Issue link: https://fredparent.uberflip.com/i/1340563
12 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • July 2020 12 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • July 2020 When Relatives Are Racist Confronting Hateful Speech in Families WRITTEN BY MALIA JACOBSON You're enjoying time with your child and a beloved relative when you hear it: The relative casually uses a hateful term, makes a racist joke or expresses a privileged perspective that stops you in your tracks. Your cheeks flush as you grasp for the right response—do you say something? When? Now? In front of your kid, or later? Could confronting them end up making things worse? Just as quickly as it appeared, the moment fades, but your questions linger. Like many parents, I've been in this situation more than once. And I haven't always been happy with the way I've responded. In some cases, my swift and heartfelt response wound up alienating my relative, effec- tively shutting down communication. Other times, I was shocked into silence or simply unsure how to explain my stance with one kid on my hip and another tugging on my arm. Confronting racist beliefs, words or actions in friends and family is always hard, but maybe never more than we begin hearing the comments in the presence of our own children. When the person spouting hateful speech is someone our child loves and admires, we don't want to create or inten- sify family conflict. And countering such comments from older relatives means stepping outside of family norms and rejecting our own internal- ized beliefs about not questioning or disrespecting our elders, says par- enting coach and speaker Sarina Behar Natkin, LICSW.