White Americans do older family members talk about prejudice their families had with minorities in the past?
Posted by SignificantStyle4958@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 60 comments
I hope this doesn’t come across as bad bath, I know this doesn’t apply to all white Americans. But were you aware of family members being part of the klan or if they support segregation, red lines, or just discrimination against minorities?
maimou1@reddit
Oh my. My very racist mother told us about her dad taking the family to KKK rallies in the 1930s. The kids could tell which sheet wearing idiot was dad bc they had to polish his shoes he wore. And I've just recently posted a comment about mom telling a black waiter "You look like our people! My family owned your family!" This was in the 1970s! I cut contact with my parents in 1988.
Toby5508@reddit
How old is your mom?
maimou1@reddit
She was born in 1928 and died in 2022, aged 94. I had no contact with her from 1988 on.
TrixieLurker@reddit
Going by the fact she was old enough to remember events from the 1930s, at least in her Nineties now.
Grand_Raccoon0923@reddit
Why do you think this is just a white thing?
ZaphodG@reddit
My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch. I doubt she saw many black people in the flesh until she went to the University of Pennsylvania in 1950. She lived in a small town that was most likely 100% white. Penn in 1950 was very white. Philadelphia only had 375,000 black people with population 2 million.
My father was in High School when WW II broke out. He lived in a city that was very white European multicultural but with a very small black population. Black was largely Cape Verdean, not descended from slavery.
My mother was a university professor. She made a point of not being racist. My father was a doctor and was pretty typical of a white professional in the 1950s and 1960s. Not overtly racist but had enough hooker / junkie exposure to have prejudice typical of the era.
The old lady schoolteacher next door was Boston/Roxbury white flight. Her views on racial purity would have made Hitler proud.
urquhartloch@reddit
No. My family was never a part of anything like that. The most racist thing they talked about was welfare queens and that they had an expectation that people should get a job and better themselves.
Aware_Acanthaceae_78@reddit
My family didn’t talk about it. They moved from Quebec to the us around 1900. One of my grandmothers would use ethnic slurs but also had black and Hispanic friends. I honestly don’t know what to make of her racism. We did talk about her racism though.
molten_dragon@reddit
I've always called that "old person racism". It's racist, but it's not the hateful targeted sort of racist. It's just the "that's how they grew up and they didn't change with the times" sort of racist.
It's going to happen to every generation. Maybe not racism but it'll be something.
AnywhereNearOregon@reddit
My mom only tells me that she can't be racist because the homecoming queen at her high school was black. Otherwise both of my parents fall firmly in the "Polite company doesn't talk about such things" category of Southern.
Bluemonogi@reddit
I don’t know. My family was from Iowa and not a super diverse area. A lot of the older family members were dead before I was born. I never really heard that anyone was anti minority.
Pirate_Lantern@reddit
I only ever heard one sort of racist thing from my grandfather. He grew up during The Depression.
Firm-Plantain8151@reddit
My parents refuse to acknowledge their own prejudice, much less that of their parents. My grandmother was a child in nazi Germany, I'm confident she had some of those views. My mom feels safer going to Israel during war time than to South America, cuz of gangs. My dad is one of those "but I have black friends, I can't be racist" guys who nevertheless talks down to people of color ALL THE TIME and refuses to acknowledge that he treats them as less than white people. They have two trans kids, one of whom came out almost 20 years ago, but my mom still thinks it's a mental illness and with the right kind of therapy and enough prayer my sister will go back to being a man. Not once have I ever heard anything but glowing memories of my grandparents or great grandparents.
the one good thing I have going for me is that my roots on the american side are solidly from Minnesota (we were some of the first settlers, apparently, so definitely had conflict with the Ojibwe), so at least we weren't slave owners. but yeah, I wish they'd be more open to talking about it.
PuppySnuggleTime@reddit
Sounds like you have a firm handle on your parents’ prejudice. But in defense of Germans, I just wanna say that not all of them shared those beliefs. They were just too fucking afraid to say otherwise because their lives were in danger too. I knew someone who lived through that era in Germany, and she talked extensively about how her family opposed everything that Hitler stood for, but that they couldn’t say anything to anyone about it because neighbors spied on neighbors. They literally had people who would come through and look for any word of mouth to ferret out “non-believers.” The most they could get away with was tiny rebellions. So, for example, her family ran a bakery, and every time the guy that monitored their neighborhood would come in. She’d always find an excuse to turn around and look in the oven. That required her to bend over and show him her ass. It was her quiet little “fuck you.”
