted on them and their families by the notorious Revolutionary United Front rebels, who financed their campaign of murder, rape and mutilation partly by the trade in gems that inspired Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Christian magazine Inspire talks about some success in changing attitudes in the Middle East and North Africa.

In Goa, India, an article on how attitudes yet need to change.

The Palestine News Network reports on the toll the ongoing struggle with the state of Israel puts on people living in the Gaza Strip:

And one is hard pressed to find a Palestinian man without a limp, or a bullet or shrapnel lodged somewhere in his body, or an arm that was broken and pushed back into the socket without medical care. And then there are the generation whose bodies were stiffened and twisted in their formative years. Although functional, there are those who after spending their “seventeenth year in a cupboard” in Israeli prison as an Aida Refugee Camp man did, do not move properly and are in constant discomfort.

The Rehabilitation Sector of the Union of NGOs issued its annual statement on Saturday. “The disabled Palestinians affected by such circumstances is the largest of all other sectors. More than 6,000 of the Palestinians injured during this Intifada are suffering from a disability.”

Lest we think the disability divide is mainly in developing countries, Canada's Toronto Star reports on "frightening gaps" in the quest to make disabled people more equal in society:

This week, the Ontario Association of Food Banks reported that people with disabilities, who represent 12.4 per cent of Canada's population, make up more than 20 per cent of those who need their services.

Not surprising perhaps when you consider that the employment rate for people with disabilities is about half that of their non-disabled peers, another frightening gap.

An excellent report from Jakarta, Indonesia, discusses the link between disability and poverty:

The World Bank estimates that 10-12 percent of the world's population, or over 600 million people, have some form of disability. Some 80 percent of them are living in poor countries (WHO, 2006).

People with disabilities are highly over-represented among the poor; about 82 percent of them live below the poverty line. They have varying access to networks and resources and economic power. Their disabilities don't only affect them, but also their families, social networks and their general environment.

Poverty is considered both a cause and a consequence of disability. Poverty is a cause of disability because the poor often lack resources to prevent malnutrition, and access to adequate health services that may prevent disabilities. Poverty is a consequence of disability since people with disabilities often lack access to education, health services and income generating activities and are often deprived of social and economic rights. It is estimated that only 2 percent of people with disabilities enjoy adequate access to basic needs. These factors contribute to high levels of vulnerability and social exclusion, and preserve the vicious circle between disability, vulnerability and poverty.

In Beirut, Lebanon, planned celebrations were cancelled because of the "volatile situation there," but discussion of the social vs. the medical model of disability was nevertheless discussed, as well as the war's impact on disability:

The World Health Organization asserts that 10 percent of Lebanese are disabled. Additionally, 83 percent of all disabled are unemployed - almost five times more than the able-bodied rate. Six hundred were disabled in this past summer's war, and since the cessation of hostilities cluster bombs have disabled a further 150 civilians and continue to mutilate the limbs of more.

"Is it too much to ask to go to school, work and live a dignified life?" Laqqis asks. "I know that there are too many problems to worry about in the government but we shouldn't always be pushed to the end."

Disabled folks participated in a Lebanese marathon Sunday and said it was an example of social equality that they were part of the event.

In Cyprus, disabled people staged a protest to demand their rights:

The Cyprus Paraplegic Organisation yesterday held a demonstration outside the House of Representatives in protest against what they say is the failure of the state to recognise their rights and needs.

“Instead of celebrating International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3, we have decided this year to go ahead with this symbolic demonstration to express our displeasure at the way people with heavy disabilities are treated by the government and the Parliament,” read an announcement issued by the Organisation.

According to the announcement, Parliament had rejected all of the organisation’s suggestions during the recent alteration of the Law for Public Benefits and Services, while the government has repeatedly ignored disabled people’s problems.

As for the United States, I couldn't find any actual formal celebrations or reports about this being a UN-declared day for disabled persons. Just a governmental press release sent out in advance.