In
contrast, Ashby Village’s
2017 Reframing Aging photo exhibit https://www.ashbyvillagegallery.org/,
displayed photographs of its members at younger age with current age and their
own quoted thoughts plus bio. Its
website says of its featured 12 members: “None of them spend much time looking back—they’re looking ahead with
enthusiasm, curiosity, and optimism.” For
example, 93-year-old
Jeanne Bamberger (described as having "energy and intellectual engagement of someone half her age") mused: “I used to say, when I wake up in the morning, I have to
decide who I am. These days, it’s more like I have to decide if I am!”
Storyteller
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warned against the danger of a single story: “show a people as one thing, as
only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” But is
Reframing Aging coddling old age (as in “The Coddling of the American Mind”) by
filtering out the perceived negative (frailty, vulnerability) in favor of the “the more positive story” dumbing down the
diversity of older adult experiences?
“Our senior years are evidently a
time to celebrate ourselves and the wonderful things to come: travelling,
volunteering, canoodling, acquiring new skills, and so on. No one, it seems,
wants to disparage old age. …we get such cheerful tidings …meant to reassure us
that getting old just means that we have to work harder at staying young…
At the moment, we seem to be
compensating for past transgressions: far from devaluing old age, we assign it
value it may not possess. Yes, we should live as long as possible, barring
illness and infirmity, but, when it comes to the depredations of age, let’s not
lose candor along with muscle tone. The goal, you could say, is to live long
enough to think: I’ve lived long enough.
…The years may broaden experience
and tint perspective, but is wisdom or contentment certain to follow?
A contented old age probably
depends on what we were like before we became old. Vain, self-centered people
will likely find aging less tolerable than those who seek meaning in life by helping
others. And those fortunate enough to have lived a full and productive life may
exit without undue regret.
…just about every book on the subject
advocates a “positive” attitude toward aging in order to maintain a sense of
satisfaction and to achieve a measure of wisdom. And yet it seems to me that a
person can be both wise and unhappy, wise and regretful, and even wise and
dubious about the wisdom of growing old.”
—Arthur Krystal, “Why we can’t tell the truth about aging,” The New Yorker, Oct. 28, 2019
Last year, I expressed concern about Reframing Aging's campaign strategy to “avoid discussing or
showing older people as ‘vulnerable’” and place greater emphasis on the “more
positive story of aging, too.” Can we reframe vulnerable as a strength? After all, being
vulnerable makes us more human, and can teach us to develop Humility along with
Appreciation, Endurance, Generosity, Humor, Integrity, Justice, Kindness, Patience, Respect—desirable
traits at any age. Instead of just focusing
on "strengths that stay with us," let’s pay attention to our potential for developing these traits
as we grow older and help end ageism.
“we
see canes and other assistive devices of older age in the same way we see the
tricycles and training wheels of youth: as tools that support our independence
and freedom to move about rather than as visible representations of loss…
How
can I prepare to live my best life as I age? Rethinking my perception of canes
and walkers and even wheelchairs is a start. First, the personal reframing:
Now, when I see someone using an assistive device, I think, “Go you. You are
out and about and active in the world.” Second, the professional: I am
committed to keeping the pendulum from swinging so far toward images of older
adults who are free of obvious physical disabilities that we unintentionally
“otherize” frail older people by taking them out of the picture… we also need
to continue reflecting on all the realities of what it means to age…and
representing the diversity of older people in the images we choose…so we do not
unintentionally create a future where we cannot see the most vulnerable and the
most frail because we have cropped them out of the frame”—Nancy E. Lundebjerg, “When it comes to images, let's not crop frail older adults out of the frame,”
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Sep. 4, 2019
“OK
boomer”
"The
phrase is a culmination of annoyance and frustration at a generation young
people perceive to be worsening issues like climate change, political
polarization and economic hardship …The rise of the phrase “OK boomer” mirrors
the growing anger among young people at the older generation’s passivity for
the issues facing the world, not only today, but for the issues that young
people say will be left to them to figure out once they become adults."—Kalhan
Rosenblatt, “Teens use 'OK boomer' to fire back at older generations' criticisms,” NBC News, Oct. 29, 2019
What is our future with septuagenarian boomers like Senator Elizabeth Warren (age 70)
and incumbent President “The Donald” Trump (age 73) as leading candidates for President in 2020? Shall we skip the boomers in favor of Traditionalist
(“Lucky Few”) candidates like Senator Bernie Sanders (age 78) and former VP Joe
Biden (age 76)?
