I did my best with a transcription for you, and for anyone else who wanted one. Itâs long, and I donât know how to cut in a video post (sorry!)
Good afternoon, everyone!
Itâs more like good evening, because itâs after three.
Anyway Iâm happy to be here to talk to you. I want to talk about the politeness of people with intellectual disability. But before that Iâm gonna talk a little bit about my life.
When my mother had me, I was born intellectually challenged. We talk about fearlessness â well, my mother didnât fear anything. She had seven children, and of course when I came she was told, âWell, this one youâre gonna have to institutionalize; it probably wonât live that long,â and of course my mom read the spell [?], and she said, âDonât tell me what to do. Donât tell me what to do. Iâll raise my children.â Well, my mother had dreams and hopes just like any other mother. She wanted me to grow up, like my other six siblings who were living (two deceased and one adopted, which would have made ten children) but she wanted me to grow up and go to school, and her dream was for me to graduate from high school.
Like any other child, I had dreams. I wanted to be an athlete, I wanted to be a nurse. And I wanted to be a veterinarian. Well, two of my dreams, I knew wasnât gonna happen, because of all the naysays that came around. âYouâre not gonna do this. Youâre not gonna graduate from high school. Youâre in a segregated class.â I was segregated outside on the playground. I heard a man talking earlier about playgrounds for everyone: inclusionary playgrounds. Well, when it comes to a child who is intellectually challenged, thereâs not much of a playground for them, but to be bullied and teased and be the cheaterball of everybodyâs joke. Well as time went by, my momâs dreams were fulfilled. I graduated high school, but I was still living a violent, angry life. I remember going to the dentist with my sisters and brothers. And she took all five of us girls, and the dentist would look at four of them, and sad, âOh yes,â when he got to me, âoh, we canât treat her. You need to take her to the clinic.â Of course, my mom being the broad person she was, she didnât take no slack from nobody. [crowd chuckles] But of course, sometimes she failed. There was a time, when I was going to be institutionalized, [that] two schools I was going to go to were now closed. And she was [adamant] that her child was going to be educated in the same school system as her other six children who were living. âYou got a special education class here, you gonna educate my child.â My mom was fearless. And you couldnât be fearless of her, âcause she was big. [crowd laughs] And when she talked, she was like Yeff Hutton (?); she ainât gonna take no back-snap from nobody. And when she said âbe quiet, shut up,â she meant it. She could pick you out of a crowd. Talk about being fearless. This woman was fearless. She was fearless in her community, and she was fearless for her seven young children. Even though she had welfare. Even though there wasnât much food. But she meant what she meant, and she meant for her children to be their best. Of course, Iâm ~~~ anger, taking a lot of psychotropic drugs. It was coming time for me to branch out.
I was going to a workshop, when a man approached me and says, âDo you know thereâs a program called âSpecial Olympics?ââ I didnât speak. And no, I didnât use sign language. [signs this last sentence as she says it] And I remember him saying to me, âWe want you to come out for this program.â And of course, me and myself, mean, angry, all I looked like was like this [jump to 3:50 for her facial expression]. I could care less, because I knew I was the bread end of a joke. I got into Special Olympics, a free program. Of course, it offered sports and training competitions â at the time, they used this word; this word is not to be used now â for the retarded. Now we use terms like âpeople who have intellectual disabilities.â When I first got into Special Olympics, it was one day. Now itâs all year. 180 countries. Itâs providing more than support. Itâs providing something I was denied: healthcare.
Just a month ago, I was up at the Clinton Global Initiative, to speak about people being denied healthcare who have intellectual disabilities. Of course, people come to the platform with about people how to treat it [?]. Thereâs not enough food, clean water. You know the logistics of what people came [?], but for the first time, somebody with an intellectual disability was able to get up and speak to the world about people who have the needs and the [âŚ] of healthcare for people who have intellectual disability.