Firm-Plantain8151@reddit
very good point. Sadly, with what I know about my grandmother, I'm fairly sure she was more aligned with the neighborhood monitor than your friend. I don't think she was directly involved with the nazi party, but I'm decently sure she believed their ideals.
maggy_boi_x@reddit
My great grandfather was a card carrying member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic extremist organization that successfully changed the United States motto from "E Pluribus Unum" to "In God We Trust", added "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, and organized politically charged protests against civil rights, mainly targeting abortion centers. He never killed anyone, but he did get arrested in Wichita during one of his pickets at an abortion center where he refused to state his name for over 24 hours, of in which WPD was forced to let him go without a charge. He was so proud of his work with the Knights of Columbus, that it's one of the few things put on his obituary.
Source: https://www.brown-bennett-alexander.com/obituary/PAUL-MAGATHAN
La_noche_azul@reddit
I’m Hispanic and grew up in a mostly Asian area, I’ll tell you racism directed towards black Americans isn’t just a white thing.
Powerful_Image6294@reddit
For sure, I have a mixed Hispanic/Asian extended family (half of my aunts and uncles married Latinos), and that sort of anti-black prejudice exists especially in the immigrant generation. I do think a lot of it is out of pure ignorance to the socioeconomic systematic struggles black people have had to endure, since the “poster boy” for the American dream abroad has always been a white nuclear family, but of course that doesn’t excuse the prejudice
IcySeaworthiness3272@reddit
My family is from the South and my dad grew up during segregation. He was born in 1941. One of his favorite 'party jokes' is to tell us how grateful and amazed his black housekeeper was to get to eat watermelon. He goes full Shakespeare mode making it sound as 'authentic' as possible. Then he'll remember another racist thing.
He has dementia, but COME ON. Read the room. No one is laughing. I tell him no one wants to hear his racist stories. He insists they aren't 'stories', but are important facts of life. I'm the one who will call him out on it (if he and I are in the same room together), but it's because it's easier for everyone to ignore and change the topic.
On another note. He stopped talking to me for 10 years when I married a non-white. And wouldn't meet my son! They finally met when he was 11.
DummyThiccDude@reddit
I never really talked much with my grandparents, so i cant really say on that end.
My parents do have some iffy moments that make me pause when i hear them. I dont think they're racist or malicious about it, but there is prejudice there.
MsPooka@reddit
My mom is in her 80s. She had mentioned that all of her dad's family were racist. Not klan racist, but just normal racists. I remember talking with my great uncle, he was born about 1920, and we were talking about women in the military and he said that women shouldn't be in the military. Afterward I talked to my mom and she said that all the old people in her family are all sexist and racist.
She grew up in a northern city with a large minority black population and I can't remember how we got on the subject, but she said she never saw black people growing up. I was like, how was that possible? The city wasn't segregated. But she said they stayed on their side of town. The way things used to be sounds crazy.
Drew707@reddit
My (liberal) grandparents (mid 80s) recently retired to one of the first LGBTQ+ retirement communities in the country and can't stop talking about how much they "love the gays". They have been in the Bay Area since the 70s, so it isn't like heteronormativity is the only thing going on around them the whole time, but it is interesting hearing their stories as educators here, a short stint in Utah, and their upbringing in rural Washington. They love where they have landed and I am happy they have found a community.
Capital-Yogurt6148@reddit
One side of my (step)family is the white redneck stereotypes who are the first to tell you they’re not racist and then immediately follow it up with, “but I don’t feel a need to be friends with ‘them.’” (“Them” being whatever minority group they’re discussing at the time.) Complete lack of self-awareness to this day, so, no, they’re not gonna reflect on past prejudices because they’re still current.
Another side of my family is Puerto Rican. My grandmother was super racist. I can remember when I was only four or five years old, I was helping her clean out a closet and, entirely unprompted, she started lecturing me about how, when I start dating, I shouldn’t date black guys. “They’re not for you. You stay away.” But the rest of that side of the family is very open, accepting. Everyone was quick to call her out when she said anything like that.
Then there’s the side of my family I grew up with. They’re also white, but there’s a lot of interracial marriage and adoption, so no one is hung up on race. The whole reason I’m commenting here is to tell you a story from this side of the family that is the complete opposite of what you asked:
A decade or so ago, I spent the day with my great-great-aunt. (My grandfather’s aunt, or my great-grandfather’s sister, if that makes it easier to understand the relationship.) She was 97 at the time, the oldest living relative on that side. An incredible woman in her own right, but that’s a story for another time.
