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So, GAF, I had to give my two cousins "the talk"

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theusedversion said:
Maybe the old white lady was a bit senile. That can happen with old age. Or perhaps she just honestly didn't understand how offspring for interracial couples work. It wouldn't completely surprise me if that were the case. She could just be sheltered and honestly have no clue. Regardless, I'm sorry you had to go through that.
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How would that even be possible?
 
theusedversion said:
Maybe the old white lady was a bit senile. That can happen with old age. Or perhaps she just honestly didn't understand how offspring for interracial couples work. It wouldn't completely surprise me if that were the case. She could just be sheltered and honestly have no clue. Regardless, I'm sorry you had to go through that.
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....

I'm sure even the most racist asshole isn't stupid enough to not know blacks and whites can have babies.
 
CrushDance said:
This isn't necessarily true. This is fundamentally about cause and effect in society. You would be hard pressed for example, to argue that the past dehumanization of certain groups, holds no weight on how they are treated in the present. Yes, times change and so do the people. But most people have children, instill them with their beliefs and experiences and we end up back where we started. Saying that something is "wrong" doesn't stop people from believing or teaching it, for good or for bad. If your stance were true, we would have no young children uttering some of the things that they say in 2015. There is no "cycle" to be broken, just very tiny steps forward. And those steps can always be washed away when things get stupid.

The idea that humanity is "moving forward" and that some of the things we've done or are doing, will never happen again, has never held water when we take a look at history. Very few people or groups set out to be genocidal, xenophobic or barbaric.
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Yeah...you've extrapolated a lot from my post. It is factually true that the OP's young cousins have a greater chance of influencing the future, than that old lady currently does (most especially because she is likely to die soon). That's the only stance stated in my post. I'm not arguing that the past has no effect on the future. I'm simply stating that the old lady's most influential years have passed, while the absolute opposite is true for the OP's cousins.
 
Rembrandt said:
Or she was just racist, you know, that's possible and more likely. Idk why some people act like its hard to fathom that a lot of people are just racist assholes and have no problem showing it. I wouldn't be surprised if she felt her old age would let her get away with the comment.
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Possibly. But I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt instead of accusing them of something based on assumptions.
 
Rembrandt said:
I doubt it. Even GAF has its share of "I don't see race" people along with just pure racists and ignorant people.
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rude said:
racism is passed down from the old to the young. sorry to tell you that.
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True. I was just thinking in the sense that these are people that come from an era where discrimination against people due to their race or sexuality was more socially acceptable back then, the more time passes and these people die off the bigger the chances somebody who grew up in a more socially acceptable home comes along. Racists in the future will exist but non-racists should hopefully be the grand grand majority so it becomes infrequent.

At least that's what I'm hoping.
 
I don't understand how someone could be so dense. I mean, rub some brain cells together and figure this shit out. Either, parents are of two different races, or kids are adopted. End of story. Also none of that lady's freaking business. Why the hell do you need to approach someone and ask this out-loud and make them feel awkward or bad about it?

FWIW OP, it sounds like your cousins' un-jaded take and outlook might be exactly what they need right now. Expecting the good outta people and believing that they wouldn't stoop to such stupidity, etc.
 
Vizantir said:
....

I'm sure even the most racist asshole isn't stupid enough to not know blacks and whites can have babies.
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I didn't mean to suggest that. I just meant in regards to skin color. A lot of different colors can come from interracial couples. Sorry, I should have been more clear.
 
theusedversion said:
Possibly. But I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt instead of accusing them of something based on assumptions.
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You're a good person. I wonder what you would have said if she asked how those nigger babies were hers. Product of her times? Senile? Off her meds? Husband left her for a black lady?


Admiral Woofington said:
True. I was just thinking in the sense that these are people that come from an era where discrimination against people due to their race or sexuality was more socially acceptable back then, the more time passes and these people die off the bigger the chances somebody who grew up in a more socially acceptable home comes along. Racists in the future will exist but non-racists should hopefully be the grand grand majority so it becomes infrequent.

At least that's what I'm hoping.
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I forget what thread it was but it had stats about race stuff and a lot of younger people still thought black people were the results of their failures, meaning they were in denial of the systems in place to harm black people. It was pretty sad and eye opening.
 
The fuck. That kind of shit would get you punched in Australia, and we can be racist at times but not to that extent (for the most part). No one should be questioned in public about their choice of life, be it having children with anyone in the world. Old lady was a racist through and through.

Also its disgusting how some people are defending the racist outburst. Seriously? Why?
 
HowZatOZ said:
The fuck. That kind of shit would get you punched in Australia, and we can be racist at times but not to that extent (for the most part). No one should be questioned in public about their choice of life, be it having children with anyone in the world. Old lady was a racist through and through.

