To think MIL is not racist....but so f*cking ignorant & shouldn't be around DCs

[rockacrybaby]

I have a very mixed family but am more or less black. Coffee coloured. DH is white. Race has never been an issue on either side but his damn mother keeps on saying the most infuriating things and DH and FIL keeps on shrugging it off as "she's just from a different time/ it's just silly ignorance"

When I think about what my family has been through I just cannot dismiss it as such. I've done the whole "Oh come on" polite speech but she just laughs me off as being defensive: "Oh I don't mean you, you're different"

Examples:

On DD1 when she was just born: "Oh, she's beautiful - not even as dark as I expected."

A conversation about an advert urging people to foster BAME kids: "Yes well of course more of them are in the system they just don't value family as much as other people do they?"

On first meeting me : "Oh you're quite well spoken"

On me straightening DD1s hair as a one off for a special occasion: "Her hair is so much prettier like this - so much less unruly"

On DD saying "I'm from Jamaica!" because her nanna is from there and we just got back from a trip and she's proud of her mixed heritage : "Oh but not that much darling"

On black lives matter : "Why are they so angry? If you behave like a hooligan you will be treated as such"

It really upsets me and I don't want my DCs hearing this shit. Yes their dad is white but they are still people of colour and I don't want them growing up hearing the shit I heard which made me feel inferior at times.....from their own damn grandma!!!

I don't even want them thinking about bloody race but it's like she cant help herself from making comments which subtly remind them that they are different from their blond haired blue eyes cousins. They are subtle and not all the time but enough to plant a seed.

Told DH MIL's comments aren't getting better and I'd I refuse to fight with her about it. I've addressed her comments nicely several times and she just laughs me off. DH is being useless. Seems to think that because she's not in the KKK its all petty.

I don't know what to do.

[PNGirl]

No, speculation isn't helpful; I just don't think OP should read anything into her MiL not having made comments - that her DH is aware of - before they got married. I do also have a similar MiL elsewhere in my family pretty much word for word!

[RandomMess]

Do you feel you could counter her comments with

"Gosh MIL that was a derogatory about our Jamaican heritage/comment on DDs hair"

Pull her up on it at the time? No point say it was racist but label which reference she has made that is derogatory?

[MetalMidget]

My mom is racist as hell. Absolutely loves and is pleasant to people of various ethnicities when she gets to know them, but treats them like they're the exception, not the norm. All Asians are isolationist terrorists who force their kids into marriage (Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism are all the same thing), apart from my nan's neighbours, who were lovely. Black people are all drug dealers and thugs, apart from my best friend's family growing up, who were lovely.

She tried to get me to promise, at the age of 11, that I'd never marry a black man. She refers to mixed race people as 'half-caste'. She was once telling me about seeing a mixed race couple in the supermarket, who had a little girl who was beautiful 'despite being half-caste, it's a shame really'.

Your MIL sounds similar, and you definitely don't want your kids exposed to that, regardless of her 'generation'. My dad wasn't racist at all (and would often wearily attempt to correct my mother), and he was a couple of years older than her!

[Zhx3]

I'm watching this thread with interest. OP, I really feel for you.

My MIL has said several times things along the lines of "well, we used to be able to call the corner shop the p*ki, but apparently that's not acceptable now".

It drives me FUCKING NUTS. Her own grandchildren are mixed race (from me) and I haven't managed to find the gumption to call her on it. My own mum told me not to cause a scene. As you say, family is family whether or not we like it, and we will be spending many many occasions together. I have managed an eye roll and head shaking but nothing more. I honestly think that my ILs have never spoken to a non-white person (apart from the man at the corner shop) ever in their lives before they met me. I need to rehearse what I would say, so I can say it coherently.... even though she must do it at least once a year, it always catches me off guard when she does.

My own dh had to be educated on why it was wrong to call the Chinese takeaway the ..... apparently it's normal in Scotland? And once I showed him some of the lived experiences of Chinese people experiencing racism, he was mortified and hasn't done it since. I think his parents still do when they're not in my company. I need to have a word about how their own grandchildren will experience racism (dd already has), and the last thing they need is to be hearing it from their own family.

