Like racism, ageism is a script imposed on other people’s bodies

To tear apart any kind of “ism” it requires our ability to deconstruct it and to push against any parts of its architecture that are faulty

Ronald L. Jackson II, professor of communication, culture and media, and author

Immersed in the heat that precedes the rainy season and in the middle of social isolation with almost no help, I spend a lot of time keeping the house clean and tending to the garden. These activities afford moments of silence and self-introspection. During a silent meditation retreat in a temple, I had learned to flip the perspective on chores. Brushing the leaves from the courtyard was just another way to be myself and practice mindfulness. While I’m cleaning up, I see memories coming and going on the screen of my mind, ideas blooming, and stories unfolding. Amongst this treasure trove of inspirations, there’s an afternoon when I was sitting in one of the red velvet chairs in the parterre of La Scala theatre in Milan. I was assisting in the casting of the first flute for the orchestra.

Just like it happens before a show, the lights are dimmed, the air is full of expectation, but the curtains this time are open: the real action is in the hall where the casting team is sitting around Riccardo Muti, today’s music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From the middle of the hall, I can perceive the tension: one of the candidates is making him wait. Holding her glasses in her hands, the HR manager arrives on stage and she confirms that the musician is on his way. Finally, the flutist arrives. He is just 24 and has a Peter Pan flair. There are no sorries-for-waiting. The “maestro” asks dryly what he intends to play and the candidate responds it’s an aria from “The Magic Flute.” Then, he lifts his golden instrument, pauses and begins to play. And there it is, the absolute (and apparently effortless) perfection in the alternation of notes and silences. “How strong is your magic tone because, dear flute, by your playing even wild animals feel joy” goes the aria. I am enchanted, just like the wild animals of the opera.

Fast-forward twenty years, I have a similar feeling when I listen to a talk by Professor Ronald L. Jackson II called “Consume, Commodify, Repeat: Patterns of Scripting Black Masculine Bodies in Popular Culture.” Recorded last summer at the University of Graz, in Austria, it’s a detailed analysis of how ideas - in this case black masculinity - are born and cemented into the culture. Professor Jackson is not only a great orator - he’s the past president of the National Communication Association - he is also an explorer in the realm of social identities. “There are actually scripts that are written onto bodies every single day, impositions of other people’s realities.” While his work is focused on gender studies, for example, he’s the author of Masculinity in the Black Imagination and Scripting the Black Masculine Body, his framework can be borrowed to discuss how we build and transmit the concept of aging and that’s exactly what we did.

Your talk: “Consume, Commodify, Repeat: Patterns of Scripting Black Masculine Bodies in Popular Culture” is revealing. Can you briefly explain how cultural norms are created and replicated?

A norm is nothing more than something that over time gets situated and even cemented as the acceptable way of being or doing things. Much of what we understand as a cultural norm is embedded within language. In fact it is very difficult for us to think outside of language. Imagine for a second what would happen if we did not give a newborn a name. For most people that conundrum will leave them defenseless in trying to refer to that individual without giving a new label such as baby or John Doe.

Language is very complicated and is what allows us to not only shape our cultures but also to infuse our communication with our values. That is why the terms associated with power, difference, and marginality lead to social perceptions about these marginalized groups that permeates relationships across national boundaries, media, and even friendships. After the norms, in this case those associated with marginalized difference, become ordinary and acceptable, then that cement takes hold and is replicated across generations.

Do you agree that race and age, as cultural constructs, have many similarities? Can you elaborate on this?

The primary similarities with respect to race and age have a lot to do with how limited we are in our linguistic vocabularies. In other words, we find it simple to categorize individuals based upon social constructs like race and age. For some reason it makes us feel comfortable that we can lump all of those individuals together into the simplistic arrangements, which facilitate our ability to communicate with populations that share these demographics. For example, if we have certain presuppositions about Italians then every time we see or meet an Italian those stereotypes kick in and until the stereotypes are proven otherwise they dictate our cognitions and behaviors. The same thing happens with our stereotypes about race and age. If for some reason we believe that people who are older are feeble, confused, and incapable then even when we want to appear as well-meaning people these cognitions will be present in how we talk to and about those individuals. 

I do think however there are some differences with respect to race and age. For example we think about these as cultural constructs and there are very distinct ways in which someone from Ghana might think about age as opposed to someone from the United States. For example in many African countries we find that a person who is elderly has a very distinct role in the family. That individual is thought of as a “Griot” or a storyteller who passes on knowledge from one generation to the next. That means their role is quite indispensable. They are honored and respected for what they bring to society, not just the family. In the United States we often find quite mixed opinions about the elderly.

Far too often I am afraid they are treated as individuals who are all washed up. They have lived their time. They have antiquated ideas. Their relevance is very limited. That is a very unfortunate set of presuppositions about older individuals. We do find that younger people are thought of as being reckless and yet visionary. With a growing population in Silicon Valley who are running multi-billion dollar companies, it has become quite ordinary to see individuals under 35 years old who are taking on leading corporate leadership roles and making seven-figure salaries. That’s a very different orientation than that of those individuals who represent the baby boomer population where the average CEO is 55 years old and older.

You said that you don’t recognize the stereotypes put on you as a black man. Do you see a parallel with the stereotypes put on aging and older people?

