I still love him though :)
I sometimes wonder how my sisters and I turned out so well adjusted (well two out of three isn't bad).
My Dad is a lovely man. I completely adore him. However, some of his views leave me wanting to bang my head against a brickwall, and any attempt made on my part to discuss these views with him, usually leave me feeling like I have banged my head against a brickwall. Since I was at school, I have read books, and learned alot of things. This means I have really strong and opinions on things and I am always up for a good debate about such issues. Fortunately for me my Dad isn't one to back down and has always given me a good argument about things. My Dad is racist and homophobic. These two things have dictated many of our major disagreements over the years. Now my Dad doesn't HATE. He just has ideas about these people in his head and whatever you say to him he will not shake them. I know that most of it is a generation thing, and his generation is just very different to mine, and accepting of different things.
Our first major argument about race was when I was still at school. My dad doesn't have a problem generally with people who have a different colour skin. Though he does believe in many of the stereotypes that portray them. My Dads biggest issue was that people with different colour skin shouldn't mix. He believed that you should stick to your own. A belief that many people share with him. He doesn't think the mixture of cultures is right, and he just we should all live separate lives. This is something that I have fought with him about for many years. I think much of his argument was to get a reaction out of me, which it did. It was something I disagreed strongly with. I just thought it was small minded on his part. Not taking the time to get to know someone and automatacally believing the stereotypes. All them years ago I remember questioning him about what would happen if I had a mixed relationship, and god forbid, brought a mixed raced child into the world, and informed me that I would be disowned, and he would want nothing to do with me.
A good few years after that conversation, my sister got pregnant. Her baby would be mixed race, and her partner was from Jamaica. She was really worried about telling my parents, and broke it to my Mum first. Who at first was shocked. My sister presumed that my Mum would approach my Dad about it and break the news to him. So she never actually discussed it with him. This upset my Dad because he felt she had left him out and not really had the decency to tell him herself. So he was a little funny with her for a while. My sister presumed this was due to the race of the baby, and the misunderstanding continued for a good few months. My Dad however, couldn't of cared less about the race of his first Grandchild. From the moment he set eyes on her he was in love, and not once did he see the colour of her skin. My sisters partner also gets on extremely well with my Dad, and there is no issues about colours of skin. Basically because my Dad just doesn't see it. To him they are family, and no different to the rest of us. Now though this is a good thing, I wish I could say this has completely changed his views. It hasn't though. Sometimes you still catch sight of the stereotypes that he has in his head. At least he is improving though.
A more recent case of this was when my neighbour was selling their house. A gay couple moved in. Something that bothered my Dad considerably. He didn't want people like 'that' near his family. They were unnatural, and just wrong in his eyes. Now at the time me and my Dad again went head to head on the issue, and my sister also told him she thought he was wrong. He wouldn't listen though. He was completely disgusted people like them could live so closely to him. He really felt strongly about it. Or so I thought. About a week ago I caught my Dad chatting happily to these neighbours he hated so much. He was laughing and smiling, and completely nice to them. When I questioned my Dad about this, he still turned his nose up at their sexual preference, but he said they were nice blokes, and he didn't actually have a problem with them. Amazing.
It is funny how much peoples prejudices can actually change when they come face to face with what they had the issue with in the first place. That they have to actually get to know the person behind the stereotype, and realise that they aren't much different to themselves. It is so easy for us all to judge people on how they are percieved by the media, by other people, by stereotypes, that we forget there is a real actual person behind it. That if we actually spent some time getting to know them we might actually like what we see. Though many of my Dads views haven't changed, and the core of what he disliked remains the same. I am happy to see that he can connect with people on a basic human level without judging them and not giving them a chance.
Maybe that's the reason my sisters and I turned out so well adjusted.