My silly comment blew up wider family now dh miserable

[Allwelcone]

So my neice is British/dual national with my sil's country, never lived in UK but loves our culture a lot and bigs up her British-ness at school apparently, which is in a third country.

Over on a recent UK visit, dn made a very British pudding but didn't try any of it as didn't like it (it was a crumble type pud) I said "Oh go on try a bit, I thought you aspired to be British!" This was met with gasps from my teen kids and I said "sorry I've been brought to book there".

My sil has raised it as a big issue and its been used as ammo for them to hate on us basically.

My dh is very unhappy, not sure what I can do? Apologise? Leave it? Back story is sil doesn't seem to like bils family and always seems really sad to be in UK. we do try (e.g lending them our car, lots of hosting, being 100% careful all the time not to offend) but we have never bonded.
Advice appreciated.

Normally be not being white.

Curious as to how you’ve reached that conclusion? Based on what?

As a dual national immigrant who has lived in three continents.
Also DH works in Europe a lot including managing crews and for instance in Italy the locals and the immigrants frequently come to blows at work.

Considering dear niece lives in the States (if I’ve read correctly) where crumble also called a crisp is very popular, she may not have known it was a traditional British dish and doubt she expected to be questioned over it and having her Britishness questioned in front of family.

I always thought crumble originated in America, and they call it 'crumb cake'. That is not terribly relevant of course :-).

If you glance at it quickly, your brain tricks you into thinking OP meant Third World Country. I had to read it twice to realise what was meant.'

I always thought cobbler was their version of crumble (purely based on what it looks like on tv)

It was a very offensive comment.

a) you've told her she isn't British. Her identity is for her to determine, not you

b) you've implied that being British is something for people of her other nationality to "aspire to", which is appalling.

I'm not surprised they are furious.

Crumb cake has German origins.

Here’s the best explanation I’ve found about the differences in America.

www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-a-cobbler-crumble-and-crisp-90877#

Crumb cake is a cake with crumbs on top, usually made with cinnamon and sugar. I think both crumble and cobbler have fruit. Crumb cake is usually just a butter cake.

I don't know if what the OP said was offensive, but I can see how someone might think of it that way. I think the fact that her own children were shocked by it would imply that perhaps it was worse that she made out and/or it's indicative of an ongoing lack of sensitivity on OP's part.

@GabriellaMontez

Ime teens aren't necessarily good judges. They're so worried about how things look/what people are thinking. Rather than what really matters. Ignore them.

God what a bleak approach to engaging with teenagers you love.

The thing is, it doesn’t really seem from your replies that you actually understand or appreciate the gravity of your DN situation. You have no idea what it means to be a third culture kid , and what you said would have cut deep because as such, you’re constantly having to ‘justify ‘ where you belong. Her mum sounds like she is upset for her, and understandably so, because even though you have ‘apologised’ she probably sees that you don’t really understand what you’ve apologised for.

reading literature from a country and nearby won’t help you ‘understand’ a whole culture. Ask her, talk to her , and actually listen.

I agree. I remember when my (now Ex) husband move to the UK from a country we were living in together (he’s not from there). He experienced overt and really quite severe racism that affected his entire life on a daily basis. This included being paid less due to his passport, being not offered free tea and coffee as he was ‘beneath it’ and withholding his passport during holiday times so that he couldn’t leave the country (like the rest of his nationality, apparently , it was likely he would flee and not return to work after).

when he moved to the UK, he said that the situation was worse- racism here is more ‘covert’, more ‘underhand’. To an outsider, who is white and doesn’t understand, it can seem like it isn’t really happening, but the microagressions continue all day long, but with no real way of calling it out as racism, as it doesn’t look like the violence and overt displays we see in the media. Nevertheless, it wears on his self worth and confidence and limits his potential in so many ways.

I can see why the niece and mother are upset. You’d expect your family to understand. You’d expect them to want to understand. You’d expect to feel safe from racism in your own (or a family members) home.

I do get that, have always been aware of covert racism, Kateeeeuyyy . It comes across in rather silly remarks, sometimes meant to sting, sometimes not, but always making it clear that the person's ethnicity (and/or religion), is what is noticed before anything else. It's frankly cringeworthy, especially in this day and age in England. We have been multi-cultural and multi-ethnic for so very long, it should not be an issue.

On facebook there are groups which attract extremely vocal racists. Those of us who try to reason with them, giving another point of view, are ridiculed, insulted, shouted down. They don't even have their facts straight a lot of the time. Many of them are quite ignorant, even semi-literate, and they often spoil a group, driving moderate people away.

Something I have always hated in real life is when a person like me, ie white, English, makes a racist commentt or a 'joke' to me, expecting me to agree because I am outwardly like them. There have been times, when younger, that I actually didn't understand what they were saying but I certainly did learn. It's horrible, it shows their true colours and I have often been disappointed in somebody whom I liked.

The op, however, does not appear to fit into that category. She was tactless, naive maybe, but did not mean any harm. That is what I glean from the information she has given us, none of us was there at the time. She will have learned from what has happened and I think she should be forgiven. It is has to be sorted, this is family.

Definitely agree that covert racism is insidious.

@LBFseBrom I think this is also an issue, that OP didn't realise that she may have been racist for years and years resulting in the sils current attitude. The fact she didn't mean any harm does not change the fact for pages she didn't want to accept that she made an inappropriate hurtful comment and looked for people to tell her she was right and her kids abd the sil were in the wrong. The number of posters ascertaining her she was absolutely fine to make the comment is pretty depressing and really illustrates the covert racism point pretty well.

Absolutely
Racism doesn’t have to be deliberate and doesn’t have to come from a place of hate or anger to be classed as ‘racism’.
The OP’s comments were inappropriate.
The op should have accepted that her comments were hurtful and apologised.
For someone who has a member of the family from a different race/ culture the Op comes across as pretty ignorant .