[rockacrybaby]

MetalMidget And yet you still see her etc as that's your mum.
This is why I don't want to push DH. What is he supposed to do after chiding her? She will never change. I know that much. So where do we go from here?
She can't see them that's for sure and to be quite frank even if she stops making comments I know now she thinks these things and it makes me sick

[SilverBirchWithout]

Actually if you want to avoid thinking of her as racist (although personally I think she is).

Try and see it as her being crass, rude and insensitive. Substitute an alternative similar behaviour without race being in the scenarios:

If your DD had been born with ginger hair, taking after your colour hair and she expressed disappointment on first seeing her, that would be a pretty rude comment to make within your hearing.

If people from Wales were being interviewed about their rights to speak their language and they had formed a group to protect their language and she made some comment about it being a pointless and ugly language and they are really all hooligans, knowing that you were a native Welsh speaker, that would be crass and rude.

You can probably think up other alternative examples to the times she has made you uncomfortable.

The thing is, if MIL is being equally rude and tactless on other topics impacting other members of the family, she is actually not a very kind or thoughtful person. If she is not, she is singling out you and your heritage. That's actually not very nice is it? It might actually be better to accept she is being racist (and it's not about you, as such on a personal level) and make sure she starts learning to modify her behaviour around you and DD before it drives a wedge between her, and you & DD.

[WellieWanger]

i don't remember a conversation but then we had lived in Africa for a few years and have always maintained strong links and been involved over there. So I think I was aware of the difference between the two countries and that things were difficult over there and easier here from a very young age. My ethnic DP had struggled with people being racist over here and despite being well educated had to work from the bottom here and things were tough. the police would often stop them too. I was brought up in a middle class area and was in a minority of four at school. My mother remembers getting school involved when a pupil called me a racist slur aged 5 and how it was a very big thing for me but I don't remember it, oddly. We had books at home about Martin Luther king and Malcolm X and knew about slavery from a young age. I suppose I just always knew but nobody ever sat me down and explained to me necessarily; I learnt from reading and history and experiences around me. To be honest, I think as a kid if I had been sat down and told I was half African and because of that I would have to deal with X Y and Z, I would have been very unsettled and insecure. And probably concerned that racists were the majority of people. Which is not the case and hence I can pity these narrow minded few instead of give them power.x

[MetalMidget]

MetalMidget And yet you still see her etc as that's your mum.

I've given her so many bollockings she's learnt to avoid certain topics of conversation in my presence, heh. :/

[rockacrybaby]

Zhx3 >> "As you say, family is family whether or not we like it, and we will be spending many many occasions together. I have managed an eye roll and head shaking but nothing more. "

This.

So no more nanny for christmas? No more nanny on birthdays? Yes I can pull her up more harshly......but it will be met with tension and resistance. Nothing more.

[rockacrybaby]

MetalMidget I'm telling you if i give this woman a bollocking it will be WW3. I'm scared I'm going to split up the family TBH.

[rockacrybaby]

To be honest, I think as a kid if I had been sat down and told I was half African and because of that I would have to deal with X Y and Z, I would have been very unsettled and insecure. And probably concerned that racists were the majority of people.

Yes Wellie. That's how I feel RE DD. I don't want her paranoid etc at this age. But at the same time if she makes one more comment around her I will have to sit DD down and say "when nanny said that about your hair...." and explain western standards of beauty etc etc etc
She is too young

[WellieWanger]

I feel for you rockacrybaby. You don't want to cause rifts but you don't want your children subjected to this shit anymore and they are 100% more important. Could you explain again to DH that if she's still like this in ten years or so, your children could have serious esteem and identity issues. Suggest he helps you brooch it, expressing your concerns that without his support it may go pear shaped?x

[elephantpig]

I wouldn't want future children of mine hearing things like this and DP and I are both milky white.
When you say 'can she be racist and love her grandchildren?'
I see it as more of, 'she loves her grandchildren DESPITE being racist' which is awfully sad.
I would be keeping your children away from this shit, hopefully keeping them away just means finding a way to make her stop, rather than keeping them away from her altogether. I wouldn't let them hear those hurtful words though.
Take this seriously would be my advice.
She may be ignorant, but if so, educate her.

