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.

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.