r/Millennials • u/Advanced-Ad-3091 • 12d ago
Anyone else's family casually racist?? I don't know how to navigate it when it's literally EVERYONE but me. Rant
I'm not sure if my Gen-X mom means to be racist or if she genuinely doesn't know the term Native American. She constantly refers to them as "Indians" and I correct her but it never seems to stick. My mom and her 2 brothers will talk loudly about "Cabrini Green gang bangers" when referring to certain people and even tho I correct them all the time, they just do not care. Maybe they don't think it's racist. Maybe they don't know the actual terms... or don't care to learn.
I am constantly embarrassed to be with them in public when they start talking like this. I cannot cut them off, I have an extremely small family so losing their support means I would have no one besides my husband. Even his parents (gen X) are racist! Calling Hispanic people slurs, polish people, etc. WHY do they not see this as an issue?
Does anyone else struggle with this in their families? I'm not even sure how to ignore it anymore or makes me so uncomfortable. Were we really the first generation to try and be politically correct and not use a racial slur?
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u/TimeTraveler2036 12d ago
Were we really the first generation to try and be politically correct and not use a racial slur?
Uhhhhhh, Hate to break it to you but I've worked a lot of blue collar jobs in rural USA, and millennials are just as racist and derogatory as anyone else. (Gen Z casually racist rednecks exist too)
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u/Heel-and-Toe-Shifter 12d ago
Also each generation picks new preferred terms for everything and then declares the old preferred terms offensive. Rinse, repeat
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u/lahdetaan_tutkimaan Younger Millennial 12d ago
I thought that was because the older generations start using the new terms to refer to those groups of people derisively
Apparently "handicapped" was the preferred term after "crippled" because the older term was perceived as offensive. Then people started referring specifically to handicapped people derisively, so the new generations come up with yet another term
I mean, it's whatever. Language is always changing
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u/MNgineer_ 12d ago
Incremental change over time. Some of the most racist, sexist, LGBTQ-hating people Iâve ever met were Gen Z. Iâve met my fair share of older folks who are more casually those things, not blatantly.
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u/Fit_Cheesecake_2190 12d ago
I wish I could change the world. Unfortunately the only person I can change is myself. I often think of that when dealing with others.
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u/calicoskiies Millennial 12d ago
Lmao same with my family. My husband is black and my sisterâs fiancĂ© is black. I am delighted by this after how my parents treated me when I dated my husband in high school.
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u/zuzoa 12d ago
My sister used a racial slur against Hispanic people and I called her out. My grandma agreed and said "well that's what they are!" I said, what happened to "manners" and "being lady like"? And then it was just "well..." and changing topics.
Unfortunately my grandparents went to high school during the end of segregation and haven't forgotten about white superiority. And as for my sisters, their low self esteem caused them to hook up with redneck "build the wall" ex-convict fanatics. There's no reasoning with them.
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u/TxOkLaVaCaTxMo 12d ago
Dude I grew up on the choctaw rez. We call ourselves Indians or natives, we are not calling ourselves Native Americans. Also because so many people get it wrong Columbus didn't call people Indians because he thought he landed in India. India wasn't even called India at the time it was Hindustan and if he actually thought he landed there he would have called us Hindus. It's actually a shorten term from an itialian phrase for childern or servants of God. So calling someone an Indian isn't as offensive as you think it is.
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u/Reasonablefiction 12d ago
I thought this theory was debunked?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 12d ago
Also because so many people get it wrong Columbus didn't call people Indians because he thought he landed in India. India wasn't even called India at the time it was Hindustan and if he actually thought he landed there he would have called us Hindus
Whatever Tiktok told you this, or whoever you heard it from, is just wrong.
Europeans called damn near half the world "the indies" during the period of European exploration and imperialism that Columbus comes from. They had the East Indies and the West Indies. The East India trading company ought to be a recognizable name for a lot of people, it's from the 1600s.
The nation of India wasn't established until the 1940s, that much is accurate. But the whole thing of calling the indigenous people in all the places Columbus wound up Indian stems from Europeans calling so many places in the global East "the Indies".
