According to oral tradition, my father was 1/16th Cherokee. Although only one generation removed from the "1/8th" cut off point that would have a lot of Americans view him as a dirty Injun, he managed to be very White-passing.One day when my husband and I were visiting my folks, my dad told a racist joke to my husband. My very polite, quiet husband very respectfully said "Mr. Stanfield, I don't appreciate that kind of humor."
My father never again told my husband a racist joke. Dad also never again told ME one.
Between THIS incident and another one (linked below), I eventually decided that racial stuff was not my parenting department. The kids could go see their daddy about such topics.
I felt kicked in the gut because I didn't think of myself as racist. I thought I had managed to not drink the koolaid while growing up in the Deep South. I thought I was better than that.It was only after my father died that I saw a photo of a full-blooded Iroquois actor that looked eerily like my father. Before that, I thought of my father as looking kind of like Archie Bunker and I thought of him as very stereotypically White working class older guy.
Some time after seeing that photo I concluded that most likely my father told racist jokes to distance himself from his Native heritage, to convince people he was White and wasn't "one of them."
Similarly, I have come to believe that some of the worst homophobes are homosexuals trying desperately to stay in the closet.
If that's YOU and you KNOW it, start here: Threat Assessment and Reassessment