Grandparents' racist comments...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

PP sure maybe but at the same time let's not throw out the "omg politically correct" buzzword. Don't use racist language, don't be a thin-skinned overly sensitive martyr if you do get called out on using specific language. Learn and move forward.

It is undeniable that in the last decades there is much more attention about what expressions are acceptable or not, and not only when talking about different ethnicities. For example, to describe a child with developmental or physical delays, my parents would used the term handicapped, I grew up using the term disable, my DC’s generation uses the term special needs. This doesn’t make my old parents jerks, they just were not educated about the different implications of the words used. I think the best thing is to gently redirect and educate my parents (or people from a different genearation) not shaming them

Yes, great, no one said anything about shaming. If your old parents become "incensed" followed by digging in their heels and continuing to use the word or phrase then a) we are past the point of gentle redirecting and educating and b) they're being overly sensitive and could stand to grow a thicker skin.

[Anonymous]

I still don’t understand why almond eyes are wrong?
The article wasn’t clear, nor did it seem like some authoritative source.
Almond eyes to me is not specific to any ethnicity. It’s the shape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you deal with racist comments from your parents (specifically when involving your children, their grandkids)?
Example: I'm white, my kids are mixed race (I'll just say my husband is not Asian).
On the phone several weeks ago, my mom made a comment about my husband's "Chinese eyes." I was kind of taken aback and was just like, "Um, okay, he's not Chinese..." Mentioned it to my husband who did not like it and we kind of laughed about the innocent racism; they don't realize it; they're not trying to be racist.
Now my parents are visiting us for a week, my mom makes the comment again but about my daughter, "She has Chinese eyes, I just love her Chinese eyes," and first of all this isn't something I want my daughter repeating on the playground, so I tell my mom to please don't say that, and she says, "Oh, okay, what am I supposed to say, 'almond eyes'?" I say yes, figured it was dropped.
Well today she made the comment again and I almost BLEW it. I don't want that phrase to be used, it's a racist phrase, she defends herself saying she's not racist, I retort I'm not calling you racist, just don't use that phrase because it does come across racist, and my children who are a whole other ethnicity have to endure similar kinds of comments on the playground and I'm wanting to teach them never to make a comment to someone like that - I tried explaining everything of what we've gone through and then trying to explain how generalizing these shaped eyes as "Chinese eyes" can be very insensitive...

Long story short she is so incensed we don't just listen to HER and we're all so easily offended and blah blah blah, she doesn't feel welcome in our home, made a sort of threat that she wouldn't be coming back because she doesn't want to be censored...
Agh I so badly want to think of her as empathetic and willing to learn but she just refuses!!
- help???

Why the hell does she repeatedly NEED to talk about the shape of people’s eyes anyway? Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

Sorry, but no. It’s not “they’re ooooold, they don’t knooooow any better.” They have lived a long life through many cultural changes, including this one, so they can and should be mature enough to know better. And they are damn well old enough to respect when a parent asks them to stop repeating the same stupid line about a child’s eyes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

PP sure maybe but at the same time let's not throw out the "omg politically correct" buzzword. Don't use racist language, don't be a thin-skinned overly sensitive martyr if you do get called out on using specific language. Learn and move forward.

It is undeniable that in the last decades there is much more attention about what expressions are acceptable or not, and not only when talking about different ethnicities. For example, to describe a child with developmental or physical delays, my parents would used the term handicapped, I grew up using the term disable, my DC’s generation uses the term special needs. This doesn’t make my old parents jerks, they just were not educated about the different implications of the words used. I think the best thing is to gently redirect and educate my parents (or people from a different genearation) not shaming them

It's inevitable that "special needs" will become the offensive word in 20 years. After all, what exactly is offensive about handicap or disabled? They describe the situation accurately. Your parents or grandparents were not insensitive, it's *you* that decided inoffensive words suddenly were insensitive and made them insensitive. The concept is still there regardless of the word being used to describe it, and that is why well-meaning people will forever be changing the words in a perpetual hunt for the offensive. Will the day come when we eventually run out of inoffensive words?