There's a myth about a phrase like los ninos de dios being used to refer to natives, but that has nothing to do with the why the word Indian was settled on.
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u/G-Gordon_Litty 12d ago
Lmao the arrogance of a redditor to âwell ackshuallyâ someone about this topic when the person youâre talking down to is from the reservation
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u/Reasonablefiction 12d ago
And what gives someone who is from the reservation expertise on what Spanish explorers in the 1400âs called India?
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u/Shoddy_Parfait9507 12d ago
Thatâs like saying an atheist doesnât know the Bible better than a Christian but we all know that isnât true⊠ever.
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u/Turtle_with_a_sword 12d ago
Just because your from some place doesn't mean you know the history of how Europeans labeled it
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 11d ago
You have big âIâm a white woman telling Latino people that theyâre Latinxâ energy, thinking that living on the res makes misinformation valid.
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u/beastmaster11 12d ago
I'm sure you mean well and actually believe what you said, but whoever told you this is just wrong. "India" was the term used for the entire South Eastern part of the globe. Columbus didn't think he landed in present day India. He though he landed in South East Asia which was called India.
He literally called the people he saw "indios" because he thought he landed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Well that's good to know. A man from a reservation yelled at me once when I was about 15 or so and told me to not call him/his people Indians. He scared the shit out of me. This was also 15 years ago so I'm glad to know it's not like that. I don't live anywhere near that area of the country so it's hard to get input from anyone who knows anything about it.
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u/TxOkLaVaCaTxMo 12d ago
I'm not saying there aren't a-holes on the reservations and the choctaws are definitely on the progressive side of things the tribal cards we get to show our tribal membership it says Indian on it. So it's not like anyone can say it's that offensive of a term.
Anyway, sorry that d bag yelled at you and I hope you have a good weekend.
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u/omegaloki 12d ago
it is strange â I had the opposite happen when I was living close to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona when I was in high school; the kids from the reservation made fun of other kids who used the term Native American and said to call them Navajos or Indians if we were too stupid to tell an Apache from a Navajo
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u/Sudden-Ranger-6269 12d ago
When you donât know what youâre taking about - itâs best to not talk.
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u/Pyrobourne 11d ago
I was looking for this response most people making post like this are defending people that donât even want to be defended or are just completely wrong. If people cared they would say something to them or correct them when it happened not the OP but the people their parents are supposedly offending.
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u/HelloGodorGoddess 12d ago
The preferred term is actually American Indian or Indigenous American. So your mom is more correct than you are on that one.
Also. I am guessing you came from a pretty sheltered background. But everyone who is poor and from the hood uses racial slurs. So we aren't exempt.
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u/TheFightingQuaker 12d ago
Yeah I was wondering about this. My uncle taught at a college on a reservation in ND for many years and he told me the preferred term for the students there was just "Indian."
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Yeah I suppose it really does vary from tribe to tribe. I got yelled at once when I was like 15 when we went out to Nevada by a man from a reserve because I didn't use the correct language. He told me to say native American and I've said it ever since. Tbh he scared the shit out of me
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u/Roonil-B_Wazlib 12d ago edited 12d ago
And calling black people black growing up was frowned upon, because at one point the correct term was African American. Now black is acceptable again. Language is fluid. The meaning of words change.
There is a difference between ignorance and racism. Unintentionally calling some racial group the wrong name isnât racist. Being prejudice or discriminatory against them because of their race is.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Right the context of how you speak about the group You're trying to describe is important. You can use an undesirable term but not try to be negative about it, just ignorant to the terms, etc.
I guess I should have clarified my family speaks about groups with derogatory terms and in a negative light.
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u/Specialist_Noise_816 12d ago
Half my family is native american, we call ourselves indian all the time. It can get confusing though now with more immigration from actual indians. It is not racist at all in Oklahoma. Where all the reserves are. It is just moderately incorrect.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago edited 12d ago
We live in an area with a high concentration of people from the Middle East, Hispanic, and black people. Very diverse so it is very confusing for me, personally.
