My Relative Keeps Bringing Up a Vile Part of Our Family’s History. I’d Rather This Stay Buried.

Dear Prudence I’m surprised it keeps coming up. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? July 27, 202611:47 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Mariia Vitkovska/iStock/Getty Images Plus and grynold/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, We have an older relative who brings up family history that is troubling, to say the least, and that I’d rather not hear about at reunions. Sadly, our ancestors owned slaves, and some older family members just dismiss this as “Well, that’s the way it was,” which I also find troubling. We don’t gather in a large group very often, and so it surprises me when it comes up, and I can’t think of what to say. But since I’m interested in genealogy, I do think of it and still can’t seem to come to terms with that awful chapter or what to say to them, or to anyone else for that matter, if it ever were to come up in the future. What would be the best way to address this to the younger family members if they ask? I’m fine if this were never mentioned again. —Still Mortified Dear Mortified, I will come right out and say I’m not going to answer the question I think you’re hoping I’ll answer. The feeling I’m getting from your letter is that you’d like a way to gracefully shut down conversations about the slave-owning ancestors who some of your relatives just won’t stop yapping about. But I think your deep discomfort with this is telling us something about you: You find this history just as upsetting as they do, and it gives you a bad feeling when it’s discussed. This is a good thing! It also means you actually shouldn’t aspire to just make this all go away. Especially in this day and age, there are plenty of people running around who probably think slavery was great, or deny that it exists. I know, I know, the bar is on the floor. But the fact that you’re clear-eyed (albeit uncomfortable) about this history and really feel deeply that it was awful is a good starting point. That leads me to believe you’re better off thinking and talking about your family’s complexity in a brave and honest way than you are spouting off a few talking points and changing the subject. I’m not trying to ruin your family events, I promise! I totally understand why a discussion about what happened in your family that mostly goes, “Oh God, how awful, our lineage sucks. We all suck. I wish we weren’t evil by association” or something similar would be a bummer. But it goes without saying that you didn’t personally do anything wrong or ask to be born into this lineage. With that in mind, I don’t think avoiding or minimizing the topic is going to be the answer. If you were to do so, you would still have a nagging feeling that you don’t really know how to make sense of what you know, and you’d still be constantly nervous that someone would bring it up. Instead, I want you to try to figure out a new way to think about the history and talk about it, which might require taking some kind of action to assure yourself that you are not your ancestors (and in fact, you’re a totally different type of person). The good news is that you’re clearly not the first person to be in this situation—and not the first to want to feel something other than just discomfort and guilt about it. Others have, often with the help of people whose ancestors were enslaved, figured out how to do something productive and even helpful with the genealogical hand they’ve been dealt. For example, the Beyond Kin Project recruits descendants of slaveholders to contribute the information they have (and that descendants of enslaved people often don’t have) to document the former enslaved people owned by their families, which can enrich the history of both the former enslaved and slaveholding families. And the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation is a Jesuit organization led by descendants of enslaved people that invites descendants of slaveholders (like you) to contribute to its work, which includes everything from scholarships for descendants of slavery to support for elderly descendants of slavery, and facilitated conversations between white and Black people meant to “close distance between people and history” by making monetary donations or offering time, skills, connections, or their own family’s stories. When it comes to processing your feelings about all of this so your stomach isn’t in knots (at least not in ways that feel unmanageable) every time someone mentions those problematic ancestors, there’s Reparations4Slavery, which describes itself as “a portal for white families walking in the path of direct despair.” The organization sounds like it’s speaking right to you in their page about coping: As we begin to discover the pain and suffering our collective enslaved ancestors have caused, and our own complicity in upholding institutional racism by extension, we may become overwhelmed with feelings of shame, guilt, remorse, or even anger. Good. Be with those feelings; truly feel them. Reckoning with our family’s history is challenging, especially when we realize that our families may not have told us the truth. Most of us have been taught that our ancestors were good people, and that we are part of an honorable lineage, the very fabric of America. Learning about our family’s legacy of slavery makes us feel defensive … Processing shame and guilt and the many layers of feelings that arise in their wake takes time. However, it is an essential step in becoming an effective anti-Black racism advocate. Consider these perspectives on white shame and guilt, then look inward. Going beyond the tough emotions, the website includes multiple tools for those who are interested in advocating for reparations. I really think if you can say to yourself, “Our ancestors owned slaves and here are the productive things we’re doing with that information and the privileges that come with it,” instead of “Oh no!” whenever someone brings up the topic, you’ll feel so much better. Address it head-on instead of avoiding it. As a matter of fact, you can apply this to any of the other things that we wish didn’t ever happen in our world but very often do anyway. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Prudence, I’m a 30-something single man, and I don’t have any kids of my own. My life just didn’t turn out that way, unfortunately. But my older brother has two boys aged 4 and 6. I adore my nephews and love spending time with them. There’s just one problem. Every time they are upset, it makes me upset too. When one of them cries because he’s fallen over or has been shouted at by their dad, I usually find myself having to hold back the tears. Sometimes I have to go into the other room to compose myself. I’ve been that way since my first nephew was born. I wouldn’t say I’m much of a crier normally, except when I’m around them. Because of this, my brother says I am too soft with them, and he doesn’t let me take them out or even babysit. He thinks I might be suffering from low testosterone, and it’s making me overly emotional. Is that a thing? If so, what can be done to correct it? I’d love to overcome this so I can spend some quality time with my nephews. —Milo Dear Milo, God, this is so sweet. I know it’s troubling for you, but it’s also just very moving that you feel so deeply for these little guys. If you’re not overly emotional about everything in life, I doubt that there’s a physiological issue behind your reaction. Maybe being around your nephews is tapping into something from your own childhood, where you felt scared or hurt. Maybe you have a bunch of feelings that you’ve always suppressed, and they have just been waiting for a reason to jump out, and these adorable kids and their pretty normal experiences have stepped up to do the job. If that’s the case, you obviously have some material that a therapist would love to dig into. But maybe you could also get ahead of these real-time meltdowns by dedicating some time at home, before you see the kids, to think about how much it hurts to see them unhappy, and just let yourself cry about it. You could get all your tears out that way. Or most of them. The other likely possibility is that you’re legitimately worried about these kids. Your brother sounds like he dabbles in toxic masculinity, with all his talk about being “too soft” and inadequate testosterone. I can’t imagine he’s super comforting to your nephews or understanding of them. Maybe when he’s shouting at them, you’re picking up on the fact that they’re legitimately being treated harshly and are not being given much understanding and comfort. If that’s the case, I’m already convinced he wouldn’t listen to your feedback. But you could make it your mission to be a different kind of presence in their life, offering them empathy, softness, and a place to express their own feelings even when they aren’t crying and nothing in particular has gone wrong. Classic Prudie I have a low-stakes question for you. I work at an architecture, engineering and construction firm, and a few years back, two of my colleagues came out as trans and changed their pronouns. One of them includes “he/him” as part of his email signature; the other one, who uses “she/her,” does not. My entire team regularly works with clients in person or over Zoom, and it makes sense to me that “Mike” wants to head off any misgendering at the pass. (It also makes sense that “Julie” doesn’t care to—it’s entirely my colleagues’ own business and decision to make!) However, I’ve noticed something I find strange and a little off-putting. 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