Also its disgusting how some people are defending the racist outburst. Seriously? Why?
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I mean if I'm gonna play devil's advocate, she might have truly just been insanely, beyond stupid as opposed to malicious, but she should still know better than to question someone publicly over something like this. How is it of any concern to her, and what makes her think she's entitled to an answer?
 
Not the talk I expected from the thread title, but somehow ten times more depressing. Can't imagine how soul crushing that may be, but if their parents are intelligent as you say I'm sure those kids will turn out alright and if there is indeed some self-hatred brewing, that can be sorted out.

I don't even know how I'd tackle the issue myself outside of generally telling them to be proud of everything about themselves, but 10 year olds are pretty smart nowadays and will be looking for something more complex in an answer.
 
What a weird reaction. How out-of-touch would someone have to be to be shocked at an interracial couple having kids?

I mean, if she was just straight-up upset about it you could just assume she was a racist and there was nothing more to it, but to be shocked just seems weird.
 
PaulloDEC said:
What a weird reaction. How out-of-touch would someone have to be to be shocked at an interracial couple having kids?

I mean, if she was just straight-up upset about it you could just assume she was a racist and there was nothing more to it, but to be shocked just seems weird.
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I'm half curious to find out what her reaction would have been if someone bothered giving her the bird and the bees talk and how it applies to interracial couples as well. Like, what, was her mind gonna be blown?
 
dokish said:
The defence force here is ridiculous. I bet the color of those defending the lady.
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This defense force crap needs to stop. Suggesting an alternative reason does not equate to supporting this lady. If I had to bet money, I would say she was likely racist but even so I think it's not healthy to jump to conclusions and automatically assign guilt. Whatever the reason, she was wrong and clearly needs to be educated. Suggesting that only certain skin colors (whites?) would offer an alternative reason (defense force) is ridiculous and sounds racist to me. But then again I won't jump to conclusions.
 
I thought 'the talk' was about the police specifically for black Americans (and about sex for everyone else).

We're going to need to classify these talks in case someone ends up having sex with a racist policeman.
 
Well just like everyone else, I was expecting something else :P

but frankly wtf is wrong with that lady. I honestly wouldnt expect to hear those type of comments happening. I want to say I understand your situation since one of my best friend, whose white, sister is black. But I truly do not. My apologizes if I offended anyone in any sense.
 
I'm Turkish and a few times when my sister was little, my Mum was asked if my sister was her daughter. My sister has light brown hair and has gray/blue/green eyes, my Mum has black hair and brown eyes. But both are white skinned, so I never understood it, perhaps my sister's facial structure looked more racially white and my Mum's more ethnic, so these white English people were shocked that an ethnic could have such a beautiful white baby?

I myself have kind of experienced it too. I have olive skin and curly black hair, and even people in our ethnic homeland in Turkey are shocked we're brother and sister because of how contrasting we are in looks (though it is common in Turkey to have siblings with diverse phenotypes, so I suppose I shouldn't read too much into that). Also showing non-Turkish people pictures of my relatives and being told: "Wow they look white".

It's kind of different to OP's tale of racial dynamics in America, but it nonetheless gets on my nerves. Turks are perceived as non-white even though many Turks are indeed white looking. It's never made sense to me, I suppose people just think Turks are Muslim, Muslim = non-white and leave it at that.
 
It's important we entertain the idea the old lady was every possible permutation of naive, ignorant, confused, senile, drunk, rude, just had a salty lunch, etc etc before we admit she was probably just been a racist viscerally reacting to interracial children.
 
TacticalFox88 said:
No anything with racial issues counts
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It never even crossed my mind that this was "the talk". But it makes complete sense now that I think about it, sadly. This is likely something I am going to have to deal with at some point if I have children, so I find this very interesting and sad.

The storeworker probably didn't mean ill of it but was incredibly insensitive(though this may be very naive!). It makes me wonder how they could function in day to day life and in a customer service position. I have to do a lot of work with internationals/people of varying age and you learn quickly to not make any assumptions. Treat everyone the same and you will be fine. But how can an adult think that this was an acceptable thing to say - we all know how interracial parentage works...
 
Your average American doesn't know 7th grade biology enough to know that traits can be passed on genetically, I guess. Sup, Common Core?
 
I can't believe people are defending this woman, even after you see the hurt she caused. White people don't get to decide what is racist against black people. Doesn't matter what the old lady's intent was, it comes from a place of racism where a white woman could not possibly have black kids. It is a culmination of all this interracial family has probably suffered.

People who have never lived racism have a hard time accepting how awful people really are. In fact suggesting racism/discriminstion doesn't exist is racist in itself. suggesting alternate intents diminishes how hurt this woman felt. People should use this situation to realize what racism feels like.

