Published on: March 9, 2022

Linet and Alexis talked with Shannon Gadd about ageism in the 21st century. Ageism is a complicated topic, involving a wide range of people, all too often lumped together into one monolithic category. Listen in to learn how we can re-envision how we talk about age and older people, and learn how we can think of our own aging.

Please check out her website and suggestions in this episode:

Resources from this episode:

Lahey & Oxley - Discrimination at the Intersection of Age, Race, and Gender: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment

Washington Post article - “For Black workers, age discrimination strikes twice"

Reframingaging.org

Ashton Applewhite Ted Talk - “Let’s End Ageism”

USA Today Article - “Ageism still lurks in Hollywood, according to analysis of female film characters”

Justice in Aging

BBC Three video - Things Not to Say to An Old Person

Aging Resource Center

Learn more about our upcoming April 25th 5pm PST free virtual event Oh Behave! Changing the Way We React to Bias & Discrimination. 

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Transcript

Ep 21 Shannon Gadd

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

older, people, ageism, older adults, age, pandemic, aging, younger, called, bias, home, talk, big, discrimination, groups, podcast, nomadic, elderly, community, thinking

SPEAKERS

Shannon (62%), Linet (28%), Alexis (8%), Seth (2%) 

Linet  0:01  

Hey everybody. So today you're in for a big treat. We are talking about ageism and wow, you are going to be so surprised about the facts that our guest Shannon drops. We get a little personal; we definitely get systemic; we talk about infrastructure; we talk about action; we talk about what you can do to make a difference and how important language is when we're even talking about age. This is definitely a podcast you don’t want to miss. 

Hi everyone. Hola a todes Linet here and Alexis, your co-hosts both she/her bringing you impactful stories and interviews from our communities to you and exploring how we can support each other.

Alexis  0:57  

As many of you know, the Unconscious Bias Project is based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, on unceded ancestral homeland belonging to the Ramaytush Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone peoples, some of whom speak the language Chocheño. We encourage you to learn more about the Ohlone people on our website in the podcast links.

Linet  1:18  

And welcome to our guest today Shannon Gadd. Woohoo! So Shannon (pronouns she/her) is Director of the Mariposa County Health & Human Services Agency. Previously she was the Commissioner of the Department of Aging & Independent Living for the state of Kentucky. Shannon also has a background in criminology and psychology. She has had many personal and professional experiences that have informed her study of ageism, and we are very excited to welcome Shannon here today! Welcome Shannon!

Shannon  1:51  

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Linet  1:55  

So to kick us off, tell us a little bit about yourself. What's your background? What led you to where you are today? And how did you get into ageism?

Shannon  2:07  

Sure. So as you mentioned, my background is primarily in criminology and psychology. When I actually got a job in my field, I worked as an insurance fraud analyst, which was just an awesome job. It was with the National Insurance Crime Bureau. So great company, great job, loved it. So what I started to specialize in, while I was there, was actually looking at ‘slip and fall’ organized crime rings. So folks that you know, fake falling and injuring themselves at a store. And it's an organized crime ring, I bet you didn't know that organized crime could just be a fall, but it can.

Linet  2:49  

It blew my mind.

Shannon  2:52  

So typically, those organized crime rings are nomadic travelers, and I went to a conference once about this. And the speaker was just so phenomenal. And one of the side gigs, if you will, of nomadic travelers is to scam older adults. And that just interested me. And when I looked to my next job, I ended up focusing on elder abuse. And really the reason that I decided to focus on elder abuse is from that conference, and the speaker said, he was telling us about, you know, the work he was doing, and one story really stood out. And he was interviewing a victim, who had had pretty much all of her life savings taken from a nomadic traveler in this instance. So he was talking to a victim of one of these crimes. And she was absolutely fully aware it was a scam. And he was baffled by that and asked her, “if you were aware that she was scamming you, why did you give her your entire life savings?” Her response was that this person was the only person who talked to her. And that really hit me, that somebody who's older could feel so isolated, that they're willing to, you know, give up their entire life savings. So that really hit me and that just got my interest piqued in and working in the elder abuse field. And from there, I became an advocate for older victims of crime. Yeah, one thing led to another and (I) ended up in that state role in Kentucky overseeing all of the older adult services and state guardianship. And after that role ended, I randomly moved to California, now I'm the Director for Health and Human Services and Mariposa County. So there you go. That's my little story.

Linet  4:58  

I mean, we're called the Unconscious Bias Project. So I can only imagine how hard it is to sort of separate sort of going back to that original story separate, you know, seeing certain groups being the ones perpetuating crimes, and then trying to step outside of that and being like, Okay, well, not every single nomadic traveler is going to be perpetuating these kinds of crimes. But, you know, it's, it's like the go to for, you know, whatever the organized crime, you know, group is within that subsection, and then to think that they're, you know, specifically targeting older people in the feeling of isolation, that that's really intense. Does that that's sort of a lot of like, I feel like every single part of the story has a lot of like, really strong, intense feelings. I don’t know, that's how I felt through - through, through the story. How about you, Alexis? 

Alexis  6:01  

Yeah, no, similarly, it's a complicated picture.

Shannon  6:03  

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's very complicated. And, you know, to your point Linet, when that it's certainly not that every person who would identify or fall into your umbrella category of nomadic traveler would perpetuate any crime at all, but in what I was working on, yeah, that was my my focus on those organized crime rings that do come out of that group.

