What do you do when you find out your father is a racist?? [View all]

[RockaFowler]

My Dad turns 80 next week. I'm supposed to go to his house for a family "reunion" of sorts and I'm not sure I want to go.

I've known for awhile now that my Dad has changed. Maybe it's because he lives on the Southwest Coast of Florida. Maybe it's because he believes everything he reads on the internet. When did my Dad get so gullible??

Today he liked a post on Facebook that made me go just bonkers. Of course it's always good to check on Snopes whenever one of these strange conspiracy theories come along, so I did:

http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/bubbaconroy.asp

Ah yes the Bubba Conroy story from June has resurfaced. This time from a site called ClashDaily.com. Everything on there is racist this, racist that. How is Facebook allowing their site still? Better still - why is my Dad liking this site?? My Dad was always a Liberal - always a Democrat. Heck he used to have fights with my Republican Uncle all the time about politics. Oh and racism - my Dad was born in Egypt. His oldest sister was married to a Black Egyptian man (may God rest his soul). We were always told to respect everyone of color and religion. That was why as a young Jewish woman I went to a Catholic school. My Dad wanted us to learn about other religions, and in turn teach them about ours (many of the kids even came to my Bat Mitzvah).

I'm heartbroken. And I feel like I want to cry. This is not the same man I knew when I was younger. That man respected all people. He respected all religions. He respected immigrants (as he was one himself). Now he reads and likes articles that are horribly racist in nature. You kearn a lot more about people when you start to see their inner thoughts. Unfortunatley Social Media is making those inner thoughts outer thoughts.