Motivational speaker and author Lizzie Velasquez became famous at age 17, in YouTube video ‘The World’s Ugliest Woman.’ She used that experience to speak globally about disabilities and bullying. Her presentation this week at USI was about the challenges and positive sides of living with her disability. WNIN’s Tim Jagielo spoke with Velasquez this week.
note:
This web post features two versions of conversation — the broadcast version is above, the ‘full’ version is below.
This transcription below is edited for length.
Timothy Jagielo
Do you want to tell me about your presentation and what you hope people take away from it?
Lizzie Velasquez
… I think oftentimes, it's easy to see a person who is disabled, whether you can see the physical disability or not. And it's easy for people to instantly feel as though you might need to talk, not talk down to them, but maybe explain more, or maybe not speak to the person directly. And if they're with someone else, speak to them directly.
And so I think for me, it's more about explaining that a person with a disability isn't the disability. They are a human first who just has a different situation, then you or I might have and being curious about it and wanting to know more about it is never a bad thing. But there's always a way to be respectful about situations like this.
So for me, I'm able to go and say, ‘Yes, I do have a physical disability that you can see, I'm also blind in my right eye and, you know, might have other smaller issues that you might not know about when you look at me.’
But at the same time, ‘I am an adult, I went to college and went to high school and did all of these very normal things. And I'm now leading a career that I am able to be in charge of myself.’
…
TJ
Could you expand on what somebody with a disability might be able to learn from hearing you and what they should maybe llearn During Awareness Month?
LV
I think the number one lesson that I've learned and I think I'm honestly going to still be working on this for the rest of my life is moreso just the confidence in yourself. When you have a disability, it's also very easy to slip into these thoughts of ‘I can't do something.’ And the fact of the matter is, there's always a way to do something whether you need a big helping hand or not.
There's a way to do it.
…
So no matter what I could say no matter what I could write, none of my words will be really matter or stick unless you are the person that’s saying, ‘Yes, I'm going to make this decision that I will be my number one supporter and be my number one fan and say that yes, I can do this, even if it's going to be difficult.’
TJ
You mentioned that there's a way to respectfully ask or discuss someone's disability with them. Can you give me some examples of that for somebody?
LV
… In my situation, there are different ways to go about this. So I think the first thing is, if you are a kid, kids are very curious. Kids also have no filter. And kids will say things out loud in front of someone else, whether they realize that they might be hurting the person's feelings.
More often than not a person who is disabled, really just wants to be looked at and spoken to, in the eyes, as if they're human just like you. And when it comes to kids, I always like to tell parents, if you are in a situation, whether you're in a grocery store, or in a line or anywhere, really, and a young child has a question or points out something about someone else who looks different. I always encourage them to not shush them, or turn them away or make them look fast or, you know, make them feel embarrassed for what they said. Because it's always an opportunity for a learning moment.
… My recommendation is always to look the person in the eye. … And so for me, I would say it's always on the safer side to look the person in the eye and say ‘hello,’ and acknowledge them. And I always look at that as sort of the first step. And you can tell whether the person is wanting to inform whoever it might be about their situation.
TJ
A moment ago, you talked about teaching moments. And there's a video that you have online where a man (‘Isaac’) was ranking (women’s beauty) online, and he put you in one spot and said, ‘this person is fixable, this person's not fixable.’ Basically you took that as a teaching moment to talk to the people and talk to him directly. I wanted to ask you how can we make better culture online when it comes to bullying today?
LV
… I sort of like to start small. How can I make this a moment for other people to learn from, and specifically with this Isaac situation? One lesson that I have learned, I think it's one of the most important lessons that I've learned over the span of my life — is realizing that whenever there's a bullying situation, there are two parties involved. There's the bully, and the victim.
And automatically, we think when we're confronted with a situation like this, our instinct is to go comfort the victim … be very supportive. And then our other instinct is to turn to the bully and just sort of make them realize what you're doing was wrong. And there might be some form of consequence involved.
But for me, I look at a bully and the victim situation, and having two parties involved that need to have the same amount of empathy. There isn't one good person and there isn't one bad person, as many of us know, hurt people hurt people.
And this might be a situation where the bully might be experiencing something that is not so great, whether it might be as home, or whether they're in a friend group where the friends also, you know, make other people feel bad about themselves.
