I Want To Talk to My Dad... But He's Racist

Emotional Support
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Okay hard things to discuss but it’s been on my mind heavy lately.
First things first, my step dad was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer 2 years ago and since his diagnosis I have wanted to have a better relationship with him considering he’s the only dad I really knew.

My problem with my dad is that while to me he was sweet and loving, since getting out of prison he’s been a different person.
When he’s not disliking my sexual orientation and calling it a joke he is making comments about other races.
I should mention he is an old German man who went to prison for 8 years for meth distribution…

All that being said he should be a humbled man right? No.
The cancer has made him more of an ass and now I haven’t talked to him in over a month due to the fact I told him I had a new bf and the first thing he asked was, “What color is he?” Normally I would ignore this and write it off as just his old way of being ignorant and curious at the same time but truthfully, I know he actually is bothered when I date my own race.

When I was young my dad would say " you’re not black, you’re mostly white. You’re German."
I used to think this was to make me feel included in his family and less confused about having a white mom and a white dad.
Now all I feel in my heart is pain that he really is just a bigot of a man.
How do I go about telling him what I feel? I can’t just ignore his existence forever. What he feels about things affects me deeply.

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That is heartbreaking and so hard to face. Being part of a family but also only having part of you accepted is really, really heartbreaking.

I haven’t been through this myself (I’m about as white as it gets and though my wife is East Asian, other than that there’s no non-white people in my immediate family; in any case my family is supportive and has never questioned me about my romantic partners, who have been white, black, and East Asian, at various times). However I do feel for you and I wanted to reach out and say I heard you.

Do you have a social group you can turn to about this? A black persons’ caucus / group / professional organization maybe? Somewhere where you can speak with people who may have more immediate experience with this, and might be able to give you some perspective.

Racism is deep and it is often tied to a person’s identity (as in, “I am ____ and part of that is not being ____”). It’s an upside down way of looking at the world but even so, because it is so closely tied to a person’s sense of self, questioning it feels like questioning their sense of self - and that can feel threatening (and provoke escalation and defensiveness, at minimum).

I would say that it’s understandable you want to be accepted by your stepdad but the boundary is you need to be accepted for who you are, in all your facets, not just the ones someone finds “convenient”. (This goes for your right to acceptance from everyone, not just your stepdad.)

Maybe - maybe give some thought to this. What exactly is it you want to have accepted? What is it, specifically? What event or emotion or experience - what belief about yourself, what core belief - is making this such a debilitating / paralyzing thing for you?

His racism is unlikely to change in the near term. But you can take concrete, significant steps with something you can control: your understanding of yourself. You can come to an understanding where his ignorance and hatred will no longer be able to diminish you.

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That is a challenging situation you have there.

Since being in recovery, I’ve got to learn the Serenity Prayer off pat. I’ll attach it below.

We can’t change people or things but we can adjust our attitude.

We all sin. We all have character defects. I believe we are all meant to love and help each other.

Parents often just love in their “own way” as there is no manual when a child is born.

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Sometimes killing someone with kindness can have an unexpected effect.

Strength to you.

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Are you willing to understand someone’s wrong views are never purely his own, but learned by everything in that person’s life ?
And are you willing to forgive him for having those wrong views ?

If 2x yes, talk to him. Without any resentments. Listen to him, try to understand his way of thinking. And talk to him, explaining him how it affects you…

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First of all, what he has said is not okay. None of it. How you identify is up to you, and if he is denying you part of your identity that is just wrong. I’m half Mexican and half white mixed American. I’ve dealt with this for a long time. That’s the first big red flag for me, and making it clear to him about your identity would be a good start. If he can’t love your as you are then what does he want?! That’s messed up.

Now that I’ve vented (sorry) I think you’ll have to think about how much of a relationship you want with him. It sounds toxic. I definitely have toxic family and have had to sort of drift away. I’m not the “right kind of brown” because I’m not something more exotic or prestigious.

Who you love is your choice and yours alone. I am happy for you that you have someone in your life and hope that’s going well.

Bottom line - you’re right to feel that how you’re being treated is wrong. It is wrong. It’s time to reevaluate that relationship and I’m sorry it will cause pain. My inbox is open if you need to talk about it with someone. Sending you love.

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I agree with fargesia. I know people and have family who grew up in neighborhoods where they were segregated by choice, and it was not the color of their skin they hated, but that a group of people who had that in common were indecent. The street goes more than one way.

