I corrected my Dad on his hateful speach a few years back and he replied ”it’s my goal, just as it should be yours, to be better than my father”.

That has to be one of the most candid things he’s ever said to me.

Mine are dead, because I’m old as hell myself.

But it was quite different on each side of my family, with some minor interesting quirks.

Now, they were all nice enough. Even my one grandfather that was a fairly venomous racist was nice, even to black people. Hell, if anything he was nicer to black people than other whites. It’s an old south thing.

Obviously, tolerance was not his strong suit when out of the public.

And that was true for my grandmother on that side as well. She was less vehement about it, and more of the habitual racist. You know the type, they don’t hate black people, and don’t even really have real problems with them, but they grew up with racism being the default, and see no reason to stop using slurs just because times have changed. But she’d never say anything mean to anyone.

Kinda weird shit tbh. I took one of my friends over to her house at one point, and whenever the subject of school came up, she’d remember him and ask “how is your n****** friend?”. Wasn’t being hurtful in her mind, she was genuinely asking after him because he was my friend. The south can be fucking nuts that way. Which, when I was younger than that time, my parents had sheltered me from the n word and what it really meant, which led to some funny but problematic confusion eventually.

On the other side, both grandparents were legit super tolerant. Like, my best friend is gay, and at one point they thought we were together, so they were inviting him to family gatherings. My black friends were always welcome, nothing ever even mentioned about race at all.

My grandfather was republican, but was a one issue voter (2a rights). He was otherwise progressive as hell. Like, there was this show in the eighties called “Soap”. Billy Crystal got famous on it and played an gay man. He often said after the show would end that he didn’t understand what the problem was, “there were sailors like that under my command. You didn’t talk about such things, but they never bothered anyone, and they served their country with honor.”

I worked as a bouncer off and on as a side gig, including for gay bars. My best friend was/is gay. So I ended up being active in gay rights support. Never had to worry about it being a problem. My grandfather said he was proud of me a few times, and while neither of them enjoyed seeing me bandaged and beat all to hell when either the job or the activism got ugly, they were pissed that people were like that, and never once suggested I should stop.

Now, that grandfather had served during some of the cold war and hated Russians. With a passion. So he wasn’t free of prejudice entirely. That grandmother though, she never had anything bad to say about groups of people. And she’d tell my grandfather to shush his mouth when he’d watch the news and go on a Russia rant lol. Strangely, he never minded me being fairly friendly with socialist ideas. He’d argue the points of it, but never said I shouldn’t believe any given thing.

I loved all of them. I still do, even my racist grandfather. It wasn’t the totality of who he was, and I can love people that are flawed. Maybe if he’d lived longer, he could have changed. My grandmother that was racist did to some degree (switched to “colored” instead after my dad gave her hell once), and my dad and uncles rejected that bullshit early on, so that might have swayed him eventually. Or maybe he would have stayed just as bad, I dunno.

Asking for things to be like when she was younger, to which I asked if she was a fan of Nazi Germany as she grew up post WWII.

Uh, what? Why the hell would you equate growing up in Germany after WWII with Nazis?

I guess I am wondering how can I come from a family that seemingly has no compassion for anybody and even less empathy for anybody different than them.

Maybe start with yourself? Recognize change is difficult, nostalgia is comfortable, and for someone who grew up pre-internet by several decades, the current world is probably overwhelming at times.

Your family’s comments on the number of black athletes and on paralympics sound sus, but you don’t exactly present yourself as a beacon of inclusivity either.

Self-reflection is a great place to start to grow empathy and understanding of others. Or to discover for oneself when it’s time to cut losses.