How to handle racist MIL?

[MrsMacaroon]

Almost every time I go and see her, she drops racist comments into the conversation...most along the line of- 'nice place but too many coloureds' etc

DH had told me her parents were ignorant and racist when we met (been together for 11 years, married for 6)and in fact he has no contact with them for many reasons. She is monumentally sensitive and bears grudges forever so she's very hard to be honest with (this is why DH doesn't see her- they fell out after he tried to have a heart to heart about past issues.

I take the kids up to see her about once a fortnight and so far have either ignored her comments, have reasoned a bit 'maybe you didn't like her/him because you weren't used to their accent...' (pathetic I know) and have pointed out that I am not racist and mentioned my best friend's partner is black and they have a child together who is like a nephew to me.

She just says- 'oh I'm not racist either, I don't mind chinese people...but did I mention that another polish family moved in down the road tuttuttut'

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Have you tried changing the subject - literally interupt her and carry on.

Craftynap - Your knowledge of all things Morris is scarily impressive. I shall never turn my back on you, please don't wave your sticks near me.

To the OP, I have a similar problem with my inlaws and have found that I had to say something. I politely made it clear that we don't agree with their views and will not tolerate a racist attitude in our home in front of our children. Actually, I had to say this to them the first time I met them...haven't seen them since...

You don't need to make it a crusade, but I do think it's fundamentally wrong to tolerate this .

I think a lot of perople of that generation did indeed grow up in a time when it was 'OK' to be racist so don't really understand why it's not.
All you can do is explain it's not nice, you don't agree and please would she not speak like that in front of the children.
TBH I'm shocked at schoolchildren with parents and grandparents under 50 who are racist (the parents, grandparents and children, I mean. I've come across it a couple of times and I think "Don't you understand how offenisve that is?" It is especially shocking when you hear those attitudes at work from bosses. My boss was convinced that the reason our company didn't win an award we'd entered for was because the winning company was 'Asian' and therefore benefited purely from the PC vote. The fact that they may have been better than us didn't even enter her head.

Oh God, this is all horribly familiar. My in-laws are lifetime Express readers. They have always just dropped casually racist comments into conversation but last year I had a big bust-up with them when I saw red and couldn't ignore their assertion in response to something on the news that 'Enoch Powell was right' and then carried on digging an even bigger hole for themselves when I challenged them. My challenge, incidentally, is that my dad, who they love, was a Polish refugee, and their other DIL is half Malaysian. So their two granddaughters are a quarter immigrant, and only one of them is white. Now they occasionally overcompensate by telling me about the 'lovely' Pole/black person/Asian they have met in the course of their day. They are the type who generalise about other groups of people but are happy to make exceptions for people they know. That's the West Country for you...

I've always just said, "MIL, that's racist, and here's why ..." Don't particularly care when she talks about "coloured" people, because I know that's a generational thing and not maent to be offensive, but I always pick her up when she starts ascribing behavioural characteristics to particular ethnicities. She doesn't do it in front of me any more, and FIL has become much more assiduous about stopping her when she starts going down that road. If she finds me rude for that, so be it.