Linet  6:29  

I’m deviating us here a little bit. But it reminded me of some of the more recent scams. Unfortunately, my aunt, Tía Melba passed away, quite suddenly, just like a month ago, really was was really sad and very sudden, and her husband, my uncle, was immediately preyed upon by - I'm, I'm totally guessing, you know - a corrupt (this is in Colombia) not great bankers in the in the banking system, and they just started making withdrawals, um, to the bank. And he didn't notice until, you know, like, half a month later, that there was all this money missing in his account. And we go and find out, my mom did some sleuthing. And we find out that they specifically are targeting people who have lost somebody. Some of the reasons behind scams or, you know, a fraud or things like that, they're targeting people that are in challenging situations, whether they like, you know, went to a hospital or you know, had a family member recently pass. And because they listed his information in the obituary, that's how they knew who to target. I mean, it's still an ongoing thing right now. You know, hopefully, by the time this podcast airs, everything has been squared out. It sort of really sad to find out like there's, you know, specific groups of people that are targeting people for certain situations. You know, they get linked so like, you know, if you're in Colombia, and you're thinking about people in the in the banking industry, you might not trust them very much.

Shannon  8:18  

Yeah, that's, that's not strictly relegated to Colombia, that kind of thing happens in America to thinking about aging and older adults. And why do we talk about scams and seniors, that kind of thing is the people over 55 hold the vast majority of the nation's wealth. And then, as you said, with your with your uncle, anytime there's something different, something changes, whether it be personally or on a larger level. Like, think the Affordable Care Act, when that was implemented, con artists, scam artists, whatever you want to call them, see it as an opportunity because people are vulnerable, you know, there's a lack of knowledge of what's going on. In your case, as you said, when there's, you know, a death or a hospitalization, we're not functioning at you know, optimum, right? So, anytime you open that door, that window to vulnerability, it's the con artist’s job to take advantage of it. I mean, it's their job just like, you know, we have jobs, it's a job and they're good at it.

Alexis  9:27  

You've been studying ageism, you've been working in these units that help try to care for the elderly and certain vulnerabilities that they might have etcetera. Can you give us before we move further, like what is ageism? What is in a like more general way? Can you help define that term for us and what it often looks like and what particular groups are at the front end of it?

Shannon  9:55  

Ageism arises when age itself is used categorize or divide people in ways that leads to harm, discrimination, disadvantage or injustice. So you'll notice I didn't say anything about just older people or just younger people. You know, discrimination can happen using any age. But as you said, it is often older adults that are at the brunt end of of ageism. There was actually a recent study I was reading coming out of Texas A&M. And you think about ageism in the workplace, and typically, your mind goes straight to you know, older people statistically have a harder time finding employment. That's true. That's a factual statement. But this recent study out of Texas A&M actually showed, that rule applies primarily to white workers, whereas Black workers, I know, I was super interested in this. And this is one study, but it's something I think that is, it's good to talk about. But Black workers, the age discrimination is at its highest in employment when they're younger. So can dissect that and all that. But that was particularly interesting that for Black workers, it's that younger, age that where they experienced most discrimination in the workplace. But generally, when we talk about ageism, we're typically talking about older adults.

Alexis  11:25  

That is really interesting, though, about how these, right, we talked about intersectionality. And how different identities merge with each other, and are complicated, often in ways that aren’t simply additive, right, that are unique intersections of each of these identities. You know, it's like, we know that overall, there is male privilege, right? But at the same time, right, when that interacts with blackness, there are different risks and discriminations based upon that. And so that's really interesting to hear about how age and race are interacting in these unexpected ways that we should be aware of, and also how interesting it is that ageism is a little bit more complicated, because it can target multiple pieces within age, right? Without strictly being, oh, this is about older people, even if it is primarily discrimination and bias that is, is targeted against older people that's not uniquely that. That's really interesting.

Shannon  12:32  

Yeah, absolutely. And then, I mean, you think of, well, like the Black workers experience with age discrimination, being on the younger spectrum. You know, I've often had roles where I was supervising people who were older than me. I think many of us have had experiences where we were looked down upon because we were younger, you know, for some reason or another. Yeah. So yeah, it is interesting, you have that kind of dichotomy that you can discriminate against people based on age, whether they're younger or older, or anywhere in between.

Linet  13:08  

What does ageism look like at work? So I know you've, you know, run several very important human services type positions in different states, what does ageism look like? In your previous and at your current work?

Shannon  13:27  

It can be in how you recruit for workers, right? If you're strictly using social media to recruit, you may not be reaching out into those groups of folks who don't have internet access, or aren't social media savvy, for example. And that doesn't necessarily mean that's excluding older folks. But certainly proportionally, they have less computer and internet access, than younger workers would. So it can be in recruitment, it can certainly be in - oh, goodness - let's say you have an internal, like, morale or events committee, if you will. And you were recruiting those young, energetic folks and leaving out older, more established folks who maybe have worked at the organization for a long time. You may not be doing that consciously. But you know, that's why this podcast is called ‘unconscious bias’. So I mean, that's a small thing. It can be a lot of small things where, you know, the young younger cohort at work goes out to lunch together and they never invite somebody who's, again, older and been there longer. So little things like that. Teleworking, we've, you know, pandemic has certainly ramped up our use of teleworking and how does that affect our older workers? Are they able to, [older workers] who aren't computer savvy, how is that affecting them? Are they able to still meet their own personal and professional goals and contribute in the way that they are, have the most strength or not? So I'm harping on technology a bit. But I'm not at all saying that older adults don't understand technology and computers. That's not it. But it's certainly a factor that can lead to someone not having a positive experience at work.

