Matt Glowacki: Diversity According to South Park

ORLANDO, Fla. - Matt Glowacki is a business man, a diversity speaker, and the number 1 most booked speaker on college campuses. He also happens to have been born with out legs. When people ask what the right name to call him is, he simply responds “call me Matt.”

Glowacki grew up watching shows such as South Park and Family Guy. He realized that these shows have important lessons rooted into each episode.

Using his knowledge of diversity and his love of these shows, he decided to take them on the road to educate college students. He shared his knowledge and unique way of teaching with the students of Valencia on Wednesday night at the East campus.  

Glowacki has different circumstances than many people, but he also has a different definition of diversity. “Diversity is taking time to learn from people different than yourself," Glowacki said.

Glowacki enthusiastically shared his own experiences as well as using clips from shows such as Family Guy and South Park to illustrate three major diversity issues - lookism, ableism, and racism. “I think it is hard to motivate people about anything so I am building on something that they already know,” He said.

Lookism is to discriminate against people because of how they look. Glowacki showed a clip from the Family Guy episode “He’s Too Sexy for His Fat,” which portrayed getting plastic surgery to look more desirable and consequently he becomes intolerable to those around him.

Natalie Shoauy, a Valencia student, said “he definitely did a great job connecting the shows to important issues in society today.”

To portray ableism, which is to discriminate against someone’s disability, Glowacki showed another clip of Family guy. The episode “Ready, Willing, Disabled” deals with the issue of being in a wheel chair and how just because someone is disabled doesn’t mean things are impossible for them.

Discriminating against someone’s race is the issue that people are most familiar with. Glowacki focused on the use of words such as the “N word,” and explained that it is content and intent that makes a word have a hurtful meaning.

Glowacki made an impact on the students in attendance. “I think that he got his point across,” said Valencia student, Andrew Hoffman. “He made a lot of bold statements that you don’t usually hear.”

Glowacki is currently traveling the United States, talking to many different college campuses about diversity. If you missed his presentation or just want more information, visit his website at www.MattGlowacki.com.