Jeff Yuhasz says:

Having done my undergraduate work in English, criticism of printed material has become similar to breathing. I’ve written countless papers condemning authors for their various shortcomings, all the while never having myself written anything approaching art. The hypocrisy of my position as a self righteous reader, condemning the efforts of those I’d be hard pressed to emulate, has often occupied my curiosity.

This same quandary reasserts itself after reading Joseph P Shapiro’s No Pity, a compelling account of society’s misperceptions and remedial efforts regarding the thirty-five to forty three million Americans with disabilities. Shapiro’s work uncovers a sometimes forgotten struggle by providing a compelling journalistic account of both legal history and the personal struggles of individuals who must confront disabilities. The result is a more enlightened reader. Yet, however successful Shapiro may be at removing the blinders from the eyes of his readers, one can, like a sanctimonious student of literature, find several flaws within the text. One is compelled to reach the conclusion that No Pity is both insightful, but terribly short-sighted.

First, Shapiro uncritically parallels the struggle for disability rights with the legislative and judicial victories associated with African-American civil rights. For instance, Chapter 2 begins, “In the fall of 1962, James Meredith, escorted to class by U.S. marshals, integrated the University of Mississippi. The same school season, a postpolio quadriplegic named Ed Roberts entered the University of California at Berkeley. Just as surely as Meredith ushered in an era of access to higher education for blacks and a new chapter in the civil rights movement, Roberts was more quietly opening a civil rights movement that would remake the world for disabled people.” By associating the disabled rights movement with the efforts of African-Americans to obtain civil rights, Shapiro casts greater legitimacy upon the former by its association with a movement for which most Americans, through the value of hindsight, have a great deal of sympathy. However, such exploitation of an altogether different subject is neither original nor fair. For instance, other civil rights movements have also attempted to co-op the racial struggle for civil rights into their own movements. Locally, Hands Off Washington, a political group fighting a proposed ban on any minority set-asides for homosexuals, and nationally, Bastard Nation, an extreme adoptee rights advocate group, have both attempted to cast their own particular struggles as being the logical and inevitable conclusions of broader classifications of civil rights begun by African-Americans. Yet by doing so, both Shapiro and these other movements minimize the particularized oppression that gave rise to the earlier movement. Neither the disabled, homosexuals, nor adoptees are the target of lynching, Jim Crow laws, fire engine hosing, or vicious police dogs. Nor has the color of ones skin any relation to ones abilities to function in a majoritarian community; thus, segregation and unequal legal status in relation to race has no justifiable characteristic. On the other hand, people with disabilities cannot always function in ways similar to the majority; thus, inequality in law can, to some extent, be justified in relation to the disabled. Unfortunately, Shapiro refuses to explore the implications and complications of correlating the plight of the disabled with that of African-Americans.

Next, Shapiro’s editorial approach seems confused. On one hand, Shapiro adopts the didactic nature of an advocate. For instance, in Chapter Ten, when telling the personal story of Jim, an institutionalized developmentally disabled adult, Shapiro’s scorn at those who would keep Jim confined from the community is unmistakable. In addition, Shapiro briefly discusses his own attempts to emancipate Jim from his surroundings. On the other hand, Shapiro often changes his tone and persona; becoming the detached, objective journalist he credits himself being. Specifically, Shapiro recounts the deaf separatist movement at Gallaudet University in a positive but objective tone, yet later describes the offense many people with disabilities have for the Special Olympics due to the separatist nature of the events. The reader is left confused, wondering what exactly should their response be to these to contradictory sentiments. Meanwhile, Shapiro has no suggestions, and any attempt to suggest that his silence is due to journalistic objectivity has been illegitimated by his earlier didacticism. Shapiro seems to provide normative prescriptions only when they are easy and convenient, while the reader is left searching for an appropriate response to the conflicts Shapiro describes.

Yet, reading provides a number of benefits. Just as people venture to a movie for different reasons, such as escapism, drama, artistic appreciation, or terror, readers need not be moved to read by any particular motivation. A poorly crafted read may be entirely worthy of one’s time for considerations beyond the ascetic quality of the work. Such is the case with No Pity, a poorly crafted, by eye opening account of the struggles of the disabled which has made me question my own tacit understandings of society in general.
Rating: 4 / 5

Anonymous says:

I read No Pity when it was first released..No Pity is American as apple pie. The disability related material was well presented in terms of individual stories and examples of predjudice, struggle etc.. I found the analysis of the disability movement and the use of the African-American civil rights struggle for equality as a parallell struggle with which to compare the struggle by the disabled was handled without real exploration into the implication of that comparison. Basically I was annoyed by the lack of qualifiers regarding how the movements were so radically different and also how minorities are not really that visible in the disabled activist movement as a whole. For a better worded deeper insight into this common mistake by white (my assumption) authors regarding using the African presence to make a point read Toni Morrisons “Playing in the Dark”. Note Morrison’s own oversight of issues relating to how disability is used by authors to qualify their characters nature. In closing I suggest to read No Pity its ok.. check out how it employs the African American struggle when convenient but the fails to dig deeper. Thats its flaw. Peace.. One Love.
Rating: 3 / 5

D. Raher says:

I am a college student studying to be a Special Education Teacher and this book is a must for anyone working with people with special needs. I found this a fascinating read. I have yet to find a well rounded, well written, history book about people with special needs, and this book delivers. Although it took me a long time to process and read through the abundance of information Shapiro provided, it was interesting and complete for the time it was written. I would love to read an updated version of this book or a continuation of this book because it was dated. The book was written in 1993, just a short time after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. There have been so many new developments and new policies since 1993 that this book contains a huge gap in its all important story. Many of the references and issues Shapiro brought up are obsolete now in 2008, and I don’t know which issues. I also know there are many new issues and laws that have drastically changed the lives of many people with special needs and I would love to find a resource as well written as No Pity that would explain the impact of these new developments.
Rating: 5 / 5