Disability Rights Activists Demand Jerry Lewis Stop the Pity Routine

Suzanne and Chris Colsey talk with television news reporters

A dozen people with disabilities picketed the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Telethon outside the Libertyland Creative Arts Building. Activists in Memphis and around the U.S. are asking that Lewis be removed from his position as chairman of the MDA, and asking the MDA stop using misleading stereotypes of people with disabilities in its fundraising.

Demonstrators in front of the Memphis Telethon

"If it's pity we'll get money," said comedian Jerry Lewis in a national television interview. "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house." Both the MDA and Jerry Lewis apologized for those comments, yet the annual telethon did nothing to modernize their fundraising model.

"[Jerry Lewis speaks as if] without these charity events we wouldn't have much hope," said Deborah Cunningham in an interview with Channel 13. "I resent that."

Demonstrators held that pity is not necessary to raise money for medical research and it is only the force of Mr. Lewis' personality that keeps the MDA using outmoded exploitation of children and an appeal to pity to raise money.

"Pity is an outdated and condescending approach that hurts all people with disabilities; it contributes to our being underestimated by employers, educators, and society at large," said Alan A. Reich President National Organization on Disability this past August. "I hope that soon the MDA Telethon will be an event that celebrates potential and urges people to donate for the right reasons -- educating the public, research for new treatments, providing opportunities, and breaking down negative stereotypes -- but that disavows the harmful approach of giving money based on sentiments of pity or guilt."

Chris Colsey

Security Director Leonard Porter gave the protestors an ultimatum that they will have to move from the Libertyland property. "Okay," responded Deborah Cunningham the Executive Director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living, "we are not moving." Director Porter consulted with Libertyland staff for approximately 10 minutes before he returned to tell the group that he is withdrawing the ultimatum.

"I respectfully suggest that Mr. Lewis will raise more money and make a greater contribution to the culture by eliminating pity from his appeal, and by emphasizing the empowerment of people with disabilities to work and to contribute," said Justin Dart the founder, Justice For All on August 21. "FDR never ran on pity."

- Tim Wheat