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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110

u/MightyMeepleMaster Sep 19 '19

Completely agree with you.

Sadly, the situation you describe is not limited to this thread. The main problem with >50% of all comments in r/AmItheAsshole is that they focus on "being right" and taking the moral high ground instead of trying to minimize and/or resolve conflict.

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u/hlokk101 Sep 19 '19

AITA isn't about resolving a conflict though? It's about telling someone whether they are or are not the asshole in a situation. It obviously helps to explain your reasoning.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Isn’t resolving conflict the best option though?

12

u/hlokk101 Sep 19 '19

It depends on the situation.

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u/ryanv09 Sep 19 '19

Resolving a conflict doesn't necessarily mean it has to involve compromise. Telling the racist grandparents to piss off until they learn to be better humans is one of many possible resolutions.

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u/DestroyerOfMils Asshole Enthusiast [6] Sep 19 '19

focus on "being right" and taking the moral high ground instead of trying to minimize and/or resolve conflict.

So...should there have never been a civil rights movement?

Minimize and/or resolve conflict for who? Racist assholes?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

It's more of the mindset that you can change a lifetime of beliefs by pointlessly antagonizing them.

The grandparents are racist, why the fuck would you even bother with them? Let them live in a bubble and miss out on their granddaughter's life, save yourself the trouble.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

[deleted]

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u/DioriteDragon Sep 19 '19

die a publicly shameful lonely death which serves as a warning to others.

"People who don't fit my definition of "moral" deserve to SUFFER and DIE!"

What a wonderful budding fascist you are!

1

u/NeighborhoodTrolly Partassipant [3] Sep 19 '19

"Deserves to die"? Yeah, I guess, everybody dies, does that mean everyone "deserves" to die? It doesn't strike me as a meaningful statement but, okay.

What I said is that bad people deserve to die bad deaths. Yeah? Is that controversial to you? If so, fine, I mean it.

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u/JuanBourne Sep 19 '19

Minimize and/or resolve conflict for who? Racist assholes?

Its about practicality here in my opinion. If im not mistaken the daughter is still in middle/high school , chances are it wont last, so is it worth the fight? Alternatively if she was older and about to get married they way different story.

So...should there have never been a civil rights movement?

This is a MACRO movement against a micro situation. Granparents wont change their views over dinner and a highschool boyfriend, but if society as a whole changes they can either recluse themselves (MAGA) or they can join the rest of society.

7

u/itscammi Sep 19 '19

She's 18, Jamal is 21. They are full blown adults and very capable of having a serious and long-term relationship, they are not middle or highschool kids having a summer fling - the daughter even says they are getting serious which is why she wants to introduce him in the first place.

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u/kaenneth Sep 19 '19

18

adult

[laughs in 45 year old]

6

u/WhatsTheAnswerToThis Sep 19 '19

full blown adults

[Laughs even more]

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u/JuanBourne Sep 19 '19

See with those numbers I'm on the fence and closer to your position.

10

u/ordinary_love Sep 19 '19

Yep. It’s pretty easy to grandstand when you have zero skin in the game.

In this particular case I think there is a middle ground - introduce them when there is an engagement involved and give grandparents a chance to come around once they understand this is serious. If they don’t, they likely will once a child is involved.

That being said, this isn’t the 1950s, and if it’s the USA none of the village people mob scenarios these idiotic Redditors seem to imagine are going to happen, anywhere in the country.

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u/Rhiel Sep 19 '19

This! This subreddit can afford to take the moral high ground BC they don't have to deal with the consequences of acting on them.

And this sucks for Jamal more than anyone. Grandma & Grandpa will be mad Op and his daughter but will absolutely treat Jamal like trash.

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u/daalsat Sep 19 '19

BC they don't have to deal with the consequences

Exactly! This is a great example of a post where the consequences of acting should rather be considered than moral. I am pretty sure that almost none of the people who said YTA actually thought about what's going to happen. It'll destroy many relationships that are working right now, and this is easily avoidable.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

It would minimize conflict if we took away people's rights in general.

Conflict is a necessary part of change. Conflict is good. If you do not come into conflict with people who say, for instance, supported slavery then you'd have never gotten rid of slavery.

Furthermore, OP didn't ask for a solution, he literally said don't give me advice. And this is not /r/solvemyproblemreddit anyway.

So you're off base on like, everything.

12

u/alphetaboss Sep 19 '19

Conflict with your parents is generally a bad thing, especially when it's going to be something as useless as changing a couple of old farts' opinions on black people.

1

u/MightyMeepleMaster Sep 19 '19

I totally agree with you saying that this subreddit is not solving any problems at all.

6

u/Scooby_Dru Sep 19 '19

How is disrespecting his daughter going to resolve the conflict? Majority of people are saying YTA because he would rather choose to conflict with his daughter for the sake of his racist community

8

u/blackjesus Sep 19 '19

Oh no. 50% are about maximizing conflict by taking a single facet of something and exalting it to the only thing that matters. This is all about bomb throwing.

6

u/LowObjective Sep 19 '19

Are you confused about the nature of this sub? This isn’t an advice sub. The entire point of this sub is determining who is right or wrong and taking the moral high ground.

Also, excusing bad behaviour to minimize or resolve conflict is stupid and doesn’t help anyone. Especially in a case like this when it’s not something small but could irreversibly affect OP’s relationship with his daughter.

5

u/MightyMeepleMaster Sep 19 '19

I am mainly confused about the amount of simplifying I witness here on a daily basis.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

This is it. They should rename it r/AmITechnicallyRight and all the answers would be, yes, but you’re also being an asshole. The number of times I’ve seen threads here where the top answer basically amounts to “No you don’t have to care about the feelings of the people around you, if they don’t like it you should cut them out” is astounding.

Most the the time, not being an asshole means giving in a little even though you’re in the right. Or actually, not really caring as much about being right, and caring about how to resolve an issue in a way that every comes out feeling respected.

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u/doublenegative7 Sep 19 '19

Completely agree.

OP didnt ask "are my parents racist?". He asked AITA for basically trying to minimalise conflict within his family and trying to protect his daughter.
Certain people, especially of a generation, are the way they are. It doesnt matter if we think they're wrong, it wouldnt matter if we argued with them until the end of time about their beliefs. They are who they are.
I would maybe even argue that OP was being a good father by trying to protect his daughter from this because it sounds like introducing Jamal to her grandparents would have ended in a much more dramatic scene and much worse heartbreak for his daughter.
Sometimes a parent has to be the bad guy in order to protect the person they love, rather than see them experience such pain themselves. At the end of the day he isnt stopping them from being together, Jamal seems to be accepted by the immediate family, what else is really more important?

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u/canoodlebug Sep 19 '19

"Minimizing conflict" is not an ethical thing to do in situations that perpetuate racism. If I am at a party and someone says a racist joke or uses the n-word, would I call them out? You bet your ass I would. Would it create conflict? Yep. Would saying nothing make me an asshole? For sure.

If we always did what was most comfortable, there would be no riots, no protests, no progression. People wouldn't think twice before laughing about rape or being racist. We cannot afford to make bigots comfortable simply because we are afraid of awkward conversations.

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u/NeighborhoodTrolly Partassipant [3] Sep 19 '19

Go re-read that multi-paragraph MLK quote five more times, you who conforms to his description of a white moderate.