Dec 302006
Harriet McBryde Johnson, perhaps the most visible disability rights figure in the national media, published an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times over Christmas. Her subject, of course, is Tiny Tim. She finds something laudable in Dickens’ creation, a subversive symbol of social justice garbed in the crowd-pleasing garb of a crippled child. I’m not certain Dickens was being quite so clever; I think Dickens pitied Tiny Tim as much as his audience. But I’ll confess that I haven’t given the text a close reading. Perhaps next year.
