Psychology has shown that we have biases against anyone who doesn’t look like us. It’s just survival 101 from not so ancient times.
So maybe your parents had theses biases, unconsciently. Maybe even, they have been raised in a society which was racist, by definition. If they have lived anytime before the eighties, things were really rough (not that it’s not right now, but it was something else…)
Now, let’s just say that at their core, they were racist. So what ? Is it really important ? They have shown you how to behave, what is right and what is not. They have worked to better themselves, so that is the only thing that should matter.
Because, in the grand scheme of things, your parents would have told you from age two : do not shit in your pants, and they would have done the same. With dementia, maybe at some point they even forgot that one rule so… Being racist is excusable, because -and I’m sorry- they were not themselves in their final hours.
I appreciate and understand your perspective, but I want to clarify some context:
This was my dad’s mom, so my grandparents. Had they been my parents and I’d known them at the age at which they raised me, then I’d immediately know how they raised their kids. But since this was my grandmother who raised my dad, it left me wondering what kind of parents my dad had. Was my dad a non-judgmental person in spite of his parents?
And the answer was, “no.” He learned to cast aside prejudices from my grandmother’s sick right-cross. It was mostly that kind of revelation that I needed to feel my catharsis.
(Added context: my dad is dead and I never heard that story from him. He died before my grandmother did, so I never got the opportunity to ask him about what her views on race were when he was a child.)
You know, let us be honest for five minutes.
Psychology has shown that we have biases against anyone who doesn’t look like us. It’s just survival 101 from not so ancient times.
So maybe your parents had theses biases, unconsciently. Maybe even, they have been raised in a society which was racist, by definition. If they have lived anytime before the eighties, things were really rough (not that it’s not right now, but it was something else…)
Now, let’s just say that at their core, they were racist. So what ? Is it really important ? They have shown you how to behave, what is right and what is not. They have worked to better themselves, so that is the only thing that should matter.
Because, in the grand scheme of things, your parents would have told you from age two : do not shit in your pants, and they would have done the same. With dementia, maybe at some point they even forgot that one rule so… Being racist is excusable, because -and I’m sorry- they were not themselves in their final hours.
I appreciate and understand your perspective, but I want to clarify some context:
This was my dad’s mom, so my grandparents. Had they been my parents and I’d known them at the age at which they raised me, then I’d immediately know how they raised their kids. But since this was my grandmother who raised my dad, it left me wondering what kind of parents my dad had. Was my dad a non-judgmental person in spite of his parents?
And the answer was, “no.” He learned to cast aside prejudices from my grandmother’s sick right-cross. It was mostly that kind of revelation that I needed to feel my catharsis.
(Added context: my dad is dead and I never heard that story from him. He died before my grandmother did, so I never got the opportunity to ask him about what her views on race were when he was a child.)