Because older adults are known to vote at high rates, they are an important voter
demographic to candidates. Yet, senior
interests are not monolithic, especially as our aging society is becoming more
diverse—racially/ethnically with increasing income inequality, and living longer
with disabilities. In San Francisco, older adults (age 60+) make up 23% of the City’s population: 43% identify as
Asian/Pacific Islander, 40% White, 10% Latino, and 6% Black. 14% of San
Francisco older adults live below the federal poverty level, and nearly 30% live
alone.
This month, Senior
& Disability Action (SDA) hosted a Local Election Candidates Forum, inviting
candidates for District 5 and District Attorney. As usual, politicians said anything to get
elected, pandering to what they thought older voters wanted to hear.
Democratic
Socialist tenant lawyer Dean Preston and Democrat incumbent Vallie Brown are
frontrunner candidates for District 5 (covering Haight-Ashbury, Hayes Valley,
Fillmore/Western Addition, Japantown, etc.), which has an older adult (age 60+) population
of 15,309 representing 18.2% of the district.
Vallie tarnished her reputation when news broke that she did an owner
move-in eviction against long-term, low-income African American tenants 25 years
ago, and lied about a tenant’s failure to pay rent until her 69-year-old former tenant came forward with rent receipts.
When SDA
asked non-partisan candidates for District Attorney (DA) about their priorities, it seemed
disingenuous to hear each candidate declare elder abuse. Deputy DA Nancy Tung and interim DA Suzy
Loftus are career prosecutors with tough on crime platforms. Deputy Attorney General Leif Dautch talked
about “transformative justice”; his website mentions confronting hate crimes “particularly
against our Latino, Muslim, Jewish, and LGBTQ communities”—but what about Blacks?
Chinese seniors?
Public
defender Chesa Boudin, whose 75-year-old father remains incarcerated for a 1981
armored car robbery that murdered two policemen and a security guard, spoke
passionately about criminal justice reform like addressing the underlying
causes of crime by “replacing jail with mental health care.” Afterwards, I decided to visit his campaign
website: Chesa Boudin for SF District Attorney video reminded me of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's The Courage to Change video as he dresses up for work, steps
out to take public transit … talks about equity and inclusion, but shows only one old person with white beard? Why are
images of old people absent from his campaign website?
Intersectionality
What
is the impact of ageism on cultural identities such as sex/gender and race/ethnicity,
or intersectionality with patriarchy and white privilege? Are female racial/ethnic minorities in old age further marginalized and rendered invisible by dominant society?
At
Tenderloin Museum, Magic Theatre presented a special matinee performance of The Chinese Lady, a witty play about the first Chinese female brought to the U.S. in 1834, by
American merchants who put her “otherness” on display to market imported Chinese
goods. For the price of 25 cents for
adults and 10 cents for children, curious visitors could gawk at 14-year-old Afong
Moy, whose life became a performance as she was a representative of the Chinese
Lady: “1st lady of the Orient in America,” highlighting her exotic
and foreign features, dressed in Chinese costume, her tiny bound feet walking
around a room filled with Chinese furniture, using chopsticks to eat Chinese vegetables and
shrimp from a rice bowl, pouring and drinking tea in a
ritualistic way, etc. How much of her
performance was really her, or what was expected?
Afong was aided by her skeptical
man-servant interpreter Atung, whom she called “irrelevant.” In her own yearning to be relevant, optimistic
Afong reframed her role as “ambassador” to share Chinese culture and promote world peace, embarking on a tour of the eastern U.S. and met President Andrew Jackson, etc. After two years of experience, her price went up
to 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children. At age 17, Afong presaged that she would
be “more and more old … inevitable that people will stop looking at me.” At age 29, Afong had a new employer P.T.
