Comment on I may swear like a pirate, but I'm a fucking PRINCIPLED pirate

fartographer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

My grandparents on my dad’s side used to make jokes that were funny when I was a kid, more concerning when I got older, and especially concerning as their dementia set in and they began outright stating people’s races in the jokes. In the years since their passing, it’s made me wonder what their beliefs on racism were, even though they raised me to never judge anyone by their race and that race will usually be a factor in how people are treated in the real world but should never be a factor in my personal interactions with anyone.

But those jokes had been weighing kinda heavy on me in recent years. I know they had dementia, but was this possibly at the core of their beliefs?

I recently heard a story, unprompted, from a family member who was present when my dad was in high school or college, in the '70s, and made an off-color joke . Apparently my dad said that a car with a poorly done paint job “looked like a Mexican car.” Without missing a beat, my grandmother punched my dad in the jaw with a right hook and yelled, “WE DO NOT MAKE DEROGATORY JOKES ABOUT PEOPLE FOR THEIR RACE!” My grandmother was always known for how passive, playful, and gentle she was, especially with her kids.

Turns out grandma was not only adamant about race sensitivity, she was kinda a badass. And the jokes I thought were possibly racist were truly homophone humor about regional dialects and not about people’s nationality.

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