We spent most of the day going through her photo albums, with her telling me story after story. We got to a picture of her father (my great-great-grandfather) and she told me how he was the fire chief in their small Long Island town. Then she went on to tell the story of the first Black family who moved into the town.
The father was the town’s new garbage collector. Not long after they moved there, their house burned down. (The implication was that it wasn’t an accident.) Afterward, my great-great-grandfather launched a donation drive to help the family rebuild. He got all the other families in town to donate whatever they could — food, clothing, furniture, money, etc. — and the whole town saw to it that this family got back on their feet.
I was already welling with pride when my aunt mentioned, almost in passing, that one of the big newspapers in NYC (I think she said it was the Times, but I’m not 100%) did a little blurb about her father/the town, with a headline that read something like, “N*-Loving Long Island Town Helps Family Rebuild.” She shook her head as she said it, remarking about how crazy it was that newspapers could print something like that back then.
I’ve made several attempts since then to try to track down that article, even reaching out to a historian friend of mine in Canada for suggestions on how to find it, but I haven’t been successful yet. I don’t even know what I would do with it if I found it. It’s not like I want to display something with that language. But it also feels like a badge of honor for our family.
Anyhow, like I said, it’s kind of the exact opposite of what you asked for, but I felt it was still on topic. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to retell it!
GrowlingAtTheWorld@reddit
My mom used to tell of moving to the south from upstate NY where she was born and raised and how it was like stepping back in time and they still had colored drinking fountains in Louisiana.
CK1277@reddit
My mother was born in 1954 and grew up in New Orleans. She’s told us a lot about her childhood.
She remembers the night before all the public playgrounds were going to be desegregated and all the neighborhood men (including my grandfather) gathered at her house with shoves, pick axes, and other tools. They went out and destroyed the playgrounds rather than allow them to be desegregated.
She remembers a mixed race woman being hired to teach at her Catholic school and the parents (including her own) threatening to pull their kids. But at the same time, they saved their change to send aid to save “the little pagan babies” in Africa. She couldn’t understand why they didn’t like the black teacher but they wanted to help the black babies.
She remembers being very young and going to the store with my grandmother. She was looking at a toy display while my grandmother shopped. A man came up behind her and said something threatening (I don’t remember what. She knows, but I forget that detail) and then he disappeared into the store. She never saw the man, but it scared her so she ran and told my grandmother who told the store manager. She remembers being presented with a black man and they asked her if he was the one who did it. She kept saying she didn’t know because she never saw his face and my grandmother kept telling her it was ok to say he did it. Thank God she didn’t give in, I’m sure they would have lynched him.
My grandparents got a lot less racist over the years, but we were distant from them for a variety of reasons.
PuppySnuggleTime@reddit
You should get your mother to record those memories or write them down. They helped to frame the history.
MacaroonSad8860@reddit
I didn’t know any of my grandparents and my parents grew up in the 60s so not really. My mom genuinely had Black friends. My dad would sometimes say problematic things when I was a kid and I tried to correct him but he’d always just say things like “I don’t know, I grew up in a white town” to get out of it.
jtbeith@reddit
My paternal grandparents were from New Jersey and very racist. My maternal grandparents were southern and not racist at all.
wwhsd@reddit
One of my parents would talk about how their grandparents hated Lincoln. They were probably only a generation or two removed from being on the losing side of the civil war..
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
No, the often show their predjudices though. For example my southern grandmother whispers "the blacks."
I have never in my life found an occasion were one would need to whisper or even say that.
The weirdest one was when she said "the Jews" the same way. Woman, your mother was a full Jew until she converted for your abusive ass Catholic father. You are genetically half Jew. 90% of your cultural habits are Jewish (I found out recently, I thought they were just southern things.) Great great aunt Ann, the woman you named one of your children after, was a full on Jewish woman her entire life. You literally spent every summer with her and her also Jewish husband, Hal.
Geesus, lady.
PuppySnuggleTime@reddit
Yes, I’m fully aware of the racism that existed in my family—and of the people who still hold those views. But I’m also aware of something else: there are people who were raised with those beliefs, carried them into adulthood, and then recognized they were wrong and changed. I’ve seen that happen.