Barnum, part of a larger show, crowds were lighter as Chinese were
more common in the U.S. in 1849.
At
age 44, Afong was “replaced, betrayed, discarded”—retired from the
entertainment business—made “irrelevant.”
Years roll on, as Afong recited acts against Chinese, such as Chinese
Exclusion in 1882, its renewal in 1892, made
permanent in 1902, etc.
In 2019, 199-year-old Afong tells the audience that indulging in the past is “all that is left of me”—as she shares her life review to make herself relevant to the present. She walks in a circle, where she began with endless possibilities, hope, empathy—asking the audience to really look at each other for what’s true and real, to see long enough to be understood.
In 2019, 199-year-old Afong tells the audience that indulging in the past is “all that is left of me”—as she shares her life review to make herself relevant to the present. She walks in a circle, where she began with endless possibilities, hope, empathy—asking the audience to really look at each other for what’s true and real, to see long enough to be understood.
Post-show
discussion with Will Dao, who played both self-effacing Atung (less known about
his character than Afong Moy) and arrogant President Andrew Jackson (best known
as face on $20 bill and for his racist 1830 Indian Removal Act to open lands for
slave plantations).
Attendee (seated in front row) claimed her late husband was descendant from Afong Moy’s family in China.
Will
Dao (Atung) with Rinabeth Apostol (Afong Moy), who gets kudos for memorizing Lloyd
Suh’s script in The Chinese Lady's 90-minute performance—explaining her story from age 14 to 199,
aging in place (appearing age-less, almost like The Age of Adaline) on stage!
At
SF Main Library, Arthur Dong introduced his new book, Hollywood Chinese: The
Chinese in American Feature Films, 12 years after his Hollywood Chinese documentary. Back of his book features portrait of Anna May
Wong (1905-1961), first Chinese-American Hollywood star, one year prior to her
death at age 56 from heart attack and before filming Flower Drum Song
musical. Due to anti-miscegenation laws and lack of Asian leading men at the time, she mostly played exotic roles,
losing role of The Good Earth’s Chinese peasant O-Lan, which went to Jewish actress Luise Rainer who won 1937 Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the subservient
wife to farmer Wang, played by Jewish actor Paul Muni.
Journalist
Ben Fong-Torres, subject of his own upcoming documentary Like a Rolling Stone,
interviewed Arthur Dong.
Intergenerational
connections
EndAgeism
suggests actions (presumably directed at relatively non-older people?) like:
·
“Spend
time with older people: …Reach out to older colleagues and neighbors. Call
older friends and relatives.”
·
“Avoid
ageist comments and jokes”… Ashton Applewhite, former equal
opportunity offender of Truly Tasteless Jokes book series (circa 1980s) and featured in
2018 documentary, Tasteless, has given up
on ageist jokes. Now that she is an
older adult, she self-published This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism
(2016) and EndAgeism site has link to her “Let’s end ageism” (2017) talk.
·
“Promote
intergenerational experiences: Create and participate in opportunities to
get to know people of different ages—one of the best ways to learn about
strengths and to learn about the diversity among older adults.”
SDA hosted
film screening and discussion of “Maggie Growls” about founder Maggie Kuhn of Gray Panthers
(formerly called Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change)
and featuring Ralph Nader (my hero).
SafeHouse Executive Director Toni Eby
(MSW classmate) with Glenda Hope greeting guests at opening celebration of SafeHouse’s Hope Center, named after SafeHouse
founder Glenda Hope (now Cayuga
Connector with Community Living Campaign).
Based in the Tenderloin, Hope Center intends
to be a healing space that provides supportive services to homeless
women.
[In contrast, Safehouse is the name of
the program developed by Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project (TSOP) nearly 40 years ago,
when elderly residents of SRO hotels in Tenderloin’s “grey ghetto” recruited
local businesses and agencies to serve as safehouses, or places of refuge where
they could go in time of police or medical emergency.]
Valorie Villela and Marie Jobling,
respective directors of On Lok’s 30th Street Senior Center and
Community Living Campaign, both partners in #endageismsf.
