AIBU to not want my parents / grandparent to be racist? Set in their ways?

[DeFluffMyFanjo]

My parents are v traditional and my grandmother even more so. They're quite racist in that although they'd never be horrible to anyone of another race (ie treat them differently, say anything to their faces) my father does use the c word and comments about why 'they' were good at running / athletics etc were common when I was younger (for those who don't understand what I mean - 'being chased by lions/living in the jungle', sorry).

Anyway, it never usually comes up in conversation thank God, and a few comments that have been made, in front of my 4 yr old DD, I have stamped on fairly hard.

But, the other day I tried to explain why I found it offensive, and that I felt they were letting themselves down by such thinking. After all they are intelligent, nice people and these thoughts/words are really beneath them. I didn't get very far

So my question is, should I let it lie as they are a product of their upbringings and a different time/place, especially my 90 year old grandmother, and I'm getting nowhere, I should I persist in trying to 'educate' them? BTW I don't hold out much hope of success. What do others do in these circumstances?

Yeah Chegirl, it was

I never challenged the comments directly, as I suffered from post-natal depression and just couldn't take it on. Just let him carry on with his drivel (and there was a lot)

He was part of the reason why we split up in the end

I know it sounds unreasonable, but the thing that narks me, is that in their eyes, I should be grateful that they finally accepted me.

Bullshit.

foot you did better than I ever could just to resist slapping that man round the gob!..I don't think it's about change per se but more about education and zero tolerance..I don't give a toss if you are old..or part of my family racism isn't on!

foot you are the better person, no question.

My mum and dad used to say 'well we dont see her [my DD] colour, we treat her like normal' and I was supposed to be greatful .

They used to think it was in bad taste for me to mention she was mixed race.

I don't think there is much you can do about your grandmother but might be worth working on your parents. I also think you have to judge actions far more than words.

My granny, at 94, comes out with some things that make me go ,eg recently showing me a photo, "there's Fred and his black wife". I felt like replying "where's his white wife then?" but it just isn't worth it. However she likes my dp whose background is chinese and is happy to introduce him to her friends and adores our mixed race dd.

We were on holiday last week and got friendly with a gran (63)and her daughter (41) who were holidaying with the gran's two young grandsons. One night they were seated at a table near us in a restaurant and I saw them laughing merrily whilst the daughter of one of their son's new found friends did a rendition of "Chinese eyes, Japanese eyes" complete with actions. I was saddened and angry that none of the adults told the girl what she was doing was not acceptable. And very grateful that my Chinese DD wasn't with us (she was at a party organised by the Kids' Club reps).

You could be describing my parents. Lovely lovely people, generous, fun loving and intelligent. But racist bastards. Not so much skin colour, rather a DM 'all immigrant's are lazy feckless scroungers' sort of way. They live in a rural community and I think it gives them something to talk about. We visited for the first time in two years over the summer, all my mum could warn me about was drivers from a certain country who don't have insurance. WTF was that all about. They moved from London because of all the (insert eastern bloc country of your choice) asylum seekers. I do despair but think that my daughter only sees them a couple of times a year and so they aren't going to influence her thinking at all.

my mum is casually racist too but not racist to individuals. So she was happy to have a boyfriend from India about 20 years ago but goes on about immigrants stealing our benefits and jobs.
And if someone does a bad thing she always mentions race. Doesn't help that she's partially deaf so she blames 'stupid foreign accents' rather than her deafness for not being able to understand people.
And she goes on and on and on about 'islamists' forgetting that some of us are white.
argh.

DMSBR. You've just described my mum's attitudes to a tee - apart from the Indian boyfriend. While we were growing up in east london, we had friends from all areas of the world and this wasn't a problem in fact my parents gave a home to a friend of mine who was on the run from an arranged marriage. Now though, it is NIMBYism. I am not afraid that my daughter will pick this sort of attutude up as we live 1500 miles away and she has been exposed to all sorts of people.

My il's are like this. It makes me very angry. They aren't like this in front of ds they know that if they were I would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Sometimes I used to think that the comments were made to wind me up. If you met them you would have no idea, you would be shocked that people who come across as nice respectable people could hold such bigoted views.

