The official "Exhausting-All-Other-Resources" blog
Consider the essential truth of the expression I wrote about in my previous post. To wit:
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
-- Author Unknown
Setting aside my personal disappointment that Winston Churchhill did not say this, several events from the last few years, (not just our last rather un-presidential election), help illustrate how true it is. (Which is why, in spite of the mystery, it persists like an urban legend). I call your attention to one such event in particular. A few years back, an angry protest suddenly turned into an unlikely stampede to do away with any official display of the old civil war battle flag of the Confederate States – the "Old Stars and Bars."
This sudden movement to ban the Confederate flag was the result of Yet-Another-Racially-Motivated-Murder-Spree – this time at the hands of a young white man in a South Carolina church. This mass-murdering teenager had developed a racist mental abberation that he expressed in photographs of himself waving the Stars and Bars.
A reasonable person might think a reasonable reponse to this horrific act would be to pursue new national policies that promote and support the mental health of all our citizenry. The goal being, of course, to encourage our children to be brought into maturity without the poisons of predjudice and hatred despoiling their formative years.
I know you're laughing yourself to tears over such snowflakery right now. (This is, after all, America where one person's hate-speech is another's polite Sunday dinner conversation). Nonetheless, I encourage you to consider that there have been times in America's history when it's citizens have actually pulled together to accomplish astonishing things. I can think of several such seminal events, including: The Boston Massacre, the sinking of the Maine, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and, of course, 9/11 — just to name a few.
Other than any hiccup that threatens the financial assets of the "One-Percent Elite" – which always spawns a disproportionate response – such events can utterly reshape world history.
Angry about the South Carolina church massacre, but not sufficiently stirred to do the right thing, we resort to doing what we have always done: we grasp at something – anything – else. In this case, we've turned our frustration against the Stars and Bars itself; suddenly, everyone is tripping over each other to have it torn down from all official tourist traps.
As most already know, there are some who still vigorously defend the old flag as a symbol of an honorable heritage of bravery and sacrefice. While the bravery and sacrefice were very real, it is the cause behind them that must determine whether or not the effort can be judged as noble. To this is end, such apologists argue that the cause was all about "State's Rights" and the civil liberty to live one's life how ever one chooses to live it. All these "mental gymnastics" have been wrapped into what is euphemistically labelled the "Lost Cause" theory of the cause of the Civil War.
The "Lost Cause" hogwash is a pathetic attempt to re-write history and paint a universal front in the noble hearts of all True Southerners against the tyranny of "Federal Overreach." Let's be perfectly clear on this point. There was no "united front," and the preservation of "States Rights" and personal liberty was never really at the heart of the American Civil War. All wars – all wars – are about wealth and power, and the struggle between some horrific evil and something "less evil." As the brave souls who dared to create the "Free State of Jones" in Mississippi, during the bloodiest days of the Civil War, so brilliantly observed: it was "a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight."
In any war, one side or the other might have a noble cause at heart, but no war was ever started and fought between two equally noble and honorable and righteous causes. Why? Because noble, honorable, and righteous peoples do not settle their differences with bloodshed. Whatever other excuses might be concocted for the cause of southern secession, the reason that sat at the very bottom of the chain was the struggle for one thing: the "right" for wealthy southerners to hang on to their "property" at any cost. And, by "property" we mean, of course, other humans held in slavery.
Because of this, the Confederate battle flag has always been a symbol of a unique American brand of racism. This nullifies any shred of nobility or honor in "The Cause" a thousand times over. Consequently, there is not a shred of honor in any action taken to promote it. Of course, "memorials" should be built and even "historical re-enactments" indulged, but the line must be drawn short of indulging any notion that the essential cause was just or the actions taken to defend it were admirable. The Stars and Bars is a symbol of the worst that is in us today because it has always been a symbol of the worst that is in us. Period.
The Confederate flag should serve us now only as a historical oddity; a reminder of what we should never tolerate within ourselves. It belongs only in museum displays and on the dusty shelves of antiquity. It should never have been permitted to be displayed anywhere as an official emblem. The key question here is just how long has this misplaced token been flying over the statehouse in South Carolina? Naturally, one might assume it has been there since 1861, when South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. You would be wrong in such an assumption; in fact, the Stars and Bars was rightfully banned immediately after the Civil War. It did not make a subtle reappearance on official flagpoles until 1961 – exactly one-hundred years after the start of the Civil War. Why? The answer is that it was re-adopted as a way for South Carolina to symbolically "thumb its nose" at the modern civil rights movement. Once it had wormed its way back into official sanction, it quickly took on a new depth of meaning as a modern symbol of an ancient hate-filled racism that has been nurtured – sometimes in secret societies and combinations – for a time period that is now measurable in centuries.
Yes, we Americans are, indeed, the poster child for a stubborn will to "do the right thing only after all other options have been exhausted."
