Friend says she judges me for being in contact with my Dad

[niceandwarming]

I want to start this post off by saying I don't condone any of my Dad's views in any shape of form.

My Dad and I have an ok relationship, I am in my mid 20's but he has a lot views which are absolutely disgusting. First off he is racist, openly thinks black people have what he calls a "chip on their shoulder", I heard him once refer to a disabled person using the r word, thinks people who are going to clubs and getting spiked is their own fault as their drunk. Calls gay people "Queers".

My friend has said she judges me for staying in contact and having a relationship with him.

Would you do the same?

Did it make any difference to his behaviour? No, probably not.

But did my then-boyfriend - who was SE Asian - when I was 16, who was on the pointed end of my grandad's comments at a family party (which was the final straw in a whole haystack of them) see me refuse to sit by while someone spoke to him like shit and made "jokes" because of his race? Yeah, he did.

And he also saw the family members like my uncles, who laughed it off and protested that he didn't really mean anything offensive when I asked my grandad to explain precisely what he meant by the stereotypes and the 'jokes' and the sly comments and how insulting they were. I know which I'd rather have done.

I was polite enough - even then I knew calling him a bigoted twat in the middle of a hired golf clubhouse would have done little to change 'hearts and minds' as you put it. I just asked him why he thought that was okay to say, and what he meant by it. I could have gone softly softly and hoped my grandad had changed his mind eventually, but I had already for a couple of years been pulling him up gently on comments, and even when there was an actual person in front of him he was doing harm to with his words, he didn't seem to see the problem.

If it hasn't changed his behaviour at all, I'm still glad I made my decision that day not to engage with him any more, because he refused, even after I explained why the things he would say was awful, to consider changing his own heart or mind. He does have good qualities - there are good memories from my childhood. But given that my only options were to ignore it completely (nope), try and reason with him (got me nowhere other than him being derisive and convinced I'd realise he was 'right') or no longer engage with it, I did the latter.

Many people are facing similar issues presently with anti vaxxers and conspiracy theorists within their families. All you can do is challenge people and point out how unacceptable their comments are.
Your friend can't and shouldn't determine whether you stay in contact with your father.
He hopefully will still have life experiences which show him how foolish his views are.