Protest Pity! Sign the Petition!
PROTEST PITY!
Deaf people, Autistic people, people with Muscular Dystrophy, and people with ALL disabilities are joining forces to take a stand against PITY. At best, pity may trigger a momentary impulse to donate a few dollars to charity–for example, via Jerry Lewis’ annual US telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. But the pity remains entrenched long after the fund raising events are over. People who pity people with disabilities usually never think to challenge the assumption that we should be passive recipients of charity. They don’t think to question why we don’t have better access to full participation in society. Fueling pitying attitudes undermines progress toward social equality for people with ALL disabilities. This same pity also harms Deaf and Autistic people, whether or not they consider themselves as people with disabilities.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will give Jerry Lewis its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on February 22, 2009. Disability rights activists object to this award. During his decades of hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry Lewis has perpetuated negative, stereotypical attitudes and PITY toward people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities.
Read and sign the petition protesting this undeserved award at: http://www.petitiononline.com/jlno2009/petition.html
Join the Facebook Group that is coordinating efforts to protest the award: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40538392681
Read this blog post on the petition campaign; on the important difference between “pity” and “empathy”; why Jerry’s brand of pity is destructive; and why real empathy is more likely to lead to human rights: https://reunifygally.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/protest-pity/
Read what other bloggers say about the award, and why the disability community is enraged, at https://reunifygally.wordpress.com/bloggers-protesting-pity/
Please circulate this text freely. Thank you.
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ReunifyGally 
Jerry Lewis is really a homophobic and racist person!
My deaf mother dearly love him and hate Dean Martin.
I prefer Dean Martin, because he is really a sincere person unlike Jerry Lewis, egositical and self-loving person.
Jerry Lewis used to be very popular with deaf people before the 1980s, because they enjoyed his physical comedic timings.
RLM
robert mason
10 January 2009
[…] more about Jerry Lewis’ humanitarian award and the petition campaign protesting against it at https://reunifygally.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/protest-pity-sign-the-petition/ or by following the links at […]
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