To pull my elderly Nan up on her racism?

[BlueBananas]

My Nan is 86, shes quite naive and has led a fairly sheltered life
I've just spent a few painful hours with her over lunch where she made a few very uninformed racist comments

I pulled her up and corrected her each time but was told by others at the table to leave it alone
She isn't nasty about it and I don't think she even realises some of the things she says are offensive, but they are and most things are just totally not true
But everybody seems to just nod and smile and roll their eyes at her while I just can't

Obviously she's old and set in her ways and doesn't even listen to me most of the time so there isn't much point which is why people tell me not to bother, but AIBU to carry on banging my head against a brick wall regardless?

Limited, if you are going to say that OP's nan equated all Muslims with terrorists, you do need some basis for saying it. Otherwise you could just as easily say she equated them with space monsters.

So basically: they're old, they'll be dead soon, so who cares? Does that about sum it up?

OP, I think you need to get out a lot more and find some truly nasty people with terrible intentions upon whom you can unleash your unstoppable moral superiority.

"Pulling up" an old lady with no regard for the fact she was raised in another era, and therefore might see the world differently to you, is plain bullying.

Does your shining goodness make you blind to full stops or are they also a sign of latent racism?

I really think people are being pretty ageist on here, assuming people above a certain age cannot adapt, change or grow as the world around them changes. As someone who is only a couple of years away from 60, I frankly find this pretty offensive, and so would my elderly MIL, who after being fairly racist most of her life has indeed changed quite a bit now she has mixed race great-grandchildren.

I do hope my DS and DGC (if I have any) never stop including me or patronising me (by thinking, bless she does not know how to behave) in the way some pps are describing.

Frankly you are not doing them any favours by ignoring what is now unacceptable behaviour. Most elderly people need to use the health service extensively and also often have a number of other caring services. These areas have a very ethnically diverse work force; by not curtailing racist talk, you are leaving these workers exposed to potentially very difficult situations, particularly awkward when the elderly person will depend on their undivided respect and professionalism.

At last silverbirch you've hit the nail on the head. I agree completely. I can't believe the ageist patronising bollocks being said about this woman. She lived through WW2 for goodness sake. I would absolutely be challenging her and reminding her that spouting racism is exactly what Hitler loved.

My dad is so racist it is a joke...
But he is over 80 and won't be around much longer. When he dies his attitudes will diw with him. In the meanwhile I don't want to turn our remaining time into an argument.

Dm is 95. She grew up in an era when smoking was considered healthy, homosexuality was a sin and a crime, and white supremacy was taken for granted. Much of what she grew up thinking had had to turn on its head but she is perfectly capable of reconsidering her views, changing her language, and fighting her corner on the basis of current evidence and facts. She's much better politically informed than I am.

Don't patronise your Gran.

DAmn not unreasonable. I take a zero tolerance approach to racism. It is a criminal offence and she be pulled up about it. Sorry but the rest of your family who sits in silence are just as bad. It's awful and woefully unacceptable.

Timleytess what do you mean, when you say people say racist things which turn out to be true?!

My mum is a nurse and has worked with dementia patients for a very long time. Apparently dementia doesn't make anyone racist, the person has always been racist but could hold it back in public somewhat before the dementia.

Why the fuck did she live through WW2 etc and why the fuck did we defeat Hitler if she still lives to spew racism today?!!

Although I know full well I am going to embarrass my right on children whittering on about how transgender women aren't real women. They'll be whispering mum, you can't say that nowadays. Lol

I sympathise. My mum (68) has come out with some shockers. Uses terms like "touch of the tar brush" etc. Has opined that there are too many Muslims "coming over here and leeching of the benefits system". Has said that it wouldn't be acceptable for a member of the royal family to marry someone black... I do pull her up on it, but it makes no difference. If she said it in front of my child. I would be livid.

Some years back, I had a black boyfriend - her reaction was so awful that I can barely think of it.

You were right to challenge her - age etc isn't an excuse.

I think about racism a lot. Dp's parents are racist, and I would say one of his sisters and one of his brothers are also racist. When I nearly got my purse stolen by a woman on the tube, first thing dp's dad said was 'black woman was she?' (She wasn't ). Apart from that it's mostly things they say that have come straight from the daily mail.

Dp's brother makes negative remarks about black boys. He's a teacher in an inner-London school and sees his prejudices confirmed - though he never thinks about the why. I hate that those boys have a racist teacher. Though he may keep it under wraps, I wonder if it ever shows. It must affect the way he interacts with them, whether he is aware of it or not. I wonder just how !many racist and sexist teachers there are out there. He's sexist but doesn't teach girls.

