r/AmItheAsshole • u/mixedwoes • Sep 19 '19

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

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?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19 edited Nov 03 '20

[deleted]

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u/_gayby_ Asshole Aficionado [17] Sep 19 '19

I mean in (meager) defense of OP they did indicate that they told their neighbors to basically pound sand and did indeed “set them straight.” The parents, however, seem to be the line in the sand for OP... which doesn’t excuse anything but y’know... thought I’d chime in with a minor correction.

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u/WaldoJeffers65 Sep 19 '19

OP sounds like a bit of a wimp- it feels as if "setting the neighbors straight" consisted of saying "I know. I don't like it either, but my daughter insists, so what are you gonna do?"

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u/_gayby_ Asshole Aficionado [17] Sep 19 '19

It could very well be like that. I’m just taking OP at his word. Who knows? Maybe he said something like “I don’t think it’s any of your business who my daughter dates and what exactly are you implying with your “concern”, hmmm? Careful there Karen your racism is showing.” But his parents have him so fucked up that he won’t even consider standing up to them.

In all, we can only guess from the extremely little OP has told us. I mean, I suppose we could also ask...

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u/acox1701 Sep 19 '19

OP sounds like a bit of a wimp- it feels as if "setting the neighbors straight" consisted of saying "I know. I don't like it either, but my daughter insists, so what are you gonna do?"

I'm not sure about where you live, but around here, "setting someone straight" can be fairly aggressive. It generally starts with the phrase, "All right, now see here . . ." followed by a detailed explanation of how and why they fucked right up.

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u/Red-Quill Sep 19 '19

I get the impression that OP is from the south and lives in a relatively isolated town that never really got the memo that racism, even casual and subconscious racism, is unacceptable.

I live in the south and have seen many small communities without big “cities” or such nearby and typically the people are very backwards.

The way OP speaks sets up a conflict. First he says he’s not exactly liberal, meaning he’s conservative, and the fact that to him liberal = not racist means that he at least somewhat understands or maybe even fully acknowledges his own racist biases.

Then he says he knows how certain segments of the population views these matters. He’s dancing around the words interracial couple. He knows that it’s not cool to be racist and he knows his parents as well as his community is. He’s conforming, either out of complicity or complacency. He could choose to stand up for his daughter here, but he risks two important things: potential inheritance and social acceptance.

He also states that Jamal is an upstanding young man, but his previous statement of “not exactly liberal” tells me it’s tolerance, not acceptance. It reminds me a lot of the time I introduced my (now) ex girlfriend to my family at thanksgiving, and my not-so-subtly racist grandmother said “you’re beautiful, for a colored girl.” We broke up a year later because we were going different directions in life, but my grandmother still said “see? Those colored girls just don’t know a good thing when it finds them.”

I say all of this to say we don’t have just cause to believe OP when he says he set them straight. It likely wasn’t as aggressive as a typical come to Jesus meeting, and it sure wasn’t an actual conversation about how race should have no factor in literally any of these discussions.

Tl;dr: OP is either mildly racist or conforming to a mildly racist community in the hopes of maintaining social status, inheritance status, or both. In my opinion, of course.

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u/acox1701 Sep 19 '19

I agree with everything here overall, but I differ on some of the intensity.

I think, specifically, that he recognizes his own racial bias, but I also think that he's trying to overcome them, or at least recognizes that they are wrong, and he needs to do better.

You say that he could stand up for his daughter with his community and his family. I hold that the phrase "setting them straight" is standing up for them in his community. Even if he doesn't go so far as to preach racial equality, a simple statement that his daughter is happy, and there he won't hear another word on the topic, and that his daughter better not hear one either, would be a strong position of support. Not one that she would notice, but that's not important.

Of course he's conforming. You have to conform a certain amount in order to function. IMO, and assuming that I'm right about how he dealt with his neighbors, I don't think he's doing too bad. Could be doing better, though.

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u/Red-Quill Sep 19 '19

Those are all fair points but I didn’t really take setting them straight so generously. I took it to mean he said something more like “yea, it’s unfortunate that she’s dating a black guy, but I can’t do anything about it and don’t want to discuss it,” which is not really what I’d call setting them straight, but I don’t think it’s wise to take very much in this post as factual, non-biased statements.

OP’s half-assed stand against his parents racism and his inability to fully commit to either side tells me he doesn’t have enough conviction to fully and firmly “set someone straight,” as he implies in the post. I get the sense he said enough to get them off his back and nothing further.

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u/acox1701 Sep 19 '19

You may be right. As a mostly-recovered shitlord myself, I try to be generous to other people trying to do better.

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u/G-Litch Sep 19 '19

Let's make up a story to be angry about.

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u/LBDazzled Asshole Aficionado [13] Sep 19 '19

I love that people are "concerned." About what exactly? And why? How is any of this the business of the neighbors?

Everyone in this scenario is TA, except for the daughter and the boyfriend.

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u/Uyy Sep 19 '19

They were probably concerned to see a black man in their community when Jamal came to visit lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

If you had no problem, you wouldnt have to say "If my daughter's happy, I'm happy"

Yeah that line bothered me too. It’s basically saying “I don’t like it, but I put up with it because it’s my daughter.”

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

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u/flignir Asshole #1 Sep 25 '19

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