SDA Board President Betty Traynor with Hope Center Program Manager Ali Chiu (former
SDA Consumer Rights Director).
SafeHouse
Operations Manager Stacy Thompson provided tour, stopping to admire quilt on
wall: “Trust the process … life is a process.”
Tenderloin "improve with age" banner.
Intergenerational
support for Mental Health SF rally at steps of City Hall.
AGING ISN’T A DIRTY WORD
ReplyDeleteNOVEMBER 19, 2019
By Sharon Inouye, MD, MPH, Encore Public Voices Fellowship, and Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, Harvard Medical School
The report from the ED was met with a moan by the receiving hospitalist: “90-year-old woman S/P fall with multiple fractures of pelvis and sacrum, admitted for pain control and rehab.” After a grueling day, the hospitalist, Dr. K, certainly didn’t want another “gomer” on his service.
I asked to speak with Dr. K, and was met with thinly veiled hostility as I introduced myself: the patient is my mother and I am the physician- daughter. I am also a geriatrician. He had not yet met my mother, and he vented that this might not be an appropriate hospital admission. He would get back to me.
Ageism
I had just experienced outright ageism: the instant bias and assumptions made about older adults. To many, “aging” and “old” are considered dirty words. There’s no way around it—countless surveys indicate that both words are equated with decay, decline, disease, and death. Senior, elder, geriatric, silvered, golden years? Forget it. Even AARP (formerly the “American Association of Retired People”) banished “retired” from its name (now it stands for “Real Possibilities”).
Aging is a natural, biological process that begins the day we are born. Globally, there are cultures where elders are revered, treated with respect and admiration, and sought out for input on important decisions. For the most part, this is not the case in America.
The influence of ageism is pernicious and pervasive throughout our society. Older adults are often portrayed in the media as useless, bumbling, demented, or incapable of making valuable contributions. Even in hospitals, ageism is rampant, as my mother experienced—and can have direct negative impact on the care received. Rates of iatrogenic complications have been documented to be five times higher in older adults compared with young adults, even after controlling for comorbidity and illness severity.
Two hours later, Dr. K returned with a remarkably different attitude.
“Your mother is incredibly youthful and delightful; I cannot believe she’s 90. She’s really sharp too. Her fall was really devastating; we need to do everything we can to help her get walking and back home.”
Once he got to know my mother, the ageist bias disappeared.
What can we do as healthcare professionals to change attitudes about aging?
1.)Changes start within: be aware of negative attitudes you may have about older adults and reframe awareness.
2.)All older adults have something to teach us: learn about their stories, their lives, their priorities and concerns. Once you get to know the individual, the biases will diminish.
3.)Treat all older adults with dignity and respect; remember they are survivors: do not use their first names without permission, and avoid using terms of endearment (“honey,” “dear”) which can be belittling.
4.)Remember we will all be there someday if we are lucky.
5.)Teach our trainees by example: Your respectful treatment of elders will be apparent to your students and trainees.
A sustained groundswell will be needed to truly change the messaging about aging. Let’s create the change together.
http://closler.org/lifelong-learning-in-clinical-excellence/aging-isnt-a-dirty-word
Why older Americans are more likely to be harmed by medical care
ReplyDeleteDec 10, 2019
Everyone ages, and yet the medical profession doesn’t train many doctors to treat the elderly
By ALESSANDRA MALITO
Older Americans make up a large share of hospital visits, and yet the medical industry — and society — still don’t know how to treat them.
People are living longer and more active lives in old age, but ageism is rampant, said Louise Aronson, author of “Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life,” a book about geriatrics and what society gets wrong about older people. Old age is treated as a misfortune — something to hide — but it’s a natural part of life, and doesn’t have to be portrayed as a hindrance…
There are 94,000 pediatricians in the U.S. but only 7,000 geriatricians, Aronson said — or about one geriatrician for every 700 people, according to the American Geriatrics Society. Older adults make up 40% of hospitalized adults, although they only account for 16% of the population.
