I've raised the subject 'Ageism' multiple times over the last few years and have been told by many, many people that not only am I wrong, I should just shut up about it. I'm told my concerns are made up, ageism does not exist and if it does I should just accept it. Then I'm labeled 'boomer' put in a package and proclaimed irrelevant.
The ugly truth about ageism: it's a prejudice targeting our future selves
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/14/the-ugly-truth-about-ageism-its-a-prejudice-targeting-our-future-selves
I'm told I should simply accept that fact that I'm not relevant to life anymore. I'm told I shouldn't complain because younger people are right and I don't understand them and will not listen to their concerns. That's why I'm writing this, because I haven't heard (see: agreed with unconditionally) or offered fealty and need to explain, once again, why ageism is morally wrong but that it's also just stupid wrong politically.
Fighting ageism
Geropsychologists are striving to stop negative age stereotypes and meet the growing mental health needs of older adults.
The world is a mess and it's my fault I'm told. Everything is my fault. If I get pushed out of the way on the sidewalk, I shouldn't have been walking there. If someone steps in line in front of me at the grocery store, I should have gone to a different store, one that caters to my kind. If I'm told I can't come into the bar because I'm too old I should just suck it up and go play bridge at the seniors center. I'll give you a hint here: none of those people abusing this old guy are old. They're all 20 and 30 somethings. You're probably shocked, in a feigning sort of way.
Ageism: A ‘Prevalent and Insidious’ Health Threat
Ageism is bigotry, ageism is bullying.
I'll repeat that for the folks in the back – Ageism is bigotry, ageism is bullying. And when you're a target of bigotry, it hurts, a lot. I know I'll be swamped with “There's no such thing as ageism.” There is and it's everywhere in the western world and its broken selfish culture. It's all part of the selfishness we saw when 1,000s got together to party in the middle of a pandemic. “I'm healthy, to hell with you.”
A new target for workplace bullying: older workers
Racism has existed on this planet for literally 1,000s of years. It has been a scourge from the time of the city states who kidnapped people and used them as slaves to build their cities and armies to the present everyday abuses of POC and indigenous people. But, according to a few ageist pricks out there, my generation is at fault because we should have fixed that years ago, we should have pushed society on to a different track – we tried damn it, we tried and tried and tried. But the push back by following generations simply overwhelmed us, as it's overwhelming you now.
Gray Hairs
I see some ageist progressives who inhabit my Twitter time line bark and howl whenever a picture of the crowds at a Kenney, Ford or Scheer campaign style rally shows up and they see all those “gray heads” in attendance. Then they proudly declare that they see where the problem is - it's them damned old people! They're voting wrong! They're the reason the country is in such a mess and our kids have no chance to succeed like they did, if they'd all just die no one would have to face another destructive Conservative government. Of course they tend to overlook the part where they actually have to go out and vote but that's not your problem is it? You didn't like the candidates in your riding so it's those damn gray haired people who went out and voted wrong, it's their fault Kenney got 54.9% of the votes?
Those pictures are invariably followed by sometimes angry derisive comments while completely overlooking the support staff of the 20, 30 and 40 year olds there on stage and in support positions who write the speeches, design and define Conservative policies, support the campaigns by swamping SM with trolls, bots and scare memes– but yeah, it's the gray hair's fault that a 52 year old Kenney is tearing Alberta apart, or 55 year old Ford continues feeding his wealthy base, or a 41 year old Scheer continues to lie and mislead the country as he seeks redemption.
For decades the Conservative/Republican has honed their message of fear. They've pulled out all the propaganda stops telling old people that they are in danger from roving street gangs, from predator bankers and con men on the telephone. Then they tell them they're the law and order party and the only ones who'll protect them, they sell harsh sentences and permanence behind bars for the bad guys. They lie to make the vulnerable feel safe, even for a few minutes, and they win their votes. That well honed message has accomplished something I doubt even the backroom boys who run the Conservative propaganda machine envisioned, they convinced the progressive ageist that it's the gray hair's fault they've lost all opportunities to move ahead, so why would any progressive party bother courting them, why would anyone take them seriously or show them any respect? Conservatives for the win!
So what have progressives offered? We gray hairs are put in a dirty little box blaming us for environmental degradation, greed, selfishness, the root cause of systemic racism, bigotry and we support oil and gas unreservedly, or so we're told. We should be grateful we've been offered the chance to be placed in human warehouses, locked up, as the only option as to where we'll spend our last days because you're to busy and can't handle the work. Old people who refuse to be warehoused are left on their own to fend off the bad guys and, in some cases, understand the fast pace of change. For some that's an issue to be dealt with, not to be punished for.
My world is a little different, that's why I'm standing up to you right now. I grew up in a troubled house. I was what was called back in the 50s, a latchkey kid, I had to learn to fend for myself very early on in life. I grew into a bull, or a better said, an ox. Clumsy but determined. I Learned how to take care of myself both in the bankers office while looking for a mortgage or a car loan and in the street if some asshole decided to take or abuse what was mine.
