Product Description

Movie celebrity Clint Eastwood fights an access lawsuit. Christopher Reeve insists what's needed is cure. Those who argue for civil-rights protections for disabled people -- rights guaranteed by federal law for over a decade - are all but silent.

The Americans with Disabilities Act "defies logic and common sense," The New York Times once editorialized. Salon.com dismissed it as "a surreal ideology." Why are disability rights so disliked? Why do detractors insist nobody knows about it, even as thousands of articles have been devoted to it? Why do they claim it's a bad law?

In "Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve & The Case Against Disability Rights," longtime disability-rights journalist Mary Johnson sheds rare light on this issue by examining the case against disability rights in depth. What are its main arguments? Where do they come from? And what is the other side? Can a valid -- strong -- case be made FOR disability rights? It can, says Johnson, who makes a compelling argument that, since the disabled minority is the one minority any of us can suddenly and unexpectedly join, the nation ignores disability rights at its peril.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #643996 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

From Booklist
Imagine an African American's voting rights withheld until he or she proved 100 percent African American descent, or a woman having to sue her employer to get a women's restroom in the workplace. Outrageous as those scenarios seem, their like is commonplace in the lives of the disabled, Johnson says, because of widespread misinterpretation and misapplication of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She points out numerous flaws in the law, beginning with its title (she prefers that of the British analog, the Disability Discrimination Act) and including the fact that it is enforceable only via lawsuit, putting rights seekers in an adversarial position, and that it contains an escape clause permitting noncompliance if accessibility causes a business "undue hardship." The disabled person's difficulties aren't, however, confined to the law, and the roots of conflict over disability rights reach deep into personal prejudices and national values. Bit-by-bit Johnson deconstructs arguments against disability rights from the likes of Clint Eastwood as well as more ordinary folk, and she constructs powerful reasons why we all benefit from inclusion. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"By exposing the case against disability rights . . . Johnson has improved the odds that we may take disability rights seriously." -- Mainstream magazine online

From the Inside Flap
Our wrists hurt from typing on our too-flat keyboards…

We put the TV on "mute" when it got too noisy in the bar, and followed the action with the captions…

We ducked into the "handicap stall" at the airport because it was big enough to accommodate us — and our rollbag and our computer bag…

Still, we said the disabled were ruining things for society. They wanted special keyboards at work to help their wrist pain. They wanted accessible restrooms everywhere. They wanted more captioning on television. They always wanted special accommodation.

Customer Reviews

Great book
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.

Good book with some serious questions
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.

Glad this book makes people think.
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.