Advocates protest award for Lewis
February 23rd, 2009
From the [Newark, NJ] Star-Ledger:
Writer/filmmaker Simi Linton was joined by dozens of activists near the Kodak Theatre red carpet in Los Angeles Sunday to protest the presentation of a humanitarian award to Jerry Lewis at the Academy Award ceremony.
Carrying signs carrying slogans like “Respect Not Pity,” and “Don’t Reward Bigotry,” they made the case that Lewis has done more harm than good as an advocate for people with disabilities.
“Jerry Lewis says everyone needs to raise money for these pitiable people,” explained Linton, 61, who was injured in a car accident 36 years ago. She is author of a memoir, “My Body Politic.” “We aren’t pitiable people. We are strong and resourceful and the most powerful people in the world.”
… “What we want is access and opportunity,” said Lawrence Carter-Long, 41, of New York, a former poster child for United Cerebral Palsy.
Carter-Long continued, “We don’t need a pat on the head. We certainly don’t need to be called somebody’s kid if we’re 50 years old. People who have disabilities have always been thought of as childlike and unable to take care of themselves. If you feed into that idea, we’re never going to get the jobs, we’re never going to make our way in this country because people aren’t going to see us as productive.”
… “The association does very little for people who have the disease,” said Mike Ervin, 52, of Chicago, who has MD and runs an organization called Jerry’s Orphans. “It’s not like they’ve developed a treatment or a medication that improves people’s lives. There’s something very inadequate, something very dismissive, something very shallow about the concept of Jerry. This is a person who has serious problems with disability that are indicative of a deeper problem in the whole society.”
The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon is credited with raising more than $2 billion in donations since 1966. A cure for muscular dystrophy has not been found.
Earlier posts here.
(Photo from the [Newark, NJ] Star-Ledger)
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February 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Where did all that money that Mr. Lewis raised over the years go? If it didn’t go toward funding research for a cure for M.D. then exactly what do “muscular dystrophy charities” do with their donations?