Helen Keller statue unveiled at U.S. Capitol
October 7th, 2009
From CNN, USA Today On Politics blog:
A bronze statue of Helen Keller was unveiled today in the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers praised her as an inspiration and a reminder of the value of people with disabilities.
The statue depicts Keller, who lost her sight and hearing to illness as an infant, standing at a water pump as a 7-year-old. It is meant to signify the moment when Keller deciphered meaning in language, when teacher Anne Sullivan spelled “W-A-T-E-R” into one of the child’s hands as she held the other under the pump.
Keller went on to earn a degree from Radcliffe College and the women’s branch of Harvard University, and became a celebrated author and champion of causes including women’s suffrage.
The statue, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, will “always remind us that people must be respected for what they can do rather than judged for what they cannot.”
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said the statue carries the message that “all of us, regardless of any disability, have a mind that can be educated, a hand that can be trained, a life that will have meaning.”
(Photo from USA Today)
Our RSS Feed
October 9th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Laurie: You can research the eugenics movement to find out more. You may be surprised by what you uncover.
Pamela: I agree with your comments, but I do consider her support for eugenics a significant shortcoming.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Laurie,
It seems Helen Keller was an advocate for those with CERTAIN disabilites … not all. Ms Keller wrote a piece supporting a Dr Haiselden who promoted and practiced eugenics. She was speaking of a particular case that involved the Dr. …He refused to treat a disabled baby that was deemed “defective.” A portion of Ms Keller’s response as featured in the New Republic December 18, 1915 pp 173-174:
I have found this specific passage at the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities website in the document listed below on page 8-9: http://www.mnddc.org/parallels2/pdf/99-MRI-MLW.pdf
Another source: The Radical Lives of Helen Keller by Kim Nielsen can be found if you google “Helen Keller eugenics.”
October 8th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
It could be that Helen Keller’s remarks in 1915 reflect the same disability hierarchy that exists today. We honor her for her accomplishments and may tend to overlook her shortcomings even though she has been quoted recently in many discussions of the history of eugenics.
After all, she is rather a strong representative of the group of individuals who achieved the far reaches of human potential to prove that those with disabilities who may have been dismissed or left to die in infancy do have great use to themselves and the world.
A woman of her accomplishments might have believed that her mainstream peers who fell far short of their own potential might hold their places in society only due to the same ‘puny sentimentalism’ that judges their human lives to be of value, and even sacred, too.
After all, women at that time did not even have the vote – so she was a ‘second class citizen’ even without being blind and deaf, no matter what her accomplishments. Women did not get the vote until 1920.
In 1887, Annie Sullivan gave Helen Keller the key but it was Helen Keller herself who unlocked and walked through the door so many of our children have had to shove open in their time. She has my respect and gratitude.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I’ve never heard of Helen Keller making any such suggestion as you state, Jessica. The things I’ve read by her inspire those that have disabilities. Could you point to where she has advocated what you suggest she did? Thanks.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Why do we praise Helen Keller and hold her in such high esteem when she was one to advocate for infanticide of babies deemed defective?
October 7th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Yesterday evening we struggled to get 4 criminal charges dismissed in municipal court. The charges were filed against a 17-year old student with mental retardation and various other disabilities who had been placed in an inappropriate severely restricted placement at school and had been arrested not for what we think of as crimes — but for “disturbing the peace,” etc. Not real crimes — just the criminalization of disability. Most of the school personnel did not resemble Anne Sullivan.
His unemployed mother was told that if she could not pay all the fines that might be levied against her, she would be put in jail. The municipality had no chart for the penalties.
Thank goodness the charges were dismissed and we will never know how much the charges might have been. For another younger student in a neighboring town, four similar “criminal” charges — criminalizing disability — required bonds of $2,400.
I know Helen Keller never imagined an America like this.