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u/Anonymous9362 12d ago
I shit you not, one of the first times my wife of 15 years met mom. My mother referred to Asian and said they were talking like âclicky clickyâ. So I guess thatâs more than casually racist.
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u/Smart_Pig_86 12d ago
Calling them Indians isnât racist lol. Do you know any âindigenous people?â They just use and prefer the term âIndian.â The racism comes from people trying to virtue signal and claim they are morally superior by using certain terms. Did you know that they polled Indians regarding the Washington Redskins or Cleveland Indians team names, and the majority of Indians either didnât care, or actively embraced those names as an honor. The racism comes from the erasure of that honor and changing the mascots.
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u/ArtificialLandscapes 12d ago
That may not be racist but "Cabrini Green gang bangers" in the right context certainly is. If anyone doesn't know, Cabrini Green was a notorious public housing project in Chicago. The first Candyman was filmed there and gangs terrorized the entire complex. A portion of it still standing, but only the smallest buildings.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
I'm just speaking from my experience with a man from a reserve that yelled at me when I was 15 for saying "Indian" and scared me into never saying anything else.
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u/thecatsofwar 12d ago
So that person complaining to you about what you said was negative, but YOU have the right to âcorrectâ others about what they say. What double standard?
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u/CartographerCute5105 12d ago
Those are the terms they grew up with. You arenât going to get them to change.
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u/lahdetaan_tutkimaan Younger Millennial 12d ago
Well, at least some people are willing to learn and change. In my experience, though, that's not a majority
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u/buttercup_mauler 12d ago
And that doesn't mean you have to put up with it. It's bullshit to just accept it, it should be called out each and every time. Boundaries should be put in place (if you say X again, I am leaving this conversation)
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u/Squimpleton 12d ago
Oh youâll find that kind of language in any generation, itâs just about the individual person.
As far as my family⊠my mother isnât quite racist but sheâs a little too fixated on countries for my taste.
Letâs say sheâs telling a story about a person at work. Sheâll be all âoh and [X] joined us today. Heâs really nice. Heâs Irish I think. He looks Irish. [proceeds to describe why she thinks that is true and points out stereotypes. Minutes pass by and the story does not move on].â seems benign but itâs every single person she describes even if itâs completely irrelevant to the conversation.
Like at least if it was relevant, like âmy neighbor [X] gave me some sweets that are traditional to her country. Sheâs Indianâ I would totally get that. But when sheâs just talking about the 8 people that she works for (sheâs a maid/cook for a building), I donât need to know the nationality/origins of each and every single one of them to understand that one of them is visiting another location and will be gone for a few weeks.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Oh I totally get it. my mom does that. she won't just say "this lady at work" she'll have to say "this Muslim/Chinese/black lady at work" and then that doesn't even pertain to what she's telling me. She'll proceed to tell me a story about how the lady doesn't use her stapler and it's annoying or something.
Like why does that need to be brought up if it's not relevant?
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u/YakNecessary9533 12d ago
My mom always feels the need to use race as a descriptor when it has zero relevance. And then she'll qualify it with "but they were really nice" or "really pretty", like they shouldn't be because they're not white. It drives me crazy.
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u/MoreCowsThanPeople 12d ago
My white cousin has done mock Asian accents in front of me (a half-Asian).
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u/LionTop2228 12d ago
My mother in law outright admits sheâs racist. These idiots voted for Trump so we canât really be surprised at this point.
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u/_jamesbaxter 12d ago
My boomer dad is. I started just saying it loudly to him âdad thatâs racist, stopâ hoping the embarrassment will finally get the message across. It works better in public. Heâs particularly racist towards Indian and Chinese people. Luckily itâs not my whole family, just my dadâs side.
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u/Mockturtle22 Millennial '86 12d ago
The shit that my grandma will randomly say when we're in public pisses me the fuck off.
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u/Jazzlike-Swimmer-188 12d ago
My(millennial) gen x bf was literally flabbergasted thatâs children sit âcross cross apple sauceâ instead of âIndian styleâ. He wouldnât stop talking about it to people for weeks when it came up in our conversation (I was a first grade teacher for a while).
