This is very good, and contains a quote from Bobby Greer. He lives on
through his writings!
(SDS is the Society for Disability Studies in this case, not Students
for a Democratic Society)
Kendall
An unreasonable man (but my wife says that's redundant!)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
-----Original Message-----
From: Terri Sue Longhurst
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 10:15 AM
To: Kendall David Corbett; Keith Miller
Subject: FW: [SDS] "Chicken Soup is Pabulumf say disabled people" :
Chicken Soup for the Special Needs Community
Thought you find this interesting
terri
Terri Longhurst
Wyoming Institute for Disabilities
-----Original Message-----
From: Lamp, Sharon A. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 12:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SDS] "Chicken Soup is Pabulumf say disabled people" : Chicken
Soup for the Special Needs Community
(i had trouble getting to the Ragged Edge story "chicken soup is pabulum
say disabled people" through the url below. once i got there, i copied
the text and i have pasted it below in the event that others might have
similar difficulty.)
hi jim and all,
first, thank you jim for organizing the disability resistance to the '97
chicken soup threat--and although the soup thing is back, it seems that
these efforts did hold them at bay for 9 years!
i also appreciate that you gave us some history on this issue. i see now
that a few of my fellow chicagoans at the time such as writers cal
montgomery and carol cleigh joined in this effort.
i'm reading through and considering the various approaches being
contemplated by list members. but i'd really like to hear more from the
original group of chicken soup protesters, if any such folks feel like
responding. e.g., will you be coming back together for the 2nd round?
any strategy suggestions?
carol cleigh, maybe you can treat us to a copy of your winning essay in
total?
sharon lamp
[log in to unmask]
#
Chicken Soup
is Pabulum
say disabled people
Reporting by Mary Johnson
People with disabilities need to know they are special, courageous,
capable and have something to share with others," said Chicken Soup's'
Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen in a message soliciting contributions.
"Not so," said activists. "Special is patronizing."
Businessman Jim Hasse, who has cerebral palsy, was so disturbed this
past summer by the thrust of a proposed Chicken Soup book that he turned
part of his Internet website into a bulletin board to solicit opinions
from other disabled people. The new book was to be "for, by and about
people with disabilities." Uh oh.
The original Chicken Soup books were harmless enough but became "less
benign" when they "started targeting specific groups," said Hasse. The
upcoming one would "likely perpetuate the tendency in society to define
people who have disabilities by their differences."
"People who have disabilities can probably expect to receive a double
whammy with this book" -- they'll be portrayed both as "different" and
"special" -- "two stereotypes most of us are trying to overcome."
Through August and September, Hasse's discussion group buzzed. On one
point virtually all participants agreed: "People with disabilities are
often deemed courageous or heroic for simply living," as Sean Barrett
put it.
"Thinking that I'm more 'special' than others just because I happen to
have a disability is patronizing," Judy Kuster wrote, "and certainly
should not be justification for another Chicken Soup book."
What's wrong with this picture?
"The best part of this project is that a portion of the proceeds of the
book will go directly toward helping people with disabilities," said an
informational page on the website of real estate agent Ralph Roberts,
who has been putting his energy behind the effort. "Betcha ten to one
they won't be funding any disability rights efforts," John Phillips said
when he heard about it.. "Will their millions go toward fighting to get
the Americans with Disabilities Act enforced? Will it go toward getting
the attendant services bill through Congress? I'm not holding my
breath."
"They'll put their money into perpetuating some feel-good, do-nothing
program," added Tom Leonard.
"What I keep working to overcome is sentimental crap like this that
allows all those people out there to be amazed that I can even get up in
the morning and brush my teeth -- while not hiring me for a minimum-wage
job, although I've earned a Master's degree," wrote a respondent who
told Hasse he was deaf and blind. Most disabled people, he added, were
"fighting to be themselves, have accommodations and still get an equal
opportunity. "
But these fights, he added, were not the ones the public applauded. "I
betcha a million bucks they will pick out the most sappy stories in the
world," the ones where people overcome their disabilities. . . ."
That's a safe bet. Samples that authors Jim Canfield and Mark Hansen
provided on their website included one titled "Everybody Can Do
Something"
-- the story of Roger Crawford ,"born with no hands" and a "shrunken
right foot and withered left leg" who nonetheless gamely intones that
"my parents taught me I was only as handicapped as I wanted to be." The
other, "Yes, You Can," is the story of "burned beyond recognition" W.
Mitchell whose "positive mental attitude has earned him appearances on
the 'Today Show' and 'Good Morning America' as well as feature articles
in Parade, The New York Times and other publications." Yet another
vignette praises the "refusal of total or full acceptance of one's
disability."
