Personally? Yes, I would mention it. I don’t think it would be a big deal, but since my parents tend to know a reasonable amount of detail before meeting my SOs, it would be conspicuous to leave it out.
You should always tell. Otherwise you can get that awkward moment where you serve fried plantains to a white girl.
The correct answer was given already. If you know it will be an issue, tell them in advance.
My parents have never really cared about that sort of thing.
YMMV.
I brought a Latina woman home and no one gave a shit. But I don’t think that racism is exclusive to any one group regardless of how awesome yours and my families are.
I’d probably tell my mum, just so there would be no eyebrow raising, awkward surprise or anything, but she wouldn’t care in the least.
My first real girlfriend was Asian and I don’t remember how it went down. I probably told them first but I might not have. If I did tell them first it would have been if it had come up naturally somehow.
There was one point in time when my sister and I both had Asian SOs. The four of us got together one time and someone took a picture of us with the two men in the back and the women standing in front of us. It was forever known as the Checkerboard Picture.
When I told my (Coloured) parents I was going out with my (White) girlfriend (now wife) I didn’t mention anything about race. I guess they found out when they met her.
Nope, wouldn’t mention it and never have. That being said, I live 3000 miles from my family, so bringing them over is a major event and only happens after extensive discussion and planning. They usually see pictures of us together long before they ever get to meet them.
I’m white, and I’ve dated women of many different races and cultures. It never really occured to me to bring it up directly, and most of them never made it to the point where I was going to introduce them to my family anyway, so it didn’t even come up much. That said, I do remember when one I had been dating her for a couple months or so, and it came up with my mom that I was seeing someone. She started asking questions, and somewhere along there that she is black came up. She wasn’t upset, but she did seem caught off-guard, and she started asking me some questions related to that, which did get a little weird.
After that, considering that my dad is much less tolerant, I decided I’d probably be better off waiting to tell my dad about her until it was more serious. That particular one didn’t last much longer though, so I don’t know how that would have gone. If I had to guess, I probably would have had to tell him ahead of time, so I’d know if he wouldn’t have had a negative reaction upon meeting her or behaved inappropriately. Oh well.
Seriously, mine is the only racist family? Most of my relatives would be very upset. The rest would be downright dangerous.
Yeah, it’s if I tried to bring home a republican, things would get dicey.
Noo…I was expressly forbidden from dating black guys when I was a teenager. I did anyway. Then after my daughter was born for the horrible year afterwards that I lived with my parents, my mom said she was STILL thinking about saying I wasn’t allowed to date black guys anymore as long as I lived there. I only got her to relent on that by asking her how she would feel about my daughter knowing that when she got older.
It caused a lot of problems in my family, largely because my grandparents are racist and my mom is way too worried about making waves with them. My grandparents are still racist and judgmental and so I don’t really talk to them anymore (which makes me sad because we used to be really close when I was little), but my mom is over it and now whenever she knows a nice black guy around my age she tries to set me up with him. But she wouldn’t have ever gotten over it if I hadn’t put her in the position where she either had to rethink her racism or reject her daughter and granddaughter (and what drives me a tiny bit crazy is that she acts like she has NO recollection of this very explicit racism from ye olde days of the year 2000…but oh well, more important that she got over it than that she admits she was wrong).
I wouldn’t mention it and they wouldn’t care. Maybe my Grandparents, but they aren’t a normal fixture in my life anyway.
No, you’re not alone. It could never have been a consideration. BTW, I’m 53.
When my parents found out when I dated a black guy when I was 16, they hit the fucking roof. One of the most awful experiences in my life.
Nowadays maybe they’ve grown up, I don’t know. But I’d definitely tell them beforehand so they can get their feelings on the table and I can tell them to STFU in private.
My parents wouldn’t allow me to surprise them. The person’s race would be the very first question they’d ask right after I made the big announcement.
Race isn’t a taboo thing to either me or my family. A person’s racial background is a part of who they are just like where they are from and what they do for a living. It’s just as informative AND as trivial as those pieces of information. So to be honest, it wouldn’t make sense for me to not disclose his/her race if I’m asked about who I’m seeing. And to be honest, it would bug me if the person I was seeing didn’t understand this. Because that means any conversation with them about race is bound to be fraught with weirdness and awkwardness. I can’t hang with someone who gets wound up over stuff like that.
Maybe you grew up in Hawaii
Wouldn’t even occur to me.
It’s been pretty obvious from their names that both my serious SOs are very unlikely to be Indian, so I didn’t really have to tell my parents. Plus, they knew anyway from talking to me that one was American and the other Swiss, so I assume they put two and two together. I wouldn’t have made a point of telling them “Oh, and by the way… she’s white” because that would feel a bit crude and rather pointless.
I guess black people live in a different universe than you, too.
In any case, I’ve never talked much about who I’m dating to my family in general. Nobody’s batted an eye at the Hispanic girlfriends I’ve introduced.