I grew up in a racist household, though it was often casual and inconsistent. That’s what made it confusing. At times, my family would speak openly about how terrible racism was, and at other times, they would say blatantly racist things. I’m glad to say that many of those attitudes shifted, and that change happened decades ago.
As for me, I never embraced those beliefs. When I was about ten, I watched the television miniseries Roots, and it had a profound impact on me. That was the moment I truly understood what racism meant in human terms. I remember thinking very clearly: I will never be like the people who caused that kind of suffering.
The realization was overwhelming. Coming to terms with the legacy of racism in the United States—especially in the South, where I was born and raised—was life-changing. It shaped how I see the world and the kind of person I chose to become.
MissingGrayMatter@reddit
I’m from the south. I’ve heard various members of my family, including my own sister, say super racist things. Not daily, but on random occasions. I didn’t really realize how bad it was until I was a teenager because they’re so infrequent, but when it comes out it’s really bad. It’s still an ongoing issue.
uyakotter@reddit
My parents and grandparents were from small towns in the Midwest. They never showed any signs of racism. It felt genuine.
Verbz@reddit
My mom grew up in rural Montana near a small town that didn’t have any Black people at all. However she grew up very close with many Native families and a few Japanese families. My mom is exceedingly loving and caring for all people. She worked with the blind and multi handicapped her whole adult life. But I know she didn’t spend time around any Black people until she went to college.
geekycurvyanddorky@reddit
I mean we’ve discussed how we went no contact with certain relatives for numerous things (like narcissism, and racism, etc). But we also discuss how my Bohemian grandmother was an outcast because she was Bohemian. She couldn’t swim with the other white kids, and she was too white for most POC. Luckily she did have a best friend that was mixed, so they got to play together though. I totally believe that if the whole world were more mixed we’d finally get over and passed most of the hate that’s out there. We’re literally all the same species, none of us are better or worse than any other shade, and most of us are good people.
OptatusCleary@reddit
My grandparents were from what you might call “ethnic white” Catholic backgrounds, and grew up in largely immigrant/ ethnic enclave neighborhoods. They would sometimes talk about the ethnic/ cultural rivalries they grew up with. But (at least by the time they were telling these stories) it was more on the level of teasing and mild stereotypes than actual hatred or even dislike.
Jcamp9000@reddit
My mother who was born in 1911 was a racist. My father who was born in 1910 was in inclusive businessman. Consequently, our parties were a wild mix. Throw in there some Irish immigrants and it was always fun. Oh by the way, we are Jewish.
goblin_hipster@reddit
May I ask how old you are? My grandfather was born in 1947!
Relay13Incident@reddit
Well I had a great grandfather who fought in the Pacific Theater of WW2 and ended up captured by the Japanese, and if you know anything about WW2 you can guess how well he was treated. Because of that my great grandmother held a hatred for Japanese and other people of East Asian descent, so you can guess how happy she was when I started dating a Korean girl. My grandmother’s racism was so bad she wouldn’t even be in the same room as her.
Hooligan8403@reddit
We were trying to figure out where to eat one Sunday for lunch while visiting my grandfather in SC. Someone suggested a Ryan's (like a buffet/cheap steak place) amd he just said in front of everyone "I don't want to go there for lunch on a Sunday there will be to many black people.". This would have been around 04 I think. He never showed any signs of being racist or anything like that. You would see him treat everyone nicely. My mom tried to play it off as he is just a product of his time and shit like that but my brother and I just looked at each other like what the fuck. I've overheard a few other comments here and there from their generation (all deceased now). I catch my mom in microaggressions and falling for stereotypes at times. My wife is Asian and has been referred to as oriental a couple times despite me correcting her.
Crafty_Ish1973@reddit
53F and Hispanic here and I remember older Boomer uncles dropping the N-word in casual conversation. One aunt said she couldn't understand why anyone thought Song of the South was racist. Another refused to ever consider buying anything German or Japanese, especially cars, because she'd been a child during WW2.
They're all gone now, but I will always remember this stuff. I have worked hard never to be like them.
WaywardJake@reddit
I'm 63, and I was raised by adoptive parents who were born in the 1920s. The town I grew up in (US South) was segregated, and there were 'white only' facilities for many years. I was in second grade when they desegregated the schools.