Dp's sister seems to have a fascination with black people. When she met my best friend who is very dark skinned, she ever afterwards refers to my 'black friend' as if that's the most important thing about her. She was the same when she she met my other friends now ex-gf 'the black one! Is his new gf black?'. I think she'd have as heart attack if she met my mum's ex dp or my brother's best friend. And she says things like 'you know how black people do XYZ?' Yes because they're all the same.

I don't pass comment, or correct them. If they say something outrageous I'm front of my dd when she's old enough to understand then I don't know how I will react. So far most of the stuff they've said in front of me has been relatively minor, I've been able to walk away without making it obvious, I go to the toilet or something. They're all sexist too, more freely than they are racist. I walk away a lot, they probably think I have a bladder condition. In their case it isn't age.

Spot on, SilverBirch, particularly about old people using health and care services.

I'll be 60 next year and one of the things I dread about old age is being ignored. It's already starting to happen - people looking straight through me. I'm finding this thread thoroughly depressing as it makes me realise that in 20 years time (if I make it that far), many of you will be smiling and nodding rather than trying and help me keep up with changing attitudes. Thanks for that, sisters.

Surely what she actually meant was that ISIL should be bombed off the face of the planet. There are many who would agree with that, personally I like to think there are better ways but perhaps not.

I think that what racism is often is a grey area and not talking about race sensibly is as likely to lead to proper racism as cure it. Our country has changed massively in the past 50 years, will change more in the next 50 years and to pretend it isn't happening or that refugees are all nice people (although I'm sure most are) or that migration is all positive isn't going to magically lead to a cohesive society.

People base their experiences on the people they met. A relative off mine said 'Asians don't drink tea and coffee' for example, utterly bizarre conclusion from meeting one person. Perhaps her neighbour's dh is very controlling, who knows? Her race/ religion may or may not contribute to that. We have mnetters who are muslim and say that their marriages are equal, perhaps that's the norm but some people will have different experiences. There are nasty abusive blokes of all races and mn is definitely evidence of that.

It depends on the person. If they're intelligent and flexible in their thinking, theyre not likely to come out with these things anyway.
Those who do, especially with years and years of entrenched thinking, you're on a hiding to nothing trying to correct them. It really will be a waste of your time.

Floisme. I doubt you have these types of attitudes. You're different kettle of fish.

Although I know full well I am going to embarrass my right on children whittering on about how transgender women aren't real women. They'll be whispering mum, you can't say that nowadays. Lol

This is exactly what I thought when I read the OP! Someday my grandchildren will insist that I call myself a cis woman .

Its pointless to try to correct elderly folks. My nan still thinks its very rude if a woman wears trousers to church, but perfectly acceptable to refer to black people with a N word... She's 86 too.

It's not pointless! FFS! That's totally ageist but also to those saying'oh, well they won't be here much longer' - how do you know that? We live in an ageing society where older people can expect to live for longer and longer. As a pp said, becoming more and more dependant on a diversely staffed NHS. And yy to the war, what the fuck to people think we fought it for??? And older people vote more, and they can be worth quite a bit too. They are not powerless. So racism (or sexism or homophobia) should be challenged just as much as with younger people.

I don't think it's always an age thing. My DUncle is rampantly racist (and sexist), unlike my late DF who was older.

The cis woman thing is

What the woman said wasn't racist. It was more indicative of a small-minded attitude - OP talked about 'naive' and ' 'sheltered'. To my mind that could have been addressed with a conversation rather than 'pulling up'.

The phrase 'pulling up' is deeply offensive to me. It speaks of telling people what you think they should think, rather than discussing their reasons for their view and either persuading them of yours or accepting theirs.

OP has disappeared but I'd dearly know what she meant when she said her benighted old gran talked about 'bombing islams' and what her response was that made her table companions balk.

I wonder whether the old woman was talking about Islamist terrorism and the OP misheard or misunderstood it in her rush to be right-on and post on MN.

Bombing Islamists off the face of the Earth is a popular response by Western governments and has been talked about in mainstream news a lot. I wouldn't necessarily agree with it as a tactic but you can't deny that it is the basis of Western foreign policy.

Maybe the 86 year old woman is more up on current affairs than her grand daughter.

Unless she comes back, we will never know.

On a personal note, the 86 year old gran could have been my mum. The OP could have been my niece.

If my niece had 'pulled up' my mum on anything, I'd have had her off at the knees.

The use of the term 'pulled up' is unfortunate. It might have been the way the OP did it that made the rest of the family tell her to 'leave it'. Isn't there a place for a discussion? My DM is 89 and if she made a racist comment I wouldn't correct her, but I would hope we could have a conversation about it, with both of us putting our points of view.

It starts sooner than you think. I am 51. My nephew is 30 and has told me there are things that I can't say.

You'll have to take my word for it that I believe I hold more liberal views than he does.

He's a nice boy. I haven't felt the need to have a big argument with him.

Yet.