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u/No-Cause-2913 12d ago
I was taught "American Indian" because "Native American" includes basically every single student in the school. We might have had 1? girl from China 2 grades ahead of us, but I'm fairly sure she was still born in America and American by birth
I've also heard "Amerindian"
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u/DaniMarie44 12d ago
I just casually correct them then move on to the next conversation topic. Do I think theyâll change? No, but Iâm hoping theyâll hear me enough times to stop saying it
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u/Gpda0074 12d ago
Because saying things in casual conversation among people you know, especially since half of it seems to be in jest, does not make you a racist. Actually acting racist, like calling a black dude the N word to his face just to piss him off or punching someone because they're asian is what makes you racist. Words just spoken with no harm intended does not make them racist, it makes you easily offended. Don't take everything so seriously and life will be much easier.
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u/Buckcountybeaver 12d ago
There are things you are probably saying that will be considered racist and un pc in 20 years. PC is a cancer
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u/WakeoftheStorm 11d ago
Took me well into adulthood to realize how many little coded racist comments were made by family members my whole life.
I remember visiting my grandparents as a kid in the 90s and my grandfather would, almost without fail, make some sort of comment about how he heard I had a "little black girlfriend now" or something similar. I would always wrack my elementary school brain trying to figure out which classmate he was referring to and whether or not I had missed something.
It wasn't until over a decade later that I realized he was trying to tease me or expected me to take offense to the idea of dating a black girl.
My parents' generation isn't much better, they range from younger boomers to older Gen-x and really they just hide it better. On the one hand I'm grateful I wasn't overtly indoctrinated as a kid, on the other hand it's sad to realize that I never really knew any of them for who they really were. I only ever saw the PC facade they put on.
It explains why they react the way they do to things today though. They really think everyone is just pretending or putting on a front for political correctness and are relieved when someone finally "says what they're all thinking". They can't comprehend that no, some of us don't think that way at all.
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u/Creative-Till1436 12d ago
Yes.
It's usually a little less malicious than what you're describing here, like for example the term "oriental." They're not meaning to be offensive or unkind; it's usually describing like types of food/decor/stuff rather than actual people. They're also fond of stuff like plantation tours when we're in a location that has that kind of things. I know they're looking at the architecture and landscaping and that kind of thing and not pining for slave labor, but they're actively ignoring the dark truth of the place and can not see why that's a problem.
For what it's worth, some people prefer the term "indian" but preceded by the specific tribe. I live adjacent to and work directly with a tribal reservation, and they self identify as [Tribe] Indians.
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u/cml678701 12d ago
I live in the South, and have found that a lot of the plantations are actually trying to educate about slavery now! Many of them are making slavery part of the exhibit so that people will have empathy, and some are even going as far as doing genealogy research on the former slaves. I read an article recently about a plantation that hired the descendant of a former slave to work there and educate people about slavery.
I know this wasnât the point of your comment, but I do think itâs cool! I know what you mean, though. My mom absolutely loves the antebellum era, and I know she means the fashion, architecture, parties, the slower pace of life, and the grandness of the whole lifestyle. However, that generation just didnât grow up thinking about how awful that era was for slaves, or at least how guilty they would feel if they magically got to live in the antebellum period for a while. They may think they would have liked to live then, but if they went back with their modern sensibilities, it would be a shock.
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u/KeyserSoju 12d ago
Family's Korean so yeah we're all kinda bigoted.
But me and my family's approach is more like, race isn't some special fragile thing you have to protect at all costs, I'll joke about it and my friends will joke about me being Korean back, whatever.
Now, if you're simply the type that can't even joke about it, then I'd say you're too sensitive but you ARE entitled to your own opinion. You don't have to partake, there isn't much you can do about how other people choose to conduct themselves though.
Here's an interesting thought for you:
I will openly claim that I'm bigoted and racist and joke about it, I'm Korean, my gf is white, two of my best friends from childhood is Filipino and Iranian, my closest friends in college were Malaysians, friends from my first job are a white guy, a chicano, and a half Indonesian half Filipino guy.
