"Respect your elders"?

Amid all the talk about how the Covington story was falsely reported and how the mob against those kids summed up everything wrong with social media, one point seems to have gotten lost: no matter what version of the facts we believed, it was always absurd to say, in response to seeing a Native American in his 60s, that the teenagers needed to "respect their elders." That phrase can be used to mean many different things, but I'd suggest that it's so problematic it should be replaced by clearer statements that don't rely on cliches.

We should not respect anyone based on what demographic group they belong to, whether it's age, ethnicity, or anything else. Each individual either does or doesn't deserve respect based on what they've specifically said or done. Just think how many of the people who said "respect your elders" after watching that video have the utmost disrespect for Donald Trump, who, as the 72-year-old leader of our country, is as much an "elder" as anyone. Of course, "respecting your elders" is an effective approach in many social situations. But the word "respect" can refer to either outward behavior or internal thoughts/feelings. If it means the latter, then no one believes you must genuinely respect all of your "elders" (whoever they are). Some of your "elders" are fundamentally at odds with each other, so to respect one of them would be to disrespect another. It's even been argued that teaching kids to "respect their elders" could lead them to accept being abused by adults.

There are valid arguments in favor of "respect your elders": that we should honor those who've come before us, who've struggled in ways we haven't, who've worked hard to make the world better, and who've gained wisdom over the years. As a general attitude toward older generations, that's fine — but that's not what people meant when they said "respect your elders" about the Native American man at that event. They seemed to mean that he as an individual must be respected at all times, but we can't know that from clicking on a short video someone recorded with their phone.

Ironically, it isn't respectful to leap to a positive judgment about someone based on their ethnicity. Is seeing a Native American of a certain age and immediately saying, "Respect your elders!" really that different from meeting someone who's Asian and quickly praising them for "speaking good English," or routinely mentioning that "some of my best friends are black" during any conversation about race? Those kinds of statements might sound positive on the surface, but it's well-known that they're insidiously patronizing. They treat people as ethnic placeholders instead of as fully formed individuals with unique strengths and weaknesses.