Nghi Tran
Professor Dosch
English 101
3 May 2014
Critical Response
Laura Hershey, who was born with a form of muscular dystrophy and lived in a
wheelchair, was one of the most prominent voices of the disability rights movement. In
her article, “From Poster Child to Protester”, Hershey aims to dispel the inflated ideas
described by the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) – hosted by Jerry Lewis – that
the disabled are useless and pitiful. She wishes the whole world can realize that people
with disabilities are, in fact, not embarrassed or ashamed of themselves, and they have
absolutely not given up on their life. All they simply need is some additional assistance
that can support them to achieve their goals. Once the whole society becomes aware of
that, they can finally begin offering help that is essentially beneficial. The money and
time spent towards finding an ostensibly unachievable cure can instead be put towards
accessible transportation and in-house assistant services. For the record, Hershey herself
is a great example for living positively with a disability, rather than letting it lessen the
quality of one’s life. Essentially, her plan to materially accommodate those with
disabilities is the desire to make them feel more welcome jointly as well. As she truly
hopes that the fence between the disabled community and the rest of society will
someday crumble. This means eradicating pity, which has never been a good thing, even
if it raises some tons of money. For the reason that, as she once says, “Pity can be very
hostile to the achievement of equality and respect.” (p.9). Hershey’s article enlightened
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me on the various ways in which the telethon, as well as the Muscular needs
improvement; However, I do still believe that the project is not entirely bad, with the
following explanations.
Although I totally agree with Hershey’s ultimate goal, I don’t believe she is using
the best methods in trying to accomplish it. Genuinely, Hershey and her group of
supporters are incapable of completely disassembling the telethon. Lewis helped raise
two and a half billion dollars for medical research for treatments and cures for the various
forms of muscular dystrophy that affect about two percent of the population. And her
article was published nearly 15 years ago, yet the MDA telethon continues to bring in
more money each year, even with the recent absence of Jerry Lewis. This means that her
strict accusations against Jerry and the MDA are not really effective. What makes her
argument even less persuasive is not just because of her aggressive tone and sarcastic
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