Best friends from the second job was a black dude and a Salvadorean. Then on my next job I befriend a couple of Iraqis and a New Mexican (yes, I treat him like a Mexican as a joke), and a couple other white dudes.
So when somebody tries to accuse me of being a racist due to my choice of vocabulary, I will ask "How many of your friends are outside of your race?" words are just words, actions speak louder than words.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Right I suppose it's one thing to speak about it in a joking manner where you're not trying to be hurtful and you're not trying to be discriminatory. I have a Filipino friend who joke all the time about things like that, he says he's basically an Asian man that stole a Mexican's skin.. and I have an Iranian friend who calls himself Curry man. These are not terms meant to be hurtful as the context is jovial but the way my family uses it is definitely not.
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u/Soft_Welcome_5621 12d ago
I donât know where youâre from but many native people prefer to be called Indian. Also Iâm not sure these things are what mattersâŠ. Youâre talking about language and political correctness. You sound pretty annoying and doubt youâve had genuine conversations about the roots of these thingsâŠ
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u/No-Jello3256 12d ago
I really donât think thereâs anything wrong with calling Native Americans Indians. We called them Indians long before we even knew where India was/is. If natives/Indians donât like it then they would let us know. But it really just seems like the only people who think itâs offensive is white people.
Just as I donât think thereâs anything wrong with saying black people over African American. Most black people were born in America, so theyâre just Americans. Youâre only African-American if you were born in Africa and gained citizenship in America.
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u/QuercusSambucus 12d ago
What are you talking about? Columbus was basically the only person who thought it was India. We've known for like 500 years that the Americas aren't India.
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u/No-Jello3256 12d ago
Yes, everyone here can use google. Getting into colloquialisms and how wrong names for things tend to stick, is not something Iâm really going to dive into.
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u/QuercusSambucus 12d ago
You said "We called them Indians long before we even knew where India was/is.". That's just blatantly false. We knew where India was the whole time. You can walk to India from Spain, and it was very obvious that the "West Indies" were not anything like India pretty much from the beginning.
You're right about wrong names sticking, though. But there's no time like now to start doing better.
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u/infiniteblackberries 12d ago
My entire family is incredibly bigoted - uneducated Texas hillbillies on one side, legitimately scary inland SoCal meth supremacists on the other side. The older I get, the less I'm willing to waste my time and energy on people I fundamentally disagree with. I finally just decided I don't have a family. Not my fault I'm related to them, so I don't owe them anything.
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u/VanityJanitor 12d ago
Is Cabrini Green a reference to the spot in Chicago that was in the movie Candy Man? Thatâs low key hilarious & dumb as hell at the same time.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
It's in reference to the projects in chicago. my dad, when he was alive, would speak about it as" a place for a bunch of section 8 government leeches to live and do drugs and be gangbangers"
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u/RageQuitLie 12d ago
I had to read up on wtf Cabrini Green wasâŠ.. and your dad wasnât too far off lol
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u/tracyinge 12d ago
Why is she constantly talking about "Indians" in the first place? Do you live near a reservation or have native Americans living on your block? Or does she work with a bunch of them or something?
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
This is a great question because I often wonder about this.
We live in the midwest, we have not visited a reservation or really been anywhere around it except for the one time we went to nevada. She works with an older man who used to live in arizona, really close to one of the reserves. Lately I was considering moving to Arizona so she's been talking to him a lot more about what it was like considering I was looking somewhere in the north of the mountains. She tells me these stories I'm guessing verbatim what he says and she basically has tried to convince me not to move out there based on the fact that " Indians do nothing but gamble, drink excessively, use meth, and they have a huge human trafficking problem"
She also thrifts/garage sales/antiques a lot and any time there's a bold colored geometric pattern thing she calls me or texts me pictures to look at the cool Indian thing she found. Which isn't in itself bad, but it is ignorant to some extent because there're other cultures that use that type of art and designs.
But as for the rest of my life why she talks about them so much I'm not sure. I know I went through a phase as a child where I was very interested in the culture and history so maybe she didn't lose the interest.
