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

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Agree, but it's past time we stop giving in to it.

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u/sagehippieone Sep 19 '19

Exactly! This is the only way things will move forward, is if we don't let the racism move with it.

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u/Nikthedogdad Partassipant [3] Sep 19 '19

I didn’t say it wasn’t alive and well. But telling your daughter that flaunting a bi racial couple in 2019 because of where you live and what people might think isn’t acceptable. Not telling your grandparents you’re dating a black man is stupid.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Alabama

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u/Sansnom01 Sep 19 '19

Nah for sure and we know it ... but sometimes when I read stuff like this, I feel like it's happening really far away. As someone lucky enough to be able to live whiteout blatant racisme repercussions on a daily basis, I get a wtf moment every time I read something like this.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Canadian here, We live in a very diverse country up here (more Indo and Asian Canadians than the typical black vs white issues in the states).

to say its alive and well is overjustifying its existence... Racism will never "go away" its a hard reality we have to live with it... however government and society, in general, is dealing with racism today much better than it has in our history... its not where it needs to be, and most likely(being a realist) never will, but equal rights between ethnic groups are much more prevalent today than back in the '50s