Laugh all you want. It’s effective under certain circumstances with certain people.
Lotta white folks in the Cayman Islands. Some of them go back many, many generations.
I might have replied to the brother [Dirty Harry] “Gee…That’s White of you!” [/Dirty Harry], but then I haven’t had as many of those arguments as the OP has.
Best you can do is be there for your older relatives for the holidays, ignore the asshole, and laugh in your beer when his wife dumps his ignorant ass. Your parents, uncles, and aunts won’t last forever, and you should enjoy them while you still can despite the mental-midget.
Eventually, one of the kids is going to have to take over the ‘holiday traditions’ as your relatives get older. Might I suggest that you volunteer? You’ll need a place big enough, but when he spouts ‘Freedom of Speech’ as a cover for his racist remarks, you can then reply with great satisfaction ‘Yeah…? My house, my rules, bigot…!’ and kick his ass to the curb in spectacularly public fashion. (Don’t say I never got you anything for Christmas. 
)
BTW- You just know that when this Bonehead gets divorced, she’ll take everything dime he has along with the house/apartment/house trailer, right? So, speak to your spouse now so that there’s a united front to say "No, you may Not park your racist ass on my couch.”
I grew up and worked in NYC and my experience has been that Staten Island is the single most racist place in NYC (if the KKK had a NYC chapter, Staten Island is where it would be) and that sort of stuff feeds on itself. Other than that, Staten Island is a pretty nice place to live with some of the better public schools in NYC (of course your kids will graduate High school believing the stereotypes behind the use of terms like nigger, spic and chink but that its bad manners to actually use those terms).
You are absolutely correct. Staten Island is the last bastion of retrograde thinking in the city. That’s why it still cracks me up that Wu Tang Clan, who are from SI, call it “Shaolin.” That couldn’t be further from the truth. We called it “Stagnant Island.” I couldn’t wait to get the hell outta there.
I can’t just shun my brother. It’s not that simple; is it ever? What I can do is not let him see that it gets a rise out of me, though I can’t let his obnoxiousness pass without comment. I’m going to try to be dispassionate and convey that I think he sounds idiotic and leave it at that.
Aaah… just tell him you’re gonna have a baby and the father’s black. or maybe you’ve discovered some African American ancestor in your family tree and now he’s part black. Something along those lines or (like I said before) you could just call him a moron whenever he proves it.
If I understand correctly, he’s picking up on the sentiment expressed by a few (black) comedians that there are “regular” black people and then there are n----*. This could be a valid distinction, I don’t know, but usually should be expressed only by the group of people making it.
*paraphrased muchly
I believe it was Chris Rock who said, “I love black people but I hate niggas.” That’s fine, but I don’t think my brother is in a position to make comments like that about other races, and I don’t think he’d like it if that sentiment, in reverse, was directed at him by anyone else. Basically, name-calling like that is bullshit; just because Chris Rock can say it doesn’t mean he can. He could point to the behaviors of the people who are bothering him rather than the color of their skin, and he’d sound a lot more creditable. If he’d said, “The tourist culture in Jamaica is annoying,” that would be OK, but nooo. No fun to say THAT.
I was looking through some old pictures and found some of my brother’s graduation from Marine Corps basic. He’s pictured hugging numerous black men and Latinos in them. I find it hard to believe he actually hates black people across the board. I think he says it because he’s conforming to some sort of Staten Island stereotype. You should hear what he has to say of Arabs. Whew.
Another funny one-liner that he uttered right at the beginning of the Iraq War. He was bitching about Eddie Vedder, saying he shouldn’t be openly opposing the war, that when our country is in conflict, people with criticisms should shut up or BE shut up. I offered his favorite line back to him about how everyone, even Eddie Vedder, has the right to free speech. To deny him that would be fascist.
My brother’s response? “Maybe America NEEDS to be more fascist.”
Hilarious. I know. :o
Well, sure, there are creeps and jerks everywhere (certainly they are in abundance in tourist areas of Jamaica), and race has nothing to do with it.
But this guy just wants to get a rise out of his brother. I have people like that in my family, too. I just tell them that I am offended by this kind of thing and leave it at that. If they do it again, ignore it like you do with toddlers when you want to “extinguish” immature behavior.
I didn’t mean I thought it was acceptable, from Chris Rock or not, but the phrasing of “not all of them, but some” made me think he was using that shtick as ammo for his being able to say such a thing.
You are never going to convince your brother of anything, and he’s deliberately baiting you. You reward him every time you argue with him. His behavior may be rooted in envy - apparently it bothers him that you are more educated than he is, so he tries to get even with you by wearing his bigotry as a badge of class distinction. One interesting thing about this is that (in my experience) greater education doesn’t mean less bigotry, although it often means that bigotry is expressed in more sophisticated terms.
Where does the rest of your family stand on this? Do they just want to keep the peace and wish you and your brother would stop fighting? Are they also appalled by his bigotry?
One of my relatives, who passed away some years back, used to repeat the “There are some good {ahem} and some bad {ahem}” line a lot. He was born right around the turn of the century (I can’t remember if he was born in 1899 or 1900 or 1901) and grew up in a poor area of Richmond, Virginia. Apparently, that was a pretty common saying then and there. The first time I heard him say it, I was shocked, mainly because he didn’t seem to me to be a prejudiced person. But the line is prejudicial, regardless of who is saying it (IMHO).
I think you’re right about the education. He has said that he was upset that I went away to college and left him at home alone (I’m 2 years older than he is). He didn’t get along with my mom and though he’s quite intelligent, he always hated school, so he joined the Marines to get out of the house. I think he’s angry about that, though it’s certainly not a rational anger. My father would have paid for him to go to college if he wanted to. He chose the Marines, which contributed a lot to his hardened attitude today.
Oddly, he worked closely with and was friendly with people of different races in the Marines. Somehow that part of the Marine Corps experience was erased, but the tough-taking nasty mouthed part has remained.
They are not appalled. They only wish there wouldn’t be any fighting. I think they realize he’s obnoxiously baiting me and think I’m being a hippie about the whole thing and should lighten up. Basically, they don’t take sides.’
I think having my boyfriend with me could make a difference, if only to have someone to share a :rolleyes: with. Also, my brother might not want to antagonize me in front of someone bigger than he is, and just as “tough,” who is there with me. I don’t know. I just want an ally in this, and it seems I’ll have to import one. So lame.
An ally would help, but you should be clear with yourself about your goals. It could jeopardize your relationship with your boyfriend if you get in an argument with your brother and expect your boyfriend to jump in and help you. Discuss it with him first, figure out where the boundaries are and don’t cross them. One thing your boyfriend could do is help you break away from confrontations (“Dear, there’s something wayyyyy over there I’d like to show you.”)
Do you know anyone with a background similar to your brother’s but with different attitudes? It would be hard for your brother to get away with his nonsense in front of another Marine without a college education.