Racism *is* North America's Mental Health Program
May 24, 2018 10:40 AM Subscribe
My white-skinned brother-in-law has a 2-year-old son with my darker-skinned sister. The boy is turning out to be darker-skinned, much like his mom. Brother-in-law has taken to calling their son his "black boy", on account that he believes the mixed-race child he has made with my mixed-race sister constitutes the same racial stock as African/"black"/slave people. Why can't anything be done about this blatant racism leading towards child abuse?
Disclaimer: I am not intentionally conflating African or black identity with slave identity; I am reflecting that it is my brother-in-law's belief system that these identities are interchangeably the same.
My brother-in-law already knows that I don't like him, because he uses my sister and mom as rage vents. He will swear and make racial slurs at colored people in public, depending on the level of ethnic privilege he is feeling entitled to that day. The last time we saw each other was when he went on a racist tirade about First Nations (native/"Indian") people, while surrounded by several native-looking people, in public at a movie theatre. I did not leave the theatre with them afterwards, and we have not interacted face-to-face since.
There's no point in talking my sister out of a relationship with him, because we all already know that the level of abuse we all endured under our white trash dad, in our Anglo-Christian Canadian family, reflected too well that escaping racial oppression is impossible here, so you might as well pick the best hand you find yourself dealt and roll with it. Racial oppression on a daily basis was our parents' normal (to say the least), and in 2/3 of siblings it's the learned normal (thanks to wypipo!) in their current marriages, in which they are both raising mixed-race children (yay! more white wolves in white families can look forward to being fed after the country's Indian drought! Afterall, 150,00 native children taken in Indian Residential Schools wasn't enough for White Canada to learn how to do better and outgrow this behavior here...).
My sister's non-white side is "East Indian", so that's what's accounting for the racially contaminated side of the "black boy" here. But I. Don't. Get. It. How do white people live and breathe their racist culture so incredibly well??? What is happening in the immigration offices that white privileged racists like my brother-in-law are rewarded with high-paying jobs for "knowing how to handle the Indians"??? And the non-white people here have to live in hiding, and celebrate their happy moments in secret (like I do). How does a white man immigrant from Europe *know* to do this behavior, so naturally and so well? (Fwiw, I drew my boundaries with him early on, and my sister only visits me when it's arranged through our mother. As far as I'm concerned this man is an abusive Indian-humping pig who will probably hump his 'mulatto' daughter too when she comes of age, if he makes one.)
To the archetypal monolith of white identity: This is why I don't date white people or breed into white families anymore -- not as a darker-skinned, mixed-race non-native "Indian" woman living in "northern" Canada. It's like white people have never bothered to learn the difference between chattel and minorities. When you breed with us, you're not creating humans, you're creating property. You don't know how to build an empire without creating the slaves with which to build it on. I'm so grateful for the influx of Syrian refugees to my community because interacting with their families reflects so much truth about the "House Slave-Indian" culture of White Canada.
My own anti-white racism aside, I'm very concerned that down the road, my brother-in-law will take to beating and abusing my nephew as he was beaten himself, by his own mentally-damaged white father (who clearly did not find the "black boy" in him worthy of love), and will use his own son's ethnic identity against him to justify the abuse (as he already takes privilege to with my sister and mother). There's nothing I can say to brother-in-law directly, because brother-in-law didn't f*ck my sister so that he would have to listen to a person's opinions, thoughts and ideas; brother-in-law is here to have an Indian family, with many House Indians of his own to take his daddy issues out on.
My sister, with whom I already have a strained relationship... is clearly confiding these observations to me because even if she can't love herself enough to find a better relationship, she does love the child she finally got to make, and she's worried about what brother-in-law is going to do to him too, later on, especially as he starts to grow and express his individuality more.
And yeah, we're already ready for everything the child does wrong to be "because of us f**king Indians", and for anything the child does well to be because of his white father's genetically-superior contribution as the in-house sperm donor.
My actual question: are there any non-white/minority/PoC here who have experienced this blatant brown=down racism, who found strategies that were actually effective in reflecting to the Racist the fallacies of his racist belief system? Are there any mental quirks I can relay to my sister that can help her instill empathy in her white spouse for the non-white child they have made together? Push come to shove, is there any hope for my (non-native Indian) mixed-race nephew to not grow up to be his white trash father's mulatto slave in modern North American society (like my sister, brother and I were)?
I would really appreciate hearing answers specifically from people who are racially disadvantaged like I am, and who have no choice about living this. It has been my consistent experience that white people's answers Do Not Work Because They Are Intended For People Privileged with White Power Like Themselves. (As if my brother-in-law would pull the extreme sh*t behavior when other white people are around, no... it's reserved exclusively for when he's alone with his brownie in-laws... f**king Indians-on-Reserve Canadian Nation... and don't get me started on my white Indian-owning alcoholic 'feminist' sister-in-law, and the future of her little mulattoes... Racism is oh so magical...)