Once in a while, you stumble on something that is so outrageous and startling that it opens your eyes to something you didn't know you didn't know. This happened to me recently as I struggled with being an unemployed “Third Age Worker.” This is a euphemism for being a worker who is over 50 years of age, generally credited to Dr. William Sadler. The cause for my unsolicited epiphany was a guest blog entry on the long-running blog of career coach Martin Yates on his popular “Knock 'em Dead” franchise website, (knockemdead.com). This guest blog entry was from Arleen Bradley (arlenebradley.com), a fellow career coach. Some choice bits from Ms. Bradley's entry speak for themselves:
"Nothing says old like a typewritten resume on soft pastel resume paper. There have been numerous changes in the job search process in recent years.”
Seriously? Laser printers were developed in the early 1970's. The first desktop laser printer hit the market in 1984. I am over 55 and have been working in my field since those days, and I have never used a typewriter to generate my resume. I've never met anyone who has. No one has peddled this nugget of advice since Reagan was President.
This next one, however, had me confused:
"Age proof your résumé and cover letter. Stand out for what you offer them not your age. Limit your relevant experience to 10 to 15 years. Don’t include anything past 15 years. Don’t lie.”
So, should I deliberately exclude anything past 15 years, or should I not lie? Every manager who has had to hire someone – particularly for a position that requires special skills and experience – will tell you how frustrating it is to waste time with candidates whose résumés do not accurately reflect them. Unless being a good liar is a crucial requirement for the job, one of the main goals of the job interview is to weed out candidates who have misrepresented themselves to get into the interview in the first place. Thus, these “little tricks” to misrepresent one's age run a serious risk of backfiring. Once they do backfire, no matter how well the interview goes down, it's going to be: “thanks-but-no-thanks.”
Reduced to its essential message, Arleen's advice is this: lie-cheat-or-steal to convince the hiring manager that you are not actually an Old Person. The idea is to get your foot into the door of the interview room, then “knock 'em dead” once you're there and convince them they should hire you in spite of being old and attempting to deceive them about it.
Since “Third Age Workers” are a group that is discriminated against because of a common trait they share, I thought it might be interesting to apply Arleen's advice to other groups that are discriminated against because of traits they share. Let's begin with racial and ethnic minorities. Based on Arleen's advice, these individuals should start their job hunt by trying to make a hiring manager think that they are white, (or, some other ethnicity that doesn't suffer as much discrimination as they do). Then, when the deception is uncovered, (as, of course, it will be), it will not be a problem because the interview will have been so astonishingly great that any racial bigotry clogging up the mind of the hiring manager will be overpowered.
Let's see how this would work for women who are facing the job market. First, they should try to trick the hiring manager into thinking that they are men. Then, as before, once it is clear they aren't, they must hope that it doesn't matter anymore because their job interview was so impressive that the hiring manager instantly shed all vestiges of sexism, (and any resentment over being deceived), and, of course, the glass ceiling will come clattering down.
Hopefully, the absurdity of this entire line of thinking as been adequately illustrated. Age discrimination is the same sort of animal as every other form of prejudice and discrimination. It is not “subtley acquired” when the hiring manager sees your graying hair for the first time. If you find it staring you in the face, you can bet your next-to-last dollar that it was already lurking there long before you ever applied for the position.
Racism and sexism are not inborn – they are acquired attributes, nurtured by a society filled to overflowing with paranoia, simplistic stereotypes, and gross misinformation. Ageism is no different. You can bet your last dollar that a Third Age Worker has no chance – quite literally no chance – of getting a job from someone who has already decided that Old Folks have no place in the organization.
One final quote from this peach of a blog entry is in order:
"... a man was going to see a career coach about his difficulty finding a job. He was over 50 and felt the gray ceiling hovering over him. As the man sat down in a chair, he groaned audibly and grimaced. No sooner had the man sat down, the career coach told the man to go home and don’t come back until he could sit in a chair without groaning.
The man left and returned a few weeks later, this time he sat down in the chair without a sound or grimace. Now they could work on his job search strategy. He had removed the biggest deterrent from getting hired; acting his age.”
Were I that unlucky fellow, I would have gotten up from the chair – groaning and creaking – and tried my best to punch that jerk-of-a-career-coach in the pie-hole. At the very least, I would have walked out and never returned, looking instead for a career coach that could help me get a job based on the assets I had to offer rather than by hiding my “old person image” and my osteoarthritis.
The day that “acting one's age” becomes a legitimate deterrent from being honestly considered for a position is a day that will be a very dark day for the future of our country. It will be the day when all the ugly stereotypes finally overwhelm open-minded and unprejudiced judgment. It will mean that Third Age Workers will be dismissed for all the wrong reasons while all the younger workers will be embraced for the wrong reasons. It might be too late at that point to discover that all the things we think are wrong with “old people” – things like lack of enthusiasm, inflexibility, failure to adapt, refusal to learn new things, or the inability to work with the team – are all bad habits that are acquired at a surprisingly young age. It will be the day when we lose sight of the revelation that almost all the attributes that make employees capable and worthwhile do not automatically deteriorate with age – and, often, they continue to improve.
I do not have any easy answers for the “gray ceiling” – certainly, no more than Arleen Bradley or Martin Yates do. Just as there is no panacea for other forms of bigotry, only the agonizingly slow evolution of our common consciousness will ever mitigate this problem. I do know that it is foolish to think ageism is somehow different from racism or sexism. I also know that it will continue to be a problem as long as the common advice for dealing with it is to lie and pretend to be something we are not.