Submitted by Taotao77 t3_10h6vgv in relationship_advice
Title. I met this girl at an anime convention 3 months ago and things have been great. We have a ton of common interests musically, in games, media, and political views. She'd been warning me about her family being...protective of her. I figured, yeah, that's not surprising to me, but I've never dated a black girl before and I'll be honest, it's more of a cultural hurdle than both of us thought, but we're making it work, and the two of us don't ever really acknowledge it. Her family is a different story.
So, she invites me over for dinner to meet her folks and of course I'm a bit nervous, but I'm excited because I like this girl a lot. From the moment I arrived, her dad and older brother don't even look up off the couch to acknowledge me. I say hi and I get a mean mug from the brother, her dad just keep watching the Vikings Giants game. I like football so I try and strike up a conversation about it just to get cut off and told not to talk during the game. Fair enough, I shrug, I've met some intense football fans and that's not too uncommon. So I just sit in the kitchen with her and her mom (super sweet lady, she was more than happy for us) while she made dinner.
Cut to the dinner itself, still haven't gotten a word out of the two guys and it's pretty awkward. I wait to see what everyone else does as far as serving out the food goes, and it looks like they do it buffet style, so I grab myself a plate and start loading up. Barbecue brisket, baby carrots, cream corn, dinner rolls, all stuff my Texan family makes. The dad cracks a joke, "careful boy that brisket has black pepper," which is pretty funny and I laugh, but he wasn't laughing. He looked more annoyed with me, so I stop laughing and God damn it was awkward as hell. The rest of the dinner is pretty quiet, a few questions from the mom, but I'm too busy stuffing my mouth so I don't have to think about talking. I probably looked like a slob, thinking back on it.
Dinner's over, we stay at the table while her mom takes all our plates, when my girlfriend speaks up and tells her brother to stop staring at me, which he gets defensive about. I hadn't even noticed, but yeah, the dude looks pissed while the dad is back on the couch. They get into an argument about how the dinner went while I stand up and go over to the TV, just awkwardly standing up watching the game. The fight ends along the lines of her saying "you've never done this with my other boyfriends", which he responds "yeah, it's fucked up. You fucked up." That one hurt my feelings.
Anyway, my girlfriend walks me out to my car after I say my goodbyes and thank them for the good food. She's fuming, tearing up, which makes me feel bad so I tell her it's alright, I'm not bothered. She raises her voice and says it's not alright, which I knew inside. I head home and we talk it out over text. We don't really know what I can do to make them like me more other than treating her well over a period of time.
So what can I do, really? I don't want it to cause her familial problems, which, according to her, there are hurtful quips made here and there about me and it upsets her. I really don't know what my options are, because I'm sure as hell not going to start acting differently to try and butter them up, I feel that would come off even worse.
I've tried like 6 variations of googling this topic and I could only find this advice for this sort of situation in reverse (to nobody's surprise), but it definitely isn't the same as some right wing white dad being mad her daughter is with a black guy. Idk, I like this girl a lot and I'd love to keep this going, but its gonna suck if I have to deal with this for potentially the rest of my life if things go how I'd like them.
Tl;dr: started dating a black girl, her dad and brother are super racist towards me and I've never experienced this sort of thing. Need advice on how we can make it amicable.