this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Big yikes, so your partner is implying racist things in order to maintain this relationship. By implying that being a "your race sympathizer" is antithetical to being a "patriot" (well, and maybe it is, and if so, then patriotism is actively a bad thing, Also, patriotism is probably actively a bad thing depending on the country) they're throwing you under the bus and engaging in racism.
How long have you two been together? Have you had really direct hard conversations about racism? I would absolutely not be able to trust or respect a partner who was willing to ¿pretend? to be racist. Or is revealing their latent racism. After the experiences I've had even with "friends", I would not date a white person without vetting them and making sure they weren't just "not racist" but were vehemently anti-racist or would at the very least be completely supportive of me verbally tearing their new family apart and being verbally combative to anyone who was racist to me. And to be clear, here's what I'd expect from a partner when asked a question like that: "Fuck you (and here's why)." Not, "I'm a patriot." That may sound extreme, but morally it's really the bare minimum requirement for a white person to be able to date a person of color.
From looking at some of your other posts I'm guessing you're young and/or inexperienced. I advise you to figure out if this partner is worth trying to salvage (educate and/or radicalize), or if you'd be better off breaking up and holding out for someone who isn't going to be racist to you. Problems like this do not get better by just ignoring them. It's easier to find people when you're younger before people pair off in older age, and you don't want to waste your youth on a relationship that is likely to be destroyed by racism anyway. If this becomes a long term relationship, if you get married, and especially if you have children, that parent's racism is going to be a perpetual source of strife and pain unless your partner takes a very hard and militant stance. Can't count on them to step up later if they'll fold now.
I think it was sarcasm. This parent likes to tick people off while acting calm, so my partner responded in the same tone back. You can't be openly sincerely angry because this parent sees it as you "losing" the argument, and can keep on trying to get more emotional responses out of you while pretending to have no idea why you're angry. This parent never takes accountability either, so there's no point to reasoning with them. Hence, I think my partner was using sarcasm.
Fwiw, I have a parent like this. This is antisocial behavior: they are actively causing social and psychological harm to those around them. My last partner and I had to be around my parents out of financial necessity. When we were able to disentangle, we did, and then cut all contact. My present partner of two years has not met either of my parents, and won't, as long as I can help it. My parents don't even know my partner exists, because they don't get to learn anything about my life anymore; they use information as a weapon.
These dynamics that you are putting up with are untenable. Your partner needs to protect you from their aggressively racist family member(s) and anyone who permits/abeds the racism. To echo other posters: you need to have a difficult conversation if you expect to maintain a long-term relationship with your partner. It's possible your partner doesn't recognize how this baseline toxicity is unacceptable, because they likely grew up surrounded by it. It's not necessarily your job to educate them, but they will need to take an active role in reshaping the dynamics they are in.
It's fair to ask your partner to call out the racist bullshit when it happens. It's fair to tell your partner that you don't want to be in the same room or at the same events as the family member. You don't deserve to be racially aggressed while the rest of the family tacitly looks on. You don't deserve that kind of isolation.