Linet  15:23  

And I think that's interesting, you brought up technology, because the other way that technology can leave people out, can be if like, for example, you didn't have access to a computer. Or, you know, you don't have the resources to splurge on a MacBook, for example, that a lot of people use, including older adults, there are other folks that can be left out, when we focus on technology as a solution. I'm also curious if you see, like, burden of age in terms of like, you know, people will expect you to be wise, just because you, you know, are older than somebody else. So like, you have to know all the answers, a little bit of like positive stereotyping. Like, if you're older, then you must be wiser. So you must have answers. Or if you're older, you must be more conservative. So you won't like, understand this new viewpoint? Is that something that you see?

Shannon  16:22  

Yeah, absolutely. Think about, when we talk about somebody who's kind of we use the term super ager, right? Somebody who's in their hundreds, why don't we immediately go to it's like, Well, how long have you lived that long? You know, they're just older doesn't mean they have some kind of secret sauce, right? Maybe they do. And that's cool. That's great. But having that expectation, because you're 100 years old, you know, know, all there is to know about life. And, I was watching a video about this once. And the person said, can we talk about anything else? Because meeting somebody who's 100 plus, it's like, that's immediately “Oh, my gosh, what's your secret?” Can we talk about, you know, global hunger or something? Can we talk about Britney Spears, like coming like about anything else? So that kind of like pigeonholed in that right. And it seemed like, like you had said, you know, older, tend to be more conservative. And that's not necessarily true. You know, with the, the recent passing of Betty White, breaks my heart on so many levels, listening to watching one of her interviews that she had given about her, her work and interaction with the LGBTQ plus community. And here's this woman who at the time, I think was in her mid 80s. And she was, you know, talking about the importance of, of inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community. And it was just like, again, it's not about age, it's just about who you are as an individual. So yeah, and you know, I've talked, I've done some trainings and stuff on discrimination, gender orientation, discrimination in nursing homes and feel like, “What? How is that a thing?” There are plenty of long term care facilities still to this day, who refuse to put same sex partners in the same room. 

Alexis 18:14

That's wild. 

Shannon 18:15

That is, that's still a thing. And it's like, oh, no, because they're older. They're, they can't be well (1) they can't be interested in sex and (2), certainly not with the same sex partner. So yeah, it goes, it's it's everywhere. 

Alexis  18:31  

Yeah, that's really fascinating. As, as we were talking, one of the first things that popped into my mind when we're, you know, saying, like, older people are not necessarily conservative. It's like, we have aging gay people. We have aging trans people. We have, you know, LGBT people have been around for a while. 

Linet 18:50

No!

Alexis 18:51

And we've grown increasingly out. Yeah. Right? Since like, Stonewall. Stonewall was over 50 years ago. Like this is, it's not so new. Right. I think for some people, there's a bias that being queer is a young person thing.

Shannon  19:09  

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, here's a secret that for some reason we don't think about: everyone is aging. Like all of us. So Black, white, Asian, you know, gay, straight, whatever you identify as, if we're fortunate enough, we will continue to age for a very long time. So, so putting people in those boxes, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, because we are all in the same boat. We're all getting older. 

Linet  19:44  

You know, I liked the example that you gave that, like, you know, they were interviewing somebody you know, who has 100 They're like, “so how do you live that long?” And they're like, “Can we just talk about something else?” It really reminds me of like, every single time there's, you know, I saw this so much in science. It’s like, okay, it's a diversity panel. And so every, like all the different colors come out. And then it's like, Okay, now it's a panel about the latest advances in genomic sequencing, and it's all white. It's like they only think about people of color when it comes to panel on diversity. And don't get me started on diversity panels that are all white women. I've definitely seen those too. But it's like, you know, or when, you know, the super, you know, we see this all the time. And I think they've gotten a little better. But we see this all this time in like, celebrity- I don't know, like the Oscars or something like women are always asked, “So what are you wearing? Who are you dating?” And it's like, “I'm here because of my career. I'm here because I just, you know, delivered, you know, I'm going to, they're probably going to be picked like an Oscar winner” or something. And they're, they're just like, “Yeah, let's talk about your shoes.” “There's other parts of me that are not just like, you know, whatever the stereotype is, or, you know, something that's that's superficial, or, you know, why didn't you ask the guy, you know, what kind of workout they had to do to fit into those spandex outfits?” I feel like I remember. I remember watching that for it was..

Shannon  21:18  

It was Scarlett Johansson. 

Yeah, yeah. She shut him down. And it was fabulous.

Linet  21:25  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then there's all this, you know, like, well, I also I find it really interesting is the expectation that older adults have to be polite, and can't cuss? Right. So if like your if your grandma suddenly lets out a cussword, it's like,”Oh, she can’t!”

Shannon  21:47  

she never really thought about that. I guess my grandmother was pretty sassy. So, but but yeah, you're right. We put older women into this box of “Oh, sweet little old lady.” And I will tell you something. Not everyone is a sweet little old lady. And even sweet little old ladies might have days where they're not. And that's okay, just like any of the rest of us. And then we tend to put older men in this box of like, you know, they “get off my lawn!” Geezer type of stereotype, huh? People as we know, all of us, we’re more diverse than that.

