How Do You Fight Bigotry And Hatred From Home?

How do you fight bigotry and hatred from home? I mean, it depends on where the bigotry and hatred is coming from.

Generally, I’d say you could try to talk it out with whomever it’s coming from. Tell them you don’t appreciate whatever they’ve been doing or saying, and explain thoughtfully why it’s bad. (They may genuinely not know why.)

If it’s a sibling, then (assuming your parents have the same kind of thought processes as you on the matter) maybe get your parents to help explain your reasoning to said sibling.

If it’s your parents? Good luck…

No, no, I don’t actually mean that. If your parents are older, like mine, then it could be that they just don’t quite follow the progressions of the world and what is or isn't exactly considered politically correct by the general public anymore. (My parents don’t do social media - they barely do email - so they really don’t know a lot about pop culture and what goes on in the LGBTQI community.)

In this case, definitely get examples to help explain why your older parents are being inappropriate and maybe hurting people’s feelings. Maybe you can chat to any other adults who your parents might listen to. In my experience, they’re pretty willing to sit down with you and learn - so long as you're not simply trying to embarrass them.

If your parents are younger, though, they might understand exactly what they’re doing and are simply taking teasing way too far. Or, once again, they could just not be up to date with what’s what. If they do have social media, maybe you can direct them to certain posts on the matter. Maybe you can get another adult to help, like before.

If you’re not the sort to sit down for a deep, meaningful conversation, maybe you can get a bit passive aggressive about it (though this is unlikely to be all that effective). Print out some posts or articles on the topic of what’s upsetting you. Leave them where you’ll know they’ll find it. Once you’ve noticed they’ve started reading them, you could leave little notes too, perhaps suggesting that they should change their behaviour.

If that still doesn’t work and you still want to be less hands-on about it, you could nudge someone else in the direction of being passive aggressive towards them too.

Probably better that you just go up to them and tell them that these articles relate to what they’ve been doing lately, and they’re not being very pleasant, and could they just stop it, please? Or at least tone it way, way down?

Or, you could just throw your hands in the air, avoid the person in question for a while (go hide with a friend) and wait until they confront you. Your choice - but this is not what I recommend. Honest conversations are really the way to go.

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