MIL using racist term around DD

[BurlyReptile]

I have DD 2.5yo so has got really chatty and is good at speaking and picks up on things quite quickly.

MIL frequently refers to black people using the D-word (starts with D rhymes with snarky) to refer to black people. Every time she uses it I tell her it is racist and she just says she's not meaning it in a racist way. It just seems to be how she refers to black people?? Today I snapped at her a bit more, saying it's a racist term, she knows it's racist term and by using it she is indeed being racist.

She is late 50s so it's not like she's an old 90 year old who thinks it's ok.

I am terrified that DD picks up on this and starts using it, even once would be mortifying. This has been going on since I met her (so years of her being periodically told off by me about it being racist), but now I am really keen to stamp this out around DD in particular, although preferably I'd rather she acknowledged it is racist and not use racist terms again but this is probably asking too much.

DP is generally supportive and disagrees with her saying it, but in general her side of family don't really seem to bother. They don't use it, but nobody else seems to bother that she does. Am I the one being unreasonable here? For the record we are all white.

"dear mil... Please stop using racist language in front of my child or you will not be seeing her again "

Agreed. It’s a weird logic that insists words only ever mean what the individual user intends them to mean.

If your MIL is only in her 50s, she absolutely does know full well that the term she's using is racist and offensive. My siblings and I range from 49 to 59, and that term wasn't even acceptable when we were kids. She is using the word deliberately and she's being disingenuous when she defends it.

FWIW, my mum told her FIL (who she actually adored) that she would not stand for him using certain words like that around us when we were kids, and that was in the 1970s/1980s. You need to have a serious word with your MIL. If she was referring to people as wankers, cunts and arseholes in front of your small children, that wouldn't be OK, and referring to black people in the way you describe is no more acceptable. It doesn't matter how she means it.

I've just been reading a book, the autobiography of a woman born in 1923. She wrote it in 2008. She mentioned that her father used the term when she was a child along with Hun (not the u ok hun? variety) and JewBoy. That's nearly 100 years ago and this child found it upsetting.