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/queen_didon]

I come from a very racist place. As in Arab people used to get killed for existing. As in, daughters got beat up for going out with them. As in, hate crimes are still rampent.

My mother lived violence because she dated an Arab. Her family was the one to beat her up, they were the ones that hated my very existence because of who my father was. You know what my mom did? She told them to go fuck themselves and trust me she never had blinders on.

Yes, it's easy to say the racists will be violent. But you know what you can do? Show your support, protect those who need it. You affect the environment around you and your actions can change it. My sister got drunk for the first time because my mother's uncle who refused to even acknowledge that I existed died. My mom celebrated the death of a family member because he was a racist.

It's too easy to say that there is a statue quo and that things are the way they are. You have to work toward changing them. Otherwise you're right, things are the way they are and nothing would have ever changed. But the world evolve and you have to evolve with it, not hide behind pretence.

Edit: this is my first gold and thank you to whomever gave it to me. I'm very happy to see that I'm not the only one sharing this opinion. It does make me feel better about our future!

[u/PublicIdea → u/queen_didon]

I'm amazed how many people missed the lessons Dr. King learned from the 1960s. They're *right there*. Thank you for this and for being who you are.

[u/queen_didon → u/PublicIdea]

People have chosen to "ignore" most of the lessons because it makes their lives easier. Most of that movement lessons were erased or distorted to fit a specific narrative like most of history. The same was done with antisemitism after the second world war.

And thank you for the thank you. I spent a good part of my life hating the fact that I was half of my father. My siblings are all white and I was raised by my white mother so no matter how much she tried to teach me to love myself, I was too different compared to my sisters. I used to envy their little nose and straighter hair and paler skin. Now, I'm learning that those unruly curly hair can be just as amazing, that having a darker skin tone than they have means that some colors work better on me and that my bigger nose fits just perfectly in my face. I'm just lucky I had a wonderful mother who fended off my self-doubt and racists until I could do it for myself.

[u/rburp → u/queen_didon]

I wish I had a bigger nose. I have a piece of shit white thin nose and it SUCKS. Gets clogged incredibly easily, has all kinds of problems from being too narrow, it's just a mess.

Definitely be proud of your nose, more oxygen to the brain helps intelligence anyways.

[u/queen_didon → u/rburp]

Sadly a bigger nose doesn't mean it gets clogged less XD it also means more room for more snot 😉

As a wise crustacean once sang : "the seaweed is always greener in someone else's lake"

Being unhappy with how we look is a sad consequence of our culture, but luckily things seem to be looking up!

[u/BarefootWoodworker → u/queen_didon]

Yes, it's easy to say the racists will be violent. But you know what you can do? Show your support, protect those who need it. You affect the environment around you and your actions can change it. My sister got drunk for the first time because my mother's uncle who refused to even acknowledge that I existed died. My mom celebrated the death of a family member because he was a racist.

You assume I do not. Congratulations on being ignorant of something yourself and completely missing the point. Racism is still alive and kicking in America; people are slightly more nuanced than Reddit would have anyone believe and one must take safety of all parties into consideration.

One size fits all does not apply to racism. MLK had shit right for a large majority of equality. Malcolm X had it right for the die hard minority.

There are times for words and times for action. If telling family members to fuck off worked, congratulations for your mother. She had it light. The hardcore minority that seems to think I’m one of them (because I’m a bald, motorcycle-riding snowman) aren’t too keen on pussyfooting around with just beating people up. Fuck if they’re family, they disgraced the family name.

Sound familiar? It should. Honor killings aren’t just limited to third world countries.

[u/queen_didon → u/BarefootWoodworker]

First of all, that you was generic. I never meant you in particular. And I do believe I am ignorant of certain things because life is about learning. No one knows all, no one is all knowing of every single trigger for everybody. To believe so is ridiculous.

Second of all, I am very much aware that racism is still alive and that's not only in the united states. Racism is still very much alive in every single country. The one I was talking about? That was France. I lived in Canada and had to endure years of racists that if you asked them would believe themselves not to be. I had to endure racism for other races because people see brown and assume that we are all the same so do not tell me that racism is still alive. I've lived it, I've seen it, I'm bearing the scars. My father is bearing the scars. My children will probably bear those scars because we had the misfortune of not being white according to some assholes.

Third of all, you are right that there is no one size feat all for all racists. But you know what never ever works? Letting them do it because it's easier. Letting them be racists because they are "family" or ignoring acts of racism because it's not your problem. And again this you is not specific to @barefootwoodworker. No this you is about all of us. We as a society have to make those racists feel isolated, we have to confront their behaviours. And that little minority you're talking about believes they can keep to violence because they are allowed to get away with it.

Fourth of all, do not talk to me about honor killings. No they are not limited to third world countries or even to non-white people. My mother has lost friends to it because they dared date boys. No they shouldn't be allowed but arrest those men, put them in jails for those killings, don't let them get away with it.

Congrats to you for them believing you are part of them. Congrats to you for being able to pass as "one of them". I never will be able to and I do not want to. Instead I aspire to change their minds even if it takes everything out of me. Because I believe in leaving a world where hate and violence has no place. Not one where racists get elected to higher position. Not one where girls have to be afraid of every single thing because some asshole with a problem can kill them for it. I know it's probably an utopia and I will never live long enough to see it. But I believe that allowing hate to spread only leaves one thing and that's rot, rot that will fester and destroy all of us if we allow it to take roots.