There is much in life, and in death, against which to protest

Not Dead Yet Protesters 

Last Thursday, September 18, was quite the day.  Through my job at Access Living, I had signed up to work the media for a protest organized by Not Dead Yet.  Not Dead Yet, along with other groups from Canada and the United States, including Access Living, were protesting against a three-day conference of a right to die and euthanasia conference, which was organized by a group called The Final Exit Network.  Assisted Suicide is a difficult issue that even divides members of the disability community. Typically, the philosophy of independent living, followed by Access Living and other groups in disability rights, is about choices.  People with disabilities should choose for themselves when it comes to decisions that impact their lives.  If one followed that premise, assisted suicide should be up to the individual.  Yet, Not Dead Yet, Access Living, and other groups advocate to criminalize assisted suicide. The reason is, with the state of health care for low-income people with disabilities, real choice doesn't exist when it comes to assisted suicide.  Not Dead Yet can make the case that many people with non-terminal illnesses have been funneled toward assisted suicide with messages like, "you don't want to be a burden on your family or society," or "as you become more disabled, you will have no worthy quality of life."  Overwhelmed with this messaging, people with disabilities may feel like they have no option but to go through with assisted suicide.  In a world with true choice, people with disabilities would be given quality support options that would enable them to adjust to progressive disability and maintain a quality of life.  Until that world takes shape, groups like Not Dead Yet will protest against assisted suicide.

It was a rather frustrating day of media, because only one outlet showed up to cover the protest.  That was WBBM Radio.  Here is a story from WBBM about the event.  I spent my day emailing the media and calling them, and asking others to call the media, encouraging them to cover the event.  The lack of turn out was even more frustrating considering I could see the NBC Tower from where I stood on the street, and I knew the Tribune building was just on the other side of the NBC Tower.

When LPA protested against the scene 

in the Wolf of Wall Street, we were 

sometimes met with the argument, 

"The characters in the movie are deplorable,

no one would imitate them."  They were wrong. 

In the middle of the afternoon, news broke over Facebook that a place in Providence, Rhode Island called the Colosseum was hosting a dwarf tossing event that night.  The Colosseum called the event, "The Wolf of Pine Street," a play off of The Wolf of Wall Street, a 2013 movie that opened with a dwarf tossing scene.  The Colosseum even created a poster for the event that mimicked the promotional poster for the movie.

Social Media immediately caught fire.  All kinds of people posted on Facebook, chiming in with ideas of what to do, expressing their disgust that such an event would happen, and urging people to contact the Colosseum.  Indeed, many people did start calling and emailing the Colosseum.  Typically, we don't hear back from places that host events that degrade and threaten the humanity of people with dwarfism.  But on September 18, someone from the Colosseum (one of the co-owners) actually started to call people back.  Also, unlike many other places that host disgusting dwarf events, the Colosseum person soon realized that his company had made a mistake.  Within a few hours, he took down any promotional materials that used the m-word, and then changed the event, opening it up to anyone who volunteered to be tossed, not just little people.  He called me a couple of times.  I told him to cancel the event completely.  That was the best thing to do. He said he tried, but it couldn't be done.  There were too many contracts and at least one of the little people at the Colosseum wanted to proceed.  (The event was originally going to include throwing the little people against a velcro wall.  Whatever ended up happening at the Colosseum, I don't think it included a velcro wall.  I heard that a resourceful advocate tracked down the velcro supplier and convinced it not to make the delivery.  That same resourceful advocate gave birth that night.)

Though the event happened, many in the dwarfism community feel the response was a success.  The Colosseum changed the event, issued an apology a few days later, and has offered to partner with the community to raise positive awareness about dwarfism.  Though I was disappointed the event wasn't cancelled and am disgusted that the Wolf of Wall Street has imitators, I think, one week later, I agree.  The day was a victory for the dwarfism community.

Not so entertaining -- two high profile attacks on people with dwarfism in the past two years

