Prejudiced Family Members and Acquaintances

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I was going to make the title “Racist Family Members and Acquaintances,” but I wanted to include the issue of hate towards people from other religions, cultures, ethnicities, nations, etc. Disagreeing with an ideology or government is different from hating the people, obviously. I do not believe that ideologies or governments should be above scrutiny. This thread is about various forms of prejudice towards people.

The main purpose here is to share any stories, rants, or anecdotes about people in your life, or any philosophical reflections you might have on the topic. Whatever floats your boat.

To put it very briefly, I view prejudice as a spectrum of beliefs/attitudes built on negative stereotypes. Most people have some degree of prejudice due to innate tribalism and the difficulty of relating to people with different languages, values, belief systems, and cultures. Indoctrination (systematic or otherwise) plays a large role, too.

Then you’ve got psychopathic nutjobs like my one grandfather who was in the KKK. (The other one wasn't much better, but I digress...) It seemed to just be another opportunity for him to engage in horrific, hateful behavior because extensive child abuse, which he served no jail time for, wasn’t enough. He even had the white robe and hood ensemble. Everyone knows that wearing white after Labor Day is a bad idea, not that it was a good idea before Labor Day, either.

I have an uncle with similarly abhorrent beliefs and behavior, but he’s serving life in prison, so that’s nice.

At any rate, I got to thinking about this topic because I was wondering how my psychopathic relatives would view the situation in Israel and Palestine. Since they don’t like Jews OR Muslims, I suspect that they’d want to level the entire region and turn it into a massive casino/strip joint. That sort of thing.

Other family members have problematic views about specific groups, but it’s more about ignorance than hate. They don’t think they are racist because they are not prejudiced towards people who are black. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they can be accepting towards one demographic but not another. Of course, prejudice, especially the use of negative stereotypes/overgeneralizations, seems to be more tolerated towards certain races, ethnicities, nations, etc. than others depending on one's specific locale, obviously. I find this topic fascinating and even briefly studied it in college sociology courses. Maybe my interest stems from my family history. Human behavior, in general, is fascinating. As I've stated elsewhere, I think that it can typically be understood when it is taken in context, especially on a macro level. Perhaps fewer folks would be so quick to dehumanize entire demographics, foregoing any and all compassion in the process, if this were more readily apparent.

I've been lucky to live among people who aren't racist or prejudiced toward any community. I'm sure it's out there in the population at large but my parents, my children, my friends, my colleagues, and my partners have always been very openminded and liberal, even the partners who were narcissists or abusive in other ways.

I don't socialise with very many people so it's rare for me to be exposed to bigots or people who are intolerant of differences. Here, it's taught in school and multiculturalism is the norm. I live in one of the most multicultural cities in the world, in a country which is also very accepting of diversity. The local public school's billboard is currently announcing that it's "Hindu Culture" month. Last month was Muslim. Every month has a different focus, or sometimes two, in addition to the regular curriculum. Yes, there is a Christian month as well, for people who will find this offensive. Actually, now I'm curious if there's an Atheism month. That would be cool.

Anyway, back to the OP's question, I'm racking my brain for examples and I thought of two. My dad and his dad used to crack a lot of jokes about French Canadians, even though they emigrated to Quebec from the UK and they lived in Quebec for several years. They called French Canadians "Frogs", which I think was a widespread slur back then. This would have been in the early 80s. My grandfather also hated the current Canadian flag when it replaced the Red Ensign in 1965. He refused to fly a maple leaf, saying it looked like it belonged on a can of Campbell's soup. I don't think that was racism or prejudice but rather his nod to the UK, because the Red Ensign included a Union Jack. He flew Red Ensigns on his boats and his property until he died in 1984.

The second thing I remember, although I may be misremembering, was back when I graduated 8th Grade. I was invited to the dance by a black guy. I remember my parents saying I couldn't go with him because my grandfather would "roll over in his grave" if I did. That's a weird memory because my parents weren't racist toward black people or interracial relationships, and I also realized that neither of my grandfathers were dead when I graduated 8th Grade. Maybe they said their own grandfather would roll in his grave, and not mine? I don't know but I remember something about graves, and being really confused because this was very out of character for them to say.

The examples that you described are mostly the sort of stuff I experienced from my family. Well, some of mine are a little worse. I wasn't around psychopathic relatives after the age of 5 or 6, so I'm sort of lucky in that regard, I suppose. I'm the one who found out that my estranged uncle was in prison after doing some family research. Seeing his mugshot was quite a shock. I kept my discovery a secret for many years.

