Wherein my brother is a bigoted idiot for fun and proft...

The BBQ Pit
1

I was visiting my family last week, which was mostly fun, but had to have its moment of astonishing fuckery. My brother and his wife had just gotten back from a cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman. I asked him which they liked better, and he said… “Grand Cayman. Too many niggers in Jamaica.”

My thought process was a wordless :confused: :eek: :mad: :rolleyes:

This is the kind of sentence from my brother that still, after listening to jaw-dropping stupid, bigoted shit like this from him for years, manages to shock and horrify me. I barely even know what to say to something like that. Pardon me while I burst into flame. Horrors. What the fuck? Idiot.

Taking him to task for using the word “nigger” is a trap. He will tell me it’s just a word, that he is describing a “certain kind of black person, not all black people,” that he has the right to free speech, and I need to get off my colleged-out PC bullshit trip. He wants me to give him a hard time so he can try to turn it around on me. Then, we just fight about who’s more out of touch, me in hippie liberal game preserve Ithaca, or him in the uncharted backwater of darkest provincial Staten Island. Waste of fucking time, ambush, bullshit argument that just makes me angry and changes nothing.

If I just let it go by, I’m allowing him to say inflammatory, ignorant, racist shit and not doing anything. This is passive encouragement, and I’ve never really been into that. That lets the terrorists win, ya know?

I finally settled on the rather matter of fact but exasperated, “Why did you decide to GO TO a country full of black people if you didn’t want to be around them? They do LIVE THERE and you visited THEM.” He said, “Yeah, but they were annoying.” I took a few deep breaths, went to my happy place for a second, and changed the subject. Obviously I’m not over it, though. I think I let him off too easy.

What the hell? Seems like these days, I can’t get through a conversation with him without one of these comments. He calls my best friend Gay Tom, as if being gay needs to be part of his name. I’ve been friends with Tom for 17 years, for chrissakes. Tom is family to me. I’d go under a bus for him. Can we NOT label him snidely and with a snicker every time his name is mentioned for the rest of our fucking lives?

When I hauled off and said the above to him for the nth time this last Christmas, my brother gave me the “free speech” line, to which I responded, “Yeah, you’re free to be an asshole all you want. You just might not WANT to be one on Christmas, but why buck tradition?” He stormed off in a huff, sighing wife in tow.

Yeah, can’t have Christmas without an outburst, and no one cares who started it, just that people are now pissed off at Xmas. Also, not a lot of sympathy for my pro-gay, anti-racist stances in the family, so then it gets even more annoying because other people get involved to tell me to lighten up. Regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong, the fighting upsets my dad a lot, and I don’t want that. :mad: I just want my brother to stop making these comments when he KNOWS it’s going to provoke me.

I’m sure other people have this problem with their idiotic families, esp. at the holidays. What do you do? I’m at my wits end. He used to be my best friend, back in high school 20 years ago, but now… he’s a cartoon character of an ignorant, bigoted jerk. What happened?

2

So in summary:

  1. Dislike of niggers in Jamaica

  2. ???

  3. Profit!

3

I think the profit comes from his new line of Bigoted Christmas Cards.

4

Well, you cannot win, although I would count “storming of in a huff” to be at least a draw. Maybe a big honking belly laugh from you every time he spouts off would do the trick. “Gay Tom! Bwahahahahaha. Man that cracks me up every time! Too many niggers in Jamaica? Where do you get this stuff? You ought to check out open mike night at the comedy club. Seriously. That’s a helluva routine you have there.”

“Well bless your heart” is a way of calling him a dolt without coming out and saying it. Or just respond with total non sequiters. Make it a game. Say something like “You know, you could be right ,but you have to remember, Charles de Gaule was the King of France, after all.”

Just don’t ever take the bait. He knows it yanks you off and he enjoys getting a rise out of you. He wants the argument; if he fails to get it he will move on to other amusements. Or at least one hopes.

5

Well, if he likes to call your friend “Gay Tom,” why not start calling him, “Bigot Brother?”

6

What profit? The word the OP uses, quite deliberately, is “proft,” which I believe to represent the sound effect she imagines as her brother starts race-baiting but then suddenly disappears in a cloud of smoke–PROFT!!! Hey, where’d Bro go?

I know your bro. Went to high school with him, just across Gravesend Bay, and thousands like him, and I’m afraid there’s not much that can be done, at least not while fitting in with your family on the holidays. Most of them don’t give you a whole lot of support, and you need some support to make him change his ways. Actually, you need a lot of support, and I don’t see you getting it.

7

I’m not much of an advisor but doesn’t Tom have a family you can go have Christmas with?

Yeah. I’m not really all about family peace and harmony if it means you have to put up with that shit.

8

I stopped having Christmas with the family about ten years ago. My life is much more peaceful now.

9

What would happen if you just stopped and stared at him, didn’t say a word? Total incredulity – might put him on the defensive, which would be fun it its own way – but either way, you don’t actually start the fight, but manage to communicate your wtfness.

