Show Transcript

Stop Ageism: A Call to Action

[00:00:00] Hey guys, welcome to the Lean to the Left podcast, where we focus on the key social issues of our time with just a little lean to the left. Now, President Joe Biden is constantly being denigrated because of his age. He's 81, and that really pisses me off. His critics keep contending that he's lost it, that he's frail, that His memory's shot to the point that he can no longer function effectively as President of the United States.

[00:00:30] I would just like to say that, I don't know anybody 35 years old that could do what this man has done since he's been elected president of the United States. And ironically, one of his critics is Donald Trump, his likely opponent in the upcoming November election. Trump is 77, and he's no spring chicken.

[00:00:51] And now the Biden camp is calling out incidents showing that Trump is the one who suffers from old age. All of that, in my opinion, is just ageism, and it's wrong. And today we have with us Dr. Gail C. Christopher, who has worked tirelessly to fight all forms of discrimination. including ageism. So stay with us.

[00:01:13] Dr. Christopher is the Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity. She's Senior Scholar at the Center for Advancement of Being at George Mason University and former Senior Advisor and Vice President of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. She's the author of Rx. Racial Healing, which details the power of racism and the need for healing.

[00:01:42] Dr. Christopher, thanks so much for joining us today on the Lean to the Left podcast so we can explore this important topic. 

[00:01:50] Bob, thank you for inviting me, and it's my privilege and honor to be with you today. 

[00:01:55] Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Now, you've spent so much of your life fighting against discrimination, whether it's racism, sexism, or any otherism that puts down people for who they are and their station in life.

[00:02:10] What is it about ageism that's got your blood in a boil? 

[00:02:15] And my anger parallels yours a bit. I kept hearing all this, what I would call name calling and denigration of our commander in chief, and based on stereotypes, and calling him out in press conferences, and asking insulting questions, Is your memory getting worse every day?

[00:02:37] And these kinds of critiques and stupid remarks, really, I'll be honest with you, they reflect ignorance. People don't understand what the data tells us about growing older. This is the first time in the history of our country, at any rate, where people have lived as long as we do due to public health and medical advances.

[00:03:01] So we're just beginning to really study how the brain ages and how memory changes. For healthy people who are, In their 70s and 80s and some even into their 90s, they're still functioning very well. The memory changes we don't need the specific dates and times like we might have needed them, in decades before.

[00:03:23] So I just felt that, this ought to be called out and we shouldn't let ageism, the discrimination against, the bullying of, and the denial of the full human capacity of people of a certain age, we shouldn't just let that become a norm. And that's what this election season was promising, so I just said, I just got to write about this. And thank goodness the Washington Monthly Magazine picked up my article. 

[00:03:50] Yeah, and that's why I invited you to be on this program, because I read it, and I thought it was just terrific, and it points out exactly the concerns that I have about discrimination against people because of their age, especially about our president, and now in that article You, you wrote that, quote, Mass media and commercialization have generated youth idolatry in the United States, perhaps minimizing the possibility of justice, fairness, kindness, and respect for the elderly. Stereotypes, name calling, cruelty, and disregard are accepted as common practice. 

[00:04:30] Man, that's, that puts it in a nutshell. How about elaborating a little bit about that? 

[00:04:36] I will, we have a culture and I think maybe it was fostered by our love of movies and television and the industrial complex that, sells products in order to to profit.

[00:04:49] But somehow we have a culture in America that values youth. That, and it really is perpetuated by the entertainment industry, too. As my mother grew old and reached her 90s, my brother and his wife retired to Mexico. And we as a family decided that my mother would be better off in Mexico with them because that culture's basic value system respects the elders.

[00:05:19] At some point she did need extra care, but we could not have paid for the quality of care that she received in Mexico, here in America, no matter how much we spent because of that basic cultural difference. We, in this country, we just don't have an ethos of reverence or regard for the elders.