…Geriatric patients require more time and attention to detail because they can have more ailments and medications for doctors to analyze…
Louise Aronson: …Old age brings with it physical challenges and this is the arc of normal life… we should just accept that it is normal, not a loss or failure. But we also set up society for kids and adults, which makes it harder and disparaging to be an old person…if you go to most places in the country, you’ll see parks that cater to children. It’s this cycle, where we create places like this and then we say older people are socially isolated and we don’t see them… when you think of things older people need, they’re usually ugly and nobody wants them, and they don’t get them and can’t live at home anymore. We set up old age to fail.
... What we do know is older people are the ones who are most likely to be harmed by medical care because the bodies are different, the risks and procedures are felt differently.
The focus in geriatrics is on function. It is not that we just treat diseases, but we think about how we can make this person function optimally.
…The health care system is getting better, but there is no field — not in outsourcing, nursing, physical therapy or social work — that gets much training in old age, and when you see how many older people are in the health care system, that makes no sense. If you look at medical curriculum, most students get three to four months on kids and if they’re very lucky, they get three to four weeks on older adults, but usually less. We basically send them untrained to care for older people. Doctors for adults say they care for old people all the time, and my rebuttal is, “I listen to hearts all day — that doesn’t make me a cardiologist.”
…Everyone thinks anyone old is senile — maybe because they respond more slowly and you’re in a faster stage of life…So often, people will answer for the older person, when they could answer themselves. Rather than helping them by doing for them, support them in their own independence and agency. It is called learned helplessness. When people keep doing stuff for you, you think you’re incompetent, where you could do it but maybe it takes 30 seconds longer. People should always get to speak for themselves. And it’s important not to let the clinician say something is happening because of old age. Old age is a risk factor, not a diagnosis. If a person is saying something is happening just because you’re old, they’re saying I don’t care enough to diagnose your problem.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-older-americans-are-more-likely-to-be-harmed-by-medical-care-2019-12-10
Twitter users lampoon baby boomers with parody movie titles
ReplyDeleteBy Dan Gentile, SFGATE
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
It looks like "OK, Boomer" jokes aren't going out of style anytime soon.
The internet's favorite refrain for poking fun at folks born between 1946 and 1964 is alive and well on Twitter, trending yesterday as hundreds of people weighed in with movie title puns lampooning the health issues/attitudes/general complaints of their parents' generation.
Although opponents of the generational teasing may bemoan these #OkBoomerMovies, even your grouchiest older coworker will have to admit that "Bill and Ted's Excellent Dentures" is a pretty solid pun (click through our slideshow to see more).
Naturally there were gifs, with Daniel Kaluuya crying ("Get Out of touch"), Bernie Sanders breaking it down ("Weekend at Bernies"), and Lori Loughlin smiling for presumably the last time ("Honey I Got Indicted For Bribing the Kids into Harvard").
It's yet to be seen if baby boomers will clap back. #MillennialMovies would be a solid rebuttal ("Mean VSCO Girls"), but it's debatable whether enough people from that generation know about hashtags to reach a critical trending mass. Only time will tell.
Your move, boomers.
https://www.sfgate.com/twitter/article/ok-boomer-twitter-movie-puns-14896382.php
Raymond Briggs: ‘Everything takes so bloody long when you’re old’
ReplyDeleteSat 21 Dec 2019
Justine Jordan
…his new book, Time for Lights Out.
You could call it an autobiography; in his own words it’s a “hotchpotch” of drawings and verse, still lifes and scribbles, observations, memories and quotations. All of them face head on, with unblinking clarity and a certain grim humour, the universal drama of ageing and death. Nearly 86 and frail but chipper, Briggs is now contending, as he gallantly puts it, with “a touch of Parkinsonism”, and has a live-in carer (“wonderful woman, I couldn’t do without her”). He has been working on the book over the past decade and a half, setting it aside for long periods while caring for his long-term partner, Liz Benjamin, who died in 2015.