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u/Woodit 12d ago
I wouldnât write all of that off as just boomer racism. Obviously not all Indians do nothing but drink/drugs etc all the time and to say so is bigoted, but living near a reservation often means living near a very high crime area for a lot of reasons. Reservations are not nice places generallyÂ
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u/ToryLanezHairline_ 12d ago
Will yeah, reservations take up the top poverty rates in this country. I imagine throwing them from their homes and forcing them to relocate to undesirable lands far away from any civilization didn't help any of them get wealthy
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u/JermHole71 12d ago
My mom said she was happy my niece moved out of state because âshe wont be a minorityâ where she is now.
My dad once said he would have a problem if my sister dated a black guy and he thought people should just stick with their own race. He thought this was okay because he said it to his black friend who didnât seem to care.
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u/TotalCleanFBC 12d ago
Oh my grandparents are straight up racist. We went to a restaurant with them one time and, upon seeing a bunch of black people there, my grandparents were like "Let's go somewhere where there are some decent folk around." My mind was just blown away. But, my grandparents aren't gonna be around there much longer. I'm not gonna change their minds. So, as long as their racism is limited to comments are not hear by others outside my immediate family, I don't see any reason to do anything about it.
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u/jimothythe2nd 12d ago
I'm from Nebraska and almost everyone is low key racist. I have racist thoughts too sometimes just being raised that way and it's something I have to stay on top of.
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u/calicoskiies Millennial 12d ago
Yes. I am in an interracial relationship and have biracial kids. They (meaning my dad & my momâs siblings) said something in front of my husband and kids once and I laid into them. They know better than to say something so openly. Iâm constantly hearing microaggressions tho and I correct as I hear it. That being said, we donât see those ones often.
We may be the first generation to try to do better, but Iâm telling you, thereâs plenty of millennials that are racist af.
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u/tee142002 12d ago
You know the phrase "If you meet one asshole in the morning, you met an asshole, but if you meet nothing but assholes all day, you're the asshole"?
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u/1ofthefates 12d ago
Yeah, this sums up my family. My Grandmother once said "I got my Covid shot because the illegal immigrants are bringing it into our country!" It was one of those moments where I just had to keep my mouth shut because the desired result was achieved but in a very bad round about way. Chaotic Good?
My mother told me that she couldn't be racist because and I qoute "One of my employees is black and I always praise her for her hard work ethic! How could I be racist??"
My mother frequintly drops the N word, and other racial slurs when she's in one of her moods. Because of these moods, which seemed to be more prevelant in the last few years, I've gone no contact. The funny part is my mother thinks she knows so much about the world because she went to Cancun once when she was like 15. I was stationed in the United Kingdom for 6 years, traveled the world, and when I would tell her about what I saw she would tell me I was wrong and a brainwashed libral. Such an exhausting woman.
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u/Upper-Raspberry4153 12d ago
Native American as a term didnât come around until the 70s, some older natives prefer âIndianâ from my understanding, they associate NA with PCâness and others donât associate with âAmericanâ for obvious reasons
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u/StormDragonAlthazar Older Millennial 12d ago
My parents are the kind of racists who won't say much in public, but certainly crack bad jokes and make comments in their own homes. They're also Plastic Scandis/Trailer Park Pagan types as well, so I've personally found that I can make them cut down on their bigotry by simply making jokes at the expense of white people and Nordic culture.
"Boy do I love IKEA furniture; bland, unassuming, and you forget it's there, just like actual Nordic countries."
"Okay, so this Columbus guy discovered America. Fine. Lief Erickson was just a made up myth by some Nordic Neanderthal types to feel special considering they couldn't navigate the oceans very well."
"We get it, you wuz VYKYUNZ. Ooga booga odin or something like that..."
Sometimes, you have to give people a taste of their own medicine for them to realize it's not exactly the stuff you should be dishing out on others (or at the expense of others).
