Friday, March 2, 2007

Great Passage on Ageism

"If we define the term as the dictionary does, a 'discrimination based on age, especially prejudice against the elderly,' then what we're talking about is an intolerance for the very people that, God willing, we ourselves will become one day. Unlike other forms of discrimination, where bigotry occurs between forever-disparate groups - heterosexual homophobes targeting gays, sexist males targeting women, or one ethnic or religious group pitted against another - ageism occurs along a strange continuum, where today's oppressor could well be tomorrow's oppressed; the aging man, his own youth far behind him, realizes only with the passage of time that he's becoming - or has become already - that which he himself may once have feared or despised. He's finally gained the hard-won knowledge and understanding that only years can bestow, just in time to become - for some people - an object of fear, suspicion, or prejudice himself."


-Tim Bergling, Reeling in the Years, p. 3.


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