Tag: senior

Not Dead Yet

Not Dead Yet

(written for Skyline Village Chicago March-April 2024 newsletter)

Robert Kramer, 74, talking to students at the University of Southern California: “You have far more at stake in changing how we approach aging than I do. You are far more likely, statistically, to live past 100 than I am. If you don’t change society’s attitudes about aging, you will be condemned to lead the last third of your life in social, economic, and cultural irrelevance.”  

A KFF News article,  Do We Simply Not Care About Old People? lays out the blatant disregard for our citizen elders, citing covid-19 statistics.

Around 900,000 older adults have died of covid-19 to date, accounting for 3 of every 4 Americans who have perished in the pandemic. In the last week of 2023 and the first two weeks of 2024 alone, 4,810 people 65 and older lost their lives to covid — a group that would fill more than 10 large airliners.

Yet, where is the outrage? Experts in the field of aging from around the country all agree ageism has always existed, but the pandemic elevated an intense, hostile prejudice against us.

“The implied message to older adults is: ‘Your time has passed, give up your seat at the table, stop consuming resources, fall in line,’” said Anne Montgomery, 65, of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. She says that baby boomers can “rewrite and flip that script if we want to, and if we work to change systems that embody the values of a deeply ageist society.”

In the years I’ve tried to advocate against ageism, I’ve heard everything from “I’m 80 years old, and I’ve never experienced ageism” to “Ageism? What’s that — not admitting how old you are?”

Gay rights leader Harvey Milk famously said in the 1970s, “Come out to your parents.” He knew, and he was right, that if people got to know gay people (can I say “queer” now?), their bias toward them would diminish.

Anti-ageism advocates say, “integrate, don’t separate.” The best way to overcome the ageist stigma is for the people who are stigmatizing you to get to know you. Don’t put “old” in the closet. Go out. Speak out. Be old.

Chicago has separated the old from the rest of the population — in housing, in social groups, in churches, and in health care. “They” don’t see us. ‘They” look through us. We defend ourselves by saying: I wrote a book! I walked the Camino! I volunteer! I have wisdom! I babysit! Walk dogs! Ride my bike!

Reminding people that we are still here, part of the human experience, walking through life like everyone else at any other age, is the best way to flip that script, not by bragging about our credentials but by our visible presence. And when we can’t hear or when our brain energy gets depleted at 3:00 in the afternoon, we ask people to speak up, and we excuse ourselves to take a nap. 

We’re old. Say it. Be it. It’s OK.

Ageism and Activism

Ageism and Activism

From the Board of Directors of Skyline Village Chicago reprinted from the November-December 2021 Newsletter
 
Age-related shaming can occur anywhere—the shove in the street, the cold shoulder at the cosmetics counter, the deaf ear at community meetings, and the big one—the obtuseness of the health care system.
 
Activism-Against-Ageism-2Ageism and age discrimination are different. Age discrimination raises its ugly head in institutions, corporations and housing. Experts often refer to ageism as complex and subtle. It is subtle, but not that complex. When someone addresses us as “young lady”, the implication is that young is good, old is bad. If we act flattered, we’re perpetuating the stigma. The expression “senior moment” aims to joke about aging memory loss as if it is an embarrassment rather than a normal part of getting old. One of our neighbors is often called “young at heart”. She’s an eighty year old woke grandmother who likes Chance the Rapper and marches in anti-racism demonstrations. “Young at heart” diminishes the lifelong experiences that have brought her to her own reckonings. Yes, ageism is subtle, but really, it’s not so complicated.
 
People in power have implicit or unconscious biases, baked-in at birth, passed down from generations like old recipes. Their unrealized thoughts are that people much older can be ignored because they are close to death, or they have had “full lives,” or they no longer care to survive. These never-expressed sentiments influence and often determine public policy.
 
Acquiring awareness of our own ageism warrants self-education and introspection. When we experience ageism from without, we tend to think “this is my problem,” rather than, “this is OUR problem.” Dismantling ageist thinking and behavior requires collective action, just like movements against racism, sexism and ableism. 
 
Anti-ageism activism is turning intimate suffering into public grievance. “In our society, there is this endless drumbeat of youth. We need to challenge the underlying message that age decreases your value,” says Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism and a blog called Yo, Is This Ageist?
 
Recently two members of Skyline Village challenged ageism by writing letters to the editor. Nancie Thompson and Regan Burke assure us they have been lifelong submitters of letters to editors. They had no expectations their letters would be published and yet, there they were—in the same week! 
 
Let’s keep it up. Write your own letters to the editor the next time you hear, see or read ageism. 
 
The links below will take you to contacts for your own submittals of letters to the editor.
 
 
While you’re at it, email us examples of ageism you’ve experienced: info@skylinevillagechicago.org. We’re compiling a list for Skyline’s advocacy work. Don’t worry! If we use your example it will be anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.
 
Thank you for your contribution to this important effort.
 
—Skyline Village Chicago Board of Directors
Phyllis Mitzen, Sandra Herman, Evelyn Shaevel, D Clancy and Regan Burke
 

Ageism and Activism

Ageism and Activism

From the Board of Directors of Skyline Village Chicago reprinted from the November-December 2021 Newsletter
 
Age-related shaming can occur anywhere—the shove in the street, the cold shoulder at the cosmetics counter, the deaf ear at community meetings, and the big one—the obtuseness of the health care system.
 
Activism-Against-Ageism-2Ageism and age discrimination are different. Age discrimination raises its ugly head in institutions, corporations and housing. Experts often refer to ageism as complex and subtle. It is subtle, but not that complex. When someone addresses us as “young lady”, the implication is that young is good, old is bad. If we act flattered, we’re perpetuating the stigma. The expression “senior moment” aims to joke about aging memory loss as if it is an embarrassment rather than a normal part of getting old. One of our neighbors is often called “young at heart”. She’s an eighty year old woke grandmother who likes Chance the Rapper and marches in anti-racism demonstrations. “Young at heart” diminishes the lifelong experiences that have brought her to her own reckonings. Yes, ageism is subtle, but really, it’s not so complicated.
 
People in power have implicit or unconscious biases, baked-in at birth, passed down from generations like old recipes. Their unrealized thoughts are that people much older can be ignored because they are close to death, or they have had “full lives,” or they no longer care to survive. These never-expressed sentiments influence and often determine public policy.
 
Acquiring awareness of our own ageism warrants self-education and introspection. When we experience ageism from without, we tend to think “this is my problem,” rather than, “this is OUR problem.” Dismantling ageist thinking and behavior requires collective action, just like movements against racism, sexism and ableism. 
 
Anti-ageism activism is turning intimate suffering into public grievance. “In our society, there is this endless drumbeat of youth. We need to challenge the underlying message that age decreases your value,” says Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism and a blog called Yo, Is This Ageist?
 
Recently two members of Skyline Village challenged ageism by writing letters to the editor. Nancie Thompson and Regan Burke assure us they have been lifelong submitters of letters to editors. They had no expectations their letters would be published and yet, there they were—in the same week! 
 
Let’s keep it up. Write your own letters to the editor the next time you hear, see or read ageism. 
 
The links below will take you to contacts for your own submittals of letters to the editor.
 
 
While you’re at it, email us examples of ageism you’ve experienced: info@skylinevillagechicago.org. We’re compiling a list for Skyline’s advocacy work. Don’t worry! If we use your example it will be anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.
 
Thank you for your contribution to this important effort.
 
—Skyline Village Chicago Board of Directors
Phyllis Mitzen, Sandra Herman, Evelyn Shaevel, D Clancy and Regan Burke