Alexis  22:32  

So UBP, we talk a lot about trying to reduce our own biases through counter examples, individuation, and other methods. So like, we've talked about some of these common biases that we see regarding older people, we've talked about how those can be, [can] have problems, right. And, and we talked about some ways that we can re-visualize older people. I'm curious, are there any other counter narratives that you can give to us to combat biases, say around, you know: who's making innovations in the workplace; who's, who's getting, you know, a lot of great work done; who is vivacious? And, you know, out there? Do you have any counter narratives that you can give us?

Shannon  23:19  

Yeah, absolutely. First, I'll start with why it's so important to talk about ageism. And to talk about, as you said, these counter narratives. There was a study a few years ago it’s a longevity study. They followed a cohort for several decades. And what they found is that those who had a positive view of aging lived seven and a half years longer than those who had a negative view. 

Alexis 23:43

Whoa!

Shannon 23:43 

Yes. So that's seven and a half years. That's, that's a chunk. Right? That's, that's pretty big. And what was even more interesting is that that positive correlation was regardless of gender, socio economic status, loneliness, or health. Simply the act of viewing aging positively has an impact on how long you live. So it's a big deal. It's a big deal. How we internalize you know, these scripts about aging. One of the, I think of as kind of the premier, groups tackling this is - it's a group called Reframing Aging. And it's reframingaging.org, their website. And they have a lot of stakeholders, you know, in that a AARP, of course, being one. And they have a great handout, which I can send you the link to. That’s like, it starts with the words we use, right? So when we think of aging in this global, global space, right, the whole world is getting older, which is not really a shock, you know. Hopefully you've heard this somewhat in the media, and by 2030 for the first time in history in America. We will have more folks over 65 than under 18. So this is a demographic shift. It's a historical moment, and people talk about it. Yeah. People try-

Linet  25:15  

I’ve got to wrap my head around that. Could you say that one more time? I’m sorry I interrupted. I feel like we need to hear that one more time. Yeah, that shocked me.

Shannon  25:23  

So around 2030, for the first time in US history, there will be more people over 65, than under 18. And think about, you know, all the policy implications for that. And I'm certainly not saying kids aren't important, and I have one of them. They're important. But you think about how we've structured society, we are very youth focused. So what do we need, as we age, to thrive? And we don't have the infrastructure for that. We don't, you know, when you're talking about federal dollars, majority of federal dollars skew younger. So we just don't have the infrastructure to support us all, as we age. This is a huge demographic shift that's really gonna smack us in the face. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens. 

So you might hear that type of thing. In the media, like the silver tsunami, that's a tidal wave of old people. And I usually like in my head, I'm like, visualizing this, like a tidal wave like this is a whole bunch of old people like swallowing, you know, Santa Monica, from the Santa Monica Pier, or something. That's funny, but other than that, I mean, wow! I mean, what does that say about how we value older people that were like, they're gonna eat us alive? That's nice. When we hear that type of talk, it's like, Well, let's think about this. What is it really saying, as Americans live longer and healthier lives? These things will happen, these things need to change. It's not a tidal wave. It's just we're getting older. And I'm thankful for that. Because the alternative is not so great. Right? So, so that's a big one. And it's a hot topic. And it's, I almost want to say - don't get me started on the pandemic terminology, but we'll probably get there. 

The biggest one is the words we use to talk about older adults, seniors, elderly, dependent, vulnerable. Those are yucky words. So we just need to talk about people in like age neutral ways, like older adults, younger adult. And then talk about it as ‘we and us’, we are aging. When we say things like the elderly. That probably I know it does to me, it gives you a picture in your mind of like a little old lady on a walker type of thing. And when we say if you look at a lot of, you know, research papers, graphics that have like this age spectrum, you'll have what, zero to 18, 18 to 24, you know, 30 to 40, 40 to 50. And then 60 plus. So we're looking at 60 plus, that's, that's what like, give or take 40 years of age that we're putting in one bucket, and we're calling them the elderly. Well, okay, what if we put everybody from 20 to 60? In a bucket? That makes no sense, does it? It's but it's what we're doing to people 60 plus - we're putting them in a bucket calling them the elderly and shoving them aside. Yeah, so looking at when we look at, you know, research and stuff, you know, break it down, what's in that 60 plus group? How many 80 to 90, how does whatever you're studying affect people as they age? I mean, people don't fall off a flat earth when they hit 60. It's not a thing. So that's a big one. So using older adults, older Americans, older people, just vanishing ‘elderly’ from our vocabulary altogether. I know, my grandparents passed a few years ago, which was rough. I used to always joke at work. I was like, if I told my grandmother, she was elderly, I would have got smacked across the face. (laughter) You know? No, because you have this like, image of ‘elderly’ and it's yucky. It's a yucky image.

