Wish me well. I'm off to dinner with the racist side of the family.

[The Backlash Cometh]

<sigh> O petulant youth. Why did the only man I could spend a lifetime with, have to have gated-community mentality siblings.

How does that happen, that people spawned by the same parents could turn out so differently? While I'm off to the races <snort> those who live in mixed families (Repub in-laws), please let me know how you do it? I only have to face mine once a year.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

1. Oh my God, me too !! We should form a "Republican In-laws

Anonymous Group" . I screamed at my brother in-law over Thanksgiving Dinner. They all made me want to puke. Raving about how wonderful the black people should feel, with "Con"di in. I said, "wow,she knew about the "regular" highjacking and didn't do a damn thing. And every black person I've talked to hates her. She doesn't stand for anything good that they believe in" OOO, boy that ended the party.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. I managed to avoid that show-down for two years while I went

back to school. Told my hubby I couldn't make Thanksgiving because I had exams to study for. :-). But last year's Thanksgiving I had to make an appearance (We're down to a once a year appearance.) and the strain was very obvious. Even though my brother-in-law now recognizes that protocol is needed to keep this family together, his kids haven't learned how to show that they learned racism well from the old man. That was last year. This year, we kept it to the adults, but we left the Christian fundie Aunt out.

I'll have a synopsis of my evening later down in the thread.

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. I simply find ways out of it. I know, shame on me.

Good luck. :hug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Thanks, I survived.

I've got it down to once a year only, having to see them. Three years ago Auntie Fundie made a terrible mistake of directing her vile degrading remarks to my kids, instead of just focusing them on me. Since then, my husband has been complacent about not being available, except for the once a year requirement.

[NurseLefty]

3. Ask them if they think Jesus was a racist. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. I'm almost there.

Believe me, I think they know I'm ready to pop.

[Verve]

4. Here's part of an email from one of my Repug brothers:

"I heard a quote today that I like, here it is: "Resentment is like swallowing poison yourself, in the hopes that it will kill your enemy". Its time to let go, The good Lord and George W will love you regardless.
Happy Holidays"

He's not even religious! He just likes to rub the moral mandate crap in my face! AHHHHH! :spank:

By the way, I'll join your Repug inlaw group as mine are as well. Yet that is the least of my concerns since my parents and 3 siblings (from a red state) are Repugs as well. (Although, not from a southern state which in my opinion is way more radical!) I've just learned to hold my own when politics do come up. Unfortunately, I was on a week long family reunion with them during the 2000 post election fiasco. I was the sole Gore supporter out of 10 adults! It was hell!

Although I do occasionaly continue to have debates with my family members, my mother and I have reached a nonverbal agreement not to talk about politics.

[MisterP]

9. snakes thrive by swallowing poison and venom

"be wise as serpents..."

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. One out of ten? Those are my odds too when the entire family

shows up. You know, it really is sad, but when I think about it, the only member of the family that I could have possibly got along with died more than ten years ago. She was a lawyer that helped women find the delinquent fathers of their children.

I think the sister that survived (my sister-in-law) became Republican because she's a staunch Catholic and teacher at a private school and the private school vs. public school argument blinded her.

[Kipepeo]

17. Gross, I get stuff like that from

some of my extended family as well.

This year I have decided to send them all a christmas card:

http://www.cafepress.com/irregulargoods.8610670

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. I love it.

I think they all know that the shit is hitting the fan. If Bush instills a draft, it will destroy everything they ever believed in.

[Left Is Write]

5. My inlaws are Republican.

I love them despite their politics. We've always gotten along well, but this election did strain my patience.

They are not the redneck, racist, religiously zealous type of Republicans; they are the wealthy corporate type. How do I do it? I avoid like the PLAGUE any hint of political discussion.

They definitely buy into the Fox News propaganda machine, even referring to Fox by their own slogan, telling us they believe only Fox is "fair and balanced." They refuse to watch any other news because it's all liberal biased. They use the oh-so-popular catchphrase "liberal whiners."