My mother is rabidly anti muslim at the moment in a daily mail /bnp way ,she regularly rants in front of my children ,especially my older son who is 15 . I disagree entirely with 99.9% of what she says and she knows that ,however as someone living in a relativley free country i accept she has a right to her largely misinformed opinions .My son just rolls his eyes when she starts on one of her tirades and if she says anything he isnt sure of ,he will ask me later .The world is full of bigots and racists ,if i were you i would just keep up the good fight at home ,your child will work it out for themselves .The reason my mother is anti muslim by the way is because of something that happened to a bhuddist friend who married a muslim in a different country and it really upset her ,she has now taken against every muslim per se .

my BIL is like this and I'm fed up challenging thim about it. Having said that we haven't seen him in a while - a couple of months ago we were at MILs for tea when BIL swore in front of DD. I just said "BIL, can you watch your language in front of DD?", he replied along the lines of "yeah, like HE (DP) never swears in front of her", me - "no he doesn't actually, in fact he never really swears at all". BIL was silent for rest of evening and hasn't been back to MILs for tea since - tw*t

My parents are a bit Daily Maili-ish, too. Albeit they live in Germany and therefore read the German equivalent. I've always challenged my dad when he started talking narrow-minded nonsense, and much to his annoyance found the killer argument against his anti-immigrant views a few years ago, by moving away.

Whenever he's going on about immigrants stealing jobs etc, I ask him sweetly whether he thinks I shouldn't be in employment in the country I chose to reside and if not why I would be any different to other people who go somewhere else by choice. He hasn't found an answer to that yet, so it usually shuts him up.

When we first moved here (small town, somewhere in S England), DH (who is Asian) went into the local barbers for a hair cut. The lady asked if he worked in the local Indian restaurant. When he asked her why she thought that might be the case she replied 'that's where you're sort work isn't it?' He said 'no, I work in the hospital'. She replied 'oh, are you a porter?' After a few other guesses, eventually, he told her that he was a doctor.
Fortunately, DH was able to laugh at her ignorance and still goes there for a trim!

I think it depends, like most things, on the situation. I let it lie for the most part e.g. with in laws - actually step-FIL - he is racist and spouts stuff at the telly - and I dont think its necessarily a generational thing - hes slightly younger than my dad who is 72 and is not in the slightest bit racist. Its an ignorant upbringing thing.

He can't see his hypocrasy and its quite sad, but he will die soon (sorry thats blunt but he's terminally ill) and his racism will die with him as the grandkids are too young to realise. He is a stubborn old goat and my comments about it in the past have been glossed over.

For instance, I'm mixed race but apparently 'dont count' as I can pass for being white. No doubt if I was more obviously asian there would be comments about it behind my back.

My uncle is that same generation and is worse, but my remarks to him are like water off a ducks back. He lives in Spain yet has failed to learn the language and whinges about their healthcare (nurses cant speak a word of English!!) I pointed out to him a long time ago that we're all a mish mash. I said that his complexion and hair indicate that his not too distant ancestors were clearly not white and this sent him into a right old fit. People like him will not learn.

On the other hand my dad worked on my nanna (for probably his whole life) and managed to change her views at least externally. (She was about mid 60's at the time I think) I wasnt allowed to play with a pakistani girl over the road when I was little and lived with my nanna - when my dad realised this he was fuming and gave nanna what for. I dont know if she actually believed what he was telling her, but she relented and from then on I never heard her say anything derogatory about what used to be 'those Pakis'.

Sorry, rambling. But yes by all means if you think it makes a difference, or if kids are in earshot, make sure you do comment on it. Its really not acceptible in this day and age. Actually its really not relevant at all.

My in-laws (bil's and sil's) think it's hilarious to be racist/homophobic in front of me because I'm a 'wierd southerner' and have no idea of what it was like growing up in Leicester with 'all them paki's' coming in... I just think they are pathetic, and to be honest, feel like not bothering to go and see them again! Dh has his 'moments' but having lived in Cambridge for 30 years is a little less ignorant.

So many people have similar problems, thank you for your stories it is good to know I'm not alone. Its strange though as they are really really nice people, would help anyone etc,. they just can't seem to get away from these illogical views.