"Great and inspiring stories encourage self esteem, promote a feeling of
worthiness and help pave the way to success in life," say Chicken Soup
authors. Nothing, say disability activists, could be further from the
truth.
BOILING OVER 'SOUP'
FDR and 'Jane'
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is perhaps the ultimate "overcomer" of this
century. . . . [But] he had many social advantages. . . . He was born
exceedingly wealthy. He had a fine education . . . and family which
could and would support him. . . .
Contrast my friend Jane . . . [who] lives in a nursing home -- she'll
never get out except in a pine box, though she aches for freedom. She
was born with cerebral palsy. . . . She uses a manual wheelchair which
she cannot push because Medicare was too cheap to replace her power
chair when it wore out. She has little education, very little money, no
real family and little hope.
You'll never see Jane in Chicken Soup because she would remind able-ist
bigots of the shameful way they treat our people. The purpose of their
sappy sentimentalism is to hide people like Jane behind a facade of
'overcomers.' [Yet] which is the more authentic experience of
disability?
Which story cries out for change -- and which functions to support the
status quo?
The publication of [Chicken Soup's] sappy, sentimental hogwash will ...
further marginalize and obscure Jane's reality ...
-- Carol Cleigh
Not for disabled people at all
"The flavor of these stories plays to the able-bodied," wrote a
perceptive Bobby G. Greer. He wasn't alone in his perception. Carol
Cleigh won the contest Hasse sponsored on his website by discussing "the
function such stories have outside the community of persons with
disabilities."
Despite its subtitle -- "by, for and about persons with disabilities,"
the Chicken Soup industry's latest venture, wrote Cleigh, "isn't really
about people with disabilities at all. It's really just a way to make
"bigots feel good about themselves while they discriminate against us.
They are allowed to think, 'well, we must not be treating them too badly
because some of them are successful,' and 'why don't all of those people
overcome obstacles as some have done?'
"This is not unlike men who wrote about the 'woman problem' earlier in
this century" -- or, she could have added, whites who talked about
providing " 'uplift' for the Negro."
The book would neither "help or empower us," she continued, but would
harm the cause of people with disabilities by reinforcing the
"perceptions that our differences from 'the norm' are 'the problem' and
what we 'need' is to be 'fixed' or encouraged to courageously
'overcome.' " Cleigh termed this "pure, able-ist drivel which serves to
mystify 'the problem.'" The real problem, she said, was "discrimination.
"There is no reason that public buildings, housing, transit, grocery
stores and theaters should not be accessible. Disabilities are nothing
new. Nondisabled people build the world so we cannot enter. . . What's
at stake here is whether we are a minority group facing discrimination
or a collection of 'unfortunate' individuals."
Sharon Campbell struck a similar theme. Nondisabled people reading this
book "need to see how they can make changes in their actions and
attitudes so we don't have so darn much to overcome."
A new definition of 'inspiring'
"I guess there probably won't be an examination of the prejudices of
[nondisabled] people; that probably won't be inspirational," wrote Anne
MacClellan. "If the editors of this book want inspirational stories I'd
like to see them focus on some of [those who] campaigned to change laws
and attitudes."
The authors of Chicken Soup had no concept of what could really inspire
disabled people: that was the message of many who participated in
Hasse's forum. Susan Ludwig thought that the new Chicken Soup book, as
now conceived, would merely "isolate people from one another."
Many people worked to explain in their messages that disabled people
were hungering not for sappy sentimentality but for the power of the
disability community itself.
BOILING OVER 'SOUP'
'Just to see what they'd do ... '
Chicken Soup is going to reinforce the idea that my disability is a
personal difficulty that somehow I've managed to surmount, instead of a
complicated web of ... physical and social customs that seem almost
designed to shut me out. ...
I've submitted substandard work to people just to see what they'd do,
and had them rave about it ... what I [actually] do doesn't matter at
all to so many people. My worth to them is dependent only on some myth
they have; I myself and what I do are irrelevant ...
-- Cal Montgomery
The real kind of "inspirational" stories disabled people needed, one
wrote, were ones that told them they could have power to break down the
social and physical barriers that society put in their way -- that this
was what the disability rights movement was all about.
The "real story," wrote Deborah Kaplan, was about "what has happened to
our lives and our images of ourselves through our connections" with
other disabled people.
"We see through each other's b.s.," she wrote, and we "recognize the
commonalties of living with a disability. We can be honest with each
other without worrying about how the other person will interpret our
disability experience."