My husband cuts his mother off if she starts expounding on the evils of liberals and how John Kerry is a scary man. When she says things about liberals, he says, "You do know you're talking about my wife and me?" I truly believe she does not intend to offend. I also think they believe I'm beyond hope - a lifelong liberal - but that their son might be saved from his liberalness.

This is really the only sticking point, though. Otherwise, they are lovely, loving people, they love their son and me, they adore their grandchildren, and they are fun. Politics aside, I've been blessed with great inlaws. Sometimes, just sometimes, is best to put aside differences for family harmony. Racism, though? That's a whole different animal. I don't believe I could keep my mouth shut through racist talk. Good luck to you!

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I found the answer to keeping their racist/Republican comments down!

Really! I found how to keep them quiet, if for one night! The answer was to be more obnoxious than they are! Who knew?

The first thing I did was act cold and distant. When they commented about the number of college degrees there were in the car I mentioned that I had two. I bragged about my kids in a way I never have before. And since my kids have forever been seen as rejects from public school that will never amount to anything AND since we keep these visits to once a year they were shocked to find out how well we were all doing. My son is considering prominent colleges and my daughter, as a freshmen, is on a Varsity team AND made honors. They were surprised in the latter because she had a learning disability when she was young. I told them, "Well, you know the public school has done a wonderful job of giving her special training to overcome her disability and, she does have a high I.Q., you know." (I really laid it on thick.)

The secret to getting even with Republicans, is to act more Republican than they are!

[American Renaissance]

6. I am SOOOO lucky,

My girlfriends family is full of them, but they basically disowned her for the gravest of all sins... going to college.

Is there anything more disgusting your daughter could do with her life than goto college and get a degree in Geology?

She wants even less to do with them than I do. I have only met her brother, he seems fairly reasonable, but to weak to stand up to them.

These guys are nuts, they bring guns to the dinner table, how she turned out so well adjusted, I will never know.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. You're kidding me? Guns to the dinner table?

Why should that surprise me? My family went to go visit my brother in Alabama. They said they wanted to take a walk in the woods after dinner, and he took his gun out with him!

[MountainLaurel]

7. Why go?

Life is too short and precious to spend time with people that fucking evil.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. I'm down to once a year. It's generally tough for the first 3 hours.

Last year I got away with 3 1/2 hours. This year it was 5 hours. And the last two hours was watching a videotape at their house. There wasn't more than five minutes of conversation exchanged in that time!

[sariku]

8. Just say no

It works for me. My family is just about every kind of -ist you can come up with. The latest was that they objected to me marrying a Canadian :eyes:

When I was a child, my much older brother married a lovely vietnamese woman. My mother made her life a living hell. I can remember walking with my sister down the street and she just started to cry. Why? Because we were all together for the holidays (Thanksgiving) and they were treating her like a second-class citizen. To make it worse, we'd gathered at my oldest sister's house, which is 400 miles away, so she was completely cut off from her own family for support. My brother was a total spineless prick about it. He never stood up for her - big surprise, he lost her.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. I learned to fight back pre-emptively this year.

I use to take it the way you describe above, but this year, I learned that you have to have a roller coaster of bites and cordial conversation. Mix it up.

First, they were talking about vacations. My sister-in-law said, "They say it's safe to travel anywhere in the U.S., but not outside the U.S. because of terrorism." I snapped back, oh, it isn't safe to travel outside the U.S. because everyone is unhappy at us, especially our allies.

Then she talked about her brother and how he went to a Central American country and bought some land for very little and now he's making some good money selling it. I said, "sure, because Americans are leaving in droves." They feebly replied, "yes, he said he's seen a lot of ex-patriots."

And then, when I said I'm looking for technology schools for my son, they said, "How about Georgia Tech?" I replied, "I don't want him going any where in the South."

The beauty of it all is that it worked! I changed the tone of the evening by pre-emptively being nasty.