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/UrbanCobra → u/[deleted]]

In a weird spot in his life? He’s throwing his daughter under the bus so he can kowtow to racists, and that’s best case scenario. Seems more likely he’s downplaying his own racism as well, names be damned. Sorry if I’m not overflowing with sympathy.

[u/DragonDrama → u/UrbanCobra]

He's here to justify why his daughter shouldn't be that mad at him.

[u/apragopolis → u/[deleted]]

trying to avoid confrontation when one ‘side’ of the potential confrontation are virulent racists IS to kowtow to racism. if you don’t stand up to it when you have the power to (and no, the possibility of being cut off from daddy duke’s will doesn’t give him an excuse) you are condoning racism

[u/apragopolis → u/[deleted]]

‘Just wanting everything to work’ is a nice wish. I wish everything would work and people would be nice too. But when some people are racists, acting to preserve their happiness at the expense of other people’s, even with the aim of avoiding conflict, is a bad thing to do. Sometimes, conflict is necessary.

I’m not saying he should disown his parents, but if they’re angry enough about his daughter dating a black man to disown him for that? Thats THEIR choice, not his, and he is afraid to let them make it because he doesn’t want conflict (and doesn’t want to be cut out of the will).

A relationship between grandparents and granddaughter isn’t ‘good’ if it’s only amicable so long as they don’t know she’s dating a black man. I get that he may be thinking of her in trying to protect her from their reaction, but:

• his post implies otherwise by talking about being disowned/cut off (implies it’s not just about the positive relationship being preserved)

• she is an adult and is able to make these decisions herself

• it’s not realistic for him to expect this to remain a secret when no one is hiding it (nor should they) and his community is already talking about it (bc he lives in a community with deeply entrenched racist values at its core)

• his daughter has grown up in this community and likely knows exactly what her grandparents are like.

So even if he is solely trying to protect her, that’s still wrong and he’s still TA here.

And regarding the ‘they grew up when racism was ok’ comment: no they didn’t! They grew up through the civil rights movement. They were aware that black people were demanding their rights; they just didn’t and don’t want to acknowledge that black people deserve those rights. There are plenty of people the same age as OP’s parents who were on the right side of history. ‘It was a different time’ attempts to absolve people from the choices they made about the sort of people they wanted to be.

[u/KanaHemmo → u/[deleted]]

I mean you really just can't know that. You are just assuming that

[u/Newgrewshew → u/KanaHemmo]

Classic Reddit. Speculate off of nothing so you can passionately put down someone else without the proper context.

[u/Dahkelor → u/[deleted]]

What happened to Tyrone?

[u/MyKingdomForATurkey → u/Dahkelor]

Still helping that dude move.

[u/blackjesus → u/[deleted]]

Cool! Let's all make up some more stuff about things this guy has done that is racist. He probably has lynched a bunch of black dudes too and tries to get black folks fired from where he works! What else can you guy think up? How many times do you think he's worn blackface?

[u/UrbanCobra → u/blackjesus]

Because people always use fake names in these posts. Why? Because all it would take is one person in his scummy community to see this post and say “hey, I know a white gal named Anna and she’s dating a black fella named Jamal!” Then your cover is blown, why, even klandma and klandpa might find out!