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Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights

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Mary Johnson, long time editor and co-founder of the Ragged Edge, has been on the forefront of the struggle for disability rights in the United States for over 20 years. Highly respeced and a gifted editor and writer, Johnson has used her considerable skills to hone a book that is sure to be widely read and discussed. Her book will appeal to a wide cross section of people including disabled people seeking to understand their place in society, academics, lawyers, government officials, and health care professionals to mention but a few groups that could benefit greatly from reading Make Them Go Away.

In my estimation, Johnson's book is the most important contribution that has been made in the burgeoning field of disability studies in the last decade. In part this is because she provides not only a history of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) but explains in detail exactly how the court has eviserated the law. Broken into two parts, the first half the case against disabilty rights and the second the case for disability rights, Johnson uses popular and controversial figures such as Clint Eastwood and Christopher Reeve to make her point that there is a long standing bias against the disabled in American society. In fact, she ably demonstrates the legal bias against the disabled begins before they even enter the courthouse. Sadly, Johnson also demonstrates the ADA is widely misunderstood by the general public and more often than not simply not considered to be a part of the civil rights movement. This is sad because many thought the law would lead to the end of the most base forms of discrimation disabled people face on a daily basis. Alienation and the lack of access and the concommitant isolation and disenfranchisement that comes with it has not been eliminated by the ADA. While the social reality is not positive, Johnson's book is one of the opening salvos in what looks to be a very long battle for disabled people's civil rights. As such, Make Them Go Away should be considered must reading for disability rights activists, lobbyists, lawyers and all those on the front lines of the battle for disability rights. Johnson's book should also be required reading in classes in disabiltity along with other classic works by Erving Goffman and Robert Murphy. In short, buy the book, read it carefully, and share it with all those who not only have an interest in disabilty rights but the rights that all Americans are supposed to share.

I too personally have experienced what Mary Johnson documents in her well-researched work.

Social antipathy against people with disabilities is so mainstreamed in America that progressive activists who rush to condemn other forms of bigotry, engage in bigotry against people with disabilities. We are time and/or money consuming entities that are still honestly not perceived as contributing anything to society let alone being recognized as social equals.

This inequality then leads people to interpret the ADA as a burden on them as opposed to considering the greater burdens which unjust discrimination places on both the recipient and the nation.

However, I have one minor suggestion to ensure that this book gets to those most needing to read it.

Change the title to more accurately reflect that this book is a critique of how society handles disability instead of something itself which opposes the disability rights movement. Because the disability rights movement is acknowledged as seeking liberation of stereotypical attitudes and laws, it aids Mary Johnson's case.

Mary Johnson's book fills an important gap. We haven't understood the case against disability rights and we need to if we're going to refute it. As Johnson explains, we ignore it (with the claims of Reeve and Eastwood and of the right-wing law and economics approach) at our peril. Johnson's book is a call to take disability rights seriously, full of comment on court cases like Sutton, Williams and Garrett, and a plethora of disability issues including "special" education, accessible transit, employment and adaptive technology.

I've already had the pleasure of using this book in the undergraduate university classroom (at Chapman University) and I'm eager to use it again.

Quick! Who made the following comment:

"I think it's important to realize that treating all disabled
people as equal--with equal rights and responsibilities--is absurd.
Many of the patients that come through any rehab hospital are there
because of their own ignorance, negligence, stupidity or criminal activities."

A member of a supremacist group? Nope. It was Dr. Kenneth Lefebre
at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. How about this?

"The legal requirement that 'the handicapped' be 'mainstreamed'
is damaging to 'the normal child'."

That was written by Eileen Gardner, appointee to the Reagan
Education Department, in one of her policy papers.

One more, and this one is the real shocker because the
commentator has a disability herself:

"Deny as we may want to, at the point when a person can not be
totally independent physically from others, one is no longer
equal in body. I do not want to be treated equally. I can still
think, but for the life of me I can't think of a way to get rid
of the wheelchair. Therefore, I am not on the same ground I used
to be on. To me that makes my way not equal...How can we bury our
heads so deep and say we are equal to the able bodies around us?
We are not. That's why it is called a handicap, because it is."

Comments like these only bolster the viewpoint Mary Johnson is
fighting against in her perception-shattering book, "Make Them
Go Away: The Case Against Disability Rights". She argues that
people with disabilities are a minority just as women and people
of color are nowadays. Disability, she posits, is a social and
cultural idea, and not merely a "medical problem".

