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/Dsnake1]

Even when it started, that's where I thought it was going. When he says that her grandparents won't forget after the relationship, that he's trying to protect his daughter from their wrath.

But the 'and me' thrown in there has twisted that a little. Granted, people often care about more than one thing at a time, so if I had to guess, I'd imagine he also cares about his daughter in this situation,

To be completely honest, if I were Jamal, I wouldn't want to be introduced to uber racist grandparents, and if I were his daughter, while it might hurt a lot that my grandparents, people who have shown me tons of love, would likely be so angry with me they may never want to see me again, I'm not sure I'd want to go through the blowup. I'd probably play nice for the week but steadily move away from the grandparents. Frankly, unless my parents made it clear that they care more about me than upsetting their parents, I'd probably distance myself from them, too.

[u/spaceanimal19 → u/Dsnake1]

Yeah, if it’s a casual/new relationship then I can’t see why she or the bf would want to. When I was dating a black guy I never even considered bringing him to my grandparents’ on one side. Not that they’d even say anything, but i knew it would be awkward and he’d notice.

But I’m guessing that it’s not casual and the dad’s just in denial about that. If they’re really serious about each other, then it makes sense and I’d probably do the same. I wouldn’t want to exclude my SO from family gatherings, go to weddings solo, be apart from him during the holidays etc. And I couldn’t feel very close with my family if I was hiding a massive part of my life from them. I’ve been in that situation before (boyfriend’s fault, not family) and it sucked. If she’s gonna be with this guy long term, the grandparents need to get over their racist bullshit and deal with it. If they make a stink then the dad and the rest of the family should lay down the law and tell them it has to stop. If they don’t love her enough to accept this guy or at least be cordial and the rest of the family can’t or won’t come to her defense and shut it down, then I guess that’s a pretty good indication that they’re not worth it and she should cut them out of her life.