Some people have a certain way towards pit bulls, not because they were attacked but because their mom was or a friend or whomever. That doesn’t make that person bad just an experience which tainted their views, and it happened, and it was real, and you don’t have to like it and it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist, it just simply does. The world will never be fair and never be without tragedy.

As an alcoholic I have serious character defects. That doesn’t make me a bad person, it just makes me a person. I was made this way and my choose to accept the things I cannot change, have courage to change things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

91 is 9
92 is 18
9*3 is 26.

It’s easy to see where I made a mistake or went wrong, but I like to focus on where I/other people got it right.

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After reading your story I spent about 20 minutes trying to find a speaker tape I listened to about a month ago that gives an example of how someone handled your situation. The entire tape is very great information and all of Bob D’s speaker tapes are fantastic. Start listen at the 46 minute mark in this audio. I hope it helps. Best of luck and hang in there! If you want resolution, take the steps to try to make it happen :slightly_smiling_face::+1:t3::call_me_hand:t3:

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The main reason I want to talk to him is he IS very sick. He doesn’t have many years left for him and I want to be there for him as a daughter. He never did have his own children, I’m all he has.
Otherwise, people like him I just can’t deal with.
The man is a jerk.
The thing about joining “black groups” is I still find myself an odd one out at times being mixed. It’s a lose lose situation. I think maybe I will try to talk to my dad eventually but keep deep rooted thoughts to a minimum. Like you said, there’s no changing a person who’s mind is made up in their own beliefs @Matt

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I am understanding to a point. In prison I know he was pushed to join some unsavory groups in order to protect himself, he had always been biased but now is full out just racist. His love for me shows me he can see beyond color. My biggest fear is him dying a hateful man. I wish he was willing to learn rather than just dish out whatever he thinks without consiquence.
He’s the type of person who says something and that’s just it. Everyone is in the wrong aside from him. I guess the only way I could deal with a person like that who I care for is to steifal my own thoughts on the matter and possibly avoid bringing up my feelings. That still hurts

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I can see where you’re coming from and I hope I didn’t come off as too harsh. Do you think you could start a conversation with him? It might be a step toward him being less hateful and reminding him he’s not in prison, he doesn’t have to be all or nothing now.

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I still think just because you’ve experienced something doesn’t warrent you to go through life with a hateful heart. I get possibly having a stigma or biased towards some things that is human nature, However; if I treated every white person I met as a racist just because I experienced some prejudice then I would be in the wrong.
My father used to go the distance to prove he wasn’t for anything brown, from throwing away tacos that my childhood friends made for him and saying " not in this house"
To accusing my native American boyfriend of stealing the necklace he gave me or buying It with oil money. He just is mentally ill. That’s how I see it, like his cancer he is dealing with a whole different kind of sick. That doesn’t mean he can just be however he wants without being told it’s wrong or ignorant. At the end of the day what it really comes down to is “are you a teachable person or not?” Are you someone who’s going to let an experience define you or are you going to grow from experience? He’s a stubborn man. I can forgive this, but at what cost to me? I agree I have to let things go I can’t change…It gets harder when you truly love someone.

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I think given the fact he’s 62 I maybe should just let him know that what he said most recently hurt my feelings, briefly say why. Let him know I love and care for him. I think for me and my feelings I have to just keep our relationship surface level. I just had a very long talk with my grandma and she explained how he’s always been this way but because I was little and loved him, I never saw how he was. If he loves me the way I hope he does he will hopefully hear me out to an extent. You didn’t offend me. I’m happy for all inputs

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I think it’s smart to guard your own feelings in this and keep things surface level. You’re approaching it in a thoughtful way. Good for you! It sucks to deal with this situation on top of the grief of losing a loved one.

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You can be. To show care for someone does not mean we have to agree with them or support their words or beliefs. Particularly with family this is true.

You don’t get to choose your skin colour in life, and you don’t get to choose your family. So you don’t have to be ashamed of either. You choose how you want to manage both these things - and you have the right to manage them however you want.

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This is something I debated on posting on but decided to,

I feel your pain for the most part, I am pretty much white, mixed European with a probability of some Puerto Rican mixed in

But my devout catholic religious parents are closeted bigots, the rest of my family is well pretty much open about it.

I don’t have a relationship with my parents for various reasons, but I think the nail in the coffin was last November when I reached out to my mother who was in the hospital and they found out my gf at the time is biracial. Well she’s like a third but whatever. I haven’t heard from them since.

