Thanksgiving is almost among us. Will you confront your family member when they spout bigotry?

[Shadybiz]

We're having my wife's side of the family over. My parents are not invited. I feel kinda bad for my mom, because she hates that asshole, but my dad supports him. We haven't spoken much recently. My parents honestly should have been divorced about 30 years ago, because from what I can tell, they NEVER got along on anything (seriously, their relationship totally fucked up my and my sister's impression of marriage for YEARS). It's sad because he wasn't like this before...it's like he turned 65 and someone pressed an "asshole" button in his head or something.

She has an uncle who is a hardcore Trumper, and he is married to another hardcore Trumper. They aren't invited either, and we've made that clear. We're too old to have to tolerate that bullshit.

 

[Dremorak]

Remember tho that insults and outright negativity don't do anything, they just make things worse.
You don't want to be that "crazy lib relative"
Keep calm and level headed and just remind them that its not cool.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

My family is used to me skipping out on gatherings.

And this one is no exception

(Tho most aren't racist)

 

[Nostremitus]

My little brother is bi and one of my older brothers is black. Shouldn't have to deal with much.

 

[Pooh]

It's literally just me vs everyone else, and unless it's directly asked of me I'm not going to bother. We all live in deep blue states so it's not like our votes for president matter anyway. I've realized that on occasional dosage of facts is not enough to overcome a non-stop diet of conservative media.

 

[LosDaddie]

This year, like most years, Thanksgiving is at my house. Planing on about 16 family & friends being at my place.

Other than some light-hearted joking on both sides, there's no serious political discussions going on. We're all mature enough to know that nobody is going to change their mind 🤷🏽‍♂️

Thanksgiving is about enjoying each other's company, catching up on life, Watching football, smoking some fine herb....and shopping.

#sorrynotsorry

I swear we had this exact thread before.

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It's an annual Era tradition.

 

[NESpowerhouse]

I'll just be working all day, so I guess so

 

[sph3re]

Most of my family's in their 50's and trying to convince them of thinking differently is a pretty big waste of time. I've mentioned before how my dad thinks all Indigenous peoples in Canada need to do is "stop drinking booze and pull themselves up by their bootstraps," and I've learned that the rest of my family is even worse.

My mom's oldest brother actually pulled out the "well they put mercury in vaccines and that can't possibly be good for you" bullshit when visiting a few days ago, my mom's youngest brother believes in UFOs, my mom's younger brother is being brainwashed by my cousin's alt-lite boyfriend, and now I'm pretty much over talking about politics during the holidays.

 

[KDReyes92]

No, I don't like getting into pointless arguments.

 

[Deleted member 32561]

I'm not sure I'm a very good ally. I get too angry and can't really properly explain why something is bad without losing my calm. For example, at my sibling's birthday party, when my uncle quoted an old TV show that used a racist epithet for Japanese people (the n one), I got upset at him and almost had a breakdown because everyone looked at me like I was the jackass... I eventually caved and apologized because it seemed like either I do that or storm off and ruin my sibling's birthday party. At the very least he understood why I got upset and did apologize for saying it, but still... I did stand my ground for calling him out, just apologized for yelling and freaking out.

That's kind of the first time I've encountered any form of racism on my mom's side of the family, which is the only side of the family I really interface with ever since my dad went off the deep end and became a bigoted Alex Jones acolyte. If I do end up going to Thanksgiving this year and don't have to work, I don't think I'll have to confront anyone. But I will if I must. Even if I end up doing more harm than good. Because I can't keep my damn emotions in check. And for the marginalized groups I'm not a part of, I'm sincerely sorry for that. I'll try to do better.

 

[Mulciber]

This is rarely a thing for me anymore for two reasons: I have done this enough that my parents put a moratorium on all politics talk. Secondly, these days, at family holiday stuff, I spend +90% of the time with with my nieces and nephews. I rarely enter adult conversations. And I love it!

I have one cousin that comes to some things (but never the big stuff like Thanksgiving and Christmas) who explicitly says bigoted stuff to "trigger the libs," and I have ceased engaging with him, because he doesn't (and will not) listen. He says things just so he can laugh at you for having a problem with it. Thankfully, I now see him less than once a year. (The last time I saw him was in 2017, I think.)

 

[Altair]

Nobody in my family are bigots, so no.

 

[Deleted member 3093]

I'm well-practiced

 

[Ryaaan14]

Haven't had a Thanksgiving w my family in like 15 years

 

[pewpewtora]

we're smart enough not to bring politics into the dinner table. If we did we'd mostly talk about how Donald Trump is an idiot.

 

[pewpewtora]

also, why call out family just on thanksgiving? you should call out your family on the daily if they're saying bigoted bullshit

 

[Mona]

We go "ugh, wtf" or "eww grandpa that's not funny"

Then say grace and eat Turkey.

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who's Grace?

 

[Kinggroin]

who's Grace?

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The weird one we talk about before eating the Turkey. Every family has a Grace.

 

[KtotheRoc]

My Trump supporting relatives all live on the other side of the country and I rarely ever see them. Everyone else nearby hates Trump.

 

[RedMercury]

who's Grace?

Click to shrink...