You know, and I remember talking about examples. My granddad was amazing with technology. He always had the latest, whatever it was, you know, iPhone, iPad, all the things. And I remember one time he was complaining about - he went into a Best Buy and he was trying to buy something related to his computer. And no one would talk to him. You know, he was invisible. He was in his 80s at the time, so he was completely invisible. Because he's old, therefore he doesn't know what he's talking about. Right? So those are the big things when we talk about this demographic shift. It's not a tidal wave. It's a demographic shift. And then we've talked about older adults, or younger adults. We use that neutral terminology. And then we don't ‘us’ ‘them’. It’s just the weirdest thing. ageism is actually discrimination against ourselves. How bizarre is that? We're discriminating against ourselves thinking about it in those terms, and using the “we” as not as “they get older”, as “we get older”, “we need assistance in the home”, as “we need more accessible sidewalks”, whatever the case may be. It's, we're preparing for ‘our’ own future. So right now we're fighting against our own future. Yeah. So reframingaging.org Is, is kind of like the big one for me. The the UN and the World Health Organization both have global ageism initiatives. So those those are really good to look into. And one of  the like, kind of the prominent activist in this space is someone called, her name is, Ashton Applewhite. And she has a phenomenal TED Talk. It's like 15 minutes long. And it's perspective shifting. It's just really, she just does an amazing job of bringing this all home.

Alexis  31:20  

Thank you. Yeah. And also, um, when we were talking, earlier, you were mentioning some factoids about entrepreneurship for older people?

Shannon  31:30  

Yeah. So when talking about older adults in the workplace, we think, well we think not happy things. So actually, older entrepreneurs are twice as likely to be successful as younger entrepreneurs think of Silicon Valley, right? And you think young, but the most successful folks are over the age of 45. The startups are more likely to succeed if they have an older person at the helm, which is completely the opposite of what we think of as, you know, young and energetic and go-getter.

Linet  32:03  

So like Mark Zuckerberg, he's an exception. He's not like the rule. It's not super common. Yeah, that's, that's 100% true. I was doing some market research on Bay Area tech groups, because Tech is one of the least diverse and most resistant to become diverse types of professions or fields, if you will, in our nation. And yeah, yeah, the average is 45 for a CEO, so a CEO at like a, you know, post-seed funding, startup - meaning they've they've been pretty successful - is is around 45. I think that's really interesting and fascinating, because talking about language, and thank you for giving us the right terms, we try to be as intersectional as possible, and we're always looking to learn more. So that's, that's really helpful for us, both as facilitators as human beings. Also this other language that we use just in like like colloquialisms like “fresh, young ideas”, right, “let's get some new blood in here”. Let's get some you know, and it's not that somebody who's older, automatically doesn't have new or innovative ideas. Like I think that's one thing that gets maybe glorified in a lot of our media is like, it's the young person, it's the upstart that's gonna have all the best ideas that nobody's ever thought of. You know, somebody that's just a few years older isn't going to have a new idea. Granted, you know, sometimes these, these this terminology, they're talking about, you know, maybe changing teams or bringing in somebody with a different expertise or something like that. But I do think that there is a glorification in the media of youth and innovation or youth and transformation or change or, or energizing or, you know, whatever.

Alexis  34:01  

I feel like Dolly Parton is getting a huge resurgence in popularity. And she's seventy five but is like, really quite still relevant.

Shannon  34:14  

Yeah, absolutely. And love her. She's from, you know, my neck of the woods. So, but yeah, unfortunately, you know, Betty White Dolly Parton. Helen Mirren, Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith, they're all the exception to the rule. And like you said, Hollywood, certainly is a young person's game, America is a young person's game. I'm trying to remember the stats, but for the top grossing films, in Hollywood, 6% of roles were women over 65, I think was their cut off. Whereas 12.5% of our population that's older women, so severely underrepresented in Hollywood, which comes as no shock. What I found really interesting is 10% of the roles in those top grossing films were of older men. And older men make up 10% of the population. Sounds like huh. It's not just that it's a young person's game. It's a man's game, too. So it's just interesting, you know. And then you can talk about, like, when we think of, you know, older men in Hollywood, where we think sexy, George Clooney and Robert Redford and all that we think of older women, we don't think of them that way. I was thinking as you, as you were talking limit about “can't teach an old dog new tricks”, right? That's a common cliche that we say. It's not backed up by data, as we age, how we learn changes, which is not a shock, but it doesn't mean that we can't learn how we learn changes. But actually, as we age, our brain is able to make connections between different types of information. And we're more able to see the big picture or broader implications than we were when we were younger. And if you sit and kind of like sit with that, like, oh, well, that makes sense. But what do we fall back on? Can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Alexis  36:11  

So at this point, let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

Seth  36:26  

Hi, everyone, this is Seth and I am one of the audio editors and volunteers here at UBP. The Unconscious Bias Project brings creative, accessible, evidence-based solutions for unintentional bias to academic, technological, governmental organizations, and beyond. We sustain a welcoming home for inquisitive and creative minds and encourage a growth mindset. Working by the model of “0% Guilt, 100% Empowerment.” Please subscribe or follow our Facebook and Instagram for the latest in events and how you can learn more and be involved. Also, take a look and check out our guest's website and learn more. Look for that information in the description section of your podcast or on our website.

Linet  37:18  

Hey, everybody, Linet here with a special announcement. We have an event coming up this April 25 2022. From 5 to 6pm UBP is going to be at the Bay Area Science Festival. That's right, we're gonna have an event of the Bay Area Science Festival is called “Oh Behave: changing the way we react to bias and discrimination.” It will be me Linet with Professor Eason, who is a UC Berkeley psychologist. And we're really gonna talk about why prejudice and bias have stuck around for so long. Really dig into why erasure has such a big impact on everything. And why do we choose to erase some people versus others. And then of course, we'll have our classic UBP science-tested super practical techniques that we'll be teaching. We'll have some space for a Q & A. So it should be really fun and really active. You don't want to miss it. Definitely head on to our website, ubproject.org that's ubproject.org or check out our website for the event. tiny.cc/ohbehave all one word, to check out more details. So see you there!