[rockacrybaby]

WellieWanger DH is an amazing man - I think he's very shocked and uncomfortable at finding this out about his mum and after 4 years knows where it's heading. She's been told. No she hasn't been shouted out etc but she knows its wrong and to be quite frank doesn't care.
I will not let her damage my kids.
I just need to treat super carefully as DH isn't quite ready to accept his mum may have to stop seeing DCs until she genuinely gets counselling or something.

[serin]

Interestingly I had a lot of those comments from my MIL

On meeting DD for the first time "Oh she is beautiful and not as much like you as I thought".

"I thought I wouldn't understand your accent"

"Thank goodness DD doesn't have your curly hair....It's an affliction really isn't it?"

I'm English, working class, she considered herself English, middle class and therefore posher.

Aged 3 DD told me that Nana had told her "Nana is from Surrey, DD is from Cheshire and Mummy is common".

Some people are just born haters. We didn't challenge her on it but it almost wrecked our relationship and I regret not standing up for myself more.

[WellieWanger]

You don't necessarily have to connect it with her race yet at the moment if you aren't ready for that yet. You could explain that some people have straight hair and some have curly, like Merida in Brave. And sometimes people like to switch. X

[MetalMidget]

MetalMidget I'm telling you if i give this woman a bollocking it will be WW3. I'm scared I'm going to split up the family TBH.

Yeah, it kind of works in my case because it comes from me, or my brother. If either of our spouses tried it, it would cause drama. Your husband needs to be the o me to tell her that she risks losing contact with her grandchildren if she doesn't start to think before she opens her mouth, because she's expressing some pretty offensive and harmful attitudes.

[WellieWanger]

Sorry I'm catching up on Marcella so keep xposting. Whilst dh gets his head around it could you avoid her at all?

[carefreeeee]

It sounds both and racist and deliberately rude.

[Taja123]

I'm mixed race and had this crap from Moms family it definitely had an adverse effect on my self esteem and identity ( not on its own but coupled with 70/80s blatant racism)
I eventually learned to love me and told them all in no uncertain terms to do one
Anyone like this gets told and then cut out of my life if they continue .
I would not have someone like that around my child at all . Life is to short to put up with that crap and age is no excuse

[BoatyMcBoat]

There is no way you can have a calm talk with her, tell her what effect her comments have, on you and will have on the children? I'm not saying you have to, of course, but you are worried about causing WW3 and at the same time you rightly don't want your children exposed to it.

It seems to me that it's pointless responding to the comments when they come out, but it might be worth a go at having a proper conversation about it with her, with or without your dh, but maybe somewhere neutral, a café perhaps.

It won't be easy for you, I realise, but somehow she needs to be made aware of the effect she is having, and will have. If she's thoughtlessly racist then this could bring her to properly consider what her beliefs are (and they may well be perfectly acceptable, and she's just parroting the crap she grew up with). Bringing her to question what she is spouting may have a very good effect on her.

[Atenco]

What an awkward situation for you. Maybe the most important thing you can do is teach your children to realise that beauty comes in every type of skin colour or type of hair, as do every other quality. Teach them about their history. Your MIL's ignorance lies in the 19th Century's justifications for the British Empire and has nothing to do with reality.

And as you don't want to confront, maybe some gentle leg-pulling with your MIL. Sometimes joking about something can release the tension and tell some home-truths without being nasty.

[BuggersMuddle]

OP that sounds horribly racist. I've seen similar attitudes in my family (racist and homophobic except for x person who is somehow different).

I do think this your DH ought to be fronting on knocking this on the head, even if he doesn't use the 'racist' word. Would he take it on board if it was more presented as 'no-longer acceptable?' (As opposed to 'you were always wrong').

[MooseyMouse]

In our (mixed) family we openly discuss racism. Your concern about discussing it creating a "them" and "us" feeling hasn't happened in a negative way. It's more "them" (people who are racist) and "us" (people who name and challenge racism).

I want my kids to feel confident about naming prejudice and their right to do so. Personal experience of racism is something they share with DP and not with me (I'm white) but talking about it honestly hasn't created a split.

Hope you find a way to improve things.

[Catvsworld]

My mil is t he same op we see them now once a year if that

And if your dp thinks this ok I would start to wonder about him to be honest


I haven't made my husband choose but have told him very strongly I won't be seeing her it's his mother and he dosent need my permission to go visit her I won't be coming and he won't be taking the children