In a message dated 3/25/2002 5:10:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> I just listened to this interview with Christopher Reeve. It was actually
> good. The guy seems to be getting it.

I've heard him speak elsewhere.  It does appear that he is beginning to grasp
that his position gives him the foundation to avoid being bought off with
crumbs.

I feel sorry for him.  He was thrown into a horrendous disability and had no
way of knowing what his new fight needed to be about.  Money and fame -- even
in small amounts -- can confuse any person.  He had every reason to act as he
did.  What could he have known in the beginning but that cure should be our
primary concern?   How could he not have wanted that for himself, and as
quickly as possible?

This man has been patronized by one corner of the universe and vilified by
another.  I've said one or a couple of disparaging things about him myself.

He could be a superman yet, who knows.  As famous disabled people go though,
the one I'd want backing me up in on a firefighting handline would still be
Harriet Tubman.  She didn't have Internet or television or the ADA or the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.  All she had was her disability and her blackness
-- a legally supported sentence in her day -- and the sheer guts it took to
return to the scene of the crimes committed against her, over and over again,
in order to free others still held against their will under a terrible
persecution.

She proved that she couldn't be bought when nobody was looking.  Let them
look now, and learn.

Betty Alfred