As the entire world now knows, Dr. David Dao is the passenger who was dragged off a United Airlines Flight on April 9th, 2017 by Chicago security police who broke his nose, gave him a concussion and smashed two of his teeth. Some media have treated this as a horror perpetrated by a single airline that bullies passengers, or by a business model that forces overbooking. It is a mistake to look so narrowly at the sources of harm. A few reports, and many Asian American social media users, have mentioned the possibility of racism. As I write, no mainstream news source or commentary has mentioned ageism.
The blog then explains how ageism works in this case and similar situations, and introduces the concept of “walking while old” from my book, Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People.