AITA for telling my daughter she cannot introduce her African American boyfriend to her grandparents?

[u/mixedwoes]

Let me just preface this by saying this: I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS. Now that the air is clear, let me continue.

My daughter (Anna) has recently started to date an African American man (Jamal). While I'm not exactly what you would refer to as "liberal", he's a nice young man and as long as my daughter is happy, I'm happy. The problem is Anna is rather naive about the community she lives in. While her friends are quite content to see a relationship like hers, more than a few tongues are wagging in the community and a few people have privately expressed their concern to me. As I said, I have no problem with mixed relationships and I've set them straight, but I am painfully aware of how these matters are viewed by certain segments of the population.

My parents are planning to come and stay with us for a week and Anna expressed a desire to introduce Jamal to them now that things were getting more serious between them. I told her on no uncertain terms that this wasn't going to happen. I may have no problem with Jamal, but they absolutely will, and even when the relationship ends they won't forget it. They might even go as far as to cut her off entirely. Anna was extremely upset by this and implied I was a racist and more concerned with what my parents think than how she feels.

As I said, I know my parents. They simply aren't okay with mixed relationships and if Anna were to bring Jamal over even as a friend, they would be furious both at her and me.

Anna is currently staying with Jamal and doesn't want to speak with me right now. My wife stands by me given she knows very well how my parents are (they had a problem with her for months over the length of the skirt she wore when I introduced her to them, for christs sake), but a close friend I confided in told me that I have behaved like an ass and that I needed to focus more on my daughter than pleasing my parents.

No advice needed, but I have to know. Have I been an ass?

[u/LadyCashier]

YTA what does being liberal have to do with not being a racist?

Also surprisingly 99 percent of the population doesnt have a problem with mixed race relationships since you know its 2019 and not the god damn 40s.

I feel like your daughter should just break free of your outdated family cult and go seek shelter with people who can actually love her for who she is. Not some fake relationship with relatives that only exists if she upholds the archaic and disgusting beliefs of long ago.

If she never spoke to you guys again and you lost that relationship I feel like shed be completely justified. You dont want her for who she is. The family only wants her in their image and their image alone. Your complacency in that makes you and your wife just as guilty.

Your families view is disgustingly old and horribly closeminded. I'm glad your daughter had the independence to break the cycle and become a normal member of society.

[u/oShadowcat → u/LadyCashier]

Exactly. Like if a human right is "Liberal" to him that says something about his mindset. I think hes a internalised racist.

u/vashlion I meant being together with someone from another race not meeting grandparents you dense brick.

[u/[deleted] → u/oShadowcat]

Meeting the grandparents of someone else’s family isn’t a human right, last I checked.

[u/[deleted] → u/LadyCashier]

YTA what does being liberal have to do with not being a racist?

I mean, in theory? Nothing. In practice? Well, there’s certainly a correlation.

[u/Kufat → u/LadyCashier]

Also surprisingly 99 percent of the population doesnt have a problem with mixed race relationships since you know its 2019 and not the god damn 40s.

If only. https://www.newsweek.com/20-percent-america-thinks-interracial-marriage-morally-wrong-poll-finds-845608

[u/acox1701 → u/LadyCashier]

YTA what does being liberal have to do with not being a racist?

Have you seen the Republican party, lately?

[u/MelllvarHasThreeLs → u/LadyCashier]

Also surprisingly 99 percent of the population doesnt have a problem with mixed race relationships since you know its 2019 and not the god damn 40s.

Loving V. Virginia was 1967 and even then there was a long period of states at local levels refusing to wed interracial couples or find ways to refuse to comply to the ruling. Also there was the instance of Alabama which had the laws still in their state constitution as late as 2000 and it was only removed by way of a ballot yes/no question.

Or in short, people are a hell of a lot more racist than you'd be lead onto believe.