How do I process my mother using racist term?

[LaGiaconda]

I have been a stepmother for 30 years. My stepson and stepdaughter are a big part of.my life.

My mother has never been terribly interested in my stepchildren and has not met them for many years now.

She has, however, expressed a bit of interest when my stepdaughter, who married a man of South Asian heritage, started her own family. She frequently said how 'interesting' their background must be.

Yesterday on the phone she said a word that I just could not process in relation to my step-grandchildren, so I asked her to repeat it.

That word was 'mongrels'.

I shall not be able to forget she used that word.

It is particularly strange that she should have spoken in this way as she is Jewish but chose to marry a man who is not Jewish and who grew up in a different country from the one where she was born. So I and my two brothers are of mixed heritage....

That's not quite the same, but do what you want to justify it.

Two things worth bearing in mind:

One is that her memory might be deteriorating and that can lead to the brain rerouting lost words via a synonym. So she might mean mixed-race but her brain will retrieve 'mongrel' meaning mixed breed of dogs. It doesn't mean she is inherently racist necessarily.

The other is that terminology for minority groups frequently shifts from desirable to intolerable. If this has happened several times in her life time, she won't remember which is correct and she may have stopped caring, given that what is insisted upon one year is insisted against another year. I'm not suggesting 'mongrel' was ever an accepted term. I think more likely, in trying to retrieve an accepted term,. a 96 year old's brain will recover a catch all word not an appropriate one.

It’s exactly the same and I’m not justifying it. Simply pointing out that language changes and the older you are the less likely you are to understand or know about those changes.

She's 96. Ignore.

This absolutely this

That's not outdated language to describe people of more than one heritage, it is an insult. I'm in my 60's, and I have never heard anyone older than me use that word in any way other than as a deliberate insult.

Mongrel has never been a polite term OP. Now you know that she's always been prejudiced, all her life.
But she's 96. What can you do about it?
Are you going to cut her off?

Also did she seem sorry? Or dig her heels in? Non-committal?

Btw am of South Asian/Black heritage married to a white Englishman and among his older relatives (his family are surprisingly long lived) while some truly believe non-whites are beneath them others are ... unused to it, let's just say. I can tell they're not trying to be insulting they've just lived very insulated lives and I'm somewhat of a novelty. A bit like how my older relatives back home (in an Asian country) are a bit intimidated by DH cuz they've never actually spoken to a real-life white person. It's not an area that tourists really visit.