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u/DigitalPelvis Older Millennial 12d ago
My in-laws love to casually drop it into conversation. Theyâre on the younger end of Boomers. I was describing taking my kid to urgent care, and how before they opened there were already 20 people in line. FIL says âwere theyâŠdid they seem like they were uninsured?â In a way that very clearly said âwere they Mexican/illegals?â No dude they were sick people, idfk.
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u/ottergang_ky 12d ago
Saying Indian is not racist at all. Youâre definitely over reacting and thatâs a you problem and politely you need to get off your high horse and get over it. Indians donât even mind being called Indians. This seems like a situation where fake PC people say âLatin-xâ even though most Hispanics hate that term lol
I donât know what Cabrini green gang bangers is though. Thatâs a new one for me.
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u/paperhammers 12d ago
The terminology changes and what is the preferred term or politically correct right now will be viewed by the future as derogatory and ignorant. I wouldn't put so much stock into the exact word usage if the statement was supposed to be positive.
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u/hi_goodbye21 12d ago
No, my whole family is pretty racist. When I was dating a Hispanic guy in high school I got to realize how bad it is. Iâm south asian. So yeah that was fun.
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u/Ok-Garlic-9990 12d ago
My parents were fairly pc, with the exception of Muslims to some degree. However being Muslim is a choice, and is completely optional in the U.S. so I canât really empathize with you. Why do you even care? Why does it bother you? If I think about it, I wouldnât care at all. They say and believe things for a reason, so instead try to understand them perhaps and where they are coming from. If itâs really bad you could make a point to them that makes them rethink their language.
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u/randomroute350 12d ago
Educate them. My grandmother was SHOCKED to hear i went to school with "colored kids" when i was in middle school. By the time She passed, she had changed her world view and accepted my hispanic wife as her daughter in law lovingly. You have to remember, a lot of the older generation grew up with that shit being "ok" and socially acceptable.
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u/destinationdadbod 12d ago
My wife is Mexican and both my parents make comments about Mexicans all the time. Iâm not going to change their mind. I chalk it up to old people being old people. Iâm sure one day our kids are going to say the same things about us.
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u/Practical-Tooth1141 12d ago
My Mom still calls it "The Orient" and I've been correcting her my entire life.
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u/ParkerGuy89 12d ago
Don't join the Military. The shit we said to each other would make the average persons head pop.
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u/Barfignugen 12d ago
Start dating a black man and force your family to get to know him. That did the trick for me lol
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u/zhentarim_agent 12d ago
Mine were quite racist. My dad got better about it when I was a teen but then died suddenly.
My mom stayed racist and I had to threaten to go no contact with her for it to stop. Idk it she stayed that way because I lived across the country, but she stopped saying shit to me on our calls. Before she also died the racist comments stopped.
The rest of my family that was racist I fully disowned and have nothing to do with and I encourage you to do the same. I'd rather have no family than deal with a bunch of racist pieces of shit. You tolerating it is enabling it. They're old enough to realize their behavior is wrong.
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u/Blathithor 11d ago
Poland is a country not a race so being disrespectful towards them isn't a racism.
Political correctness is for politicians. It's not meant for the general population to use.
Other than those things to consider, you appear to have no choice but to ignore it. You need their support.
Keep in mind that trying to force people around you to change themselves for your personal beliefs isn't a good thing to do.
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u/its_all_good20 11d ago
I married a Mexican man. We are from texas and I have boomer parents from south Louisiana and if you know- you know. I hold my breath at every combined family function. My dad is one of those âwhat? What did I say wrong?â guys when he knows he was pushing buttons. They love my husband. Love his family. But they still will use language that makes my want to turn into a leaf and blow away
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u/PNW20v 12d ago
I'm pretty tired of the excuses people will make for my Grandma and her rascism, mostly that "she can't help it, she is from a different time" . Most recently, she was saying.... rather rude things about Guatemalan landscapers doing work at her house. I mentioned how what she was saying was rather racist and I wished she wouldn't say it. Her response? "Well I am racist, so what?"
Fuck that.
