{"id":6708,"date":"2021-09-22T07:04:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T11:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=6708"},"modified":"2021-09-22T07:04:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T11:04:40","slug":"ageless-clueless-i-goofed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2021\/09\/ageless-clueless-i-goofed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ageless, Clueless \u2026 I goofed"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my book tour, I often closed readings with a passage about aspiring to agelessness, declaring it a form of age denial. A woman at Powell\u2019s Books in Portland, OR, said, \u201cSaying you\u2019re ageless seems like saying you\u2019re color-blind,\u201d and the comparison stuck in my head. <\/span><\/p>\n

Later on, Robin DiAngelo\u2019s <\/span>White Fragility<\/span><\/i> helped me understand the problem with color-blind: if we don\u2019t see race\/color, we don\u2019t see racism. Eventually, I put the two ideas together in a graphic that read, \u201c\u2019I\u2019m ageless\u2019 is to ageism as \u2018I\u2019m colorblind\u2019 is to racism\u201d and posted it to Instagram. I was pleased with the formulation and even happier when an ally made the more elegant version \u2026 setting the text against the silhouette of a Black woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until a friend shared a different viewpoint: \u201cAs a woman of color I believe both ageism and racism need to be highlighted and addressed in today\u2019s society, but I do not think they can be compared to each other. If it\u2019s with reference to how they intersect, I get it, but when comparing one form of injustice to another, it can be interpreted as disregarding that group\u2019s experiences and feelings. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRacism deals with years of oppression, injustice and countless moments of individuals feeling defeated on the basis of their skin color. Not everyone will know what that feels like, at least not in the eyes of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color].\u201d I apologized and thanked her, and received a gracious thanks for hearing her out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I got defensive. Yes, I knew I had to respect her experience as a woman of color, but the woman who\u2019d made the original analogy was Black! Yes, I knew it was a mistake to compare \u201cisms,\u201d but I was comparing <\/span>ways of thinking<\/span><\/i> about bias, not the biases themselves! Yes, I knew this was defensive-white-person squirming, yet I squirmed. Then I asked for advice.<\/span><\/p>\n

My partner told me I might be correct, but that my friend was right: at the end of the day I was equating the two forms of oppression, which is unacceptable because the overall effects of systemic racism are so much more severe. My friend Julia confirmed it [but] cut me a bit of slack: \u201cWhen you\u2019re one-up in terms of privilege, when you haven\u2019t had the lived experience, it\u2019s easy to get yourself in hot water.\u201d Julia does diversity and inclusion training professionally and helped me see the issue as part of a pattern of people \u201cnot seeing the part of you that maps to marginalization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What I should have done is place \u201cI\u2019m ageless\u201d within a broader context. It\u2019s part of a universal phenomenon in which people maintain, often with the best of intentions, that they \u201cdon\u2019t see\u201d difference. If \u201cI don\u2019t see your otherness\u201d is a compliment, it reinforces what poet and activist Audre Lorde calls the \u201cmythical norm\u201d\u2014typically white, male, thin, straight, cisgender and non-disabled\u2014as the standard against which other identities are weighed. The more closely people conform to that \u201cnorm,\u201d the more privilege they enjoy. And vice versa: the fewer [norm] \u201cboxes\u201d people can check, the more oppression they\u2019re likely to be up against. When people \u201cdon\u2019t see\u201d difference, they\u2019re denying the lived experiences of those with less privilege, even though those experiences are <\/span>at least<\/span><\/i> as valuable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other examples?<\/span><\/p>\n