Wise up folks. Itâs happening here in the U.S. of A. [signs âU-S-Aâ], that people are still being denied. And when I think about people being fearless, today, when I get out there and fight, Iâm fearless. I didnât think I was able to give back. I was told what I wasnât going to be. There was supposed to be a gentleman here today, Mr. Tim Schriver, was supposed to speak on fearlessness and he says, âIâm not the person to speak. Loretta, you are.â And I never thought I could be fearless. Yes, I do fear still today. I do fear the future. Because I know, right in this country, healthcare for the regular population, how we are challenging to get decent healthcare [?].
So yes. I am growing older, and I do have fears just like everyone else, about how Iâm gonna be treated, and about how people with intellectual disabilities around this country and around the world are gonna be treated. Because if we donât have good healthcare, we have nothing. You can have all you want in this world, you can have the best of food, but if you donât have good health, then care for yourself. We donât have humanity.
And now when I look at Special Olympics, Iâll always think back: âWhy would somebody like Miss Eunice Kennedy Schriver, who came fom a prominent family, think about somebody who was intellectually challenged?â Yes, she had a sister who was intellectually challenged, but she went beyond that in 1968, when she knocked on the gates, and she says, âYou know what? Iâm gonna take my chance.â In 1962 she had a camp in her yard. Society told her, âNonononono, those people donât belong.â People like me belonged in institutions. Warehoused. For a crime we didnât commit â basically imprisoned. And here was a woman who stood out. And Iâve always wanted to ask her â we were great, great friends, and I never got to ask her this question: âEunice, did you ever fear of what people would think of you doing something for a population of people who were not supposed to be thought of?â I wished I wouldâve had the chance to ask that question of her, and I didnât.
I have to rely on faith. I have to rely on being fearless, and for me to be fearless for people with intellectual disability, I have to trust in my faith, trust in my faith in others, [and] trust in my faith in good people in my life. And yes, when I think about Mrs. Schriver, she took a chance, and she wasnât afraid. She wasnât afraid to be fearless, no matter what stepped in front of her. And thatâs how I feel today. Iâm not afraid to be fearless, whether itâs going up against the President of the United States, or talking to Congress, or talking to Senate. People ask me all the time [drops to a whisper], âLoretta, arenât you afraid of that?â And I say, âNo. No, I guess this is the job God gave me to do.â When I look back on my life, I was supposed to be [afraid]. But today, I look at my life, and I look at so many lives, so many people being involved with people with intellectual disability.
And when I look at Special Olympics today, I think about unified sports, with people with regular abilities com[ing] into the school or into the community and play[ing] with people with intellectual disability. I look at Project Unify, where we come in and talk [to] young people in schools, where they are being bullied, with intellectual disabilities and regular abilities, talking about just their own issues. [âŚ], I heard a principal, with tears talking to me, he said, âLoretta, since we started Project Unify, where our regular students come in and talk to the students with special needs â we had one girl that wouldnât come to school anymore â and because of that, today bullying has went down 60% in our school.â Sixty percent. Bullying is a big issue.
So today, when I look and see where Special Olympics is going, whether itâs healthcare, whether itâs people being in the community, whether itâs for a child to play in the park, whether itâs for somebody to get their own apartment, to advocate, to be fearless, I have to have something in my mind, and beside me. I put my strength, and I put my faith in God, that I can be fearless, on behalf of Eunice, on behalf of Special Olympics, on behalf of all people with intellectual disabilities, so when I look around, that one day, I wonât have to have a job to fight. I wonât have to be fearless that one day, Iâll be able to walk down the street, and look at this person, and think of them as a person, instead of a person with an intellectual disability, as a person to be a part of your community, of my community.
Being fearless is hard. And Iâll be the first one to tell you about it, because I donât know what it is not to be fearful. Iâve always grown up to be fearful. Fearful of what life is gonna give me. Fearful of whatâs gonna happen in the future. But now today, Iâm proud to say that I am fearless, not for Loretta, but for the world of all people. So I would like to thank each and every one of you here, and I hope you will go home, if you fear something today, keep your faith, keep faith in yourself, keep faith in what you believe, and youâre gonna be fearless. Thank you so much. Good luck. Thank you. God bless.