Goodwill Exposé Shows Good Intentions, Bad Reporting: An Open Letter to NBC

It had to do with people with disabilities, so he guessed– correctly– that it would press my red-hot button. Not that he was looking to provoke me, mind you. I’m glad he shared it with me. It needs to be discussed.

On June 21, a story aired on NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” that left me agape. The in-depth report detailed how Goodwill Industries, a very well-known charitable organization known for giving “equal opportunities,” is exploiting its employees with disabilities by paying them far below the minimum wage and forcing them to prove their skills using humiliating tactics– i.e., timing an employee while he or she folds as many pieces of clothing as they can.

The report claimed that the employees’ compensation is positively correlated with the workers’ abilities.

That’s not even the whole story. 

You see, this report by the ever-charming Brian Williams was peppered extensively with negative rhetoric as it relates to people with disabilities (person-first language? Not here!).

And, it gets worse. The entire report focused on how “the disabled” are being used– and how Goodwill is taking advantage of “our most vulnerable” people.

*Sigh, puts down coffee mug* Where do I even begin? Pardon me, but I didn’t realize that those of us with disabilities belonged to society like some pet. We are not always “vulnerable,” and what’s more– we are not yours, mind you.

Brian Williams interviewed a well-spoken, poised older couple, both legally blind. She quit working at Goodwill after four years of putting up with the demeaning wages, while her husband still works there. It was devastating for me to realize that, while what they are doing is plain wrong, for many of these hard-working citizens, it satisfies the need for honest work, a need that has left the employment shelves all but empty in a still-ailing economy, and a need which is notoriously difficult for people with disabilities to fulfill. It reminded me of the catch-22 that many immigrants to this country are placed in– the need for honest work versus the reluctance to be paid in peanuts. Sometimes, minorities can’t make that choice.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly make me want to rush off to my room and collect clothes for donation after watching this story.

But, here’s the bottom line:

Many of my readers probably think I’m being oversensitive, that this is only about the lack of person-first language in this news story. It isn’t. It’s about abusing the pity angle to sell the story of a group that is already beyond marginalized because we are pitied. 

Now do you see the hypocrisy of this situation? If the problem is that Goodwill sees people with disabilities as less-than-human, and ergo, cheap labor, then NBC did little to help our image by calling us “vulnerable.” In doing so, NBC is (unwittingly, mind you) giving Goodwill the power to continue treating its employees as sub-human. 

This news story would not be almost laughably infuriating if its very premise had not been to expose a perceived “wrong” reality in society– that people with disabilities are far too often taken advantage of. That may be true, in fact, very sadly, it is. 

In merely telling the story, NBC is trying to prove that they are better than Goodwill– the perceived villains for all of America who tuned in that evening to watch that report. And maybe they did do this story for conscientious reasons– I’ll give them that.

But in their storytelling, NBC and Brian Williams proved that they are no better than our societal oppressors– that they are just as ignorant of our real struggle in this world– the fight to be seen as equal, as human. 

Maybe NBC won’t read this blog post. Maybe they will. If they at least responded somehow, then, just maybe, they’d be showing a little more compassion than the two-faced charity they exposed.

Maybe even a little goodwill.