And so to be able to be the adult or mediator, in a situation like this, just say, ‘Hi, I'm here to, you know, help the person who is being made fun of, reminding them that it's okay, but also I'm here, for the bully to be able to say, ‘I'm sorry, that you're feeling the way that you're feeling. And I want you to know that I'm a resource, and I'm here to help you figure out a way to better express your feelings or your situation in a way that doesn't put someone else down.’
… Let's press pause and take a step back and look at your situation and see why maybe physical appearance is something that you're putting a lot of emphasis on. So I think that sort of lesson applies across the board when it comes to bullying.
TJ
And regarding bullying, I suppose I wanted to ask you like, how was bullying changed through your career?
LV
I fortunately have never had to deal with any physical bullying ever. It was just a lot of pointing and whispering and name-calling and that type of thing. And so when I wanted to hide from it, there was nothing ever being solved. So a lot of it was just continuing because I was allowing it to continue.
And it wasn't until I got a little bit older that I was able to start sort of strategizing new ways to basically introduce myself to kids that I was new to be around. So at the beginning of every school year in elementary school, my dad was also a teacher there at the time, and he would go to my class restroom and basically introduced me to my class because again, kids are curious and are afraid and what they don't know. And so he would introduce me basically say, ‘this is Lizzie, she's just like you, yes, she looks different, this our situation’ and it definitely definitely helped.
(When) I got older, I got to a point where I wanted to be the one to introduce myself and little did I know this would sort of play out in the rest of my life and in different variations. I was able to go and introduce myself or, or speak up for myself.
… The years after that, I've sort of had to adapt how things work, because now, social media is 24/7. So if there's someone who's being bullied, they're not just dealing with it during school hours during the week, like we used to when social media wasn't around. And very, very, very young kids are getting access to iPads and all kinds of things.
… I think that there definitely needs to be a better understanding of, of what I explained — that there are two parties in this situation. It's so much easier when you are confronted with a situation to say ‘you are the bad person in this. You are the good person, how can I help you?’
There are two sides that both need empathy and compassion. My hope is that it will make a change and will it end bullying, will bullying ever end in any form? Unfortunately, not. But there is a way to handle it and hopefully teach people lessons that will continue on to help in situations like this.
Lizzie Velasquez Tedx Talk, 'How Do You Define Yourself.'
TJ
What would you say directly to parents of children who are trying to raise kind children?
LV
(My parents) raised us all the exact same way, and I think that's very important, whether you have one kid or two kids or whatever it might be — to allow them to know that, number one, you love them all, and that they all are going to share the same values and they all have the same expectations from the parent that will support them.
… Everyone in their family is rooting for them … but everyone is sort of following the same guidelines and values that are shared in the household. There's no one set of specific rules or anything. But what worked for me was my parents treating the three of us exactly the same — were my brother and sister able to do a little bit more things that I could do physically playing sports or anything like that? Absolutely. But my parents encouraged me to continue to find other things that I was interested in, and they would support me in doing them.
And so I think that's the first thing. I think the second thing is allowing them to express or have questions about someone who might be different, and reminding them that there is a way to ask questions and learn about people and make them feel included in a respectful way. And having those thoughts is completely, completely normal.
TJ
Is there anything that you are working on now that's coming up that you want to share?
LV
Right now I'm just continuing to work on speaking and traveling and for many, many years since 2013, when my TED Talk went viral, I was working non stop for three or four years after that. And so now, I'm at a point where I am now finding projects that I have wanted to do for a very, very long time and having the opportunity to work on them because for many years projects were being brought to me. And it was I always knew, ‘I'm doing this now, this now, this now, and this after this.’
And now I'm at a point where I can now sort of just create on my own. And it's scary because I don't have anything set in stone. But it's exciting, because I'm now able to spend more time on projects that I wanted to do for a long time. And right now it's working on a kid's series, whether it's animated, or a book series, where the main cast of characters has a physical disability or not one that you might not be able to see whether they are our nonverbal or autistic, or whatever it might be.
…My goal for this project is for kids to see other kids in their classroom in this book series, and hopefully have the introduction my dad did for me to be the introduction for these other kids in this series. So that's always been a really big dream of mine. And now I'm finally having the opportunity to sit down and really figure it all out.