Hello, all! Cripchick checking in—Thanks to the lovely Feministe folks here, I’ll be guest-blogging for the next two weeks.
A little bit about myself:
I identify as a queer, disabled, radical woman of color interested in an intersectional approach to ending oppression. I recently started blogging in the last year and am amazed at how much it has changed my life (very interested in using the internet for community-building). Even though I sometimes struggle with the disability community, the Disability Rights Movement is home for me and is where I came to understand why it’s important to organize. Most of my writing here will centralize disability as a feminist issue.
And on that note (nice transition, eh?), I wanted to share last year’s Labor Day blog carnival around the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon with you. Every year, Jerry Lewis hosts a big telethon [fundraising event where people call in by phone to give money] to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Many disabled people have protested this fundraising method because of its pitiful poster children images. These images are designed to make you feel sorry for disabled people and/or fear disability. As many often point out, it makes it really difficult to go to a job interview if an organization representing people like you has told your boss you needed pity, not equal opportunity or justice. These images of pity and charity infiltrate every part of our life.
Many disabled people also protest the telethon because they believe that the focus should not be on curing— or eradicating— disability but improving access to society and accepting people as they are. An example of this is in Jerry’s 1990 Parade Magazine article where he talks about the hardships we face with inaccessibility. Jerry’s solution to this problem is a cure for disability while the disability community’s solution to this would be to make accessible bathrooms.
You can check out the Telethon Protest Blog Carnival at Kara’s place and read more about anti-telethon efforts at Ragged Edge Magazine and Laura Hershey’s Crip Commentary website.