Because people are perceived to be disabled, they are perceived
by society to be unable, incapable of doing much for themselves
or others. Johnson theorizes that the case against disability
rights is strong right now because of this philosophy. It is
also strong because "a disabled person's role in society was
not to criticize it from a minority perspective--for they were
not a true minority--but to work at becoming normal, to be
rehabilitated if not cured."

That, and there have been several lawsuits about the ADA, or
Americans with Disabilities Act. Nobody likes lawsuits, so...

...no wonder most of society still thinks, "Make Them Go Away"!

Like all books regarding social activism it can come across as a little preachy but that is really not the point. Point is that the ADA is a useless bit of legislation and the entire act needs to be revisited and firmer classifications need to be established and keep in mind that this is person with a disability talking. The points raised in this book are totally valid, please read with an open mind before you judge it. I say that the issues are exactly the same as other equal rights movments of the past. Good job authors.

An on going problem for the disbility rights movement has been its failure to connect with other minority groups. The critical reviewer from Tulsa, OK highlights this with his prejudiced and poorly chosen words. I am glad the reviewer is proud to be an African American and embraces his civil rights. However, comments such as "over coming a handicap is honorable" is offensive. Indeed, it reminds me of a time when African American leaders were considered "a credit to their race". Rather than lashing out at disabled people, perhaps the reviewer from Tulsa might want to consider that in the civil rights struggle to ride on the front of the bus for example black Americans had a huge advantage--they could actually get on the bus. The reviewer may also want to consider that the main problem disabled people encounter is not their disability or the physical access to buildings but rather social prejudice. Moreover, many disabled people are proud of who they are--and that includes whatever disability they have.

It's the one minority that anyone can join in an instant, "in the blink of an eye, the crash of a car," writes Mary Johnson in her compelling new book about the disabled. Many others of us are easing into various stages of disability as we age. Johnson makes a strong case that we all have a stake in creating an accessible society. Her insightful, carefully argued book is an important contribution to any discussion of disability rights, and an excellent introduction to the subject.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, I can honestly say that this book
changed the way I see the world. It was my first formal introduction
to the disability rights movement, and more profoundly, to the social
model of disability.

I consider myself a liberal, and civil rights have always been at the
top of the list of issues important to me. Unsurprisingly (but still
appallingly), I'd never really thought about disability rights. I had
always just believed the medical model, because that's how disability
had always been presented to me. I ran across this book by chance, and
more or less decided to read it because the title intrigued me. The
case against disability rights? Who's against the disabled?

Chapter by chapter, Make Them Go Away reversed the way I think.
Mary Johnson combines history, anecdotes, and quotes from other people
to weave several convincing arguments that broke down everything I
thought I knew about disability. I started it knowing nothing about
disability rights, and by the time I finished it I had resolved to
become an advocate for the issue. I have been trying to tell other
people what I learned from it, but the book is so well-crafted, so
effective, that I just can't put it into my own words. I can only
recommend that people read it for themselves.

Despite being an excellent introduction to disability rights, Make
Them Go Away is not a textbook, and is definitely biased in the
direction of the social model. But I don't think that's bad at all. On
the contrary, I think it's exactly what the average person needs in
order to wake up to the reality of the marginalization of millions of
people.

I found this book right on the money in regards to disability rights. I too was offended when it refers to "overcoming a disability as honorable". Unless you are disabled you have no right to tell someone who is disabled that "it is honorable." What's honorable about? Does anyone say the same thing to successful African Americans? Wouldn't they be offended by that remark? And I was offended by greg@simplerenthouses.com's review as he complained about businesses having to spend thousands of dollars to accommodate the handicapped. Accommodation might actually help everyone involved, you think?
Apparently he lacks the intelligence to understand that the reviewer before him emphasized the parallel of discrimination in this country against African Americans and the disabled. The author of the book brings it home when she says disability can happen to anyone at anytime. Therefore, instead of greg@simplerenthouses.com criticizing and patronizing the disability issue, he should hope that he never has an accident, ages, or has an illness leaving him disabled because then he'll be quite glad of the ADA and those disabled people who had to fight tooth and nail for the rights and equality African Americans received in the 60s.

I have not completely read this book. But I am glad that it is making people think. To the reviewer who is up set with this book... I am white so I have no reference for what it is like for African Americans. However, I am disabled and I too would like to be able to go to the same places that everyone else does.