From: cedisabl@sprynet.com
Subject: No Pity Extract  part 1
CE Disabled Services
With the NFB convention coming soon, I felt a few extracts from Joseph 
Shapiro's
book "NO PITY" might create some food for thought.  I split it into two parts 
for easier transmission.  It may be long but is worth the effort and time. 
For 
access to such print materials, we all owe a debt of gratitude to modern 
technology and the Veterans Administration for my computer/reading machine. 
Dr Clyde Shideler
 Page  126                                                       No Pity
The disability movement's strength the ubiquitousness Of 35
to 43 million people with disabilities-was also a weakness. The
disability rights movement spanned a splintered universe. There
are hundreds of different disabilities, and each group tended to
see its issues in relation to its specific disability. There were
groups for people with head injuries, different groups for blind
people, and still others for cancer survivors or those with diabe-
tes, arthritis, learning disabilities, and mental illness, all fight-
ing for specific programs, funding, and laws to address the needs
of members of their own group. Sometimes the groups clashed.
    Wheelchair users fought for curb cuts. In some cities in the
1970s, activists had even secretly taken to destroying curbs with
sledgehammers. But blind people with canes, who tapped curbs
for a sense of location, often wanted them kept in place. Some-
times there were bitter disagreements among the same class of
disabled people. Members of the National Federation of the
Blind made a lonesome break with other disability groups and
withheld support of the ADA. Federationists reject any special
help that might let sighted people conclude that blind people
are inferior. They object to crossing beepers at traffic signals or
elevators that announce a floor number. They insist on being
allowed to sit next to an airplane's emergency exit, and several
federationists have let themselves be arrested rather than move.
However, other large groups representing blind people, like the
American Council of the Blind, dismissed the rival federation's
objections to traffic signals and airline seating restrictions
which they lauded as conveniences and understandable rules-
and fully supported the ADA.
    The ADA brought this fragmented population together in
a fight against discrimination. "People with epilepsy now will
be advocates for the same piece of legislation as people who are
deaf," said ADA lobbyist Liz Savage. "That has never happened    
No Pity                                                                    
Page 
 I27
before. And that's really historic." There were 180 national
organizations that endorsed the bill, from large charities like the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the American Diabetes
Association to smaller ones like the National Ostomy Associa-
tion, the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, and the
International Ventilator Users Network. There were groups
representing all the major disabilities, including spinal cord
njuries, deafness and visual handicaps, mental retardation and
mental illness, as well as those for newer or less-well-known
conditions, such as AIDS, Tourette's syndrome, and chronic
fatigue syndrome. To win passage of the ADA, disabled people
I had to forge historic alliances not only among different disability
groups and politicians but with the professionals who had cared
for them for so long. Some disabled people complained that
these health-care workers, particularly nondisabled ones, were
controlling and paternalistic. Too often, therapists and social
workers assumed they knew best instead of trusting the wishes
of their clients. Many professionals felt threatened by the new
group consciousness of disabled people. They were afraid or
reluctant to share decision making or give up power that, in
some cases, might even threaten their own jobs. Others em-
braced the quest for self-control and saw themselves as partners
working with, not for, their newly militant clients. More and
more of the younger professionals were disabled themselves.
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