I am not sympathetic to OP. Her mother did not use the term "Chinese eyes" in a derogatory manner but as a flattery. I do think it would be fine to gently point out that child is not of Asian heritage and there are people who would find it uncomfortable, but to turn it into an existential angst is silly. But dare I say that no one is as delicate and easily offended as the white progressive female. Particularly someone who clearly has other issues with her family.

People like you are a scourge to humankind. You truly believe that you ignorance and insensitivity is intellect and fortitude. You refuse to see anything outside of your own experience, you are narrow minded, refuse to grow and add nothing to the betterment of society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

Sorry, but no. It’s not “they’re ooooold, they don’t knooooow any better.” They have lived a long life through many cultural changes, including this one, so they can and should be mature enough to know better. And they are damn well old enough to respect when a parent asks them to stop repeating the same stupid line about a child’s eyes.

Not sure if this is OP but my overall impression is that there is more at play here than the grandma inaproppriate comment. Some odd family dynamic. What is OP goal here? Encourage strangers to say how bad is her mom and how good she is?

[Anonymous]

This reminds me of my inlaws calling my 8 month old “Mongol” and “Mongolian”. We’re not Mongolian. I do know people used to use the name as an insult to mean “retard” or “imbecile”. I get irritated every time I hear it.

[Anonymous]

Just do it back to her. Tell her she has a nice French nose (or some European country you don't originate from). And if she says she's not French, say oh, close enough, all look same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

Sorry, but no. It’s not “they’re ooooold, they don’t knooooow any better.” They have lived a long life through many cultural changes, including this one, so they can and should be mature enough to know better. And they are damn well old enough to respect when a parent asks them to stop repeating the same stupid line about a child’s eyes.

Not sure if this is OP but my overall impression is that there is more at play here than the grandma inaproppriate comment. Some odd family dynamic. What is OP goal here? Encourage strangers to say how bad is her mom and how good she is?

I'm OP. Those posts above were not me.
There is a weird dynamic with my mom. Not my dad. My dad replied with a thoughtful long story about how he grew up and they're not prejudiced, and I could listen respectfully and say, "Yes, Dad. You are kind of lucky that you grew up in the countryside where people were judged on how hard they worked, not in a segregated area. I'm not saying you guys are racist, I'm saying that phrase is really racially insensitive and I would hate to have my daughter repeat it on the playground and hurt someone, the way similar comments hurt us." He's like, "Oh, okay, I didn't realize that." I explained how the pulling eyes thing is offensive too, and he LITERALLY had no idea. He didn't realize that's offensive. But he's willing to talk and discuss with empathy and care.
My mom... No. She believes we should be listening to HER. HER "generational wisdom." She is so offended that we would be "correcting" her. WE should know that that is not offensive, "People used to have a sense of humor about things," when I explain racism has hurt us on the playground (for example, girls have told my daughter she's a boy, not a girl, because her hair looks shorter when it's all curly, and my 4 year old daughter has to defend herself and her hair which pains me so badly as a white person who NEVER had to endure that kind of thing... Anyway, in all of that, when ask for just some empathy, She says, "Well, I feel SORRY for you," sorry that I "subscribe" to this worldview where racism exists. It's.... Complicated. Lol.

I needed to vent here because A) I did not want to keep the conversation going on once we'd dropped it and B) my husband is strong and confident enough to just say to me, "Yeah that's racist, but she's never going to change, that's why I don't sayy anything when I hear them say things like that." Whereas I often fall into the trap of thinking my mom might actually care enough to want to learn and grow and maybe empathize.