Alexis  38:37  

Welcome back from the break, we are here talking to Shannon Gadd, about ageism. As all of us here and our listeners know, right, we're obviously still in a pandemic. And we know that disease and illness affects different groups of people differently due to pre existing inequities and biases. So how has age been a factor in care outcomes and even how we perceive the pandemic?

Shannon  39:00  

Oh, that's a rich area to go into because there's so much ageism. With the pandemic, it's really brought ageism to the forefront. It's brought how we think of older and we think of nursing homes, right? There's been a lot of focus on on nursing homes or long term care facilities for this pandemic. 96% of people who are over 60 live in the community. I'm not saying that like we need to ignore nursing homes and policy and all that clearly we need to pay more attention to long term care facilities, and how they are constructed and then how they are how they're run policy wise. But we've kind of marginalized older adults into all their nursing homes. So the pandemic you know, we've heard phrases like “Boomer remover”, “stay home save grandma”, because you know, the pandemic only affects people who are older, right? Right? [makes buzzer sound] Wrong! Um, and you know, some of my favorites have been, the Texas lieutenant governor said that, you know, older Americans should be willing to sacrifice themselves to save the economy for younger. Wow! Right? 

But we've heard all that we've heard all those things. We've heard that you know, old people, because they're gonna get sick and die with the pandemic, they're putting this massive burden on young people. Wow! Again, we're saying that once “you're old” in quotation marks, then you're just gonna get sick and die. So why should we care? Think about it as your, as yourself, like me aging, like, I don't want to say that to myself, and like 20 years when I'm 60? And then when you're talking about how this really impacts policy, there's a group called Justice in Aging. And they have actually filed a civil rights complaint against the state of Idaho for their critical care policy, saying that their, you know, their crisis standards of care were to restrict giving life saving measures to people over 65. So as an age cutoff, you're under 65, you're valuable, we'll use our resources to save you. Over 65? Good luck. And there have been other states that have done that: Alaska, Montana. if I remember correctly, Italy was doing that for a while, that's a massive value statement, like the young people are more valuable than older people. And then to pick a number like, okay, 65: that's when you're no longer valuable to society anymore. 

So ageism has a massive, massive implication for how we've responded to this pandemic. And age has become this deciding factor on whether you're going to live or die. But at the same time, it's an opportunity, because it's a time where we can shed light on this. And where we do have groups like Justice in Aging, who are stepping up and saying, No, age cannot be a factor in crisis standards of care. And that's, you know, that's, that's powerful. So, hopefully, we'll have more conversation about this. And, you know, hopefully, by the time my age cohort is making the policies and in Congress and all that stuff, things will look a little different.

Alexis  42:19  

Thinking about justice and health, also has me thinking about like voting rights and things like that, as well, because we have a lot of, you know, voting rights issues with regards to racism and things like that. And I have heard that we have voting rights issues as well for older adults. Do you know anything about that?

Shannon  42:42  

Not a ton, just primarily based on my personal experience. And so when you're thinking about voting, what do you have to do to vote, you have to, first of all, figure out where in the world your precinct is, that's a pain. And then you have to go and if you're lucky, you don't have a long way. So you've got a transportation factor in there. How you get transportation given mobility factor in there. How long can you stand in a line for somebody who has you know, a chronic disease, or has a disability, regardless of age, standing in line for a couple of hours or more, because I've seen all kinds of wait times, that's a hugely limiting factor. So things that have happened again, in the pandemic, with more voting by mail, has expanded opportunities for people who can't easily participate due to transportation, due to mobility, age related illnesses. I don't know if everybody has seen this. But in my work, I've seen plenty of initiatives where the people will go and pick older adults up and take them to the polls, kind of a thing. But then again, that's a transportation barrier, because you're more likely to have that type of transportation access if you're in a more wealthy or or white community, going into the minority community and taking them to precincts. Does it happen? Absolutely. I've seen it. I've done it, but it's just something to think about, like, are we giving all older adults, all individuals with disabilities the same access to be able to vote?

Linet  44:19  

I did some calling in Arizona to get the vote out at the most recent election, and I was really pleasantly surprised that the group I was volunteering with, had volunteers that were signed up just to you know, help, specifically, older adults with voting. Because, you know, one person that had called for example, didn't have access to a computer and only had a rotary phone and so they couldn't use like the touch dial feature to get somebody there who spoke Spanish which was like what the calling center was set up for. And so this person needed somebody to go and help them 1) retrieve their mail and 2) you know, help them how to how to fill it out. So they needed, they needed quite a bit of help. And this this particular get out the vote group in Arizona had volunteers set up for that, which is really critical. And, you know, much like we've talked in this podcast before, you know, if you look at policy, and make it inclusive, if you're looking at things that would, for example, help Black Americans, you can actually be helping a lot of people beyond just Black Americans. It's the same in this case, you know, a lot of like, for example, rural areas, or Indigenous Nations, they aren't often given voting sites, polling sites that are nearby, they're often really far away, like hours away. And transportation and gas becomes an issue because there's no infrastructure out there because the government like purposely doesn't want to have infrastructure out there, and so on. So if you look at, you know, accessibility for older adults, then we're actually taking care of a lot of other folks that could be left out. So I jumped on the chance to get Shannon on this podcast, because one of our listeners actually asked us to do a piece on ageism, they were like, “I really want to hear about ageism. And you haven't done that topic yet.” And so when we talked Shannon, I was like, “Oh, I have to get her on the podcast!” And that listener is my mom. She's a longtime supporter of the unconscious bias project. And she is one of our regular listeners, which is always really awkward for me to listen to myself when I come by to see her as she's listening to podcasts. But speaking of our listeners, when it comes to aging, what can we UBP and our listeners do about it? What are some things we can do?