[00:05:44] Yeah, and I think that's just a shame. I don't understand why it is that this younger generation is taking the attitude that it does about people. At least my age, and I suspect you're closing in on it, too. Yes. But, yeah, but it's, President Biden, he's done a hell of a lot, and I just don't know how, at his age, he can do it, but he does and he's got a Fine record of achievement despite the odds against him pushed by the Republicans and the MAGA people and their supporters in Congress.

[00:06:22] And so I just thought when I saw that piece that you wrote in the Washington Monthly that it was just on point. Now, you pointed out that people over 65 are the fastest growing demographic in America and that it's time for us to have a correction in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding this group.

[00:06:43] How would you suggest we do that? 

[00:06:46] We have to make it an intentional strategy. We really do. And there are some good books that are out. I referenced that one by Applewhite, This Chair Rocks. But we really do have to make it a concerted media strategy to portray images of older people in much more positive ways.

[00:07:06] We really have to make it a movement that is positively focused. We need to do that for economic reasons. We need to broaden our understanding of the benefits of growing older, the value that people bring to the world at this different stage of life. But it has to be a concerted effort.

[00:07:28] We can't, it's not going to happen on its own. I think that again, because our social media amplifies our entertainment media and our sports media, young people today are bombarded. with an echo chamber that reinforces youth and does not embrace, understand, or revere, other generations in life.

[00:07:51] So we really have to work at this. We have to have a national strategy, but the numbers dictate that we need to, not just so that we respect our leaders, but that we develop an intergenerational culture. There are some things that We can't do. I'm 73. And so there's some things that I can't do now that I did when I was 40 or 30 or 60..

[00:08:17] But there's a wisdom that I have now. And there are things that I can do and that I do. Manage to develop a shared sense of our humanity, and most of my life's work has been dealing with issues of racism and racial hierarchy, some of it has been dealing with issues of ableism, not regarding folks who have some sort of disability with fairness and equity, but ageism, I didn't really embrace talking about it and writing about it until I began to experience it more myself, I thought I've gone through my whole life I've overcome racism, I've overcome gender bias I was born with a different ability, let's put it that way.

[00:08:59] So I've overcome ableism right. And doggone it, now I smack right into ageism. 

[00:09:06] Here we are. Yeah, you've experienced a bunch of isms in your life. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know what you mentioned the media. I was watching a, I guess it was a movie the other night on on TV.

[00:09:22] And some young kid said to some older guy, he called him, Hey, old man I think he was he, I don't know. He was a robber. He was, he had this older guy on the floor. He had shot him. And he called him. Old man and it pissed me off and it just we shouldn't have that kind of stuff on in our movies.

[00:09:48] I don't think 

[00:09:49] Yeah. The biases that our culture embodies, be they racial or gender and certainly age and ability and immigrant, anti immigrant bias, they show up, in media and it's up to us to be not just angry, but to vote with our feet, and send letters in and change the channel and just, That was what was upsetting me about this flood of stereotypes that were being hurled at President Biden.

[00:10:17] I kept thinking where's the outcry? Why isn't someone standing up and saying, this is wrong? This is hateful. And nobody was doing that, and that was. I said, okay, I have to because obviously we have to start this echo chamber, we have to start this chorus. And it has to do with compassion and understanding, and just regard for human life.

[00:10:41] That's at the center of all of these. issues, right? Be it gender bias or racial bias and ageism. If we could begin to understand and have empathy and compassion and we could learn to see ourselves in terms of the elderly, maybe our future selves, right? But if we can learn to extend love and compassion to one another, that's what our democracy is going to require if it's going to work.

[00:11:10] And it is still an experiment, we don't have a guarantee that it's going to work We don't 

[00:11:15] have any guarantees. It's going to last 

[00:11:18] Exactly. It has to be grounded in an emphasis on the evolution of us as human beings so that we can extend, at the minimum, respect and regard. For someone to, to be the President of the United States, it is an unbelievable responsibility.

[00:11:39] It still is, the most powerful position, given our military prowess, it still is the most powerful position in the world, and to have to live with that every second of the day, make decisions, manage this huge set of employees, respond as needed to emergencies, and always keep the big picture in mind.

