What's with all the 'racist uncles'?
It's holiday season again, that magical time of year when families gather, feasts are prepared, and media outlets tell you how to argue with your racist uncle. To judge by these articles, millions of Americans heading home for the holidays are dreading a confrontation with an uncle — always an uncle — who expresses heinous opinions during an otherwise congenial supper. And yet people don't want to spoil the holidays for everyone by fighting.
There are many peculiar things about this genre, which has taken the shape of bots and hotlines that promise to assist you in outsmarting your uncle. Strangest may be the implied conviction that if it weren't for racial politics, families wouldn't get into ugly rows over Thanksgiving dinner. But perhaps more striking is the way this trope papers over the existence of broader familial racism. Racist parents are nowhere to be seen in these fables, nor are racist brothers and sisters. There isn't even a whisper of a racist aunt, never mind a racist niece or nephew. In the happy world of the racist uncle, bigots stopped reproducing in the 1960s and survive only in the form of childless, middle-aged males who go to their siblings' houses for the holidays.
For one, racist aunts are just as real as racist uncles. Studies show white women are not significantly less racist than white men, news that should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied the demographic trends of recent elections. But there's also ample reason to beware the racist niece and nephew; white millennials are only marginally less racist than their parents. In surveys, 31 percent of white millennials believe black people are lazier than whites, as opposed to 35 percent of white baby boomers. Millennials, boomers and members of Generation X are markedly less racist than previous generations, but given that the oldest boomers are now in their 70s, this isn't especially heartening. We've apparently made little to no progress in eradicating racism since the '60s.
