Many people are surprised to learn that is a long standing movement of people with disabilities, including former “Jerry’s Kids,” who oppose what Jerry Lewis has done with the Annual Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Among the most prominent disability activists who have spoken strongly against Lewis’ pity-based approach are Evan Kemp, former head of the EEOC under the Bush Sr. Administration, attorney Harriet McBryde Johnson, Mike Ervin, who founded the activist group Jerry’s Orphans, and Laura Hershey, leading the current campaign to protest a “Humanitarian” award being presented to Lewis at the Oscars on Sunday, February 22, 2009.

Like them, I have a neuromuscular disability. I was raised to believe that Jerry Lewis was a friend of people like me. My mother volunteered for the Telethon every year. I was never an official state or national “poster child,” but was often put in front of a local TV camera during the Telethon where I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In my late teens, I began talking about my education and plans for work, trying to put forward a positive disability image, but I know now that my two minutes on camera was twisted and overwhelmed by everything Lewis said and did.

As an adult, I finally met others who had shared this experience and learned to articulate the “trouble with Jerry.” Some of us started advocating for change in “nice” ways. I was a “Corporate Member” for three years, going to MDA’s Annual Meeting and lobbying the influential Board Members to challenge the status quo and to put someone like Evan Kemp on the Board of Directors. After hitting Lewis’ brick wall for a few years, I welcomed the founding of Jerry’s Orphans, and have worked with groups in Los Angeles, Nashville and Chicago, organizing annual Telethon protests.

Some of the tremendous efforts to communicate our message of disability pride are highlighted on the web site created to organize the protest of the humanitarian award: www.thetroublewithjerry.org. A petition opposing the award details some of the most offensive things Lewis has said:

In 1990, Lewis wrote that if he had muscular dystrophy and had to use a wheelchair, he would “just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person.” During the 1992 Telethon, he said that people with MD, whom he always insists on calling “my kids,” “cannot go into the workplace.

There’s nothing they can do.” Comments like these have led disability activists and our allies to protest against Jerry Lewis. We’ve argued that he uses the Telethon to promote pity, a counterproductive emotion which undermines our social equality. Here’s how Lewis responded to the Telethon protesters during a 2001 television interview: “Pity? You don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!”

This Sunday evening, Rochester disability activists will show our solidarity with others around the country, including the group that will be gathering in Los Angeles at the Oscars to deliver our message of disability pride. Here are the details of the Rochester protest:

What: Carry signs & pass out Leaflets at Oscar Party at George Eastman House
Where: 900 East Avenue, Rochester (but use University Ave. entrance)
When: Sunday, February 22, 2009, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

For more information about the Rochester protest, contact: Diane Coleman at (585) 546-7510 or dcoleman@cdrnys.org