Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and The Case Against Disability Rights. By Mary Johnson. 296pp.
$16.95. Softbound print book and electronic text formats available
FROM THE INTRODUCTION Why was there so little support for disability rights? It was true that the organized disability rights movement avoided the media. Its leaders felt they had good reason. Most stories about disability were inspirational features about disabled people who had overcome personal affliction with a smile and a bundle of courage, and disability rights advocates said this was not the story they wanted to convey. They seemed to believe, perhaps with justification, that they could not convince reporters or editors of any other approach. While they were silent, others were not -- particularly those who disliked the idea of granting rights to yet another group. The case against disability rights had the same "you can't make me!" free-market histrionics one always got from social conservatives when it came to civil rights issues. The difference was that in this case, almost no liberal groups spoke out in support of disability rights. Almost everyone instinctively felt that rights was simply the wrong lens through which to view the disability situation. "The first object of a wise but concerned policy cannot be to make people with serious disabilities move as if they did not have them," wrote The New York Times. MORE. |
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WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING . . .
"Everyone cares for disabled people, right? What they don't care for are genuine civil rights for disabled people. MARY JOHNSON tells the tortuous, enraging story of how Congress enacted a law that instead of protecting against discrimination has turned 'the disabled' into a political punching bag." --William Greider, national affairs correspondent, The Nation. A gripping read and an awakening. -- Lucy Gwin, editor, Mouth magazine. "Imagine an African American's voting rights withheld until he or she proved 100 percent African American descent, or a woman having to sue her employer to get a women's restroom in the workplace. Outrageous as those scenarios seem, their like is commonplace in the lives of the disabled, Johnson says, because of widespread misinterpretation and misapplication of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She points out numerous flaws in the law, beginning with its title (she prefers that of the British analog, the Disability Discrimination Act) and including the fact that it is enforceable only via lawsuit, putting rights seekers in an adversarial position, and that it contains an escape clause permitting noncompliance if accessibility causes a business "undue hardship." The disabled person's difficulties aren't, however, confined to the law, and the roots of conflict over disability rights reach deep into personal prejudices and national values. Bit-by-bit Johnson deconstructs arguments against disability rights from the likes of Clint Eastwood as well as more ordinary folk, and she constructs powerful reasons why we all benefit from inclusion." --Booklist |
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