Also - she's a preacher. It's totally part of the dynamic. SHE knows how the world works and we should be listening to HER. Because SHE knows the real "forces of evil" in this world... It's a whole thing so yes, there's more to the story!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize even using the term "almond shaped" is insensitive when describing Asian eyes, but I figure it's still better than the original term she was using. I found a list of descriptors that would be make more sense to me - just describe an individual's eyes using terms like these if you really insist on commenting on their eyes:
Close-set
Wide-set
Hooded or deep-set
Prominent
Thin
Narrow
Heavy-lidded
Rounded

All of the above are more repugnant that almond shaped eyes. Pandas have almond shaped eyes. Is this racist?

Yeah, I just don't think almond-shaped eyes is a racist term. I'm 100% Caucasian and have almond shaped eyes. It's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize even using the term "almond shaped" is insensitive when describing Asian eyes, but I figure it's still better than the original term she was using. I found a list of descriptors that would be make more sense to me - just describe an individual's eyes using terms like these if you really insist on commenting on their eyes:
Close-set
Wide-set
Hooded or deep-set
Prominent
Thin
Narrow
Heavy-lidded
Rounded

All of the above are more repugnant that almond shaped eyes. Pandas have almond shaped eyes. Is this racist?

Yeah, I just don't think almond-shaped eyes is a racist term. I'm 100% Caucasian and have almond shaped eyes. It's fine.

OP here. This has become the norm. Just the origin of the phrase was by white men exoticizing Asian women. Nowadays apparently that origin is irrelevant and people use that phrase to describe eyes as wider and less round. So I have no issue with my mom using that phrase to describe my kids' eyes (although it gets annoying if she's pointing out the different shape of her/DH's eyes every day). It's the Chinese eyes phrase that I don't want used around my 3 young children. Partly because you can tell little ones not to say things but they pretty much repeat whatever they hear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you deal with racist comments from your parents (specifically when involving your children, their grandkids)?
Example: I'm white, my kids are mixed race (I'll just say my husband is not Asian).
On the phone several weeks ago, my mom made a comment about my husband's "Chinese eyes." I was kind of taken aback and was just like, "Um, okay, he's not Chinese..." Mentioned it to my husband who did not like it and we kind of laughed about the innocent racism; they don't realize it; they're not trying to be racist.
Now my parents are visiting us for a week, my mom makes the comment again but about my daughter, "She has Chinese eyes, I just love her Chinese eyes," and first of all this isn't something I want my daughter repeating on the playground, so I tell my mom to please don't say that, and she says, "Oh, okay, what am I supposed to say, 'almond eyes'?" I say yes, figured it was dropped.
Well today she made the comment again and I almost BLEW it. I don't want that phrase to be used, it's a racist phrase, she defends herself saying she's not racist, I retort I'm not calling you racist, just don't use that phrase because it does come across racist, and my children who are a whole other ethnicity have to endure similar kinds of comments on the playground and I'm wanting to teach them never to make a comment to someone like that - I tried explaining everything of what we've gone through and then trying to explain how generalizing these shaped eyes as "Chinese eyes" can be very insensitive...

Long story short she is so incensed we don't just listen to HER and we're all so easily offended and blah blah blah, she doesn't feel welcome in our home, made a sort of threat that she wouldn't be coming back because she doesn't want to be censored...
Agh I so badly want to think of her as empathetic and willing to learn but she just refuses!!
- help???

Can you please specify what the racist comment is?

Just saying you have beautiful XYZ eyes when you have beautiful XYZ eyes is not "racism."

Go find something else real to fight and attack in the world.

