Being anti-racism involves confronting racism whenever safely possible, especially among family and friends. Being loud when racism is perpetrated by strangers, but silent when it’s by close acquaintances is being complicit.
But confronting racist behavior is likely to upset the person being racist and everyone enabling them by looking the other way every time. After all, their complicity is also being called out.
A wife and mother who decided enough was enough with a racist relative turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback after their reaction, instead of the racism, caused tension.
No_Car8712 asked:
“AITA for causing a scene at my in-laws’ anniversary dinner over my brother-in-law’s racist comments?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (female, 30 yrs) and my husband (male, 32 yrs) have been married for four years and have a son, soon turning one. English is not my first language, so please forgive me if the grammar isn’t always at 100%.”
“We are really close with my husband’s older brother—he is really cool and we love hanging out with him. However, I have never really gotten along with his younger brother (let’s call him Mark) because, among many other reasons, he has a tendency of putting out racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate comments.”
“Dare to say, our values and morals simply don’t align, but over the years I have learnt to bite my tongue and ignore the comments and to act civil around him in family gatherings.”
“Things have however changed since having a child, as I do not want him to be exposed to this kind of racist talk, especially from an uncle who should act as a role model to our son.”
“I talked to my husband about this issue and asked him to have a discussion with Mark that we do not allow this kind of talk around our child, as we want to raise him to respect people with different ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations etc…”
“My husband agreed and promised to talk to Mark about it, or at the very least, intervene if Mark does this ever again in the presence of our son.”
“A few days ago, we went over to my in-laws’ house for their wedding anniversary dinner. Everyone was having a great time up until Mark had had a couple of glasses of wine and begun with his racist slurring yet again (I’ll spare you from the details, but let me tell you, it was bad!).”
“I looked over to my husband, expecting him to do or say something, but he did nothing, just sipped his wine in silence. I felt this sudden rage and couldn’t hold it in any longer and angrily hissed at Mark something along the lines of ‘Will you shut the f*** up if you have nothing smarter to say‽’.”
“The whole room went dead silent and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife, it was so awkward for everyone. We finished our meal quickly and went home as soon as we could, me still boiling inside from anger over the whole situation and how my husband didn’t stand up for me against his brother.”
“Yesterday my husband received an angry text from my mother-in-law, stating I had ruined their anniversary dinner by lashing out at Mark at the table like that.”
“I understand her being upset since the dinner was to celebrate their marriage and the conflict ruined the mood for everyone and now there is this big drama in the family over what happened.”
“I agree that the timing was not great and that I could have rephrased myself in a more constructive way, but at the same time, I could not take it anymore and felt I had to put a stop to it once and for all.”
“So am I the a**hole?”
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
“I might be the a**hole for causing a theathical scene and attacking my brother-in-law verbally, ruining the mood for everyone.”
“Especially for my in-laws, who just wanted to have a good time and celebrate their anniversary, putting them in the middle of a drama they had nothing to do with.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“Hot tip: if you are sitting at a table where everyone else can abide the bigotry with just a sip of wine, then there are more bigots at the table that the guy yelling.”
“Genuinely let it settle that the singular cuss word you used is perceived as more offensive than his tirade.”
“NTA, but this is your child’s family, that you have picked for them; for who will quietly sit by while the younger brother spouts his opinions. Not to be offensive, but including you up until your kid was born.”
“Why would they think your child is a valid excuse for this man to stop the behavior they haven’t set meaningful boundaries around all his life?” ~ gurlwithdragontat2
“I have to ask why shutting down racism only became important when they had a child.” ~ AnotherDoubtfulGuest
“Because they can ignore the racist brother-in-law. They know what he says is utter BS.”
“A child, learning to speak and hear, cannot. He thinks everything an adult says, especially an uncle, is true. That’s why.” ~ FluidGate9972
“I get this perspective, but ignoring it seems more like enabling it for the sake of not rocking the boat. When you allow someone to go unchecked like that, it becomes the values of the family you’re associating with/part of.”
“It’s not like there was no harm in racism prior to the birth of their child.”
“The brother/husband should have handled these comments much earlier if they didn’t align with their values.” ~ aggieemily2013
“Part of this is it isn’t her ‘place’ to do that as it’s his family. Usually in most marriages or relationships you let the person directly connected to them handle it.”
“For example if my friend is being an a**, my wife will tell me and it’s on me to go handle that because it won’t be received the same way if she does it. It is often the same with family too. If my family or my wife’s family are doing things we don’t approve of or want to bring attention to, it’s the respective partner who ends up responsible for that.”
“I’m not saying it has to be this way, it just seems to be one of those social rule things that isn’t written down, but apparently everyone follows it.”
“There are obviously circumstances and times where you don’t wait for the other person to handle it too, but often times those end up like what we see here.”
“Personally, I think the bigger problem is that everyone is either okay with him saying these things or they’re all so deep into the ‘ignore him’ program that they can’t even tell when he’s saying something that needs to be addressed.”
“I see this personally with family and it has never made sense to me and I am now a bit of an outcast because I call these things out when people are saying it which causes that awkward ‘we don’t do that here’ type of moment.” ~ OddDc-ed
“NTA, buuuut…. You don’t have a BIL problem; you have an extended family problem. Your husband isn’t going to talk to your BIL. Your MIL is mad at you for being ‘inappropriate and ruining her celebration,’ yet has no comment about the derogatory, racist monologues?”
“Either the rest of the family is uncomfortable confronting your BIL at the risk of making things ‘uncomfortable’ or your BIL is sharing out loud opinions the rest of the family agree with. Your BIL is the symptom, not the problem.” ~ Practical_Tooth_2329
“OP has a husband problem. He sat there saying nothing against a racist drunk and I bet that wasn’t the first or last rant. OP either married a spineless man or someone who doesn’t disagree with racists.” ~ nenyabi
The OP provided an update:
“Thanks for all the comments, nice to hear that I’m not completely in the wrong here. At the moment I feel very alone with this issue and your comments helped me to get some clarity.”
“As a background, I have not said anything about BIL’s behaviour before as I believe it’s not my job to educate an adult. And to be honest, if that’s the way he thinks, I don’t think anyone could change his mind.”
“That’s why I have decided to stay as far away from him as possible in the past. Maybe I was in the wrong and should have confronted him earlier.”
“The MIL has occasionally tried to correct Mark in his comments, but definitely has not set clear enough boundaries. To me it seems that the whole family is just all about avoiding conflict at any cost which is a red flag on its own already.”
“Whatever the case is, I’m not okay to let my child stay at the in-laws on his own unsupervised from now on before making sure they understand that we do not tolerate this kind of behaviour.”
“I will have a chat with my husband today and confront him in why he didn’t back me up. For what it’s worth, it’s hard to believe that he would agree with his brother’s views as we do have friends of different races, sexual orientation etc…”
“But being a coward like this does make me question everything really.”
It looks like some serious discussions are in OP’s future.
Her husband and his family need to decide if avoiding confrontation, enabling toxic behavior, is more important than the lessons they teach their son.