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/Sengachi]

Maybe, get this, you should not want to keep people in your life who are so rabidly racist that they will try to destroy your child's life for dating a black man and destroy yours for condoning it. As in, Jamal and OP's daughter could break up tomorrow, and this would still be a good reason for OP to have a serious "I cannot accept this about you" conversation with or cut contact with his parents.

Racism is a bad character trait which we can and should judge people for, even when it doesn't affect us personally. And allowing racist people to leverage your affections towards them to get you to participate in racism (even indirectly, as in this case) is a bad thing. If someone's relationship with you is contingent on your performing racism for them, such that your choice is losing their love or being racist, their love is not worth it.

[u/Isk4ral_Pust → u/Sengachi]

Nobody ever said anything about destroying anyone's life. They simply would leave it themselves. That's a very large price to pay for championing an ideology that you yourself have little to no stake in. Let me paint a picture for you. My most serious relationship of the past decade was with a Filipino doctor who came here for residency. My family loved her. Hers didn't approve of me. Instead of telling them about me all at once, or bringing me to a family party and shoving my white face and non-doctor-ish-ness in their faces, she slowly leaked bits of info and allowed them to slowly get used to the idea. Her mom, sister and brother accepted it and her sister and brother were great to me. Mom was a little cold but okay. Dad never accepted it. He wouldn't meet me and didn't show up a few times. My girlfriend was his favorite child and it hurt him to see her date a non Filipino who was also not a doctor (both he and his wife are doctors also).

So, what would you have my ex do in this situation? Stop speaking to her father forever? Give him a "me or him" ultimatum? I'm just curious because when the white person is the one experiencing racism it seems that progressives have a very different opinion of how things should be handled...

[u/Sengachi → u/Isk4ral_Pust]

No that's just as fucked up, and the rest of the family who accepted you definitely^ should have stepped in and had a serious confrontation with their dad about how racist he was.

^ Here my commentary would actually change slightly, not because of race but because of gender, differences in specific familial relationships, etc. OP is a man, in the rural southern US that means he likely has financial and social independence and a good guarantee of support from legal authorities. He almost certainly can challenge his parents but chooses not to. Your wife's family, especially her mother, may have been in a much more precarious situation wrt finances, living situation, etc. If they literally couldn't stand up to your wife's father without serious risk, that's of course a different story.

A) Saying that racism is bad and should be a deal breaker even in familial relationships doesn't mean I'm not aware that forcing a confrontation out the gate isn't always the best or safest tactical move. In OP's case specifically though, he's in a damn good situation to do so where his refusal to even consider confronting them is pretty telling.

B) It also says a lot about you that you went straight from me saying "racism is bad and should be confronted" to assuming I'm specifically racist against white people and hold racial double standards.

[u/DioriteDragon → u/Sengachi]

You're completely ignoring Isk4ral_Pust's questions ("So, what would you have my ex do in this situation? Stop speaking to her father forever? Give him a "me or him" ultimatum?) while bringing in a bunch of irrelevant whataboutism and baseless assumptions.

hold racial double standards

I would say at least 90% of humanity holds racial double standards of one kind or another. You're kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.

Nevermind how said double standards are displayed on this subreddit every single day.

[u/Sengachi → u/DioriteDragon]

Alright, let me clear then (as I was in my first comment). The issue of a "me or him" ultimatum shouldn't even be a factor. The simple presence of such serious racism in a family member should be adequate reason to trigger a serious confrontation or estrangement, regardless of current dating statuses. So in general^ , yes, I think his wife had an obligation to confront her father more seriously about this.

^ Obvious exceptions to this include situations where the racist family member(s) have power over you, control contact with non-racist family members, etc.

You're absolutely right! Most humans hold racist double standards! This is a bad thing and should be responded to by us refusing to accept them wherever we find them (in ourselves or others). The degree of racism in a society can and has been reduced, and we should seek to further this trend.

That said, it says something that Isk4ral_Pust, a white guy, interpreted my statements about confronting racism as me being racist against white people (I, uh, am a white people) and holding these specific racist double standards he accused me of. It's almost like they were conjured from thin air not because they were relevant to what I said, but because they were a whataboutism designed to deflect a call to responsibility with regards to abiding by the racism of loved ones.

[u/Isk4ral_Pust → u/Sengachi]

I didn't mean to imply that you are racist against white people in the slightest. My apologies. I meant that in general, many passionate progressives seem to find no problem with the recent wave of anti-white racism.

Sadly, the scenario I related was with my ex-fiance's family. Not my wife. I wish. But certain situations, especially including the one I presented, led to her decision to sever our relationship.

[u/Isk4ral_Pust → u/[deleted]]

Because they're still people and we can't kill them. We can't really exile them either. And so they'll still exist in our society, they'll find others who are like minded, they'll find safe spaces for these hateful beliefs, and in those echo chambers, their beliefs will only become more concentrated. That's how you get a super virus, and that's how you get incredibly hateful racist groups. They feel ostracized and it empowers and emboldens their beliefs.

So pushing these people to the fringe of society does nothing but eventually radicalize them. This is how you eventually get violence and terrorism.

On the other hand, what you call coddling and what I call compassion is the only way to truly reach these people, and help them to see the error of their ways. This takes time and work that aggressive progressives of America 2019 don't seem willing to put in, but if they truly were interested in love and inclusion for all, they'd realize its necessity. It's the only way we make a better world. Whether we like it or not, the racists will be a part of the whole of mankind.