Feel free to re-direct me to the Metafilter equivalent of Anti-Racism work on the internet, if that's what would work better than trying to ask this question here. Thanks.
Disclaimer: I am not intentionally conflating African or black identity with slave identity; I am reflecting that it is my brother-in-law's belief system that these identities are interchangeably the same.
My brother-in-law already knows that I don't like him, because he uses my sister and mom as rage vents. He will swear and make racial slurs at colored people in public, depending on the level of ethnic privilege he is feeling entitled to that day. The last time we saw each other was when he went on a racist tirade about First Nations (native/"Indian") people, while surrounded by several native-looking people, in public at a movie theatre. I did not leave the theatre with them afterwards, and we have not interacted face-to-face since.
There's no point in talking my sister out of a relationship with him, because we all already know that the level of abuse we all endured under our white trash dad, in our Anglo-Christian Canadian family, reflected too well that escaping racial oppression is impossible here, so you might as well pick the best hand you find yourself dealt and roll with it. Racial oppression on a daily basis was our parents' normal (to say the least), and in 2/3 of siblings it's the learned normal (thanks to wypipo!) in their current marriages, in which they are both raising mixed-race children (yay! more white wolves in white families can look forward to being fed after the country's Indian drought! Afterall, 150,00 native children taken in Indian Residential Schools wasn't enough for White Canada to learn how to do better and outgrow this behavior here...).
My sister's non-white side is "East Indian", so that's what's accounting for the racially contaminated side of the "black boy" here. But I. Don't. Get. It. How do white people live and breathe their racist culture so incredibly well??? What is happening in the immigration offices that white privileged racists like my brother-in-law are rewarded with high-paying jobs for "knowing how to handle the Indians"??? And the non-white people here have to live in hiding, and celebrate their happy moments in secret (like I do). How does a white man immigrant from Europe *know* to do this behavior, so naturally and so well? (Fwiw, I drew my boundaries with him early on, and my sister only visits me when it's arranged through our mother. As far as I'm concerned this man is an abusive Indian-humping pig who will probably hump his 'mulatto' daughter too when she comes of age, if he makes one.)
To the archetypal monolith of white identity: This is why I don't date white people or breed into white families anymore -- not as a darker-skinned, mixed-race non-native "Indian" woman living in "northern" Canada. It's like white people have never bothered to learn the difference between chattel and minorities. When you breed with us, you're not creating humans, you're creating property. You don't know how to build an empire without creating the slaves with which to build it on. I'm so grateful for the influx of Syrian refugees to my community because interacting with their families reflects so much truth about the "House Slave-Indian" culture of White Canada.
My own anti-white racism aside, I'm very concerned that down the road, my brother-in-law will take to beating and abusing my nephew as he was beaten himself, by his own mentally-damaged white father (who clearly did not find the "black boy" in him worthy of love), and will use his own son's ethnic identity against him to justify the abuse (as he already takes privilege to with my sister and mother). There's nothing I can say to brother-in-law directly, because brother-in-law didn't f*ck my sister so that he would have to listen to a person's opinions, thoughts and ideas; brother-in-law is here to have an Indian family, with many House Indians of his own to take his daddy issues out on.
My sister, with whom I already have a strained relationship... is clearly confiding these observations to me because even if she can't love herself enough to find a better relationship, she does love the child she finally got to make, and she's worried about what brother-in-law is going to do to him too, later on, especially as he starts to grow and express his individuality more.
And yeah, we're already ready for everything the child does wrong to be "because of us f**king Indians", and for anything the child does well to be because of his white father's genetically-superior contribution as the in-house sperm donor.
My actual question: are there any non-white/minority/PoC here who have experienced this blatant brown=down racism, who found strategies that were actually effective in reflecting to the Racist the fallacies of his racist belief system? Are there any mental quirks I can relay to my sister that can help her instill empathy in her white spouse for the non-white child they have made together? Push come to shove, is there any hope for my (non-native Indian) mixed-race nephew to not grow up to be his white trash father's mulatto slave in modern North American society (like my sister, brother and I were)?
I would really appreciate hearing answers specifically from people who are racially disadvantaged like I am, and who have no choice about living this. It has been my consistent experience that white people's answers Do Not Work Because They Are Intended For People Privileged with White Power Like Themselves. (As if my brother-in-law would pull the extreme sh*t behavior when other white people are around, no... it's reserved exclusively for when he's alone with his brownie in-laws... f**king Indians-on-Reserve Canadian Nation... and don't get me started on my white Indian-owning alcoholic 'feminist' sister-in-law, and the future of her little mulattoes... Racism is oh so magical...)
Feel free to re-direct me to the Metafilter equivalent of Anti-Racism work on the internet, if that's what would work better than trying to ask this question here. Thanks.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, I'm sorry you're having to deal with bullshit racism in your family and asking about resources or strategies for that is fine, but there's a ton of not-question stuff in here that doesn't fit Ask as it's intended to be used. Go ahead and regroup on this and trim it down to the core question stuff and give it another go tomorrow maybe. -- cortex
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