The subtext of this woman's words it's clear. If she was curious all she had to ask is "are those your kids?"
 
The important thing to remember here is, eventually they will grow up to realise. During the process as much guidance to point them in the right direction (ie acceptance over revenge or counter-hate) is needed, obviously you won't be there as much, but the mother will have the most influence and she is the one feeling the most hurt by this emotionally.

So basically my advice would be, re-assure the mother as much as possible show her love/compassion/hapiness whatever to make her feel better, because she will have the most influence on her own children, and if she feels down about it, this will reflect on her two boys aswell.
 
I wouldn't even have engaged the woman with a response...because we kind of all knew where that was going. Sorry this happened. I'm sorry this still happens...and will continue to happen.

=(
 
Fucking sad that some folks in this thread are defending that lady. How out of touch and lacking empathy are you?


RoadHazard said:
That's not "the talk". Good on you for explaining, but the "she's a mean lady" part was a bit unnecessary. How about "an uneducated lady"?



Ignorance? Just because you don't understand the genetics of how a white woman might have black children you're not automatically a raging racist. Why not try to educate instead of just telling them to fuck off? But "everything is racist" is the default mindset for a lot of people I guess.
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And just like the other talk being ignorant of the subject can get you dead.

bobbychalkers said:
Its the other talk for approximately ~14% of the U.S. population.
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Yeah and sadly we got to learn it early because when society see little black boys and girls they see adults.
 
As a dude who's had a similar conversation with my mixed nephew, I feel you. Hell, I'm white and have had to deal with racism/people who didn't accept my brother's choice from within my own family. Your cousins had the good attitude with her just being a mean, ignorant lady. Even if it's not the complete picture. People are gonna judge each other over the stupidest shit, and not letting it get to you is crucial.
 
I've had similar situations. I'm white, my girlfriend and her brother are black, and her brother married a white woman. Their daughter is pretty white, and their son is pretty black. It's a mix of everything. We were all hanging out a while ago, and I went to McDonalds to get some food for everyone. The kids wanted to come along so I took them. The youngest had to go to the bathroom, and he can't go by himself yet, so I had to walk into the bathroom with this little black kid to help him do his business, and I had to take the daughter as well because I couldn't just leave her by herself. Got some odd looks, and after we were finished we went back to wait for our food. After a while the manager came up to us and asked if he could talk to me in private. Told me someone complained and if I could explain what my relation to these kids was. I got annoyed and asked him if we would be having that conversation if both those kids were white, and that we've been in that McDonalds many times before without any problems. He seemed really embarrassed about the whole thing though, apologized and said that that sort of thing happened more often and that they have to respond to complaints like that in some way for legal reasons. He did give us free ice cream for everyone though, so I guess that's neat.

It sucks that there are still people out there who think like that. When I came home and told my girlfriend's brother and his wife the story they just sighed and said that that sort of thing happened a lot for them, especially when the black father is walking around with just the white daughter somewhere.
 
GAF needs a script that stickies this thread and automatically redirects posters to it every time they unironically say we live in a post-racial America.
 
Feel bad for mom who is obviously very proud of her kids.

The woman could just straight up be racist (which would mean that she was implying how a stereotypically blonde woman could have an interracial relationship) or she could just be ignorant. In general the way skin tones work due to genetics is pretty crazy to begin with.
 
My family is so awesome and I wasn't really aware that overt, hateful racism (let alone passive racism) even existed until I was a young teen. I saw my grandma and grandpa having scores of young black men over for dinner (my uncle is a high school athletic director and was a basketball coach) and still follow up with them and their families to this day, my aunt married interracially without so much as a hiccup from our family, and my dad hires black and Hispanic employees without a second thought.

One of my best friends, who shares my name (I was named after Michael Jordan), was black and in jr high I saw him get in a fight with a kid when they called him the n-word. I told my mom about it in tears because I just didn't think that happened anymore...

Good on you OP. I'm sorry that your cousins didn't believe you, but you did the right thing. Having this "talk" is something I don't really even have to think about because of my skin color. Racism blows.
 
RoadHazard said:
That's not "the talk". Good on you for explaining, but the "she's a mean lady" part was a bit unnecessary. How about "an uneducated lady"?



Ignorance? Just because you don't understand the genetics of how a white woman might have black children you're not automatically a raging racist. Why not try to educate instead of just telling them to fuck off? But "everything is racist" is the default mindset for a lot of people I guess.
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Racism is the epitome of ignorance. It's like pure ignorance condensed down to it's pure form. And I'm tired of having to accommodate it. Be patient with it.

What the lady said was racist as fuck.
 
Holy shit.

OP, sorry you and yours experienced that, because it's flat out ridiculous.

