I apologize for not posting as frequently on Feministe as I originally wanted to … I suppose the week of my guest blogging stint was not the best time to develop a temporary disinterest in words and feel the need to express myself by painting and such. :-) Luckily, I still have a week left!
This weekend was my mother’s birthday. Since she goes by the Lunar calendar and math is required to figure out her exact birthday (this includes figuring out when Chusok is, subtracting 8 days from that date, and doing a US-Corea time conversion), it’s always a bit fuzzy. But today it reaaally hit me— she’s the same age as a white, older feminist friend I look to for wisdom and experience. I travel hours to see this friend while simultaneously not recognizing the wisdom I have within my own home. There are so many experiences I share with this other woman (specifically on reclaiming our bodies, love, disability, etc) and stays at her home are AMAZING, but there are things I share with my mother and halmoni and I need to figure out a better way to see and build on that.
Obviously, mother-daughter relationships are complicated. (There is also the fact that my mother is a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and I identify as queer/progressive/feminist/the list goes on and on…) Still, I feel like social justice movements continually make older white people the experts without recognizing leadership within communities of color. A recent example of this is with ageism rightfully being called out in the blogosphere— Daisy pointed out that the blogosphere continually ignores the voices of older women and that mainstream blogs are dominated by men and young people. A very true and real analysis of what’s going on. I understand the anger and am thankful there is a presence in the blogosphere to bring ageism into the discussion.
At the same time, many, many, many, many bloggers are committed to expanding the work of Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, Helen Zia, and others— all older women (of color). The words of these women are ingrained in our hearts and our tongues. The words of these women changed the path of our lives, who we are. Book clubs and study groups are devoted to work of these women. Media collectives and activists groups are dedicated to them. Our love, respect, and loyalty for these women cannot even begin to be put into words. We survive and exist because of them. Just because these women are not recognized by society, it does not mean we do not recognize them.
Much of my real-life organizing focuses on organizing young people and developing what you would call the next generation or wave of the Disability Rights Movement. In this work, I do hear the “wait til they die and we take over hahahaha” SCARY, UPSETTING rhetoric and dismissal of older people. However, in my observation these statements are almost never made by young people of color (I am not saying this to point fingers, just that disrespect for elders is often racialized and portrayed in movies as an ungrateful black/brown/yellow kid dismissing civil rights work or something). It is also my observation that many older people feel uncomfortable with the term “elder”, a term of utmost respect and acknowledgement in communities of color (in the contexts I’ve used it, people seem to equate being an elder with no longer being an activist which if you look at women like Grace Lee Boggs who is 93 years old, is very untrue and ageist in its thinking).
Value systems in communities of color are vastly different from those of white dominant culture society that says it’s okay to institutionalize your parents, make older people the blunt of jokes, and believe older people are draining instead of life-giving. Many young people of color grow up in the homes of their grandparents, uncles, aunts and there is a collective intergenerational raising of children that happens. I do not mean to romanticize communities of color, but I look at organizations like Detroit Summer and SpiritHouse and am completely inspired by their intergenerational community building. Appreciation and our system of respect for older people is one reason I am proud to be Corean.
I am also in no way saying that communities of color are exempt from ageism, more that there is a lot to learn from our communities. I’m still processing this, but believe that me not seeing my mother as someone without a lot of experience is deeply connected to racism, ageism, and sexism. I am angry and ashamed about this. A lot of more writing to be done on this topic in the future…
love,
Daisy’s 51. . .is she really considered an “older” woman?
age varies with cultures. i think it’s more about respecting people’s lived experiences and knowledge than an actual assigned number.
Do you mean you not seeing your mother as someone *with* a lot of experience?
As a woman of color and not American, I can say we do have banters directed at older women/men that may be interpreted as ageism. But then you are right, for most of the time the term ‘elders’ outweighs these banters in the overwhelming feelings of respect, obeisance and trust that it conveys.
To say X is an old/er woman is no ageism/sexism in my south asian community, for it conveyes that X is likely more experienced, knowledgeable and trustworthy as a human, woman, mother, leader, adviser etc.
Hmm. Interesting. My (probably not very coherent) thoughts:
My parents are white, non-disabled, not very wealthy but “culturally middle class” (ie, university educated and “respectable” in values), and not really meaningfully oppressed in any way other than the ways in which everyone except the mega-rich are under capitalism. I don’t talk to them about disability stuff, or any other radical/activisty stuff, because i basically know they “won’t get it”. So… i don’t think you should feel any guilt about “neglecting” your mother’s/other older family members’ “wisdom”, if their ideological standpoint is such that it’s a barrier to any sort of mutually useful dialogue.
The 2 people i currently spend most time with are both men of roughly my dad’s generation (which is really not something i would have predicted a couple of years ago, and TBH happened quite randomly). One has been a disability activist for 20-odd years, but can have a quite frustrating attitude of “looking back at the golden days”, “no one cares any more”, “this is where it all went wrong”, etc. The other only got into disability activism around the same time i did, and passionately believes (as i do) that the disability rights movement in the UK urgently needs a new “generation” (defined not necessarily by age, but by newness of involvement) of people to get involved, to reverse its stagnation and the perception of many (both within and without) that it is “over”, has “achieved its aims already”, etc.
On the other hand, the experience of “veterans” in the movement is also of vast importance as a body of inspiration to draw on, to not reinvent the wheel(chair) over and over again, etc. (The first person i mentioned has an incredible archive of news clippings, old movement newsletters and strategy documents, music CDs/cassettes of disabled activist musicians that were made for fundraisers, etc, which really need to be preserved for future generations of activists rather than just sitting in a few older people’s drawers as nostalgic mementoes.)
In the disability movement in particular, i think it’s worth pointing out that the life-limiting effects of many impairments, and of discrimination in the medical system, and the toll taken by energy put into activism when, quite literally, one’s life can be on the line, mean that there are fewer “elders” than in many other movements, because early deaths and early “burnouts” are so much more common.
I thought i had a point there, but i think i ended up just rambling… anyway, a topic i need to do some more thinking about…