[00:12:03] Huge unimaginable responsibility. Surely it deserves a measure of respect and reverence. 

[00:12:10] I agree with that a hundred percent. And that seems to happen. Despite the fact that the president has achieved what he's achieved the guy came in the middle of the pandemic people were dying we had a president who was just leaving office, who Told people to ingest, what, Clorox to avoid getting sick from COVID.

[00:12:39] And that was just craziness. And he had to come in and take over in the middle of all of that. And at the same time, all these things happening internationally, what with the Russian attack on Ukraine, and now the situation in Israel. All of those things this guy has to take care of.

[00:12:56] I, I, it, I'm the same age as he is, and I just can't fathom how he can do that with the energy that he has, and the, but thank God for the wisdom that he has. 

[00:13:11] Yeah. And the life's journey that he's had in terms of losing loved ones at an early age. Exactly. And still dedicating himself to public service, now, when I wrote that article, I really was intentionally nonpartisan in it, I listed up the accomplishments of President Biden and his predecessor.

[00:13:34] Yes, you did. 

[00:13:35] I did that deliberately because I didn't want this to be read as a partisan article. I wanted it to be read for its intention, which was to say no to ageism and ultimately yes, to our democracy and to our humanity. And that's what I tried to convey in the article. And I think you saw that.

[00:13:57] And that's the position we have to take. If we're going to continue to promote fairness and justice in our society. And 

[00:14:06] do you believe that the presidential election could serve as a reminder that ageism is harmful and should be eliminated? 

[00:14:15] Yes, that's what I was trying to do. I was, we do an annual survey at our organization.

[00:14:21] We call it the heart of America. Survey and what we're trying to do with that survey is invite people to ask questions of them that allow them not to have to take a side, to call forth their better angels right to, to respond in a way that's not. extreme, and we're astounded at how many Americans in our nationally representative sample really are at the center, right?

[00:14:49] They want a leader that doesn't divide us, they want a leader that unites us, and I think that is the pulse of America, although it's more profitable and I guess more engaging of eyeballs for the media to only emphasize the polarization and the division. But if we step back and look at the outcome of many of our elections, we do see that The majority of Americans want to go forward in a positive, rational engaging way for all of us.

[00:15:23] And we try to lift up that message in our work at the National Collaborative. And this election, It is a moment. It's a moment where we need to call upon our better angels, our better selves. We need to imagine a future for this country that is not grounded in negativity and name calling and division and lies.

[00:15:45] Quite frankly, we need to imagine a future for this country that's grounded in the possibility of doing the hard work. of making a multiracial, multicultural, multi age democracy work. 

[00:16:01] Yeah for sure. Now, you mentioned a minute ago journalists asking Biden questions that are tinged with ageism. If I would have heard those questions, I'd have been ticked off as well.

[00:16:16] Why is it that, that this is happening with these reporters? Don't they understand what they're doing? Don't they understand that that's harmful? Don't they understand that's not fair? I don't know, 

[00:16:32] Bob. I don't think they do understand it. And that's one of the reasons that I wrote the piece.

[00:16:37] It's coming out of a genuine ignorance, right? And we all made mistakes in our dealings with the perceived other, right? We may have inadvertently said the wrong thing or put our foot in it. 

[00:16:51] Yeah. 

[00:16:52] Until someone made us aware that wasn't the right thing to say, or that wasn't the right language.

[00:16:59] That's why, I said everyone should read the book This Chair Rocks. It's a manifesto against ageism. I think it should be required reading for reporters and for media representatives because I don't think they, they really realize that the way they're framing their questions and essentially the accusations that they're making, right?

[00:17:21] How fit you or I or Biden or Trump or anybody is a decision that's made by our physicians and our family, not by some person that's totally removed from my daily life. So I really think it is a form of not knowing, not understanding. And so I think we have to call people in and say, you know what, do your homework, right?

[00:17:44] Read up on the realities of this fastest growing demographic in this country. We do have some collective policy issues that we all need to work on, at least 17, almost 20 percent of the people who are over 65 are living below the poverty level in America. We have some major issues that we need to deal with.

