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.

(more…)

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Comedy film icon Jerry Lewis was greeted with a standing ovation when he took the Kodak Theatre stage to accept a special Oscar for his longtime charitable endeavors.

… The Academy’s selection of Lewis to receive this year’s humanitarian award has drawn criticism. Some cited his use of the slur “fag” on his 2007 telethon, and during an interview in October on Australian TV, he referred to cricket as “a fag game.” Some in the disabled community also objected to the honor going to Lewis, claiming that he has perpetuated negative stereotypes involving people with disabilities.

Academy exec director Bruce Davis defended the Academy’s decision against such Internet-based protests, saying Lewis “has shouldered the back-breaking job of organizing, and then leading, an unparalleled three-day fundraising effort on behalf of muscular dystrophy sufferers.”

In an early edition of the New York Times, (reprinted in the Rochester, MN, Post-Bulletin):

Jerry Lewis, the 82-year-old comedian who has devoted much of his time to raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, was scheduled to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

But even that was not without complications. As of Sunday morning, advocates for people with disabilities were promising a demonstration in the vicinity of the Kodak Theater to protest the award as standing for an approach that tended to pity more than respect such people.

See also coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

From the New York Times, a cartoon by Barry Blitt that portrays the Republican party as a stereotypical blind beggar, complete with dark glasses, pencils and a tin cup. A sign around his neck says “No vision.”

The cartoon accompanies a Frank Rich column about the economic stimulus package.

Blitt is the cartoonist who stirred controversy last year with his New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as terrorists in the Oval Office.

Connie Schultz, writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says the recent Saturday Night Live skit about Gov. David Paterson reminds her of a philosophy of comedy attributed to David Letterman: “[W]e are free to attack what is volitional, but not those things over which a person has no control.”

An excerpt:

Time for a few deep breaths. The skit was tasteless and unfair, but it did not set the national agenda for the disabled. It might, however, provoke a national conversation about harmful stereotypes.

Schultz won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2005.

(Photo from Cleveland Plain Dealer)

On CNN’s House Call, Dr. Sanjay Gupta says children with Down syndrome are living longer and contributing to the workforce, thanks to early intervention and therapy, but they still face ‘frustrating stereotypes.’ He says some parents who receive prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome feel pressured by their doctors to have abortions.

Statistics show that up to 90 percent of American parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy.

In an interview, Dr. Brian Skotko of Children’s Hospital in Boston says termination pressure by doctors is often caused by misunderstandings on the part of doctors. He says doctors are not adequately trained in delivering prenatal diagnoses and often insert their own personal opinions, overemphasizing negative information or actively urging parents to terminate. Skotko offers information about challenges faced by parents of infants with Down syndrome, and shares resources that are available for them.

Gupta airs an earlier report by correspondent Ted Rowlands (video here) in which parents of a young girl with Down syndrome say they felt their doctors were pressuring them to have an abortion. Another couple, who won’t give their names, say they aren’t ashamed of their decision to abort despite their feeling that “there are a lot of people out there who look down on what we chose to do.
”

Writing in Parenting Magazine, Connecticut writer Hallie Levine Sklar tells how she came to accept her four-month-old daughter Johanna.

She and her husband Jamie had been “ambivalent parents,” self-absorbed and career-driven. When they found out after Johanna’s birth that their baby had Down syndrome, they were sure they wouldn’t be able to handle it.

But as time went by, they fell in love with their baby and realized that they had nothing to fear — “other than outdated stereotypes.” An excerpt:

For now, we’re taking life day by day. And while my days are filled with coos and giggles, sometimes at night, after she’s asleep, I find myself searching the Internet for information about Down syndrome. What I read fills me with dread: talk of increased risk of childhood leukemia, limited job opportunities, early cognitive decline, shortened life spans. It’s at these moments that I race into Johanna’s nursery and pick her up. As I feel her body, warm, plump, and soft against mine, I realize once again that she’s not some statistic in a medical textbook. She’s my baby, our Johanna.

The story is accompanied by galleries of photos of babies with Down syndrome, submitted by readers in honor of National Down Syndrome Awareness Month.

See:

• Photo Gallery – A Special Joy: Beautiful Babies with Down Syndrome
• Photo Gallery — A Special Joy 2: More Beautiful Babies with Down Syndrome
• POLL: If Sarah Palin were a father to special-needs infant son Trig and pregnant teenage daughter Bristol, what would you think about the VP nomination?

Associated Press in the Kansas City Star:

By order of Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, Missouri has dropped the words “mental retardation” from the name of a state agency. Blunt said the change is part of an effort to diminish stereotypes and to show that people with intellectual disabilities are productive members of society.

“The word ‘retardation’ and ‘retarded’ has obviously taken on a demeaning meaning in the popular culture,” Blunt said.

For example, “in polite discussion, we don’t typically use the word ‘retarded’ or ‘retardation,’ so I think it makes sense to remove it from its name,” he said.

Only six states still use the words “mental retardation” in agency names, according to the governor’s office.

The agency will now be known as the Department of Mental Health’s Division of Developmental Disabilities. Previously, it had been the Division of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.