DISABLED ACTIVISTS PROTEST AT THE OSCARS
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**HOLLYWOOD**, California Disabled activists and members of the national Not Dead Yet grassroots disability rights organization are poised to hold a press conference at 2 PM, February 27th , 2005, in front of the Kodak Theater at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. prior to the start of the annual Academy Awards. They are protesting the Academy's nomination
of what they call ¤the most bigoted and loaded "better dead than disabled¤" movie "Million Dollar Baby"?.
"The biggest problem with Million Dollar Baby is that some of the audience will be newly disabled people, their family members and friends, swept along in the critically acclaimed emotion that the kindest response to someone struggling with the life changes brought on by a severe injury is, after all, to kill them," says Diane Coleman, Founder of Not Dead Yet.
"We're not better off dead than disabled!" says local Not Dead Yet organizer, Lillibeth Navarro. "Really good movies are about exploring the struggles and triumphs of living with a disability, not romanticizing the hatred for dealing with it!"
Nancy Becker Kennedy, a disabled actress with a spinal cord injury and who recently saw the movie has this to say: "Everybody wants to die in the first year of a disabling injury. It's the biggest assault to one's ego imaginable. And the lion's share of that agony is provided by people not seeing us as people. From hearing the silent message that we are better off dead. That people would be more comfortable if people with disabilities were not around. It's dangerous to make us cheer for a newly injured person taking their own life and to cheer for their loved one for taking it."
"Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) can scowl all he wants - we ain't going away." Says Douglas Lathrop of New Mobility.
The group is gathering at 1 PM at 1776 N. Las Palmas Ave., (corner Yucca St.) at 1 PM for a march on the sidewalk to the Kodak Theater. See attached map for directions.
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Please see the Not Dead Yet website at www.notdeadyet.org <http://www.notdeadyet.org> for a complete explanation of all the issues surrounding this disability bashing by Hollywood. --