She doesn't mean to be racist but...

[fartypantaloons]

So embarrassed

I have a mixed race child myself

Stood in a queue with elderly relative and in front was a family with a mixed race child who had cane rows

My relative far too loudly announced "it must take forever to do and it looks revolting"

I awkwardly explained it's quite useful and yes it takes longer but lasts weeks and I in fact do it myself from time to time for practical reasons on their mixed race relation.

These moments happen more the older they get and I guess the deafer they get the worse it is but ffs is there any hope of educating them or do I just hope they are taken no notice of as an elderly person when shamefully rude?!

I don't think they honestly knew it's not done every day the way Caucasian hair plaits might be which may explain her bafflement at the style but still...

You're right schmoo if revolting is being used in the dictionary way but ime it's used by most people to mean something they don't like in the same way that disgusting has lost all of it's true meaning.

Pattistranger I dont think either words have lost their meaning and are both equally insulting when used about something specific to a group of people which is often overemphasised in racist imagery and literature with the intent to demean them.

I also agree with SchnooSchnoo statement that the effort to deny the exisence of racism here is embarasing.

Really rosetinted glasses? Those words are wrongly used all over social media and even on MN, of course I'm not saying you've seen that use as I don't know that but they are there.

You are projecting here, the OP has said "No there's no genuine desire in her to be unkind or racist" Why are you trying to say otherwise?

Because Ive grown up in a world where many people begin statements with Im not racist but.... followed by a lot of generalisations and assumptions about a particular group of people with a particular genetic heritage that once delivered suggest a level of superiority of the speaker that hurts or belittle the object of their words.
Such behavior is incorporated into the defi ition of racism.

Meaning to be something and actually having an impact that is can be quite seperate.

But in this instance the person who was actually there and knows the speaker says the comment wasn't a racist one. You seem to be saying that you know better?

It doesn't invalidate your experience to accept that the OP knows what happened in her situation.

Cornrows look dead cute on kids of any skin color (I had it done to me as a blonde toddler in 1960s). Oh dear, just tell them that was very embarrassing. I think I would have apologised to the family in question on the spot & called my relative an idiot for saying it. Consequences be damned.

Thats kind of like a parent of a bully saying the child who was bullied has no right to feel thats the case just because their child didnt mean anything by it @ PattiStanger.

The person who was there wasnt the recipent of the words used just a relative of the user.

Do you think she'd day the same if it were a white person with cane rows? Was it against the hair or against the race?

If she is racist and you have a mixed child - does she love and respect that child?

If she's racist towards your child ever, I'd cut contact. If she's racist but doesn't see the colour in your child, loves her to bits and is racist, I'd try and educate her, explaining how it would hurt DD to hear these comments.

My DDad was "selective racist" - so he was generally racist but knew many people from different races who he was close too, cherished their friendship and was a good mate too. He just didn't get it, the hypocrisy, it went over his head. Old school racism.

I also agree with schnoo

I think you might fare better if youtell her, privately, that some of her comments are rude. Also point out that she speaks loudly and so people hear her comments. She may not realise she's deaf, or that she needs to have her aids checked.

If she really is basically nice and not a normally outrightly rude person, she'll be mortified and want to do something about it.

I think it's an age thing, the social niceties diminishing.

I had a relative telling me about a family friend who had been seen being affectionate with another man. "He's not gay is he? He can't be gay!" and various ramblings how he has children and has had relationships with women. I explained that people can be bisexual, or realise they are gay later in life, and he was fine with that explanation. But he still couldn't understand how his very loud (hearing going) protestings were not appropriate in a public place, or anywhere!