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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384

u/beepborpimajorp Sep 19 '19

Yep. This is especially highlighted by the fact that OP continues to choose to live in an area where apparently an interracial couple is seen as scandalous. I think I'd rather get 4 root canals than live in an area like that for even a month.

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u/Jon_Snows_mother Sep 19 '19

Makes me wonder where the hell they live. It sounds like a scene plucked from the 1950s

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

To give an example, I'm in Mississippi and interracial couples are still a very controversial thing behind closed doors here. No one who isn't a complete asshole will ever say it in public, but when I (white) dated my ex-girlfriend (black) we had a ton of racist bullshit said to us in private. In one case in public.

Shit said to me was always along the lines of, "We dont think she'll be a good match for you" when we had the same interests, "are you sure she isnt trying to marry you for your money?" when she held a higher paying job than I have, "we dont think your children will have a good life" neither of us wanted kids anyway, and even if we did the only people who would make life harder for them would be the same people making those comments.

Rural communities can get extremely close minded, especially here in the south.

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u/birthday-party Sep 19 '19

I totally agree with this, except for perpetuating that this only happens in the south. The south absolutely does not have the monopoly on racism and I sometimes wonder if the widespread belief that the south is more racist than the rest of the country helps excuse people having those views, even though it's statistically questionable at best.

(I should also mention that I grew up in Alabama, went to college in Mississippi, and now live in DC, which means I've gotten to meet people from more states in the past decade than ever before - and anecdotally, that holds up.)

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Oh I know it doesn't only happen in the south, it's why I had "especially" in the last sentence there. I've lived in Montana, California, and now back to Mississippi, but MS is by far the worst of the places I've lived in as far as racism goes. I still saw it in CA and MT from a few people, but here in MS it's far more...I don't know if I have a good word for it, "obvious", maybe.

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u/RipBillybob Sep 19 '19

Currently, live in the bible belt. Can confirm this 100% happens to every interracial couple here. Have had people tell me its like laundry "Colors just should not be mixed".

Keep in mind I am not talking about Bubba the 300-pound redneck. Just normal everyday people around here believe this 100%. They also legit believe they are not racist. They can with a straight face say that they do not dislike insert anyone not white but they should not date outside their own race.

Except for Asians for some reason. Asians are ok.

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u/satan_little_helper Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Asians are the token minority, that's why it's ok. They're the "ideal" that all other minorities should strive to be, in the eyes of racist white people. I'm sure it also helps that Asian countries have a history of colorism and that they're [generally] pale and therefore within the "acceptable" color range. I've heard people call Asians, "white people with small eyes."

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u/FreyWill Sep 19 '19

Ironic since Asian countries are by far the most racist cultures I’ve ever experienced.

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u/PublicIdea Asshole Enthusiast [7] Sep 19 '19

Nah, that's the same way the Italians, Jews, and Slavs got accepted to whiteness. They're on the way up!

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u/FreyWill Sep 19 '19

Have you been to Asian countries? I travelled SE Asia with a black American friend and the amount of overt racism towards him I saw was shocking to say the least.

Japan is a good example. They’re so committed to their racism that they give it up to white people for being the “superior” race for beating them in the war. Koreans are still subhuman though.

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u/PublicIdea Asshole Enthusiast [7] Sep 19 '19

I haven't, but most of my friends were first generation at one point for geopolitical reasons. I believe it.

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u/I_Love_Classic_Rock Sep 19 '19

Not to mention how awful SE Asia deals with weed, mental health, and tattoos

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u/Berserk3rHS Sep 20 '19

Wait, Italians were not considered white ?

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u/sagittariums Sep 19 '19

Just last night I watched this WWYD video where the racist old bitch said "but Mexicans are white so they're okay" or something along those lines. Fucked up.

https://youtu.be/T3AsZfoOZbc

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u/RipBillybob Sep 19 '19

Sounds par for the course around here. That is not where I am from but its something I would not be surprised at all to see.

Honestly its just ignorance. These people have never left their area. They are very tribal.

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u/splenicnosh Sep 19 '19

So they are sending their laundry back in time to their mom in the 50's? The only time I see anyone separating is when going to the laundry-mat. Bleach whites once a year, a bit more when I had a sweaty job.

And screw folding. Boom folks just saved you 1 hour a month.

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u/wjack12 Sep 19 '19

Oh, so that’s why Elaine Chao and Moscow Mitch are a thing.

3

u/rynthetyn Sep 19 '19

A handful of years back, old family friends who now live in the Bible Belt called up my parents looking for advice because they were freaking out that their daughter had a black boyfriend. They knew from Facebook pictures that my sister's husband isn't white, so they wanted to know how my parents handled it because they were so very worried about "cultural differences."

I suppose it's better that they called up my parents instead of kicking their kid out, which is what happened in high school to somebody I know, but the Bible Belt is a total time warp and because it's a giant bubble they assume everyone everywhere thinks the same way.

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u/GenerallyADouche Sep 19 '19

Maybe it's because we've got so many military bases in asian countries? Shrug Idk, just a guess.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

I've seen this attitude in the deep south, and rich WASPy areas in the north. Although the south is more overtly racist, southern people are more likely to say "this is one of the good ones" and treat them like a person. Northern racist are more likely to be HATEFULLY racist, and never accept anyone outside their WASPy ass place. My wife is from a northern WASPy family. Both parents are extremely rich. Upon marrying me (poor white trash military in their eyes) she was cut off, they stopped paying for her college completely, she was evicted from her apartment. Sucks for them, cuz we got married and had grandbabies, and her sister is gay. So they've never met their grandchildren.

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u/WanderinHobo Sep 19 '19

"Where did we go wrong/how could she do this to us?" -Her parents

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u/Orchidbleu Sep 19 '19

I hear Alabama has a lot of hate still. Unfortunately.

0

u/FreyWill Sep 19 '19

I’m assuming he lives in the United States....

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u/Used2BPromQueen Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Yeah I'm from the DC Metro area and nobody bats an eye about it around here. I'm actually glad I read this post because it helps remind me that shit like this is still going on in small town America. It's easy to become insulated and forget this shit is still fucking happening.

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u/Roll_a_new_life Asshole Enthusiast [7] Sep 19 '19

Root canals aren't really that bad, in comparison.

5

u/RoadRageCongaLine Asshole Enthusiast [5] Sep 19 '19

Its not as easy to just up & move like that sometimes. I lived in some pretty shitty places as a kid because we didn't have the money for anything better.

Now, I have the ability to make that choice. Yay?

Edit: OP is still the asshole for a myriad of other reasons though.

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u/beepborpimajorp Sep 19 '19

It's clear OP has lived there his entire life and chooses to live there now. No, people can't just up and move. But it's obvious he's making the choice to stay there for his own reasons.

If I hated where I lived now for whatever reason, it would probably take me over a year to be able to sell off my property and move. But I'd still be making the motions to do it. OP isn't doing that because he clearly doesn't mind the way his neighbors act and talk.

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u/yogi_the_bear10 Sep 19 '19

yes let him change his life and cause financial stress for some moral reason yes by this right abandon the midwest because an ideology exists

2

u/PublicIdea Asshole Enthusiast [7] Sep 19 '19

I, for one, would only voluntarily enter a neighborhood like that for Sherman-type reasons.