My parents were what I would call casually racist and prejudiced. They were friendly to minorities and beloved by their minority employees. They did a lot for the large black community that existed just outside our little town (segregation); refurbishment projects, helping the poor, etc. They were known faces there and were always well met. But they didn't believe in mixed marriages, they never invited minorities into our home as visitors, and there were no minorities in their vast friends group. They didn't think the races should mix on that level. My mother told me, "We treat minorities like we treat our dogs; with kindness and caring and making sure the ones in our lives (employees) are well cared for. But they aren't our equals; we don't mix with them, and we don't make them friends."
Despite being a child of a 60s and 70s small southern town environment, I found the prevalent attitudes hugely problematic. I think travelling had a lot to do with it. Starting from childhood, I had opportunities to mix with other races and cultures across the world, including participating in other cultural events, including experiencing other religions. My parents didn't mind these things as casual interactions, but they weren't thrilled about how many friends I made along the way or how I began questioning things I was told growing up.
I was also exposed to some full blown racists but, fortunately, none of them were part of my core family, and my parents did not approve of those attitudes or behaviours. They were kind people; horribly misled in ways, but ultimately kind.
melodypowers@reddit
Yes.
My family were urban northerners. No one was a part of the Klan. But they had black employees who they definitely had an "us" and "them" mentality.
As for redlining, 100% but it was almost impossible to avoid. We all lived in NYC and from my great grandparents down, owned co-ops where you had to be approved by the board before purchasing. There were no black people in my apartment building growing up. I didn't even notice it until one of my mom's friends in the building (white divorced mother) married a black man and my mom talked to us about the fuss it was causing. This was in the early 80s I think.
But my grandparents had black friends and colleagues. My mom and dad marched on Washington. I had plenty of black friends and teachers. The racism was far more subtle than being a member of the Klan. I'm not saying it didn't exist, just that it was harder to see.
It is so different now, at least for my family. And the country in general. My dad worked in finance and he had zero black colleagues. I work in tech and there is so much more diversity. There are still problems, but it isn't at all like it was.
faerydust88@reddit
My partner has mentioned that when his sister married her husband a decade ago, their grandfather (white southern guy) made a comment about the ethnicity of her husband. Her husband is an American with Italian heritage.
Poolcreature@reddit
I can only speak for my family but I think it’s a funny story so I love to tell it. My grandma grew up in Texas in the 50s so she was a young woman during the civil rights movement. She noticed black people having to sit in the back of the bus or not being welcomed everywhere and it rubbed her wrong but it wasn’t exactly talked about and she didn’t know what to say or do. When she got her first apartment in the 60s, the realtor told her she should jump on it quickly because there was a black family that also wanted the space. She was so uncomfortable that she blurted out “my husband is black!” (Not true btw) And the realtors face went super pale from mortification. She started telling every stranger she met that had something racist to say that her husband was black. It was her own little resistance to people’s comfortable racism.
I always knew my grandma to be a social butterfly with friends of all walks and colors and I’ve asked her about her own prejudices before. I think it’s something very deeply entrenched in some people because even though she didn’t think she had any problem with black people, her son dated a black woman once and she admitted she was uncomfortable with it because she didn’t know how to act around her, but said it was about her own self not the woman. She worked hard to unlearn those prejudices when they came up so by the time she was old, she’d done a lot of self reflection.
She raised me and I remember she was very adamant I was exposed to as many black people as possible. We went to a black church, my babysitter was black, my first few teachers were black, I had black Barbie dolls and baby dolls. She did that because she didn’t want me to be as unsure about how to respond to race relations as she was when she was younger.
When you’ve done the work to learn, I think it’s easier to talk about ignorances from the past. People who get to be a certain age and have no regrets about how they treated others are weird and not to be trusted.
Tasty-Possibility627@reddit
I’m half white, and the white side of my family is pretty liberal, with biracial and trans-race adopted cousins.
For most of my life, I only heard stories about how my grandparents (born 1919) were liberal Kennedy supporters, welcoming an African son in law, etc etc.
Then, during the George Floyd protests, we had one of our regular family zooms, and someone brought up how grandma and grandpa were antiracist.
My aunt kind of winced and said, “well, I do remember them kind of blaming things on “the Jews” from time to time.”
docmoonlight@reddit
Yes, absolutely. My grandpa on my dad’s side was extremely racist, although he lived his whole life in Michigan, so he wasn’t a Klan member or anything as far as I know. But I have vivid memories of hearing him casually use the n-word, and my parents talking to me in private about why we don’t use that word, unlike my grandpa. My dad didn’t fully cut him off, mostly to keep a relationship with my grandma and uncles, but his rejection of his dad’s ways of thinking was always sort of a part of our family’s origin story and why our nuclear family ended up “out west” to get away from him.
