On March 5th, the day my manifesto was published by Celadon Books, I landed a full 50 minutes on NPR’s On Point, an episode titled, “Too Old, Out of Touch? Too Young, Inexperienced? Ageism in America?”
I received a bunch of wonderful responses, of which my favorite by far was this one from Sharon Morrissey:
I am 2 months shy of 75 years of age. This week I am embarking on an intensive six week hot yoga teacher training in Canada. I live in VA. I challenge my thinking all the time; am I too old to wear this? Will people be repulsed by a septuagenarian teaching yoga? Am I just whistling in the dark? Or, perhaps I am simply alive & brave. I heard your interview on “On Point” & am enraptured. Thanks. I will train & teach & leave my age out of the equation. And if this is age denial, namaste.
This is why I do what I do.
I just discovered you today. I am an 88-year-old advocate for seniors from Houston, Texas. I will be publishing my first blog issue in the near future. It’s nic e to know others are enthusiastic about the good stuff that’s still in us oldsters!
John Leslie
‘Gettin’ old ain’t easy!
You must send me a link to your blog John. Time the silver panthers came back
I just heard Ashton Applewhite on NPR radio marketing her anti-discrimination book. She talked a lot about being against all types of discrimination, but what will stick with me longer than anything else she said was the suggestion that white men are seldom discriminated against except by ageism, and that it pains her to defend white men. It sure seems like she is trying to say that because of the color of my skin and my gender that she doesn’t need to know anything else about me to determine what I am like.
Hi Kurt,
What I actually said was that ageism is the first form of discrimination many white men encounter. The second comment was more tongue-in-cheek, but I’ll stand by it. No matter what kind of people they happen to be, white men benefit from both racism and patriarchy. This doesn’t mean they have easy lives; it means that their gender or skin color don’t make their lives harder. No one else on the planet enjoys this privilege. Every woman on the planet is oppressed by sexism, every person of color by racism, every woman of color by both sexism and racism. The path to power and visibility grows steeper when we add homophobia, ableism, and other prejudices to the mix. The path for white men is the least steep, which is why I advocate for those on the margins.
Ashton