I'm tech savvy. Was an electronics engineer grad in the early 70s. Right now I have a tablet, a smart phone and two laptops, one I rebuilt from parts. Having problems getting Ubuntu to work right so I'm using a pirated copy of Windows 10 Pro for now, yeah I'll delete it when I'm done. I've lived and worked in war zones, have been on the ground during 2 coups and heard the bombs go off. Lost my dad 30 years ago to depression, my sister to cancer, a cousin to violence and more friends than I can count to addiction and substance abuse...but hey – I have no life experience at all, none that matters to someone who sees life as either having opportunities or not having them. My life and its 70 plus years of learning and experience is meaningless tripe to an ageist.
I'm told I should just sit down shut up and listen to the new realities of the world I live in right now. A world that's run by 40 and 50 somethings that takes 60% of my income to pay the rent and utilities. I'm told I'm not interested in your life and I know nothing of your troubles because I have it easy. I got rousted out of a bar in Victoria before I sat down on that empty bar stool because...just because I was too old. I got punched in another one (same night) by someone who didn't like an old man in 'his' space. FYI – I'd had a total of ½ a beer that night. I stopped going out in Victoria, I decided to save my outside life for when I was in Asia, where they respect people a little more.
As I said, the Conservative/Republican have scared the beejeebees out of those gray heads who've led quiet work-a-day lives. They pounded in the idea of safety and economic stability into their brains. What have progressives offered? Seriously what have progressives offered that room full of people. The message is almost without exception “The world is for our children, your time has passed. You're not needed anymore. We're done with you.” How the hell do you think those vulnerable old people feel when they hear that message? Open your closed minds for just a second and imagine being told you're no longer needed, that you are in fact in the way. Personally my response is – fuck you! For many of those “gray heads” at a Conservative rally, they look toward someone who's offering to protect them. It's a lie that many of us understand is lie, but many of them don't get that. The Conservative panders to them and doesn't say to their collective faces “Can't wait until you're gone.”
Let's talk about lockdowns and how that interfered with you getting a haircut, or hanging out with your pals. All that had to be done, some say, is to lock up the old and vulnerable, keep the immune comprised always from everyone else so they can get on with their lives. Least amount aggravation for you and the least amount of disruption for the economy. Those who are locked up by virtue of age or disability may not see it that way. You get yours while those other people are pushed out of the way, interred.
Years ago Canada had a leader who understood human nature better than most. He told us: "There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." That was a brand new radical idea at the time. He also put in place a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to defend the vulnerable and minorities from those who are willing to take their rights away to facilitate an aggressive agenda. He understood that some of you will tear anything down, rip the shreds out of anyone who gets it your way so he restricted the ability of an oppressive majority to control and dominate the rest of us. That's why Conservatives hate the Charter so much, it gets in their way. Many ageists see the world in the same way. They bark about and claim their support of progressive ideas and ideology but when it comes to getting 'theirs' but those old bastards get in the way, they lose their minds: “I've tried but I've hit a wall, they won't listen, they won't change. Why won't they go away?” Try putting on your parents shoes for a second and listen to yourself, just for a moment, and see how it feels. Understand why they resist you.
Here's an idea ! Why not try something else? Why not tell the older people that you are not going to take everything they have and tear down their lives, lives they've lived for 6, 7 or 8 decades so your children can have the imaginary world you saw on TV that time. Progressivism is much more that buying fair-trade coffee or owning an EV of some sort (have and do both) I am measurably more progressive than many of the younger you(s) and have been for decades.
People like me, we talk about the future, about a cleaner environment, about a fair and balanced economic system that leaves no one behind - NO ONE – who works everyday to reduce systemic racism and bigotry, that respects all orientations, and works toward equality for every human being on the planet.
Imagine that - https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html
The conflict comes from how that's to be done. The message that's sent out by ageists and many progressives is “The world belongs to the young. You are not invited. You took yours and squandered it now it's time to step aside and we'll take what's left.” Now a bunch of you will yelp at me and say “See, you don't listen, that's not what we're saying.” Tell that to the families of the 1,000s who died miserable deaths from a preventable disease after being forced into a warehouse for old people, a place the vast majority never wanted to go. Tell that to the old people who pay 60 or 70 percent of their income to pay the rent and have no chance of seeing that ever change. And now ask yourself who would you vote for? Would you vote for the one who says you are no longer relevant to life and to get out of the way or would you vote for the one who says (even lies) to you that they will protect you against the progressives who'll take everything you have? Or as a third choice, would you just prefer if we all died, just to clear the slate?
Maybe try another way, try talking to your parents or the other gray heads you meet instead of talking at them, making them feel threatened. Many of them are vulnerable human beings and they are afraid of you. They're afraid of the message that they don't belong anymore and that you are there to take life as they know it away from them. Stop being such a goddamned bully.
Ageists are haters too, no other way to describe them.
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