Peter Dinklage at the 2012 Golden Globes

In early 2012, Martin Henderson became a familiar name within the dwarfism community.  Henderson is a dwarf who lives in England.  In October 2011, while smoking a cigarette outside of a pub, Henderson was picked up and thrown.  The incident injured Henderson, perhaps permanently.  The perpetrators in the incident were members of the English National Rugby Team, one of whom, Mike Tindall, had recently married into the English Royal Family.  Several weeks before the attack on Henderson, the English Team had been in New Zealand to play in the Rugby World Cup.  While there, members of the team were seen at a bar called Altitude in Queenstown, New Zealand, which at the time was hosting a "Mad Midget Weekend."  According to the media, team members were also seen at a dwarf tossing event during the Rugby World Cup.  Peter Dinklage, the "Game of Thrones" star who has shown the world that people of short stature are dwarfs but are not defined by their dwarfism, brought international attention to the attack when he mentioned Henderson's name during Dinklage's Golden Globe acceptance speech.  Toward the end of his talk, without going in details of the dwarf tossing attack, Dinklage said the name Henderson, then suggested to the audience, "Google him."  Evidently, millions did.  Martin Henderson was soon trending on Twitter.  More importantly, millions were able to make the connection between entertainment that uses dwarfs as props because of their physical difference and threats to the broader dwarfism community.  The injuries Henderson suffered are evidence that impact of events such as dwarf tossing are not isolated to the people who choose to participate in them.  Unfortunately, when dwarfs are used as objects of entertainment, an indirect message is sent to the broader community that it is acceptable to treat all dwarfs all objects of entertainment.  Of course, the vast majority of people understand that it is unacceptable to treat a person with dwarfism differently because of his or her stature.  But strong evidence points to the fact that Henderson was assaulted because of a dwarf tossing event that happened half way around the world. 

Andrew Demetriou of the AFL

Recently, reports of a similar incident appeared in the media.  This time, dwarf tossing was not involved, and a random dwarf was not picked up and thrown.  In this case, a dwarf was lit on fire, and the victim had been hired as "dwarf entertainment."  But just like the Henderson case, the victim did not consent to the violence perpetrated against him, the victim was a dwarf, and a strong case can be made that the perpetrator targeted the victim because he was a dwarf.  In the more recent incident, the Australian Football League Team St. Kilda's were celebrating what is called "Mad Monday."  As part of the celebration, the team hired a dwarf entertainer who went by the name "Mr Big."  At some point during the party, a St. Kilda's player took a lighter a set Mr. Big on fire, against his will. The attack hasn't generated the same attention as the attack against Martin Henderson, but the assault has earned some media coverage.  The coverage reveals that the leader of the football league that St. Kilda's is a part of didn't take the attack seriously.  Evidently, when he first learned about what happened, the head of the Australian Football League, Andrew Demetriou, laughed out loud.

On the plus side, some of the media coverage of the more recent event has been positive.  In a column for a media outlet called The Telegraph, out of Sydney, Australia, a reporter named Claire Harvey wrote,

"The media - and I'm not excluding publications in our own stable - made it worse by repeatedly referring to Jones' victim as ''a dwarf' in copy and broadcasts. Headlines made 'Seven Dwarves' allusions . . . Actually, Gareth Johnston is a man. The fact he has dwarfism is irrelevant.
He is the victim of an appalling crime perpetrated because of his physical appearance."

I don't know anything about Claire Harvey, but I am glad the reporter made the claim that Mr. Big (Gareth Johnston) was singled out because of his physical appearance.  Harvey's claim about physical appearance gives validation to what most people of short stature know. Nearly all people with dwarfism can attest that we sometimes treated differently because of our physical stature.  What happened to Henderson and what happened to Johnston point out that we may also be vulnerable to physical harm simply because of our dwarfism. 

The question is, what can be done?  Unfortunately, there will always be people who view dwarfs as nothing more than entertainment, and some of them are willing to shell out money to pay for dwarf entertainment.  And, there will always be people of short stature who will play the part of dwarf entertainment.

Michelle Minnikin and her family

Though there will always be people willing to pay, and there will always be people ready to be paid, there may come a point when dwarf entertainment is no longer socially acceptable.  In my opinion, that's not the case in 2013.  Dwarf entertainment is still socially acceptable.  That's why the head of the Australian Football League was amused instead of outraged, and that's why "Midget Wrestling" still earns many dwarfs a paycheck, and that's why Paramount Pictures prominently features a dwarf tossing scene in the trailer of The Wolf of Wall Street, a Martin Scorsese Film due out in November.  If the day does come when public pressure overwhelms the life of dwarf entertainment, it will take more speeches like that of Dinklage, more media statements like that of Harvey's, and more public exposure to people with dwarfism who live standard, boring, run of the mill lives just like everyone else. Finally, it will take more people like Michelle Minnikin, the mother of three children, one of whom is a boy with dwarfism.  Her son will start school for the first time in January.  Minnikin took to the media after Demitriou's embarrassing response to the attack on Johnston.  In her column in the Herald Sun, Minnikin paints a picture of her son with dwarfism as a boy no different from other four year old boys.  He just happens to be different.  Because of the failure to others to deal with difference, he son will face obstacles in the future.  But with more efforts like that of Michelle Minnikin, those obstacles will be fewer in the future.  Kudos to her, and her family.