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New York Assemblyman Discovers Why You Should Never Imitate Handicapped Constituents

by Jon Bershad | 5:30 pm, October 27th, 2010

» 9 comments

Two nights ago, New York assemblyman Bob Reilly was at a debate and described a meeting he had with a young constituent. As anyone who’s ever watched a political debate for more than five seconds knows, this is a great, time-tested strategy. Reilly then explained that the young man had cerebral palsy. Politically speaking, this should make the story even better. It shows that Reilly relates to people with hardships. Really, there’s no way he could have messed this up. Unless, of course, he decided to imitate the guy, complete with putting on a bad handicapped voice…Which is just what he did. Ouch.

You’ve got to almost feel bad for Reilly here. Watching the clip, it’s clear that he wasn’t trying to do anything bad (besides the obvious politician move of exploiting your constituents’ troubles to show how compassionate you are) by the impression and that his heart was in the right place. It’s just something that you don’t do. I’m sure if the conversation had been with a gay man who had a stereotypical effeminate voice, Reilly would have been smart enough to not throw a lisp into his telling of the story. Why should this be any different?

Really though, this all boils down to something that is offensive to a great many people but probably shouldn’t be. Like a ‘gay voice,’ doing a ‘handicapped voice’ is only offensive to people because bigots have used that voice to make fun of or hurt people for years. If no one had ever made fun of someone with cerebral palsy that way before, then there’d be nothing wrong with Reilly trying to show how the young man sounded. The whole point of his story was that the guy had bad medical problems and the voice was simply to further depict that. Unfortunately, we live in a world where people constantly wield fake ‘retarded voices’ or ‘faux ebonics’ as a way to hold other people down so you just can’t go up onstage and do the same thing even if you mean it without condescension.

Well, you can, but people are going to be up in arms on radio shows and your opponent will instantly be forwarding the YouTube video clip to everyone in the universe. At the very least, Reilly made a terrible judgment call.

What do you guys think? Is this a true offense or an overblown scandal.

(h/t Gawker)

bad ideas, Bob Reilly, Cerebral Palsy

The Real Royal Knig

Thank you, Mediaite, for continuing your long tradition of putting party affiliation in the headline if the idiot is Republican or “Tea Party” but ignoring affiliation if it is a Democrat.

Bob is a Democrat.

http://www.facebook.com/reillysrunning
Seeing November From My Window

To be fair, that’s not just Mediaite, that’s ALL the media.
The Real Royal Knig

Seeing November From My Window said:
To be fair, that’s not just Mediaite, that’s ALL the media.

That’s fair?
Puter Boi

“Is this a true offense or an overblown scandal”

It’s hardly a scandal….that word is overused by the way….so knock it off…

” If no one had ever made fun of someone with cerebral palsy that way before, then there’d be nothing wrong with Reilly trying to show how the young man sounded.”

And there is the rub…..people HAVE been making fun of the disabled for centuries….at one time they were shunned and locked away….so….Reilly should have known better. He could have told the story without the theatrics.
Seeing November From My Window

That’s fair?

No, but I’m kind of used to it by now.
BatBoy

Jon…do you even know how to spell Democrat?

This is just another example of the pass the lefties get from people like Jon.

Thanks Jon, your reporting is….ahhh…well….biased and one sided, I guess your mentor was Tommym huh?
tigerprez

Whew! Good thing this guy isn’t a Republican or this story would be the lead on every non-Fox news network. This way, it’s as if it never happened.

I’m still kind of surprised that the media just doesn’t say that the guy is a Republican and hope that no one notices. That way they could have their story and hurt Republicans at the same time. Rachel Maddow does that sort of stuff on a nightly basis.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jonathan-Scott/654124552 Soros Youth

If he had imitated someone with CP and made fun of him or said he “wasn’t going to help him” then it might be a problem, it was stupid for him to imitate him but given the context of what he said, he said he was going to help him and what is wrong with helping the less fortunate? So yes of course he is a Democrat, I didnt even have to read the headline. He said he was going to help the person with CP, what Republican would do that?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Helen-Nordo/100000884291530 Helen Nordo

The problem with this story is that Bob O’Reilly used poor judgment in his manner of “imitating” this man with a neurological impairment, it was in bad taste since it would have been more proper to merely state “This young man suffering from a difficult neurological impairment came into my office seeking help, etc” People are not stupid, they know what the word “impairment” means..if they do not, they should not be voting anyway. In my estimation, Mr. O’Reilly has to learn to “not only be a better speaker since he appears extremely weak” but to understand how those with “Cerebral Palsy” might not like his “interpretation” of such a debilitating physical, lifelong condition…and this man is a politician?…Whew!