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CommentaryPioneer’s Passing Takes a Little Piece of Our HeartsByPatricio Figueroa, Jr. 
On an early June day 40 years ago, I learned of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, shot on June 4th, 1968. He was my hero and my idol – a larger-than-life person. The world ended for me when a Palestinian shot Kennedy over the age-old Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict. This past June 4th, when I logged on to a listserv, I saw the news that Harriet McBryde Johnson had passed away overnight. How is it possible to lose two heroes, two extraordinary Americans, practically on the same date? To quote former President Bill Clinton, “God, why are you messing with my head?” Two people committed to making this world a better place were gone in the prime of their lives. Harriett, at 50, and Bobby Kennedy, at 42, were younger than I am now when they were taken from us. What can you write about now that all the eulogies have been written for Harriett? Of course, to those of us who saw it, we will forever remember Edward Kennedy’s eulogy of his brother. More eloquent words had never been written or uttered. Harriet McBryde Johnson was born July 8th, 1957, in North Carolina but moved to her longtime home — Charleston, S.C. — at age 10. Johnson, who had a congenital neuromuscular disease (I believe it was muscular dystrophy), was a lawyer who worked on behalf of people with disabilities. But she was no glistening southern belle; she was a feisty, fierce competitor and strong advocate. She was a gifted orator for the rights of people with disabilities. She came to national attention through The New York Times Magazine in essays she wrote about her confrontations with bioethicist Peter Singer over his stance on killing disabled infants at birth. Harriet, an atheist, did not debate on religious principles. In her brutal confrontation with Singer, it boiled down to “How dare you decide that certain people with limitations are non-persons with no right to exist?” Singer was no match for the scrawny woman in the wheelchair he detested. Her very existence made him ill. But if intelligence was the measure of who should live or who should not, Singer would be six feet under a long time ago. His bigotry was no match for her superior intellect. Harriet had several books published. Her writing reflected her keen mind and razor-sharp thought process. In one of her books, Too Late to Die Young, she told of her scorn for pity-based culture spawned by telethons like the one hosted for decades by Jerry Lewis on Labor Day. Lewis was the prime subject of her ire. It was an annual ritual for Harriet and friends to display their hatred of the “pity peddler” every Labor Day weekend. The protests started after Lewis wrote a 1990 Parade magazine article in which he imagined being disabled. Among his conclusions: “I realize that my life IS half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being half a person.” This article and other equally thoughtless jokes and off-the-cuff remarks spurred a movement of disabled activists who called themselves “Jerry’s Orphans.” The Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, which aired in Las Vegas, had already been forced out of New York by a band of disabled activists. In recent years, the verbal exchange had reached a poisonous level. And Lewis lost some public respect when he went berserk in Chicago and cursed at the disabled people protesting his book promotion. According to one news source: “Lewis told the Chicago Tribune he had no intention of making peace with opponents such as Johnson. He likened the idea of meeting with them to entertaining Hezbollah or insurgents in Iraq.” The MDA issued a more conciliatory statement concerning Johnson. “Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association are sorry to hear about the passing of Ms. Johnson, an accomplished woman and an advocate for the disabled community. We offer her family our sincere condolences,” said Roxan Triolo Olivas, assistant director of public information for the organization. People like Harriet don’t just leave a hole in our hearts, they leave a huge black hole in society and in our communities. They are irreplaceable. How do you honor Harriet so that her work and the things she was so passionate about remain in the forefront? I recommend that an appropriate and fitting tribute to Harriet would be to have an award — possibly a statuette — created in her name for advocacy, writing, fighting bigotry, etc. It should be issued on Labor Day weekend so as to steal some thunder from the MDA telethon that she so despised. The award would serve as a reminder of one of the causes in which Johnson invested so much energy and cared about so deeply. My favorite quote of Harriet’s was in reply to a question on people-first language (a technique used when discussing disabilities to avoid perceived and subconscious dehumanization of the people who have disabilities). She said: “….yes, the whole thing can get awkward. I guess you can call me a person with a vagina.” A link to her Johnson’s writings and articles about and photographs of her can be found online at http://www.cripcommentary.com/harriet. ******************************************** Patricio Figueroa, Jr. is the editor of this publication.
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