ANYWAY, recently, a relative said that Indians (people from India, not Native Americans) are dirty. My mom said that men from the Middle East are misogynists. I don't think my family has ever known anyone from either region personally.

Then there are people - acquaintances - who are equating Palestinians with Hamas. In doing so, they are saying that all those people are terrorists. It seems to be an obvious attempt at justifying prejudice and the current massacre. It's pretty disturbing stuff.

Where I live there are a lot of Slavic people, so I remember some people taking sides in the Serbian / Croatian conflicts. There's also a large Ukrainian population in pockets of the city but also across the country, and particularly in the prairie provinces. My ex's family was Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian (his mum's side), and Scottish (his dad's side), so I spent a lot of time in the Ukrainian and Polish areas. My kids, therefore, have a complex heritage when added to my English Protestant and Irish background. My kids still like to partake in Ukrainian and Polish traditions particularly around the holidays, which means I do too.

We have a Catholic school system, a French Immersion system, and a public system, in addition to Islamic schools and other faiths. The Catholic system is mostly populated by Orthodox European families of various backgrounds (Slavic, French, German, Greek, Ukrainian, Polish), but also many Chinese and SouthEast Asian students. I didn't attend Catholic school but I know they have a reputation here for quite a bit of adversity between some of the different cultures, despite the fact they're united by Catholicism. The FI (French) schools have a high number of non-French students, because if they were French they'd opt for English schools to become more bilingual. The non-French students in FI tend to be white kids but I don't know what their family heritage is.

Some of my family members and acquaintances have negative views of Russians because of the war in Ukraine and religious persecution.

Equating a nation of people with its government appears to be a common human tendency, but it's usually very far removed from reality. Most people aren't going to endorse everything their government does even if they supported the specific political party initially.

A female friend of mine used to know a woman. She claimed to be all about gay rights and racial equality. Threw all that out of the window when she got a boyfriend.

She sent my friend a message asking 'Hey! My boyfriend wants to meet the group. However, he's super traditional, so can I ask a favour? I know you have a girlfriend but could you guys just pretend to be friends when he's around? He's not a fan of gay stuff you know. Of course I am, I used to go to Pride. It's just him. I don't want him to be uncomfortable. Oh, and if you could just invite your white friends that would be great. I know it's awkward but he really wants to meet the group!'

To which my friend obviously said 'Absolutely not' and showed us the messages so we could have a good laugh at the absurdity of such a request. It was bizarre because she worded it like she was asking us to be mindful of a peanut allergy or something.

That's disturbing on multiple levels. Do you think that he was abusive? I think I've seen that sort of thing the most in controlling relationships.

Wow - that's terrifying. I can't imagine someone being so bold as to put that in writing on text, let alone saying it, let alone even thinking it in the first place. You're a better person than I am for laughing it off. My exh and my daughter are both gay, and my close friend (exbf) is trans. I know a few other trans kids through my children, some of whom came out before puberty. My cousin's afab child is a trans man and actually had surgery just a couple of years ago, during Covid. I was going to mention in my first post that LGBTQ is also taught and accepted here, starting in early Primary school. Most schools, hospitals, ambulances, police cars, and public service places display Pride stickers or flags, if not all year then at least during Pride in June. Even the Catholic schools fly Pride flags.

Back to the topic of racism my kids used to be taught an integrated social-studies program called "Festival of Lights" every December in Primary (K-6). "Festival of Lights" was about the commonalities between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and the way these different faiths all celebrated light at the darkest season of the year. My kids learned about Diwali, Hanukkah, and Christmas, as well as Orthodox Christmas. The topics of study became increasingly mature as they aged from year to year, and at some points included the rudimentary basics of religious education, despite the fact they attended public schools.

When I taught AP High School Philosophy I was involved as the school's lead-teacher in an initiative called "The Peace Tree", which was begun by a Muslim Master's student from York University in Toronto. I believe "The Peace Tree" was used as her MRP but I'm not certain. "The Peace Tree" was designed to increase awareness and understanding between Muslims and Christians, with particular reference to cultural events like Eid, Ramadan, and Christmas. It was produced in the years following 9/11 during the Iraq war.