[00:18:06] Discrimination in the workplace is real and tangible and we need to, to address that. So there's some real challenges that require our unbiased focus and attention. 

[00:18:18] Dr. Christopher, do you have any info about the breakdown of that in terms of race? 

[00:18:25] I can tell you without the actual hardcore data, but I can tell you unequivocally that the poverty and the lack of financial support for older years it's disproportionately born, the burden of that is disproportionately experienced by people of color and by women. And it makes sense. If we've had a lower salary throughout the decades, right? If we've had less opportunity to get the best paying jobs, if we've had, disinvestment in communities, so we've had less opportunity for the best education.

[00:19:03] So that pattern doesn't stop when people get to be 65 or 67 or 70, just because of social security. When I was growing up, people thought about pensions, and retire. But the concept of retirement is almost an antiquated concept right now. We dismantled that. old system of a pension, replaced it with 401ks, which can be devastated by economic changes, but how many people who have low income all their lives even have 401ks, 

[00:19:38] yeah, that's for sure. 

[00:19:39] So we really do have some, Economic issues, some justice and fairness issues that require, objective thought and reasoning and work. And we need to just get rid of all this ageism so that we can deal with those issues in a much more compassionate way. 

[00:19:57] You mentioned women a minute ago.

[00:20:00] Do you feel that women are disproportionately affected by ageism? 

[00:20:05] Oh, definitely. You know what I mean? Why? Why? Why? Because that we've made less than men. Okay. That's part of it. 

[00:20:13] But that's sexism, that's not ageism, right? 

[00:20:16] They go together, okay who is if you look at who suffered in the pandemic in terms of economic loss, right?

[00:20:24] The data is very clear that it was women, and it was disproportionately what we then called, in a euphemistic way, essential workers. But most of those frontline essential workers were people of color, and they were disproportionately female. So every time There's a major economic downturn. Those who have the least tend to suffer the most.

[00:20:47] If you pull that thread throughout the life course by the time we get, you've got people living on less than 500 a month if they're relying on their social security income, many of them, right? And so this requires some serious rethinking as far as our economic life course, if you will.

[00:21:09] Yeah. And here we are now in a situation where some in the Republican party and Trump, are now saying that there needs to be some cutbacks of social security and probably even Medicare. Because of the crazy spending that they've done giving wealthy people and corporations a big tax break.

[00:21:33] Now they want to put that on the back of elderly people and people of color. 

[00:21:38] Yeah this has been a historic pattern that unfortunately does tend to show up in partisan divides. 

[00:21:48] Yeah. 

[00:21:49] The notion, I appreciate this current administration when they say that the richest sectors of our society, corporations and extremely wealthy people have to pay their fair share.

[00:22:03] I think that's just common sense, right? And as our population demographic shifts and we are growing older faster, right? And longer clearly we want to have people be healthy, have access to health care when they need it. Access to the medications that they need. The reductions in the cost of medication.

[00:22:26] That's another huge policy win for this administration. And when you think of the obesity and the diabetes epidemic in this country, 

[00:22:35] right? 

[00:22:36] And the cost of those medications to have made it a priority to to set a ceiling on what an individual has to spend on medication that they have to use chronically.

[00:22:48] That's such a compassionate and practical intervention. We definitely have a lot of work to do. We have to look at our demographics in this country. With. And a lens of compassion and fairness and empathy. And, I'm again, I have to not be partisan. But if we look at the facts tell us that, the Democrats at least think that way and look forward in that way.

[00:23:15] It's. It's the future, right in front of us. 

[00:23:17] None of these folks are perfect. Republicans or Democrats. But I do agree with you that the Democratic Party is the one that shows a sense of caring and understanding and a sense of needing to get rid of all forms of discrimination.

[00:23:36] And unfortunately, the other party is just the opposite. It seems like in, in the way they respond to to key issues that we all have to deal with. 

