Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights Book

With #ADA25 happening now, this book makes a good reminder of the limitations of not only the ADA as it was framed by the architects and politics leading up to its passage, but also a timely check-in on the progress made since then.

The central thesis of the book is that the ADA was an embattled piece of legislation that was constrained in delivering on the vision of disability justice: (1) the ADA was effective in establishing disability as a criteria for entitlements, or setting up a new category for welfare benefits, (2) it was not effective at establishing protections against - or even a definition for - discrimination against people due to disability, (3) the ADA was not effective at establishing the moral case behind viewing disability discrimination as a civil rights issue.

This book provides a fantastic retrospective of the attacks by Chicago School Economists, Conservative Think Tanks, small business interests and people who would decry being called discriminatory or prejudiced, but would be unable to see the moral turpitude in their own ableist attitudes. As a young person raised through the tumult around 'political correctness' in the 90s, and the general reversal of advances in understanding the politics of identity, this was a fresh presentation of the devastating effect that neoliberal attitudes about identity had in fighting for moral causes and civil rights.

The book is critical of the tepid - at best - support for disability activism given by society, liberals, anti-racist and anti-sexist groups. I found this book really created a prism through which I could better understand my own internalized attitudes of ableism that I still harbored from being raised during the period documented in this book.