Shannon  46:56  

First shout out to your mom for being awesome, and wanting to talk about about ageism. But I do think that the most important thing is to look at language, as we talked about earlier, it seems like a small thing, but it's not. The language we use has such a massive impact on everything: on how we perceive ourselves; how we perceive our loved ones; our community. And that translates into policy, that translates into those crisis standards of care. You know, we devalue older adults. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it? But the more we devalue aging, the more we're going to see those like, ‘oh, well, you hit 65 and we're not going to give you a ventilator.’ So pushing back on that, excommunicating “elderly”, from your from your vocabulary is is a big step. And looking at people as people, and I'm sure you guys talk a lot about that throughout all your podcast episodes. Seeing people as people goes for age as well, I think the more we can bring ageism into kind of our own consciousness, and then to kind of the collective consciousness, we're going to see better outcomes. You know, as I highlighted in that study before, people who have positive images of aging, live longer, regardless of any other factor, regardless of wealth, regardless of gender, regardless of ethnicity. That's huge. That's huge. So just by thinking positively about aging, and it's not that hard to do, it's really not. You know, think of all of the amazing things that that you, you've learned that you've experienced as you've gotten older, you know, again, we're all aging, and for some reason, that's a secret. It's not. There are so many rich, wonderful, beautiful things about being older. And so pushing back on that narrative of the consumerism of dyeing your hair once you see that first strand of gray. Why who says gray silver hair is ugly? Right? I mean, we think it looks pretty darn good on George Clooney. 

I think there was a hullabaloo recently about Sarah Jessica Parker having gray hair. Oh my goodness! There's a lot of money in our economy generated because of this fear of aging, fear of wrinkles and gray hair. And again, we're just discriminating against ourselves. Again, I just think looking at the words we use looking at the products we buy. Pushing back against, you know, businesses who are promoting age defying products. Pushing back against also this paternalistic mindset that we sometimes have with older adults - this need to parent our parents. I've had many conversations with family members over my years of work where, you know, mom's mom's dating and a mom, you know, fell the other day, she needs to go to a nursing home or, you know, mom's spending her money like this. And it's always good to when - especially when -  it comes to money to kind of look into it. And it's like, make sure that somebody's not being taken advantage of, that goes across the age spectrum, to make sure somebody is not being taken advantage of. But older people still have a right to spend their money how they want. Yeah, it's just looking at ourselves and celebrating who we are. And part of who we are is, is that we're getting older. And it's exciting, it should be exciting

Linet  50:34  

One of the interesting things about like the, was called the predominant, white, capitalistic, white supremacist culture is sort of like the young and the white and the male. And in plenty of other cultures, our elders are a critical part of life, they're a critical part of the fabric of our society. They play, you know, super important roles in education in making home decisions, making, you know, strategic decisions for families, making decisions and being leaders in specific communities and cultures and religions, and so on, and so forth. And so, when you were talking about, you know, how to reframe how to think about ourselves, as we age, as well as those around us, who are older, it's like the term decolonizing comes up for me. Like, if we can get away from, you know, these very, you know, white supremacy, like, old, you know, railroad-building ideas of work and value, and age, and recognize, you know, the incredible value that you know, the beauty as you're saying, the exciting parts of, of being older, and that connectedness to our everyday to our lives, and how to how to merge those together, the better. In Colombia, we don't just like leave home when we’re 18, you know. We continue to live with our parents for a really long time, I, you know, I have several family members that like, built an attachment or like, adapted a piece of the house. So that their, you know, their child and their kids could live with them, like, right, in the same housing structure. You know, even thinking about how we build homes, right? Multi-generational family homes aren't really built all that often, if you think about, you know, what kind of apartments or housing are available. It's like a single family unit, right? So that doesn't make space for grandma and grandpa and your, you know, older uncles or, you know, whatever, it doesn't make space for that, that interconnectedness, that can bring so much value and can bring so much support. I know, for us and our family, my parents are critical. I wouldn't be able to continue to do the work I do at Unconscious Bias Project, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even have had the time. You know, between my partner and I tried to split childcare during a pandemic and also work, it would have been impossible for us to have any sort of success. I recognize like the privilege and still having my parents and the, you know, the wonderful ability that we have, and that we've you know, we've been cultivating, you know, this positive relationship with my parents so we're able to have that.