[00:23:47] I'm sure that has changed throughout history, and we have to understand that, labels are less important than actions.

[00:23:58] Yep. 

[00:23:58] And some of the major victories that have happened throughout history have been a surprise. Yeah. In the sense, some of them have come through in Republican administrations, right? As far as equity and justice and fairness. But at the same time, we have to take a realistic look at where we are today.

[00:24:17] And there are some urgencies that we have to deal with. And the issues of economic viability, the issues of investments in our federal infrastructure and our state and local infrastructure. 

[00:24:31] Climate change. Seriously, how can anybody in this day and age deny our contribution to the destruction of our basic atmosphere and environment, and climate change is real.

[00:24:45] And yet we have, we're denying that. Who suffers the most in terms of hurricanes and floods and fires? Who is the most vulnerable? The elderly are the most vulnerable when those things happen. So this is a good action for all of us. 

[00:25:07] Absolutely. I live in South Carolina and we have a lot of hurricanes here.

[00:25:11] Yep. 

[00:25:12] And and it's the people out in the sticks, mostly. Who who don't have a lot of financial resources, they're the ones that seem to always be suffering from the catastrophes of these weather events just because they live in areas that haven't been, properly cared for in terms of flood prevention.

[00:25:38] And the politicians here all say, Oh we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And the African Americans say, Why do you only come around at election time? Why don't you, why don't you come in and fix this stuff now? And I see it all the time here. And I'll tell you a funny story.

[00:25:58] When I was in, I worked on Capitol Hill back in the 70s, and 1970s, not 1870s, 1970s, anyway, I was working, I started out working, I was a journalist, and I wanted to come to Washington D. C. in the worst way, and I was working for United Press International, and they told me that they would send me to Washington, but that I had to be patient.

[00:26:25] I was only in my 20s and I was not patient. And this politician named Ed Forsythe, he was a Republican from New Jersey, had won election to Congress and he asked me to be his press secretary. So I thought all right, this will bring me to Washington. I'll do that. And then I'll ditch this guy and go to work for the Washington Post, which is what I wanted to do.

[00:26:47] I came to Washington and I was not able to get that job at the Washington Post. But Ed Forsythe. Was on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and he won and it was in the middle of the campaign. There's always a campaign for congressman and he was he was, his committee had a some kind of an inspection up in Alaska that he needed to go to.

[00:27:12] Now he was supposed to have a debate with his opponent before, his Democratic opponent, before a large group of seniors, senior citizens in Ocean County, New Jersey. And so he said to me, Bob, I need you to go and do this debate for me. You need to go and debate Charlie Yates. That was the name of his opponent.

[00:27:36] And so I said okay, I went to this thing, and I'm up on the dais, I guess you could say, along with Yates. We were sitting at a table together, and and the big question was was, should there be a increase in Social Security benefits or not? Now, the Republican position was, no. No, they would contribute to inflation. No.

[00:28:01] And of course, the Democratic position was absolutely, which is what all these senior citizens wanted to hear. Okay. They practically put me on a stake and lit a fire. They were not happy. I kept telling them, hey, it's not me, I'm just telling you what the congressman's position is.

[00:28:22] That's funny. 

[00:28:24] That took a lot of courage for you to go up there and do that. That stuck with you.

[00:28:30] It stuck with me, yeah. And I enjoyed it a lot. But I'll just say this. That I lasted. I think I worked for him for five years, and then I finally had enough of the Republicans.

[00:28:42] And I went to work for another congressman named Jim Florio, who became governor of New Jersey. And he was a Democrat, and he was very environmentally focused. And so I felt like those two years that I worked for him were positive and worthwhile. Not so much. The previous five years with the Republican, 

[00:29:04] they say that social security is a third rail, in terms of don't touch that, 

[00:29:08] touch it.

[00:29:09] Yeah, that's right. You know what, they're going to have to do something though because at some point, I don't know how many years it is from now, but at some point, there's going to be an automatic I think 20 or 25 percent reduction. That's. It's codified in law right now. 

[00:29:25] Yeah, they have to do something.