[Anonymous]

This must be a troll. making fun of white wannabe activists.

just stop. stop the trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you deal with racist comments from your parents (specifically when involving your children, their grandkids)?
Example: I'm white, my kids are mixed race (I'll just say my husband is not Asian).
On the phone several weeks ago, my mom made a comment about my husband's "Chinese eyes." I was kind of taken aback and was just like, "Um, okay, he's not Chinese..." Mentioned it to my husband who did not like it and we kind of laughed about the innocent racism; they don't realize it; they're not trying to be racist.
Now my parents are visiting us for a week, my mom makes the comment again but about my daughter, "She has Chinese eyes, I just love her Chinese eyes," and first of all this isn't something I want my daughter repeating on the playground, so I tell my mom to please don't say that, and she says, "Oh, okay, what am I supposed to say, 'almond eyes'?" I say yes, figured it was dropped.
Well today she made the comment again and I almost BLEW it. I don't want that phrase to be used, it's a racist phrase, she defends herself saying she's not racist, I retort I'm not calling you racist, just don't use that phrase because it does come across racist, and my children who are a whole other ethnicity have to endure similar kinds of comments on the playground and I'm wanting to teach them never to make a comment to someone like that - I tried explaining everything of what we've gone through and then trying to explain how generalizing these shaped eyes as "Chinese eyes" can be very insensitive...

Long story short she is so incensed we don't just listen to HER and we're all so easily offended and blah blah blah, she doesn't feel welcome in our home, made a sort of threat that she wouldn't be coming back because she doesn't want to be censored...
Agh I so badly want to think of her as empathetic and willing to learn but she just refuses!!
- help???

Why the hell does she repeatedly NEED to talk about the shape of people’s eyes anyway? Ugh.

Exactly! Everyone should just talk about the weather, that way everything won't be so offensive to someone so easily looking to be offended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Remember that your parents are from a different generation, they may not even know all the relatively new politically correct terms

Sorry, but no. It’s not “they’re ooooold, they don’t knooooow any better.” They have lived a long life through many cultural changes, including this one, so they can and should be mature enough to know better. And they are damn well old enough to respect when a parent asks them to stop repeating the same stupid line about a child’s eyes.

Not sure if this is OP but my overall impression is that there is more at play here than the grandma inaproppriate comment. Some odd family dynamic. What is OP goal here? Encourage strangers to say how bad is her mom and how good she is?

I'm OP. Those posts above were not me.
There is a weird dynamic with my mom. Not my dad. My dad replied with a thoughtful long story about how he grew up and they're not prejudiced, and I could listen respectfully and say, "Yes, Dad. You are kind of lucky that you grew up in the countryside where people were judged on how hard they worked, not in a segregated area. I'm not saying you guys are racist, I'm saying that phrase is really racially insensitive and I would hate to have my daughter repeat it on the playground and hurt someone, the way similar comments hurt us." He's like, "Oh, okay, I didn't realize that." I explained how the pulling eyes thing is offensive too, and he LITERALLY had no idea. He didn't realize that's offensive. But he's willing to talk and discuss with empathy and care.
My mom... No. She believes we should be listening to HER. HER "generational wisdom." She is so offended that we would be "correcting" her. WE should know that that is not offensive, "People used to have a sense of humor about things," when I explain racism has hurt us on the playground (for example, girls have told my daughter she's a boy, not a girl, because her hair looks shorter when it's all curly, and my 4 year old daughter has to defend herself and her hair which pains me so badly as a white person who NEVER had to endure that kind of thing... Anyway, in all of that, when ask for just some empathy, She says, "Well, I feel SORRY for you," sorry that I "subscribe" to this worldview where racism exists. It's.... Complicated. Lol.

I needed to vent here because A) I did not want to keep the conversation going on once we'd dropped it and B) my husband is strong and confident enough to just say to me, "Yeah that's racist, but she's never going to change, that's why I don't sayy anything when I hear them say things like that." Whereas I often fall into the trap of thinking my mom might actually care enough to want to learn and grow and maybe empathize.

Also - she's a preacher. It's totally part of the dynamic. SHE knows how the world works and we should be listening to HER. Because SHE knows the real "forces of evil" in this world... It's a whole thing so yes, there's more to the story!!!

I'm sorry your mom is so arrogant and willfully ignorant. Doesn't sound like she's going to change.