Petition: Cancel Humanitarian Award for Jerry

January 9, 2009

I know not everyone here will agree with the following post, but I ask

that those of you who do agree, please sign the petition and spread

the word.

In Solidarity,

Alana

Goto:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

This petition has been launched to object to the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences' announcement that it will give Jerry

its Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Awards ceremony on

February 22, 2009.

During his decades of hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry has

helped to perpetuate negative, stereotypical attitudes toward people

with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. Jerry and the

Telethon actively promote pity as a fundraising strategy. Disabled

people want RESPECT and RIGHTS, not pity and charity.

In 1990, 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 .

We've argued that he uses the Telethon to promote pity, a

counterproductive emotion which undermines our social equality. Here's

how 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! "

Jerry has also made derogatory comments about women and gay men.

His outdated attitudes and crude remarks are dehumanizing, not

humanitarian.

Therefore, we the undersigned support the actions and arguments of the

coalition group The Trouble with Jerry. We protest the Academy's

characterization of Jerry as a " humanitarian. " And we ask that

the Academy cancel its plans to give the Hersholt Humanitarian

Award.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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