The question During a family meal my eldest sister made a xenophobic joke. I told her she was a racist and that I felt like leaving. She was angry and affronted. She denied being racist and said her joke was just a clever play on words. I was upset, but was persuaded to stay as I didn’t want it to ruin the day. However, my sister and I have not spoken since.
When we were growing up, my sister and I got on well, so this isn’t part of an ongoing competitive dynamic or anything, but these days there are fundamental political differences between us – she has stayed at home, whereas I have travelled widely and now live in a more cosmopolitan area. Despite this, we usually rub along well and I do want to heal this rift, but I don’t know how.
Philippa’s answer As a society we need to have each other’s backs in public and – most importantly – in private in such a moment as you had. We need to call out bigotry when we see it to contribute positively to society. The joke, which I am not going to insult anyone by publishing, is racist, but this isn’t about whether that joke was offensive or benign. The issue isn’t that you called your sister out, but how you did it.
When we know ourselves to be right and we know that millions of people would agree with our position, it is too easy to feel superior and, unconsciously, we even may want to prove we are. Especially, perhaps, to an older sister – who traditionally may be seen as the wisest sibling, no matter how harmonious you all were while growing up. I wonder, have you fallen into the trap of seeing you and your sister through the clumsy lens of left and right politics? We are all more complicated than that, so there is a little work to do if you want to mend fences.
If we are made to feel humiliated, we are unlikely to listen to feedback and take it on board, and more likely to go into denial and try to defend ourselves.
At some point you have learned to think in a different way from how you were brought up, which suggests that you would understand why your sister might not get the reasons the “joke” is offensive. See it from her point of view for a moment. It sounds as if she is not in direct contact with people from diverse backgrounds. In her bubble she might not have ever thought about how it feels to be part of a minority who are tired of being stereotyped, mocked and persecuted.
When we don’t take these things into consideration and just jump on to the moral high ground and label someone, that, too, is behaviour that leaves the person we expose feeling attacked. This means you lose an opportunity to educate, which is a shame. Because if we are made to feel humiliated, we are unlikely to listen to feedback and take it on board and more likely to go into denial and try to defend ourselves.
Let’s be kind and assume your sister did not mean any harm, or feel spiteful towards the people targeted in the joke, and that she simply hadn’t thought it through. In that situation, label the joke, but don’t label the person. Anyone is going to get defensive if they are labelled. Instead, tell them how the joke is offensive and how it would make people of a minority ethnicity feel – and how it makes you feel. You might have said something like: “Jokes like this may seem inconsequential, but they reinforce racism and prejudice, which is why I objected.”
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You could add that the joke may appear to her as almost harmless, like a small cut, but if you are a person who has experienced many small cuts throughout your life, you end up with a terrible wound. Tell her that you know she is a good person, but if someone else heard her repeat that joke, they might mistake her for a racist.
Paradoxically, if you can feel more humility when you express an opinion, you may find you feel more confident, rather than less, which means you won’t come over as overbearing. Your point won’t be received well if you make it in an over-forceful way that humiliates.
To try to make peace with your sister say something like, “Sorry that I called you a racist, it was the joke that was racist, not you”. Racist jokes are wrong, but attacking a sister who maybe hadn’t thought through what she was saying isn’t the best way to confront the problem in a manner that makes her see why it was wrong.
No one is “plain racist”– racism is borne of fear, or of a superiority or inferiority complex, or insecurity. We all belong to our own “in group” and see another group as the “out group”. Our dislike, as opposed to trying to understand people in other groups, makes us feel more secure in our own group identity and maybe even superior. We can all be guilty of this. And political events, like Brexit, have got us further entrenched in positions that fuel hate rather than understanding.
In terms of the relationship, the important thing here is to own your part in this rupture, so that you can repair it. It feels unfair that you have to do the heavy lifting in this peace process, but it is you asking me how to heal the rift. If your sister had written in, I’d tell her to own her wrongdoing, too.
Recommended reading: How to Argue With a Racist by Adam Rutherford.
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