Just an idea.

10

You know, normally I don’t approve of insulting people, but I rather like Monty’s suggestion. Especially if you follow it up with something like, “Well you said you believed in calling people what they are, instead of being all PC about it,” accompanied by a quizzically raised eyebrow.

That or next time he tries to start a fight, try saying something like, “Look, we’ve already established that you and I are never going to agree on this. Why don’t we just drop it and have fun instead of ruining the party?” and then refuse to engage him. I’m from a family of stubborn, opinionated people. Directly confronting us and starting a fight just entrenches us more firmly and makes us less likely to change our minds. Less confrontational tactics, on the other hand, do work sometimes. Your brother’s not going to change because you want him to. In his mind, he’s got good reasons for believing what he does. Refusing to take the bait, however, might get him to change.

Good luck! If nothing else, I suspect I’m not the only one around here who’d be willing to offer you sanctuary at Christmas.

11

Naw, that’s still giving the troll a reaction, which is what he’s after. Contrapuntal has the best advice for dealing with him – deny him any reward for his jerkishness. This guy is a bully with a mile-wide mean streak. He’s saying this stuff fully intending to evoke WTFness. I’d vote for the “Bless your heart” and change of subject tactic.

A long-range strategy would be, as others have suggested, to stop having Chrismas with the family. If you must see your parents over the holidays, visit them before or after the big get-together – because, heck, you’ve been invited to so-and-so’s for Christmas. It sounds as if you can’t avoid seeing him entirely, but Christmas is generally a high-tension time. As you’ve pointed out, the rest of your family side with him, and you come off as the disturber of harmony no matter how nasty his opening salvo was.

He knows what buttons to push to have his fun and you’ll never change him. Time to develop defenses to preserve your sanity rather than trying to reform an incorrigible troll.

12

This is not just a Southern thing I see.

Yeah, I get this quite a bit. I just look at the dumbass and simply say these words.
:rolleyes: Fucking Moron or just Moron depending on present company of course

and keep on with whatever I’m doing.
just forget about the arguing…if they say anything just tell’em “Hey free, speech you know.”

Do that EVERY time he does this and eventually he’ll get tired of being called a fucking moron and also tired of having to explain to others why you always call him that.

13

I don’t think Ruby’s response was that bad. I’d have modified it to be a statement that required no response, rather than a question that gave him an opening to make more noise: “Congratulations on your vacation decision, choosing to visit a place where the people made you uncomfortable.”

(Then, if he did come back with some inane bullshit, you could “sympathize” with him for having been so foolish as to not actually know where he was going, then walk away.)

14

I agree with other posters - go have Christmas with Gay Tom.

15

Rubystreak, I sympathize. Your brother sounds exactly like my brother in law, whom I at least have the consolation of not being blood-related to.

The best I can do is tell you what I do when I have to deal with him. When he’s at my place, he knows to behave himself or he’ll be asked to leave. (Fortunately, there are exactly two people in my family that I care about not upsetting, and both of them are of the opinion that I have a perfect right to not have to deal with his crap in my own home.)

When we’re not at my home, but with a group of my immediate family, I just tell him “You’re a troglodyte. No one here thinks of you as anything other than the family moron, and we only bother with you at all so that you’re kids have a chance to be around better people than you. Now shut up, you’re upsetting Grandma.”

When we’re in a wider group, I just smile widely and say “Oh, do go on. I find it so refreshing to hear the thoughts of someone with such an … *uncomplicated * …worldview.”

Obviously, this won’t work with all families. I have the advantage of being surrounded by people who have as little patience with him as I do.

If your families sympathies lie with him, IMO you might want to consider a new family. But if it’s really important to you to keep the peace, just ignore the shit out of him. He’s clearly trying to piss you off. Don’t let him. When he starts talking shit to you in front of other people, just laugh and say “Oh well, you’re just always gonna be Bob!” and change the subject. Arguing with him just gives him a platform. Rolling your eyes, laughing, and moving on conveys the appropriate contempt, and avoids the drama.

16

I’d just try and change the subject. I learned a long time ago with my racist relatives that the more you speak out against their remarks, the worse they get. I just don’t acknowledge their comments anymore. It’s just not worth it. I’m not going to change their minds, so I really don’t care.

17

In the long run, yes, this tactic will work best. In the short run, though, I’d expect Bigot Brother to escalate his outrageousness so he can get his little power-trip jollies as usual. Just be prepared to stick to your plan no matter what shit he spews.

18

Have you ever considered attaching “Gay” to your brother’s given name? It won’t atach him a lesson or prove anything, but it could make for an entertaining hour or so.

19

Although this has already been said, as “one of them”, someone actually chose to go to Jamaica and were annoyed by all the niggers.

Well, at least I know the mind can still boggle.

20

I say bring Gay Tom (if he’d be agreeable) to a special gathering and see if he really has the balls to be all bad ass in his presence. If not, like I suspect, I think I’d be apt to bring that up and use it against him for all of eternity thereafter. :slight_smile: