Comment by bityard

My step-mother (who didn't come into my life until around the time I got married. She is actually a pretty nice person overall, she is just... shall we say, opinionated, and could be somewhat racist once the conversation turned to politics. I always stopped participating in the conversation when she made racist statements, but she never fully seemed to take the hint.

Then we had a child. Once our kid was old enough to start understanding what people were saying, I put my foot down at one point when we came to visit. To paraphrase: I said, look, you're free to think whatever you want about whoever you want but the racist shit has to end when my daughter is around. Otherwise we need to head back home.

After that, it never happened again and we still keep in touch with her to this day. Some people just need to be told exactly where the boundaries are and then they respect them. (But of course not all will.)