Shannon  53:44  

I'm so glad you brought up, you know, multigenerational intergenerational, because I think that's a key part of why we are the way we are now. And a key element of policy and society going forward that will help change ageism. Think about segregation. And you immediately think race, right, which makes sense. But we've also done it with age, think about senior living communities, think about senior centers. And it's coming for somebody who oversaw all the senior centers in a state we've segregated based on age. Why? Because as you said, Linet like, there's so much I mean, I can't state it enough so much value in the experience. The manpower of older adults, whether it's in the labor force or volunteering out in the community. We've pushed people aside because they've hit a certain age. You know, Grandma goes to a senior living community or a long term care facility. We've othered them. We've othered ourselves based on age. So you know, our kids are growing up, as you said, what you with grandparents around, they're not growing up around older adults. So naturally, when we're not having those experiences, you know, that leads to all kinds of things right? That if we're not around people who are different than us, then it becomes much harder to work together to understand each other, to create that sense of community. 

Alexis  55:19  

We're now at the point where we ask our guests, we give you a bit of a platform, what projects do you have going on that you want to amplify? Do you have anyone that you want to thank in particular? Or are there any other resources or voices that you'd like to promote, like to give shoutouts to amplify?

Shannon  55:35  

One project we're working on right now is related to food insecurity in our older population in particular. And Mariposa is, is an interesting County, geographically, we pretty much are cut right through the middle, due to the mountains and river. And our North County population tends to be older, it's a bit older, just a dearth of services there: there's one restaurant, all of our human services, we are primarily in the south part of the county, not the north. So it's just it's a it's an everything desert, it's a food desert, it's a services desert, it's an everything desert. One thing that had been brought up when I first got here was meals for seniors, certainly, that's been a focus in the pandemic. So there's actually funding out there for it, which is exciting. So we decided to work with the one restaurant in the north county and provide meals to older adults. And I thought, maybe we’d see 30 people or so come through the doors. We're at 124, I think at the moment, and we started this three months ago. I have been absolutely blown away by what we have done with like the intakes, and we're collecting data on the folks that are accessing the meals program. And that data very clearly shows that approximately 20% of the older adults participating in this program have some level of food insecurity. And that's, you know, things like: they've lost weight because they didn't have enough food; they've had to make decisions between medication and food, things like that; like if they can't drive somewhere, then they don't have food. And food, I have found - I did a lot of work in my last role in Kentucky on food security - I have found that food is something people understand. Everybody understands the importance of food. It gets much more political when you get into housing, and you know, health care and things like that. But everybody can rally around food. So we're looking into some additional opportunities for food security for older adults. And when you do, when you look at food security for one population, you're helping them all. And I encourage everyone to look at food security in your area. It's especially impactful in rural communities and minority communities for those with disabilities. And during the pandemic, you've got a bunch of different layers that impact food security. But look at opportunities in your areas and look at opportunities to provide home delivered meals across the nation, home delivered meals have been hit really hard. Because most of the volunteers to drive meals were older adults themselves, and without those volunteers (you) can't get the meals to the people who need them. Contact your local senior center. A quick Google should bring that up for you. Some areas have Meals on Wheels, but yeah, there's usually loads of opportunities around home delivered meals. That's a big thing we're working on right now. 

And the other thing, the big project is housing in rural California. I cannot underscore how complicated and frustrating the housing situation is in California and certainly in rural California. I'll kind of call out the governor, because why not, right? He has taken a stand on housing and homelessness, which is phenomenal. That's great. It's an area that needs to be focused on. And there was, (at) the end of last year, he talked about $12 billion going into housing and homelessness over the next five years, I think. Unfortunately, we have yet to be able to use any of that money here. And it's largely because we have no infrastructure. Rural California. I think Linet you mentioned something about infrastructure earlier, there is no infrastructure, and the money that they've set aside for housing and homelessness doesn't allow us to build infrastructure. We can pay somebody's rent, but it's really hard to pay rent for someone when there's no houses to put them in. So Mariposa over the last couple of years has sent back over half of the money that we've been given by the state to place people in housing. Not because we don't have the need, but it's because we don't have housing. Project Home Key, as an example, has been a big initiative of the governor's office, which again is great. But the problem is we can't use that money here. We had found for the second round of Home Key, we had found a lot where we had wanted to build about 15 units on it. But, we literally have to move a mountain we're in the Sierra Nevada foothills, we literally have to move mountains to be able to build. And the timeline for Home Key is you have to spend the money in eight months and finish the project in 12 months. I can't move a mountain in 12 months, I can't do it. So we can't use this money. It makes absolutely no sense. So if anybody wants to call their local legislator and tell them to get rid of the timeline for Project Home Key, I would be delighted. We have 118 ish students who are homeless in Mariposa. So when legislators get really excited that they're doing something good, make sure they're actually doing something that has an impact. Because it's all great, set aside the money, but it doesn't work. If you can't use it.

Linet  1:01:06  

You know, thank you so much, Shannon. This was really great. I learned a ton. I know our listeners got their mind blown. And thank you for pointing us to areas of action. It was really great to have you on the pod.

Shannon  1:01:20  

Thank you both. I appreciate it.

Seth  1:01:27  

Thanks for listening. You can find more information and donate at unconscious bias. project.org Dr. Linet Mara, she/her and Alexis Krohn she/her are your hosts. Seth Beckman, he/they is your editor. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to this podcast and follow us. We can be found on Facebook at Unconscious Bias Project, Twitter at UBP_STEM, LinkedIn, Instagram, or join our mailing list. UBP is a fiscally sponsored project of the Social Good Fund, a tax deductible 501c3 nonprofit organization. If you wish to sponsor us, please contact us in the Contact Us tab at unconsciousbiasproject.org