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EXTRA! August, 2001   How the fight began Jerry's 'Stay in your house!' remark O'Dwyer's PR newsletter on the controversy

Telethon 2001 Activists Call on Disability Community to Protest Jerry Lewis Telethon Telethon 2001 -- what happened Washington, DC -- As the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon approaches, disability activists nationwide plan to protest the event. Lewis, who has repeatedly outraged activists with frequent offensive comments and his "pity" approach to raising money on the telethon, fired up activists anew last May when he said on national television, "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!" Activists have set up www.StopPity.org, a web site dedicated to removing Lewis from his position as chairman of the MDA, and asking MDA stop using misleading stereotypes of people with disabilities in its fundraising. Included on the site is a petition, located at http://www.StopPity.org/petition.php requesting MDA to make these changes. The site also aims to educate visitors about the disability community's objections to Pity, and the Telethon's part in promoting it. In less than three days since its launch, over 100 people have signed the StopPity.org petition -- many of them people with disabilities who have left strong comments about the telethon and the Pity it promotes. The campaign has the ambitious goal of getting 2000 signatures by Labor Day of this year to deliver to MDA and its sponsors. "We hope that disability advocates across the country will get the word out about this campaign," said Taylor Hines, the founder of the site, who has a neuromuscular disease covered by MDA. "The pity Lewis and the telethon promote hurts all of us in the disability community. It encourages others to see us as pathetic, childlike and useless and thus interferes with our quest to obtain real equality and respect in society. We must speak out for ourselves this Labor Day, or Jerry Lewis will speak for us." Activists are also calling on all people with disabilities to get out on the street and protest the Telethon this Labor Day. Laura Hershey, a former MDA posterchild who has led protests of the telethon over the last nine years, has set up a website dedicated to promoting and coordinating Labor Day protests at http://www.cripcommentary.com/LewisVsDisabilityRights.html . Hershey says organizers are expecting protests in at least a dozen cities throughout the U.S., including Denver CO, Washington DC, Chicago IL, Atlanta GA, Charleston SC, Salt Lake City UT, western Massachusetts and in California. "In each of these areas, activists will be sending the message that pity is a form of prejudice; that people with disabilities should not be forced to appear pathetic in order to have access to necessities like medical care and adaptive equipment; and that the Jerry Lewis Telethon is no longer an acceptable fundraising tool," says Hershey. "People with disabilities want justice, not charity. We want rights, not pity." "The MDA Telethon conveys the idea that disability is a terrible tragedy, rendering the person a 'victim' with nothing to contribute to society," she explains. "This Labor Day weekend, the disability community will counter that lie, and tell our own truth -- that we are proud and worthwhile people who are unwilling to accept second-rate citizenship in the name of 'helping Jerry's kids.'" Protestors accross the U.S. planning or looking to participate in a Labor Day protest should contact Hershey at LauraHershey@compuserve.com . People interested in protesting in the Washington D.C. Capitol Area should contact Hines at Taylor_Hines@netzero.net . All are encouraged to sign the petition at http://www.StopPity.org/petition.php Read about how the fight began Jerry's 'Stay in your house!' remark O'Dwyer's PR newsletter on the controversy WHAT DO YOU THINK of this issue? Click to tell us. Back to table of contents