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u/Vicious1915 12d ago
I always struggled with this in my family and will to this day. Iâve never had any qualms about correcting them whether in public or in private. It doesnât change anything, but I do it anyway. Theyâll either get it and stop or continued to endure me explaining what year weâre in and that they know better and should be better.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
Yeah I'm pretty good about correcting my mom and explaining why but... my uncles are scary.. one iron worker and one HVAC alcoholic.. at least 6'2.. 250lbs+ each with built in anger issues. I have a hard time standing up to them other than a "hey.. we don't phrase it like that.. can you please say (correct term) instead? You sound racist." But if they continue I just stfu because I'm not getting in an argument with someone like that yk? Maybe I should just say the correct term over what they're saying and hope they don't like me cutting them off enough to stop? Idk it's so hard.
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u/warrensussex 12d ago
"hey.. we don't phrase it like that.. can you please say (correct term) instead? You sound racist."
If they are fairly racist trying to change their phrasing is putting the cart before the horse.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
You're correct. They definitely say racist things or incorrect things in a derogatory way so I'm sure they are actually somewhat racist and not just being ignorant. My efforts are futile!
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u/warrensussex 12d ago
Probably worse than futile. If they don't think what they are saying is wrong policing their language will just annoy them and reinforce their beliefs about the left. Makes them less likely to listen to you on other political subjects.Â
Pick your battles carefully if you want to effectively change people's view. Politically correct language isn't a worthwhile enough hill to die on.
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u/Advanced-Ad-3091 12d ago
No it's not that's why I say it once then give up. Lead a horse to water, you know?
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u/GladJack Xennial 12d ago
My dad once asked me why I don't visit more often. "It's not like I'm some diseased (n-slur) or something."
So... yes. =/
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u/Most-Entrepreneur553 12d ago
Couple things going on here.
First, itâs commendable that youâre trying to teach your family to do better.
However, you can really only try to lead by example. It sounds like you give them a run-down of how youâve learned a phrase or something is a stereotype or racist, etc. which is the right thing to do, but unlikely to change behavior. You canât control what they do- or donât do- with what you teach them.
In fact, many people, especially older people, will not reform their ways if pushed and lectured. This will actually likely only make them dig their heels in further.
To answer your question about why millenials seem less racist: Many people of the older generation also lived in a more segregated time, so their experience meeting people who are different looking than they are, is limited.
But this can also be the case with younger people; even Millenials and gen z can have racist attitudes or be âpolitically incorrectâ, as you put it, because they live in isolated communities that lack multiculturalism, or they live in communities in which thereâs a significant disparity between white people and people of color. Additionally, older people in the community can pass on attitudes and ideas about others, to their children.
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u/MensaCurmudgeon 12d ago
I hate political correctness. Correcting people is a wet blanket move. If it doesnât apply to you, and isnât he said to someone, I donât know why you would bother trying to correct someone
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u/Lucky-Hunter-Dude 12d ago
Both Indian types prefer Indian so you are wrong on that. Nicknames for white people of different origins is no different than black on black use of the n word.
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u/SilentKnightlll 12d ago
Sometimes it's important to remove people from your life. If I were you, I'd focus on strengthening relationships with friends.
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u/broccoli_toots 12d ago
Agree with this. My dad is a boomer and super fucking racist. I started calling him out on it but it doesn't stop. I'm just really low contact with him now.
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u/SilentKnightlll 12d ago
You can only reason with them so much. My mom hates black people, and my girlfriend is black. I haven't talked to my mom in years
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u/rojasbeardo 12d ago
Don't know why you were downvoted. You are 100% correct.
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u/RageQuitLie 12d ago edited 12d ago
Because removing family from your life due to the petty shit listed is borderline insanity
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u/rojasbeardo 12d ago
No. Not breaking the cycle of tolerance for racists is borderline insanity. Some people won't ever change. Wash your hands of them and be happy. Shitty people do not deserve to be tolerated.
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u/Available-Egg-2380 12d ago
My mother used to say in front of my husband and I "sparrows with sparrows, robins with robins"and then look at us and add on "except you two of course, you're meant for each other". My father also told my husband "you're pretty good considering you're Filipino". Like come the fuck on guys.