GRAND Magazine - Summer 2024 - 34

Ageism
Is ageism making it impossible
to fairly judge Joe Biden
BY LYNN CASTEEL HARPER
I
kept thinking there must be something more. In the
days since the first presidential debate, every article
and interview I read that called for President Joe Biden
to exit the race used the same reason: He is too old. Is
this it? I wondered. Is this all it takes to sideline a sitting
president from pursuing a second term? A wobbly debate
performance, quickly formulated, dire presumptions about
his universal capacity to lead, and a chorus of pundits and
politicians pronouncing him too old?
I am not suggesting that aging leaves us unchanged.
It is not " just a number " of little consequence. Fresh
limitations and challenges arise as the years go by, but
other things can emerge too, such as refined perspective,
greater discernment about what is important and
deepened relationships. Mr. Biden possesses many positive
attributes that become possible with accumulated
life experience, something that may not necessarily be
true of his opponent in this election. Instead of relying
on push-up contests or doctors' pronouncements of
fitness or an air of defiance (or panic), the Biden camp
and the rest of us would do well to acknowledge the
limits, the gifts and the highly variable experiences of
aging, and to bring to bear on this situation a deeper
understanding of and resistance to ageism.
34 GRAND SummER 2024
"
Ageism, or discrimination against
older people due to negative
and inaccurate stereotypes, is so
ubiquitous in American culture as
to be invisible.
"
Over the past 15 years, I have worked with older
adults in my profession, advocated for aging justice,
and written about dementia, ageism and spirituality.
I am angered but not surprised when people are
reduced to their age-or, for that matter, any single
aspect of their identity-and dismissed because of it.
Ageism, or discrimination against older people due
to negative and inaccurate stereotypes, is so ubiquitous
in American culture as to be invisible. While most
people would find repugnant calls for someone to step
down from a post because they are " too female " or
" too Black " or " too gay, " it is somehow acceptable to
dismiss someone for being " too old. "
Like other forms of prejudice, ageism inflicts serious
damage on people's health and well-being. In
addition to the daily insults older people endure (just
walk down a birthday card aisle or notice the deluge
of " anti-aging " products), older adults are at risk for
employment discrimination, negative biases in health
care that lead to shoddier care, and mistreatment and
neglect so pervasive that they constitute a distinct category
of harm: elder abuse.
This is an excerpt from
America - The Jesuit Review
written by Lynn Casteel Harper.
Here is a link to the full article.
Lynn Casteel Harper is
an essayist, minister and
chaplain. She authored
On Vanishing: Mortality,
Dementia, and What
It Means to Disappear
U.S. President Joe Biden walks at Dane County
Regional Airport, in Madison, Wisc., on July 5, 2024.
(OSV News photo Nathan Howard/Reuters)

https://www.facebook.com/GRANDmagazine https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/07/11/aging-biden-campaign-248335 https://www.americamagazine.org/voices/lynn-casteel-harper https://books.catapult.co/books/on-vanishing/ https://books.catapult.co/books/on-vanishing/ https://books.catapult.co/books/on-vanishing/

GRAND Magazine - Summer 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - Summer 2024