If the world has come a long way, bigotry is still an omnipresent evil all over the world.
Running rampant in the media, and sometimes in our own homes.
When we hear someone we know make a racist or bigoted remark, we want to call them out on it, though sometimes we can’t find the courage.
Because we sadly know that saying anything likely won’t make any difference, or out of fear of what might happen to us should we say anything.
Redditor aanemicroyaltyy was growing increasingly tired of hearing her mother constantly making racist remarks.
However, as it was her mother, the original poster (OP) felt it was never her place to say or do anything regarding her mother’s behavior.
Until one day the OP finally had enough and wasn’t afraid to mince words, resulting in her mother’s inevitable wrath.
Having doubts about how she handled the situation, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I the A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for calling my mother a racist b*tch and disregarding the punishment she gave me?”
The OP explained what finally led her to stop tolerating her mother’s racist behavior, as well as how she decided to handle her reaction.
“My (17 F[emale]) mother (35 F) has always been racist, and she doesn’t hide it either.”
“She makes comments about African Americans being ‘ugly’ but the race she has the most prejudice towards is anyone who is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.”
“She generalizes the way they speak and mocks them, she says they’re all ugly, makes comments about how they ‘shouldn’t drive’ because they ‘can’t see’ properly, etc.”
“I’ve heard this all throughout my life from her and every time I’ve wanted to call her out but was afraid of what she’d say because all my life she’s been a ticking time bomb and most of the time I’m too exhausted to deal with her constantly going on a rampage of saying cruel things and then playing the victim after it all.”
“This time in particular however, I was watching ‘A Silent Voice’ beautiful anime movie by the way, it brought me to tears.”
“One of the scenes showing how Shouko speaks aloud was on while my mom was in the room, and of course as per routine she made a stupid comment basically stating that she’s surprised anyone batted an eye at how she talks given that it’s supposedly ‘as unintelligible as any other Asian’.”
“I spoke up and said ‘Oh shit, I forgot I can’t watch what I enjoy without you trying too hard to make us laugh with an unfunny racist comment’.”
“She said ‘Excuse me?’ to which I replied that I was pretty sure she heard me, and then she asked me what it was like to have a “fetish” for Asian people (???) so I said ‘What’s it like to have such a bland personality that being a racist bitch is your main trait?'”
“She BLEW UP and told me I had no right to speak to her that way because she was my mother.”
“Basically I shrugged and I said that I’m treating her as I would any prejudiced person.”
“I was grounded for being ‘disrespectful’ because apparently being racist is nothing but an opinion /s.”
“Pretty much the same hour I walked out of the house and announced that I was sleeping over at a friend’s house because there’s no way I was gonna serve a punishment for calling out a racist.”
‘I’m getting mixed reactions.”
“Some say I was fully in the right and didn’t need to change a thing, others say while I was in the right I should’ve just taken the punishment because I knew what the outcome would be.”
“AITA here reddit?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
While not everyone felt that she handled the situation as well as she could, the Reddit community otherwise agreed that the OP was no the A**hole for calling out her mother and refusing her punishment.
Everyone agreed that the OP was absolutely right to call out her mother’s racist behavior, but many urged her to tread a little more carefully, as she was still living under her mother’s roof.
“NTA, but you must understand consequences.”
“I went toe to toe with my dad on a daily basis.”
“There were literal fist fights.”
“He had a half-Mexican, openly pansexual daughter who was a survivor of child abuse, and he sh*t on everything I was with regularity.”
“He was absolutely in the wrong.”
“I haven’t spoken to him more than once or twice this last decade.”
‘In fact, I told him that the next time I see him is when we’re lowering him into the ground.”
“But your ideals will not feed, clothe, nor house you.”
“The day I walked out of my dad’s house, I knew I’d rather live on the streets than spend another moment under that hateful man’s roof.”
“And I did.”
“I wound up homeless for almost 4 months as an 18-year-old woman.”
“It took me nearly 6 years to claw my way out of absolute poverty thereafter.”
“I’m not telling you to be fine with what she says and who she is.”
“I’m saying if you push her buttons, she has the power to upend your entire world and slap you with a dose of reality that’ll mess you up for years.”
“Be prepared to suffer the consequences for biting the hand that feeds you.”- Half_A_Cup_of_Coffee
“NTA.”
“Good for you for standing up to her.”
“But you need to be a little careful.”
‘Make sure you have a plan for being financially independent when you turn 18.”-DazedandConfused8406
“NTA, you have been listening to your mom talk horribly about other races, who have done absolutely nothing wrong, for your whole life.”
“It was inevitable you were going to blow up at her eventually.”
“My dad was a HUGE racist.”
“He hated everyone that wasn’t white and liked to say, ‘when does the white man get his chance?'”
“While working a job making $70/hr.”
“When he died we found nazi and confederate flags in his garage and my grandma burned them.”
“He was a very miserable man and I think he just liked to take it out on other people.”
“When I stopped living with him I started calling him out on his crap.”
“I would scream at him and tell him why he was wrong.”
“Because he wasn’t better than these people and it wasn’t fair.”
“He eventually stopped saying anything racist in front of me and told my sister he was ‘scared’ of me and honestly?”
“Good.”
“Cause I’m not going to sit there and listen to people talk crap because their uneducated and prejudice.”
“Also that movie was amazing!”
“Sorry your mom tried to ruin it for you.”- MissCheyenne14
“NTA.”
“But how close are you to being financially independent and able to move out?”
“If the answer is ‘not very’, then you might want to consider apologizing for now and keeping your mouth shut until you do.”
“Once you move out though?”
“You can cut her off, and treat her with all of the respect she deserves if you ever see her again.”-TexFiend
“As many have told you already: absolutely NTA.”
“But: you‘ll have to deal with the consequences.”
“I assume you are still in school and depending on her and that‘s why you live under her roof?”
“I‘m 10 years older than you and I still depend on my parents financially, due university.”
“My parents and I disagree in a lot of things, but we have actually a quite close relationship and love each other very much, but I prefer to stay quiet whenever I can, because I know, I depend on them.”
“I wouldn‘t survive if they cut me out.”
“So, I think, you‘ll have to deal with some consequences from her side, I‘m afraid, even you being on the right side.”- babsibu
“NTA.”
“Once you show your racism, you don’t deserve respect.”
“Even if she is your mother.”- TheManhattanFlash1
“You’re NTA, but you should be careful about burning bridges that you’re still standing on, even racist bridges that need to be burned.”
“Do/say whatever you have to in order to stay safe and supported until you can GTFO of there as a legal adult.”
“Start planning for it now.”
“Good luck, and sorry about your mom.”- Trilobyte141
“NTA however, your mother at least sounds emotionally abusive and you gotta remember that you can be right and still lose.”
“Especially when forced to depend on horrible people.”
“Don’t start sh*t with her until you’re out of that house.”- Foxodroid
Behavior like the OP’s mother’s simply shouldn’t be tolerated.
However, teenagers must think carefully before rebelling against their parents who they have to depend on.
Hopefully, the OP can find a way to teach her mother that her racist behavior has to stop in a civil, calm fashion.
Doing so might even help the message sink further in for her mother.