Posting here because I don’t know where else to post about this. I name changed as well as another recent post along with this one could be outing.
DH’s two SIL’s and his mother are over, they don’t live in the same country as us so we only see them about 2-3 times a year. Last night we went out for dinner, we were having a lovely time, I’m newly pregnant so there was a lot of excitement at the table. I don’t care for his family much for a lot of reasons but one of them is that they’ve said racist things about others before but last night was genuinely lovely and I was surprised as to how pleasant they were being.
It comes to the end of the meal, we were about to pay up, SIL1 said casually that she was looking forward to going to get food in Chinatown tomorrow as she’d never been, this is when SIL2 starts to say out loudly ‘oh we’ll be getting some (racist C word) food.’ When nobody responded or looked at her, she said it again even louder towards my DH as he was facing her, she was doing this jokey tone of voice and obviously thought she was hilarious, I purposely looked away from her because I was mortified that she was saying this and wanted to look around to see if anyone could hear her, definitely one table did hear this.
DH tried to disengage from her, then gave her a stern look to let her know this wasn’t acceptable.
it ruined my night and I just kept my head down for the rest of it as I just felt sick and disgusted at this behaviour. I expect it from them in their own homes when we visit (unacceptable also) but to say this is public! Needless to say it changed the mood for the whole night. If anything I’m surprised SIL2 and MIL didn’t join in, I think they normally would but seemed busy in their own conversation at the time.
Don’t know why I’m posting, just to vent and for support. I’ve to spend the rest of the weekend with them, we have stuff booked and paid for today so can’t cancel.
I wish DH and I were more quick to respond, we spoke about it afterwards about how we should have explicitly told her that’s not on. It’s awkward though especially as we don’t see them often and we were in a cosy and busy restaurant.
Anyone got tips on how to respond if this comes up again, I don’t want to just ignore it? My family members have also said racist things before and I’m good at calling them out on it, they no longer say things like that around me but with in laws I just find I’m more passive, probably because they’re more loud and dominating.