The book concentrates as much on words as images. “It just happens sometimes, you’re writing and it starts turning into verse. I was amazed, really. I don’t call it poetry because it’s not.” Drawn entirely in soft grey pencil, it begins with the shared domesticity of old age and the joys of a daily walk (“Great clots of primroses everywhere! Good job this book’s not in colour. I’d have to paint the bloody things”). It goes on to investigate the mysteries of old men’s hair, the frailties of age and ill health, the passing of time and the stubborn endurance of objects (“the breadboard I use today, and the knife, have been with me all my life”). Briggs returns to his childhood during the second world war; to his evacuation to the countryside, and to his parents, previously immortalised in the 1998 graphic memoir Ethel and Ernest.
There are memories of his wife, Jean Taprell Clark, whose schizophrenia meant that they decided not to have children, and who died of leukaemia in 1973... In a section called “Soon” he thinks ahead, to the inevitable care home and even to the grave, but always maintaining a mordant humour…
He’s publishing it, he says, as a work in progress. “I wasn’t ever going to have enough life to finish it properly, so I thought I’d better get it out now. Bit of a dodge, really.” With more time and energy, “I’d finish off some of the drawings that are only scribbles. You start drawing it, then you leave it, but you never get round to finishing it off. Everything takes so bloody long when you’re old. I’ve just spent half an hour getting dressed. Ludicrous!”
But any raggedness seems entirely fitting for a book created from a vantage point of both magisterial confidence and profound uncertainty – looking back on a life of extraordinary artistic achievement from the vulnerability of old age…
Time for Lights Out is also extraordinarily frank about the physical indignities of old age – at one point, he is post-op in hospital at 3am, weeping, “with a Dr White’s sanitary towel / stuck up my bum”. (A nurse comforts him with a cuddle.) In a society that tends to shy away from the realities of death and decrepitude, the honesty is shocking. The emotional nakedness of the book is startling, too – there is no filter on his most raw, self-betraying memories. He writes about his impatience with Jean, or thinking at his father’s deathbed, “Don’t sit swinging your legs like a little boy. Get on with it, and die.”
The stretch of time that has elapsed since his parents’ death in 1971, two years before his wife Jean, now astonishes Briggs. If you haven’t had children, he says, “deaths are the biggest event of your life”. And once you reach old age yourself, as he quotes from Muriel Spark’s novel Memento Mori, it’s like living on a battlefield, with friends either going or gone. But Briggs has also made space in Time for Lights Out for Spark’s pointed remark on the importance of facing up to mortality: “There is no other practice which so intensifies life.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/21/raymond-briggs-interview-time-for-lights-out
SF DA Chesa Boudin drops charges against one of two suspects in viral attack on Asian man
ReplyDeleteBy Eric Ting, SFGATE
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is withdrawing charges against one of the two suspects arrested in connection to a shocking viral video that shows an Asian man being robbed.
Twenty-year-old Dwayne Grayson, who police say recorded and uploaded the disturbing clip to social media, will no longer be charged with elder abuse, and will instead face "restorative justice," which involves rehabilitation and reconciliation with victims.
"We’ve been in conversation with the victim who expressed interest in a restorative justice outcome in this case," Alex Bastian, a spokesperson for the DA's office, told The Chronicle. “Specifically, against the young person who videoed the incident. We respect victims and their desires and we will explore a restorative justice outcome.”
Grayson was also suspected of violating probation for battery.
An Asian man was beaten while collecting bottles in the Bayview District of San Francisco.
Earlier Monday, police arrested 56-year-old Jonathan Amerson, the person suspected of hitting the victim with a metal pole. He was charged with robbery and elder abuse, and is also suspected of robbing the same victim of his recyclables about two months ago in the same area.
The video showed a man believed to be Amerson threatening and swinging a pole at the victim who was trying to get back a shopping cart loaded with aluminum cans he had collected. A person recording the video told the victim to “go get your cans” and someone said: "I hate Asian n—."
Several people can be seen standing around in the Bayview neighborhood, but none of them interfered. Some mocked the victim.
No other arrests have been made in the case.
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Chesa-Boudin-crime-video-Bayview-Asian-attack-DA-15099780.php
https://abc7news.com/video-elderly-asian-man-attacked-while-collecting-cans-in-san-francisco/5964588/
https://abc7news.com/sf-leaders-host-unity-rally-after-elderly-man-attacked-in-bayview-district/5969825/