older people with racist and ignorant views

[x2boys]

Aibu in thinking age is not an excuse to racist and ignorant?
I was on the bus this afternoon and there was a man who appeared white but was dressed in traditional Muslim clothing and wearing a royal mail coat so presumably a postman,I,m sure like any other race religion Islam doesn't discriminate and anyone should they wish can convert to Islam
Anyway a couple got on the bus who were probably in their 70,s and started shouting very loudly that this man was white and why was he wearing clothes like that!
They continued to talk very loudly about it and then they man in in 70,s said the Muslim postman better not deliver mail to his house!! A second older lady joined in and said the postman was a white man is this a generational thing ?
My parents who are also in their 70,s have made if not racist comments certainly ignorant comments which I have told them off for?

I find this quite difficult really; there is a difference and no, there isn't a good excuse for rudeness but there are generational differences whether you accept it or not.

When I was having an operation a few years back I was in the bed next to an elderly lady; she was really chirpy and thoroughly enjoying herself at being in hospital. Our consultant was black and very efficient, seemed to have a huge patient list. Anyway, whilst he was in with the lady next to me she was regaling him with chatter about the war and I was laughing, she was so funny... and then she said something about Indian soldiers fighting with 'us' and then said that she didn't remember seeing many 'darkies', which was a shame as she really likes them and that he was fabulous and if she was just 50 years younger...

The consultant laughed, did whatever he was doing and left the cubicle.

It was obviously horribly inappropriate but this lady liked him very, very much and her intention wasn't to humiliate or insult him. I didn't say anything to her a) because she was elderly and b) because she had an obvious respect for him albeit that she remarked on him in a way that she shouldn't have.

For the rest my stay there, she refused to see any other but this consultant; she really was very taken with him.

How is the OP being ageist?

She said older people with racist and ignorant views

So that refers to the ones with racist views, not all older people.

OP YANBU, age is no excuse to be racist.

Age is often cited as a reason for being racist though, which is bollocks really.

I don't recall my mum being so intolerant as a child.I don't remember her being inappropriate either. With her is definitely come with age.

She thinks the man in the shop is going to rip her off just because of the colour of his skin and the fact she's old.
It's other things as well though, she has no patience, she'll huff and puff behind slow moving older folk, she's rude talking loudly about others whilst we are out and if you call her on it she'll say it's because she's old.

She's perfectly fit and healthy, no dementia etc. She just turned into a cantankerous, not very pleasant lady.

I don't recall my mum being either Percy but at my ds christening a couple of years ago she was shouting loudly about her holidays and how she had to wait ages coming through immigration at the airport because of 'all the bloody foreigners' and lying your lady whilst innapropriate she doesn't sound malicious the couple I encountered where nasty and malicious.

My mum insists she isn't racist, she has Indian friends, is always lovely to people of another race or religion and fostered children of mixed race in the late fifties and early sixties when a white woman with a white husband pushing a black baby in a pram through a village would have been judged. She hates it when people treat people negatively just because of their race and calls them ignorant and bigoted.
But she will use the P**i word to describe people. Usually just to help identify who she means. It drives me mad, it's like a form of casual racism that doesn't reflect who she is or her actual view, but she just won't accept there is anything wrong with the word. I just wish her language would reflect her attitude.

For some reason my Mum decided once she hit somewhere around 70 that everyone was out to get her. Everyone in every shop will fleece her 'because she's old', everyone will take advantage 'because she's old'.
I've told her so many times that it's her paranoia but she won't have it.

I recall once being in the queue with her in Tesco and in front was a lady who had to be in her eighties packing her bag. She'd declined help from the cashier and was happily packing herself. No, she wasn't the fastest of packers but at 80 odd thats not to be expected. My Mother was an embarrassment. She stood behind her huffing and puffing loudly, talking about how she would still be there come dinnertime. I bit my tongue for as long as I could then I had to say something. I told her she was being bloody rude and to please be quiet.
Then there was the occasion she pointed to a child of about 3 with a dummy and announced 'bit old for that isn't she?'
In the doctors making an appointment she asked if the GP was English or spoke good English because she's old and can't understand foreigners.
And lets not forget the time she told our dentist that she'd left the last dentist because he was 'foreign and she couldn't understand a word he said' in front of our dentists lovely Polish assistant.

It just trips out of her mouth and leaves anyone who's with her cringing. She's completely inappropriate and it's as if she's lost her filter. I questioned at one point myself whether it could be dementia etc but she's otherwise perfectly healthy.

As I say, don't recall anything like this from her when I was younger and I know had my Dad been alive on occasion he'd have told her to stop being so bloody rude. It's a shame because it really does make you wan't to not spend time with her.