Also, shoutout to my other grandpa on my mom’s side who was also white and spent his life in Michigan, but was anti racist (he was born in 1916). I will never forget an experience I had as a young kid with him - he lived in a small town, and one day when we were visiting he took me on a walk to the local diner. He ran into some acquaintances there and invited them to sit with us for lunch. Through some small talk, it came out that I (with my family) had flown into Detroit and spent a couple nights with my aunt and uncle who lived there. One of these acquaintances made a very racist comment about the residents of Detroit, and my grandpa snapped at him, and said, “That’s a terrible thing to say. How dare you speak like that in front of my grandson.”
It was a truly formative experience to see a family member I admired calling out a fellow white person on his bullshit. I try to follow his example whenever I have a chance.
serioussparkles@reddit
Yes, most of mine are all racist af, so i don't talk to them anymore. I've tried talking sense into em, but it's pointless sadly.
Low-Palpitation-9916@reddit
Had?
DResq@reddit
Sort of. I have white family members that were the minorities in their high schools and used to be on the other end of the racism so they have some notions because of that. But predominantly none of them seem to be racist previously. I don't think racism was that prevalent, in my family at least.
jackofspades49@reddit
My grandpa would say some rrally fucked up shit.
Ill never forget being a to an chinese restaurant when he goes "Gimmie the kung oai chicken. And dont put toobmuch sauce on you. You gooks always fuck up chink food by using too much sauce!"
Just... if there was a slur, he used it... so yeah, i heard a lot about his prejudices.
ryguymcsly@reddit
My grandma (RIP) was the nicest little old lady you’d ever meet. Never had a bad word to say about anyone, because she was raised to be passive aggressive.
She would say things like “well I think they’re fine people but I wouldn’t want any of my family living in a Black neighborhood” or “maybe I’m just imagining things but this neighborhood was nicer before all the Vietnamese moved in.”
If you called her out on it, which I would, she would just sigh and say “dear I was born in 1917 and the world is just so different now.”
OTOH my cousin’s husband says the N word and refuses to drive through a “minority area” without a 45 caliber handgun on his hip. So much so that he open carried at said grandma’s funeral because that small Nebraska town had a Mexican restaurant.
RevolutionaryWind249@reddit
My mom believed that all races should have equal opportunities in employment and other aspects of society, but she didn't believe in mixed race marriages because she thought it was harder for people. Keep in mind she was born in 1934 so she did see a lot of history. My dad had really no racial discrimination, but he was a sexist. He definitely believe that some work was women's work. I don't know that much about my grandparents points of view, but obviously given my parents points of view they didn't have any strong opinions that they passed on.
A few times I've encountered racism personally I'm always shocked because I was never taught that.
cleverburrito@reddit
My dad was very seriously racist until the day he died, and he talked about it a lot. The best thing he ever did for my life was abandon me for most of it. I can’t imagine the kind of person I’d be if he’d taken an active role in raising me.
I once found a black doctor who shared our pretty unique last name. My dad always said that all (last names) are related, so I told him about the doctor. He said that many enslaved people took the names of their enslavers after slavery was outlawed. So, I imagine my ancestors participated in it.
DigitalGarden@reddit
Yes.
My family talked a lot about racism. My mom has a lot of disdain for our racist relatives and she raised us kids to be better than that.
I think that my experience is not uncommon.
bonkersyeti@reddit
Define "older." I'm in my mid-50s and talk about my very racist late grandfather on the regular with my mother.
Major-Assumption539@reddit
I mean she’s dead now but I remember my grandma once saying something like “well I don’t like black people as a whole much but individually they aren’t too bad” which caught me off guard lol but other than that I can’t say things like that are a common occurrence
The_Buffalo_Bill@reddit
Mine don't think of it as that, but yes. They were never in an organization, KKK etc., but still have many problematic beliefs. A common quote is "He's black, but he's still a pretty good guy", or something along those lines.
Artistic_Alps_4794@reddit
Yes. My parents and grandparents have talked to me about the way things used to be. Most of my age group have heard similar stories.
pirouettish@reddit
Sometimes they do, yes. For instance, I have heard an older white man say that he was suspicious of coloured people. He said that he knew that not everyone agreed but this was how he was raised.