Question: My parents and I have a good relationship and they're wonderful grandparents to my one-year-old. Very loving and very generous - always going out of their way to help out. There's just one problem - they're racist. They don't always show it in a way that's easy to pin down, but lately, every time Barack Obama's name comes up, my father jumps in with a stupid remark or joke based on some ridiculous stereotype. He even uses derogatory language in front of my kid. I grew up listening to this crap, so it's not new, but I'm nothing like my folks in this regard. I want my kids to follow in my footsteps and not be influenced by these backwards ideas. But I'm worried if I confront my parents over this now, they'll feel hurt and take it out on my little girl by distancing themselves from us. Is it worth getting into a discussion about racism with them? Is it possible for them to change?
Answer: With a woman and a black man the likely candidates to be the next president of the United States, this year's primary runoff has certainly provided a whack of ammo to the ignorant.
For the sake of your child, I consulted Alison Chasteen, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who teaches a course on prejudice. First off, Dr. Chasteen sympathizes with the difficulty of spotting racism these days. "Except for hate groups, the era of people saying outright very bigoted things [about race]has passed," she says, explaining that such comments are now often hidden as something other than direct statements. "Telling jokes is one of the most common ways to mask bigotry because a perpetrator can suggest that the joke does not reflect his or her true attitude."
In fact, she says, if you straight out asked your parents if they hold racist views, they'd likely demur. "I'm not saying this is correct, but their perception of a bigot might be someone that belongs to a hate group and is saying outlandish things and they're not saying anything that's that bad."
So maybe racism is relative, but if you don't want your kid running around the playground screaming racial slurs, it's worth bringing it up. I know you're worried about causing a rift in the family, and it sounds like your parents have far more good to offer than bad. So you might want to avoid broaching the topic by saying, "That was a great lasagna Mom and Dad. By the way, can we talk about how you're a racist?" Dr. Chasteen aptly suggests the subtler approach of saying that the way the adults talk has to change with the child around, something that will likely provoke a discussion about racism, even if on a less threatening semantic level.
Will confronting them change their views? The short answer is no. That's probably not surprising. Only in Hollywood movies do Scrooges change their ways overnight. "We don't expect someone who held a stereotyped view their whole life and a relatively bigoted view of groups to suddenly change their mental representation of those groups," says Dr. Chasteen. But she points out that there's a vast difference between thinking something and actually saying it. If a bigoted thought occurs in the forest of your father's head and nobody hears it, does it really exist? Sure, but that tree doesn't have to fall and smack your toddler.
The good news is, it's all going over your child's head. At least for now. Dr. Chasteen says studies have shown that children as young as one or two years old make distinctions between categories of age, gender and attractiveness, but this is not true of race, which comes later around the age of four or five when more sophisticated language skills are more formed. Of course, Dr. Chasteen recommends you talk to your parents now, far before that time comes.
One piece of solace is that, according to Dr. Chasteen, in the end, the occasional exposure to your parents off-colour remarks will have a relatively small impact on your child compared to your own actions and beliefs. And in fact, she says that after the primary family, the influential factors to worry about most would be peers and, ahem, the media.
Your child picks up on "the presence or absence of groups in the media as well as how those groups are portrayed," she says, "and I don't just mean news, but children's media such as books, videos and video games. Who are the characters, what races are they and what roles to they take?"
So yes, it's time to have that talk with the parents but it might also be time to take a look at what's on your DVD shelf and what's on TV. Better yet, it might be time to sit down and tell your kid the story - in language a little less dry than that of Peter Mansbridge on The National - of a man named Barack Obama and a woman named Hillary Clinton.
Click here to submit your own family feud and get expert advice. Don't be shy: We won't print your name.