[00:29:27] They gotta find a way. They do, and that's another reason for older Americans to work together and have a very loud and very clear voice that This requires leadership. This requires bipartisan leadership that protects the collective interests, it's the collective interest here.

[00:29:46] It's not just for the older, it's for the viability of our whole economy in many ways. Again, we are the fastest growing demographic. We really do have to just be responsible. I spent some of my career at Harvard at the Institute for government innovation, which at the time the innovation and American government awards and what that.

[00:30:09] And what that showed me was how there's this big gap in communication, the average American just doesn't know all the things that government does right to keep our society viable. And so they get caught up in the sound bites that come with every major election, but they don't understand this is 24-7 work, it's complicated, but it is necessary for us to have roads and an environment and to be safe.

[00:30:38] And to have bridges, all of these things are part of what, what has to happen. And that's what government is all about. Unfortunately, our government doesn't do a good enough job, singing its own praises and helping average Americans to understand what's going on. But, there's still time to do it better.

[00:30:58] Yes, there is. Now you've written this book, Rx Racial Healing. I'd like you to tell us a little bit about that because I know that fighting racism has been a big thing for you in your career. Yes, let's talk. Let's talk about this book and about what what it's all about. 

[00:31:16] I appreciate you asking.

[00:31:18] Basically, while I was at the Kellogg Foundation and for many of the decades before, I developed a methodology that brings diverse people together. We are very segregated country, and most of us can go through our entire lives without having authentic relationships across racial and gender and, age lines, right? We tend to speak to our own choirs, right? So RX racial healing it details this particular circle methodology that brings people together in a safe way. We're not coming together to talk about race, we're coming together to share authentic stories and narratives in response to prompts That enable us to see each other in our full humanity, right?

[00:32:07] And it's very well curated, but these experiences, they lead to awe and wonder in terms of, if you sit in a circle of 24 people and you hear their stories in ways that are positive and engaging, but authentic, it does begin to chip away at our stereotypes and our biases. The methodology could be adapted for ageism, too, as I'm saying this out loud, right?

[00:32:33] Sure. But and that work fits into a bigger framework of or strategy of work that we call truth, racial healing, and transformation. Bob, America never really did a truth and reconciliation. process like so many countries have done around the world. Over 45 of them have instituted national truth processes.

[00:32:56] We didn't do it in America. We didn't do it after the Civil War. We didn't do it after Reconstruction. We've had these episodic movements, but we've never really had a concerted effort to tell the truth of our beginnings and to heal from the tremendous harm that You know, centuries of enslavement and denial of the humanity of indigenous people.

[00:33:21] Centuries of harm that was caused by that. We need to do that as a country. And so with the support of the Kellogg Foundation And many other partner foundations around the country. We now have a truth, racial healing and transformation movement emerging in this country. We have over 70 college campuses that have centers that are doing this work.

[00:33:46] And the work is not to divide us, the work is to fine tune our skills and capacities for empathy and compassion and understanding and cross racial communication so that we can work together to solve our collective problems. 

[00:34:03] Okay. Dr. Christopher, I thank you so much. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we close up?

[00:34:10] I would just, if people would like to read the book and get involved they can do so through the American Association of Colleges and Universities, AASU. They publish the book, they sell it, and all the proceeds from the book it, they go towards supporting the work on the campuses, 

[00:34:28] okay, so people can get that book. I will put the website up on the video and I'll include it in the notes for the podcast. That's really good. I appreciate that. And so is there anything else? 

[00:34:40] No, I just want to thank you for the conversation. I was surprised by your call, but I was so happy to get it, 

[00:34:47] good. Thank you. I really appreciate you coming on, and I hope you guys found some value in, in the message that she brings us, I think it's extremely important and give some thought when you hear these things about President Biden and being old and frail and all of that.

[00:35:08] Just look at what he's been doing and how he's doing it and think, could you do that if you were 81 years old? Just think about that. So thanks so much. Appreciate it. . 

[00:35:20] Thank you so much. This was fun.