I grew up in a small PA town that was very segregated, this was the Italian section, the Irish section, Greek, polish well you get the drift, shit each one even had their own church and fire company, during my growing up things started to change, all of a sudden Latino and Black families started moving into the neighborhoods and that seem to shake the monarchy so to speak, the idea of talking about gay or lesbian topics was unheard of, AIDS was the gay disease and you didn’t intermingle with anyone who wasn’t white, heterosexual and catholic, I was raised mostly by my grandmother, who had a completely different outlook, and it was one that stuck with me, She said don’t look at them any different they are people just like you and I just have different backgrounds and you can learn a lot from them. And she was right

I faced tons of challenges from my family, when I was 15 I put dreads in my hair, and it was pure hell, about how I’m white and they hope straight, if I wanna look like that they are gonna get me a dress and put me on the streets, the fact that I can speak Spanish is also a “enabling” behavior, I know myself I feel way more comfortable working with English as it’s my native language, so it’s easier to feel comfortable working with someone who isn’t as fluent,

My oldest son used to have a girl hang around who’s Peurto Rican super sweet girl, and before I could say anything to anyone I get my mom texting me is that his new gf?! She’s Peurto Rican!! Ok, and….

When they saw pictures from my California trip, the first thing that was pointed out was oh is she black? Like that was the whole talking point, not wow it’s nice to see you guys had a good time and look it’s so nice.

I hope one day I can bury the differences with my parents, I tried ti make peace and it didn’t go well. I can only practice acceptance as I am who I am they can either accept it or not.

As far as your father, maybe it’s big talk that he has to hold a reputation while sitting time, but could have a different perspective when he gets home, obviously he took you on as a stepchild so he must realize that love is colorblind.

But he needs to realize true love is colorblind, Regardless of color, ethnicity, or sex, I understand that sometimes it’s hard to accept your daughter may be gay, or your not going to have any grandchildren unless they choose to adopt. But that is part of acceptance on their behalf

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People are not pit bulls. This is more than some past wrong that someone owns up to & apologizes for in the end. No, this is someone who is consistently racially bigoted with his own daughter, and straight up continues to refuse to change his attitude, even for her.

I’m sorry, but comparing racism to the way some people feel about breeds of dogs!? The gentlest way I can put this is: that is so, so deeply, exceedingly dehumanizing. It also completely minimizes how oppressive, dangerous, & debilitatingly stressful racism truly is (but especially so when it’s coming from someone’s own father.)

Besides the literal physical danger of racism & bigotry, racism is known to lead to severe levels of trauma & stress. That stress goes so deep that it can literally — and this is according to actual research — lead to things like heart disease, stroke, & other physical ailments, in addition to having a strong negative impact on one’s mental health.

She shouldn’t be asked to forgive racism as if she’s the one who needs to consider his perspective, to understand where he’s coming from (And his perspective is, apparently, that part of who she is is just plain wrong — that’s a horrible, painful, disgusting perspective to have to consider).

Nor should she be advised to “change her attitude,” or to find a way to accept / understand him or excuse his behavior just because “that’s how he was raised.” The fact that he’s held onto his bigoted views, despite having her in his life, shows that he refuses do any of the work of self-reflection, even for his own kid.

He seems to be bigoted even with his own daughter, and he chooses to continue to not self-reflect, not empathize with her, not change his attitude or behavior — every day — even toward the end of his life, even for her. There’s just nothing excusable about this kind of racism.

But to OP: if you don’t want to see or talk to him, I wouldn’t fault you, nor should anyone. You can explain to him why — if you have the emotional energy for that conversation — and make your peace with him. And then he can make his own choice whether he wants to do the work to change or not. But if he doesn’t change, and continues to refuse to respect & accept & see all of you, that’s not your fault, and he’s not your responsibility. You absolutely do not have to “change your attitude” toward his bigotry, or try to excuse his racist attitude. He’s the adult in this relationship, and he should know better, either way. Disrespecting your race is one of the worst things he could do — it’s not just inexcusable, it’s a form of abuse. And I’m so, so sorry you have to deal with this. But you need to take care of you — to take care of your mental health, of your sobriety; and subjecting yourself to such abuse can hurt you in ways that you absolutely don’t deserve.

Edit: I didn’t mean this to say that you shouldn’t talk to him even if you want to, I was more frustrated by comments that seem to be insinuating that you should excuse his racism, as if it’s just a mistake he made. But if you do want to be in his life, of course you should. And you can talk to him about how he makes you feel, if you feel up to that. But I think my main point before was this: if you get to a point where his bigotry is too much for you, you aren’t required to stick around. Basically, it’s up to you how much you can take, how much you get to see him, what you say to him, and how you handle it. You sound mature & responsible & caring enough that you’ll make the right decision for yourself no matter what.

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