Recently, a story posted on r/AITA received quite a backlash from people. The post comes from a 32-year-old mom of 4 kids, one of which is her husband’s daughter from a previous marriage.
“I am 32F, my husband Jack is 36M. We have Lydia, Carol and Solomon together. Jack has Enephrine from a different marriage.” For the last week of summer before the kids started school, the family went on vacation. Mom said she wanted to take Christmas card photos while they were away since it’s “a common theme in her family.”
“Here's the problem,” wrote mom. She continued: “Jack is white, but Enephrine's mom is black and she turned out looking very, very much like her.” It turned out, the woman didn’t want Enephrine in the family photograph because, in her own words, her parents are pretty racist and would make a fuss about it.
As you can imagine, this didn’t go well with the people in the r/AITA community. Not only was the woman dubbed an a-hole, she received tons of backlash for, well, being awfully racist.
Image credits: Chris Benson (not the actual photo)
This is the post she shared on r/AITA where people in the community immediately detected mom's racism
Multiracial Americans make up a growing demographic, estimated at 9 million in the last census. The number of Americans who identify as multiracial is growing at three times faster than the normal population, according to the Pew Research Center. Sadly, just like virtually every person of color, multiracial people have encountered racism at some point in their lives.
What’s even more disturbing is that racial prejudice between family members is not an uncommon occurrence. According to this 2015 Pew study, a vast majority of multiracial people, 90%, say they have not been mistreated by a relative or extended family member because of their mixed-race background.
What makes it even more problematic is that being in denial about systemic racism is often deeply embedded into families and their members. In some families, racial background becomes a taboo they refuse to talk about, silencing their heritage, which is often just as painful as racism itself.
People dubbed mom the a-hole and said she's a racist herself
