Reply to Is it ever worth not having a relationship with family over ideological issues?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yup. Done this repeatedly with racist and homophobic family members. Yes, you are free to have your hateful opinion. And I am free to not associate with such people.

I explain to my children (and my DH agrees) that when we do not call people out for this sort of thing, we are condoning it and allowing it to continue to grow and hurt people. We are complicit. And you folks who are like "grandma's nice but racist" are complicit. You are feeding this fire of hate. Ugly but true.[/quote]

Does calling out racism have to also be paired with cutting some one off from your life? I think it's possible to continue loving some one while abhorring some of their decisions. When grandma says something awful, you can say "Grams, that's racist and I think you should reflect on whether that's something you truly believe" but that doesn't have to result in grandma being excluded from Christmas. What would that teach Grandma anyway? Or your children? Or larger society? What does tearing up your family achieve? Maybe if you showed grandma unconditional love, while being honest and frank, she would feel comfortable enough to reevaluate the way she sees things. But if you're just going to threaten to take away her access to the grand kids, then she's going to be defensive and horrified at how you treat her - all she will remember is how you've victimized her and tore the family apart with your righteousness, when the story should be about how we're all one human family and we all deserve to be treated with respect and to be loved. When you deny that love to your family because you find their love too narrow, you've lost the point. Fighting hate with hate will always lose. [/quote]

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