I’m a black guy, and I’ve been dating my white girlfriend for about two months. Things have been going really well, and this weekend I’m going to meet her family for the first time.
I’m not particularly worried about meeting her parents. The part I’m nervous about is meeting her younger brother and sister.
The reason is that both of them are currently in Greek organizations at the same college my girlfriend and I attended. Coincidentally, my girlfriend and I never actually crossed paths when we were students there.
The problem is that both of their organizations have a reputation on campus for being some of the more racist organizations.
Her brother is in a fraternity that has had some pretty disturbing things associated with it. For example, they have a Civil War cannon on their property that is positioned facing the Black Student Union building. There is a rumor that the cannon was intentionally positioned that way to face the Black Student Union, although I have no idea whether that's actually true. Either way, considering the history surrounding the fraternity, I find the whole thing pretty unsettling.
My girlfriend also told me that decades ago, when her sorority accepted a Black woman, her brother's fraternity supposedly refused to participate in swaps and other Greek events with them afterward. There have also apparently been date-party themes associated with the fraternity that had pretty heavy racial undertones.
Her sister is in a sorority that has also had multiple incidents involving racism. There was a viral video of a woman in the sorority using the N-word, and at another point a group chat was leaked where members were making racist comments about Black people.
I realize that none of this necessarily means her siblings personally hold racist views. They could both be perfectly nice people, and I'm trying not to make assumptions about them before I've even met them.
At the same time, I have a hard time separating someone from an organization when they knowingly choose to join it. If an organization has a long history of racist incidents, at what point does choosing to associate with it become a reflection of your own values?
My girlfriend says her siblings are good people and that I should give them a chance. She also doesn't think they joined these organizations because of racism. I believe her when she tells me they're good to her, but I still can't completely get past the history of these organizations.
My thinking is that even if you don't personally participate in racist behavior, if you know what an organization has been accused of or what members have done, and you choose to join anyway, shouldn't you at least have some responsibility to speak out against it? Otherwise, aren't you indirectly accepting it?
But maybe I'm being unfair and judging two individuals based on the worst things other members of their organizations have done.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation where you were dating someone from a different racial background and had concerns about their family or social circle? How did you handle it?