 

[RedMercury]

Other than some light-hearted joking on both sides, there's no serious political discussions going on. We're all mature enough to know that nobody is going to change their mind 🤷🏽‍♂️

Thanksgiving is about enjoying each other's company, catching up on life, Watching football, smoking some fine herb....and shopping.

#sorrynotsorry

Click to shrink...

There doesn't have to be any political discussions but I would assume you're not having conservatives/nazis over to have a nice dinner at your house, that solves the problem.

 

[Davilmar]

I never would have dinner with family like that, especially on Thanksgiving.

 

[mreddie]

Luckily, my close family is cool even if my dad is homophobic racist slur dropper.

My extended family is the tricky one since any family member that becomes gay is almost non persona grata because they will say stupid shit.

 

[Briareos]

More interesting twist to this conversation: for those of you with children, do they ever bring up politics with your parents? My daughters are pretty heavily political at this point and I'm quite curious to see what might happen if they dive in on these things.

 

[VulcanRaven]

Hell no, I'm not confronting anyone

I'll just stand there and nod my head when hearing anything about trump or immigration or whatever comes up and then look for my exit for a new conversation

life's too short

I see most family but once a year and I rarely get time off for work so I'm not spending it fighting, I'm there for the food break from life's regular bullshit

 

[timedesk]

Thanksgiving is usually a really small event for my family, so it won't really be an issue. My extended family is more conservative, and I used to get into some mild arguments with them, but they live on the other side of the country now so that isn't a problem anymore.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

I'm just going to be meeting with my Grandma who has Alzheimer's so that's a lost cause

 

[Wood Man]

I know my mom and dad voted for Trump but they're not MAGA hat wearing drones. They just don't seem to give enough fucks about politics to begin with. In fact as a kid I hardly ever recall them talking about politics much.

Most of out conversations are about movies, comic books or TV. So It's pretty chill.

 

[maigret]

I've got a small family and none of them are bigots, which sounds like a rarity.

 

[MrMephistoX]

To be honest I tend to just steer clear of political discussions entirely at Thanksgiving. My dad is a lifelong republican but doesn't like Trump and wrote himself in during the 2016 election. I give him a lot of credit for that and in exchange I'm not going to berate him on his views on supply side economics or ask him about his views on trans issues. It just doesn't come up in discussion he's more concerned about baseball and golf these days in retirement.

 

[Valkerion]

Not super close to my fam and have not had Thanksgiving with them in 5 years due to living in a different country, but we never had this issue. Black family mainly with a good few white and some Asian members but yeah... Open bigotry wasn't a thing.

I did find out my aunt voted Trump this year tho.... So that's a thing in glad I missed haha

 

[Reverse Giraffe]

Nah, I don't have any bigots in my family. We're all progressives.

 

[OptiveLink]

Did it already, but it's not bigotry here as much as it is "the lying Dems" talk. Although that always has some bigotry undertones mixed in.

It didn't cause as much of an issue as almost smashing their head against a glass display case, so things are looking well on this front.

 

[turbobrick]

I don't even know the amount of terrible relatives I have. Its at least one aunt and her family. Could be more but I honestly don't know.

I don't go to gatherings anyway because I don't care. I only see a small portion of my relatives once a year and skip out on everything else.

 

[Tezz]

Confrontation will not accomplish anything with my family, unfortunately. If something happens, I'll excuse myself and find better company to share Thanksgiving with.

 

[LowParry]

Most of my family is conservative but politics are never talked about during holidays or even get togethers. There are small mentions here and there about economy talk or just normal news round ups but never any of the heavy stuff. I'm pretty sure there will be jabs about the impeachment hearings but they'll be short and we'll go back to other topics. I think we've had one big incident and that was around the time Obama was elected President. We had to shut that shit down very fast cause it was going to turn into some racist rant. A little education goes a long way.

 

[Huncho_Houdini]

We try to out woke each other because turkey puts us to sleep

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Incredible.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

I think we've had one big incident and that was around the time Obama was elected President.

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Man, sounds like a lovely family

 

[LowParry]

Man, sounds like a lovely family

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Naw. They're good people. It was just the one uncle who moved back from Texas so his views were...off. He's a lot better now these days and really changed himself. He just sticks with local news outlets and suprisingly has been watching John Oliver lately.

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

You bottle up all your feelings inside during dinner, then unleash the beast on the poor granny trying to take your $150 PS4 in the Black Friday mosh-pits.

 

[thetrin]

Thankfully my parents are pretty liberal people.

 

[Wackamole]

I bring it up regularly. Can't afford to stay silent anymore now i'm a dad myself.
Some family members are simply too dumb though. They'll just act like a victim and literally learn nothing new anymore.
They don't get it even if you tell them a thousand times in the clearest way that they are wrong and toxic. I ignore them nowadays.
We don't have tanxgiving here though. But family dinners at Christmas are certainly a thing.

 

[Volimar]

Honestly, my Thanksgiving is usually just immediate family and other than my brother's go to solution of "nuke em" for any foreign policy problem we're all pretty much on the same page though I'm more left than most of them aside maybe from my kid.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Yes, I will explain to my relatives why they shouldn't vote for Pete Buttigieg.