Though it was difficult to use the word, she added, "we truly 'inspire'
each other by reminding ourselves that we are not alone, that we do not
have to handle all this stuff all alone.
"What we have in common is the cultural context of disability. I have
had the same experience with other disabled people from all over the
world. We are treated poorly everywhere -- and we can support each
other."
"I wanna hear a story 'bout a teenager who holds a sit-in with her
disabled and non-disabled friends to get an elevator fixed," wrote
Michael Michaelangelo. "Let's write about real crips in a real world."
"We need a story about the disability community ," Kaplan continued, "--
about how it feels to know you are not alone, and that there are other
cheeky, sarcastic, powerful, witty, wise disabled people to share this
life with."
In many ways, Hasse's discussion group accomplished exactly what Chicken
Soup authors said they wanted (but apparently have no real idea of how
to do). " Thank you for the effort you are making to draw members of the
[disability] community together," Ludwig wrote Hasse. "If Chicken Soup
did nothing else, at least it did this."
Something was wrong
-- Jim Hasse
Reader's Digest subscribers may like Chicken Soup books, but don't try
to warm it over and serve it to people who have disabilities. Chicken
Soup stories are written and selected according to a very rigid
problem-triumph-lesson formula that seldom reflects reality and is
inherently sentimental. Their sentimentalism tends to reinforce the
stereotypes we all have about one another. Feeding stereotypes further
divides us. It does not bring us together."
When Jim Hasse, a Barbaroo, Wisconsin businessman with 32 years of
experience in corporate communications, checked out the website being
used by authors of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series to
solicit stories for their new book, Hasse felt offended, but at first he
didn't know why. TIPS FOR ...
Chicken Soup editors
don't use stories that show how "special" disabled people are.
don't pick stories of people who "overcome disability" by hiding it.
do recognize that your format plays to nondisabled sentimentality.
do tell stories of disabled people fighting for rights and access.
do show readers how they can make changes in their actions and attitudes
"so that people with disabilities don't have so darn much to overcome."
do tell stories about the activist disability community, about common
bonds disabled people share.
After thinking about what such a book would mean to him, born with
cerebral palsy, he wrote a letter to Chicken Soup authors expressing his
concerns. Hearing no response, and not convinced the Chicken Soup
authors would thicken the pot, Hasse used a discussion forum on his own
website to establish a dialogue among those with disabilities and those
without about presumptions Chicken Soup authors need to avoid in the
stories they select for publication. His Website now contains a summary
of the discussion forum's results.
Hasse promised to award $50 out of his own pocket to the person who
posted, in his opinion, the best advice for the authors in terms of
usefulness, originality and conciseness. He also offered a complimentary
copy of his book to two other individuals who posted the most useful
advise for the authors. In 1996, Hasse self-published Break Out: Finding
Freedom When You Don't Quite Fit The Mold, a memoir of 51 true stories,
each illustrating a turning point in his understanding about what it
means to be presumed different in the U.S. and abroad.
The $50 recipient, W. Carol Cleigh, summarized her August 20 posting
this
way: "The only real purpose of such a 'Chicken Soup' book is to
perpetuate and re-inscribe able-ism."
Jim Hasse can be reached by e-mail at: [log in to unmask] or by fax at
608/356-3797.
END
*
Hi, Sharon, Jim and all:
The disability community defeated the Chicken Soup book idea about
disability in 1997, using the Internet (and my site) when both were was
still cutting their teeth.
See http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/nov97/chick.htmpois Chicken Soup.
<http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/nov97/chick.htmpois%20Chicken%20Soup.>
Do we need to go through this again?
Jim Hasse
Developer, Facilitator, Marketer
http://www.tell-us-your-story.com
Madison, WI
---
James R. Hasse, IABC Accredited, Global Career Development Facilitator
Senior Content Developer
eSight Careers Network
The Global, Cross-disability Online Community Addressing Disability
Employment Issues.
New York City
URL: http://www.eSight.org
E-mail: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Please note:
If you have questions/comments/concerns about the content of this
posting, please e-mail them to the list manager at the following e-mail
address: [log in to unmask]
If you wish to be taken off the Listserv, please email Joy Hammel in the
Chicago office at the following address: [log in to unmask]
If you would like to know how to become a member of SDS, please go to
the SDS home page at http://www.uic.edu/orgs/sds/ and click on
"Membership Information". Alternatively, you can call the Chicago
office at 312-996-3513, or e-mail Joy Hammel at [log in to unmask]
-----------------------
To change your mail settings or leave the C-PALSY list, go here:
http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?SUBED1=c-palsy
|