I find it very hard to challenge them because their arguments are so stupid its like trying to pick up water if that make sense, eg

My DM 'Well its all very well for you but you don't have 'them' living by you do you. I find that those that don't have 'them' taking over their neighbourhood find it easy to be tolerant'. Eh?????? My parents live in the whitist white part of the UK ever I think. And who the hell is 'they'?

My DF 'Well 'they' shout more and make fuss (eg at benefits offices) so they get more. Simple'. Eh??? Where do you start with arguing with that? I tried 'Says who? and who is 'they'? And ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' And just gave up.

They are very Daily Mail. Other gems are around 'But what if your children had to go to a school where 98% spoke Urdu?' and 'if they come to this country they should respect our laws, they're trying to ban Christmas!'

Please help me. Can someone write me one paragraph that just blows away all this stupidity that I can just repeat and repeat and repeat....

ME TOO. Drives me beyond despair. Slightly different slant here, but my mum spent a very happy twenty minutes moaning about asians with one of my neighbours not long ago - he happens to be black. And given half a chance he'll moan on about Africans bringing down the neighbourhood too. Point being that though it's revolting wherever it comes from, it's what we humans tend to do and is far from a white only stupidity. Can't say I've ever understood it.

My parents are a bit like that. Thing is, my mum ejoys "winding me up", as she sees it, so if I respond (i.e. rise to the bait) she just gets worse.

I just tell the children that "Grandma and Grandpa" have some strange, old fashioned views and leave it at that and that certain words are not very nice so shouldn't be used.

I wish I had that magic paragraph that would make it all stop.
My mum bangs on about muslims with their 'foreign middle east religion'. She's Christian. Which came from, lets see.....middle east
You just have to challenege racism best you can. I get it at the mosque sometimes for being white. sigh. not only elders either.

Does anyone else find that their dcs are much more clued up about this sort of thing?they seem confident to challenge racist comments in older relatives- eg "you can't say that, Nan, it's racist"??Kids in our school seem to be really on the ball like that (tho "gay" seems to be a whole different story )

mine don't even notice poeple's skin colour but they do notice their nan's racism. I've told them how much worse it was back in the 60's and I think they don't quite believe me (their history course hasn't covered any of that)
I don't think there's any real issues with homophobia at their schoo. instead they use 'retard' and 'special needs' as insults

I noticed that, until the age of about 6, my children didn't appear to take notice of people's skin colour. If you asked them to describe, say, Milton Wordsworth on "Storymakers" or Martha Jones on "Doctor Who", it wouldn't be the first thing they'd mention. But it has slowly started to creep into their vocabulary.

The interesting thing is that DD, who now 9, has kind of picked up that it can sound rude to call someone "that child with the brown skin" or whatever. One day last term DD was describing the boy who DS had collided with in the playground. He had a very obviously Asian name, and I could tell she was desperately describing him around this aspect of his looks so that she didn't have to say it.

and fools say there is no rasicm in this day and age(!)

evrything written so far is sooo similar to my family, and surprise surprise my OH's family also!im mixed race. my OH is mixed race. my FIL still refuses to see our daughter, and it looks like our son too once he is born in a few weeks, all because of a) race - im a nigger in his eyes, and his son, and ex wife are chinkies, and that includes our granddaughter also, and b) our religous viewpoints.
my mum still says things like nig-nogs, which includes me, even though its said in 'jest' and 'never to any ones face'. and my uncles used to make comments on my fathers broad flat black nose. and more.it still goes on. but then so do i. always correct them when ever is possible. i suppose its like the drip effect. little by little, something will come of it.

Here is a story about my mum who is sadly deceased.As a family we had many Indian and Jewish friends because of my grandad's connections with wholesale clothing trade.One day mum was telling me about an acquaintance whose dd had married an Asian man and the mother was refusing to see her dgc because they were mixed race.Mum was outraged......."After all its not as if he were black!!!!!!!!"she said.This was in about 1972 and I had just returned from living in Sierra Leone where ds was born.Mum and I almost fell out but she admitted how silly her prejudice was and we moved on.

illgetyoubutler - thats appalling. Ignorant man cutting himself off from his own flesh and blood