"The Peace Tree" included a cross-curricular teaching unit for all ages beginning in Primary but extending to adulthood. The author made a feature-length movie and a CD of music for arts teachers and choirs to implement. There was a yearly "Peace Tree" celebration where participating schools and teachers from across the country (world) would come together in various cities and plant a tree in the name of peace.

I know this is an example of good pedagogy rather than racism or prejudice, but I thought you might be interested to know how multiculturalism is approached here in our education system, and in our nation's values.

Here's a link to the movie which I have on DVD. It's my all-time favourite "Christmas" movie (I say that because I watch it in December). I'll send you a pic of the "The Peace Tree" teaching material later on. Maybe I can even link some songs.






https://youtu.be/Qqotwcu3U6A?feature=shared


The Peace Tree, written and produced by Mitra Sen
Sandalwood Productions


"The Peace Tree has been invited to over 50 film festivals including Tribeca Film Festival. The film has also received twelve international awards including the Liv Ullmann Peace Prize and triggered the creation of Peace Trees internationally and the proclamation of Peace Tree Day on June 1st, 2006 by Mayor David Miller in the City of Toronto."

A common prejudice among older adults in the USA is crossdressing.
M*A*S*H was TV show in the 1970s. Corporal Klinger tried to get out of the service by dressing as a woman!
Young adults don't have the same prejudice seen in older adults.

I think it's possible. Unfortunately, contact was cut afterwards and we don't know what happened to her. It's something I wonder about, how she ended up knowing him. Whether her actions were forced or done out of fear, or if she went with whatever was easiest and it had all just been performative in the first place. We probably could have handled it better, looking back. Or maybe not. I don't know.

I wasn't intending on criticizing your reaction at all. It probably would've been impossible to get through to her no matter what at that point. That was a rather extreme request for her to make.

I used to have relatives (mostly grandparents in terms of their age/status) who were racist. One of my parents used to be racist (and was brought up in an environment which was racist which has rubbed off on them a little, though mostly they don't express any bigoted beliefs or viewpoints any more/today).

Considering that the grandparents of millennials could be born in the time before WW1 or during WW1 or during or around/before WW2, it really isn't surprising that they were racist and that they were a product of their time.

It was normal for the 'n' word, for example, to be in use even by politicians in private at least back then, so imagine what the lower classes were like?

Colonialism largely ended after world war two for Britain, since the British empire and its colonies was essentially given up/given back in large part, so before that, imperialist attitudes were more accepted, though thankfully Britain fought the Nazis because of their extreme, tyrannical attitudes in this respect (at least that was part of the reason).

It is fairly common to meet racist folk even in today's world, though more people in my experience frown upon such attitudes.

Even in the nineties, there was the Pat character on SNL. It's pretty cringey to look back on, but at the time, it was considered perfectly acceptable to make fun of people who didn't appear to fit into established gender norms.

My parents were born in 1934 and 1938, respectively, in England. Their parents were all born in 1912 in England. That means my grandparents were babies during The Great War, and my parents grew up during WW2. Many of my ancestors served in war, for England, for Canada, and even for USA. (My American uncle was in Vietnam).

My parents were never racist, even toward Germans. In fact my mother's best friend of fifty years is German.

They didn't teach any bigotry to my kids, who were all born in the 90s, or to me and my brother. The only examples I remember were the ones I've listed below. The rest of my life they were very encouraging about multiculturalism and tolerance.

I know of course, this might be unusual though.

Of course there were exceptions.

I think my point was that people generally used to be more racist, especially in the colonial era, for obvious reasons. It is a self evident truth. You only have to look at the language of books from that era, even. Not all of them, but definitely some of them (I have read books from around the 1900's that contain the 'n' word') - which wouldn't even get published today.

I think racism is/was more common in working class families, or the under-class (people who don't have jobs/are badly educated/may be from poor backgrounds).

Again, there will inevitably be exceptions to the general trends.

^^ Would you have gone to the dance with him if they hadn't discouraged you?

Overall, my parents were accepting, especially if the people in question shared the same religious beliefs, but they still had some degree of prejudice. I view prejudice as being on a spectrum rather than as an all or nothing thing. Perhaps most people in the world have some degree of it - racial or otherwise. Stereotyping and overgeneralizations appear to be a human thing. Tribalism is too. I think that awareness is key.

My family would've been cool if I had married my first boyfriend who was black. They might have been less cool about certain other races until after they got to know him.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 07 Nov 2023, 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.