I’m not sure. What I meant by that statement is that as a black man there are often stereotypes about me that do not seem familiar. For example, I grew up in a working class family, but the attitude about working class black people is completely detached from my reality growing up in this kind of family. I was not surrounded by crime, violence, teenage parents, delinquency, and chronically underemployed and undereducated Black folks. I was instead surrounded by a hardworking Christian family that loved me and that valued education.

In contrast, I can only imagine that people who are senior citizens are often times stereotyped as well. I’m not sure about the extent to which they feel some of the stereotypes are true. For example, the body naturally breaks down and joints are naturally weaker. Elderly people often times are taking a regiment of different kinds of medicines because their bodies are not as strong as they used to be. On the other hand I can imagine that if most senior citizens are like the ones around me they are quite sharp mentally, so that stereotype about being mentally detached may feel unfamiliar to them.

I guess there’s a fundamental difference between racism and ageism. Because we grow up in an ageist culture, we are perpetrators of ageism first and victims of ageism later. Do you agree?

I am not entirely sure that I agree with that statement. I do think that those who are ageist begin first as perpetrators and later as victims if they grow old enough to be in the position to be elderly. And yet I’m not sure everybody is ageist. Perhaps I’m being a bit self-righteous here, but culturally (in African American culture) the elderly are valued tremendously. I do not recall a time when I thought negatively about people who are aging or elderly. You did draw some similarities between racism and ageism. In some ways they are not comparable. Racism is something that happens as a result of a colonial mindset. 

The contrast between ageism and racism is stark. Racism is something that goes far beyond bigotry. What makes someone racist is that someone who discriminates on the basis of skin color has been granted by that society the collective power to adversely impact marginalized people’s lives. I’m not sure that someone who is ageist carries that same weight. I think someone who has no substantive power can be ageist. This may be parsing terms here. It could be argued that all –isms require collective power and all else may simply be described as bias, stereotyping, or discrimination. 

What we have learned historically is that people who are racist have killed millions of people. It happened through what was called the middle passage or the holocaust of enslavement. It happened through experiments like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It has happened over the years through the civil rights movement where people were hung from trees. It happened just a few years ago when we saw a spike in anti-black police brutality and saw black people being shot at point blank range by the police. We have seen no such rash of heinous crimes being historically and routinely enacted against people because of their age. There is no major social movement that has fought against elderly people being beaten with bats and hosed down in the street by the police merely because of their age.

You are the author of Negotiating Cultural Identities. How can older people see themselves, when the images they see reflected are a negation of who they are?

Excellent question. In every case where a marginalized group has had to negotiate their own identity we have found that they have constructed a new set of terms and conditions for their own self-affirmation. It is what compelled the famous singer James Brown to develop the song “I’m black and I’m proud.” It is what has compelled a relatively new social movement known as Black Lives Matter. We are individuals who have had to shift the conditions by pushing back against the establishment.

In the case of aging individuals it is important to think about what the obstructions are and what the population of people who are discriminated against really want. If elderly people are losing their jobs because of age then that perhaps could be part of a manifesto to shift their conditions. This is an interesting moment throughout the world because we have more individuals who are baby boomers who are retiring or have already retired. We perhaps have never had a moment where there has been such a large number of individuals with this shared characteristic. So, it is going to require radical progressive change. It is also going to require some education of what the issues are and how they can be shifted.

Ageism is a form of discrimination in open sight. Look at any anti-aging campaign to realize it. Still, there’s a lot of shame and isolation embedded in being old. How can consciousness be raised at the individual level when someone else is dictating the narrative?

Well, if there’s ever been a moment in history where the narrative can be shifted it is now. We have never had this much access to the broader populace as we do now through social media. There are more social media campaigns that have been started one week and within a month they have millions of followers. Look at the #MeTooMovement. That is just one example. I understand that the stereotype is that people who are older do not use social media and did not feel competent trying to deploy or stage a campaign through social media. I think our elderly US presidential candidates have proven otherwise.

You talked about the “architecture of race” and explained that, because race is a construct, it can be destroyed like any other building. Would the same apply to age or do you think that age obeys a different set of rules?

Absolutely it does apply to age. There is an architecture to ageism, but if we choose to tear apart any kind of ism it does require our ability to deconstruct it and to push against any parts of its structure that are faulty. When social architecture is left alone and perhaps even modified or “improved,” then that says something about how that society has an investment in sustaining that structure. That is where those who want to push back must spend most of their time. They must be willing to not only unravel the construct, but also detect what is keeping this structure erect and what we can do about it. 

What can we learn from gender studies to address the inequalities related to age in the midst of contradictory cultural messages?

Gender studies activists have been persistent about redefining the terms and conditions of their mistreatment.  They have insisted that wherever there is gender discrimination women (and men) must fight to emplace remedies. If it is a matter of women in executive leadership roles, then women and their allies must work to politically enable themselves to be considered for these roles. If the argument is they are not qualified, they must be prepared to overcome these objections with hard evidence. Gender studies have taught us what all social movements have taught us. There are multiple fronts on which we must resist. There must be a change in language, policies, protocol, and practices. There must be stakeholders on all sides who join the fight.  This is how we move the needle.