Edit: Editing to call it what it is...classic racism.
 
Fuck man, that sucks. Its really hard to explain some stuff to kids.

But I feel like you could have beat around the bush and just agreed that she was a crazy mean lady(clearly she was).

While I don't believe in sheltering kids they probably don't need to feel awkward about their skin color yet.

I'm dreading the day I'll have to have a similar talk because my GF is pretty dark Mexican, but her two kids from her previous marriage are pretty dark as well, but I'm white as fuck so I know at some point someone's gonna say something to piss me the fuck off.
 
-MD- said:
And then the conversation ends. Why do you feel the need to be outraged by it?
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I can see how someone asking a question that should have a really obvious answer is annoying and insensitive. I don't think it rises to the level of "what a foul beast, racism!" lament in the OP, but I can imagine she's gotten it plenty of times in her life.
 
TacticalFox88 said:
Holy fucking shit. I don't even remember what my aunt said but she just told her to fuck off basically. I was completely furious. The only reason I didn't say anything was because I would've gave off the impression of the angry black man in a store where I was a total minority.

When we got home, my aunt was almost in tears. She was nowhere near as talkative as usual
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I'm sorry to hear about what happened and that woman was ignorant as fuck, but this kind of reaction really fuels the fire to some degree. People are dumb and ignorant and I don't blame your aunt reacting in the way she did, but I feel that hostility towards people like that usually does more harm than good. It only makes them more defensive and resistant to changing their views. If she'd said 'Well, their father is black. Is that something you find hard to believe?' or something along those lines, from a place of pitying her ignorance then I think there are more positive outcomes all round. You still let the woman know she's an ignorant piece of shit and hopefully make her question it, and for your aunt's own esteem and helping in not letting people like that woman get to her which is something the woman was likely after anyway by saying what she said.

Again, I don't blame your aunt for her reaction, and I probably sound somewhat insensitive and ignorant myself but I feel that any hostility and anger directed at people that are prejudice (not just racist, but sexist, homophobic etc) doesn't really help change attitudes but can hinder that change. Also I'm not saying that your aunt should take some responsibility for that woman's ignorance, it's just how I feel about telling people to fuck off and getting angry. Anger is natural, but I feel it's never really resolves anything.

If I'm wrong, feel free to tell me to fuck off.
 
sounds like the lady was ignorant and completely lacking in tact, but every child needs to learn about racism and prejudice at some point. good thing they have someone to look up to that understands.
 
racist southern grandmas are gonna live out their racist southern grandma life.

obviously shes just a crazy racist, but it's just a matter of the times she grew up in.



personally I don't think you needed to give them this talk, esp at that age.

just stirring the pot and incepting an idea that they haven't experienced first hand.
 
Jaffaboy said:
I'm sorry to hear about what happened and that woman was ignorant as fuck, but this kind of reaction really fuels the fire to some degree. People are dumb and ignorant and I don't blame your aunt reacting in the way she did, but I feel that hostility towards people like that usually does more harm than good. It only makes them more defensive and resistant to changing their views. If she'd said 'Well, their father is black. Is that something you find hard to believe?' or something along those lines, from a place of pitying her ignorance then I think there are more positive outcomes all round. You still let the woman know she's an ignorant piece of shit and hopefully make her question it, and for your aunt's own esteem and helping in not letting people like that woman get to her which is something the woman was likely after anyway by saying what she said.

Again, I don't blame your aunt for her reaction, and I probably sound somewhat insensitive and ignorant myself but I feel that any hostility and anger directed at people that are prejudice (not just racist, but sexist, homophobic etc) doesn't really help change attitudes but can hinder that change. Also I'm not saying that your aunt should take some responsibility for that woman's ignorance, it's just how I feel about telling people to fuck off and getting angry. Anger is natural, but I feel it's never really resolves anything.

If I'm wrong, feel free to tell me to fuck off.
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It's not minorities' jobs to educate every single racist they encounter. It is 20 fuckiing 15, if you don't know where babies come from, a woman shopping for hotdog buns at sams club shouldn't have to tell you AND give you a history lesson too.


What about the Racist feelings? What about the Racist feelings? Every fucking thread I swear. How about the minority feelings for once?
 
Some people really need to become more familiar with Occam's Razor O_O

Do people REALLY think its more likely that an older woman doesn't know how human biology works than that she's racist? REALLY?

Also while Racism has gradations, all forms of it and ignorance kind of go hand and hand so saying "it's just ignorance" isn't really saying much at all.
 
Really, really, REALLY depressed that this didn't turn out to be the birds and the bees.

You're black correct? What did your parents tell you at that age? Don't scare them but certainly don't sugar coat the reality of racism in the US.
 
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