Advice | Carolyn Hax: 20-year-old listens to racist rapper. Should his parent speak up?

I know my son is no longer a child. I also know, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” I’m trying to respect boundaries. I’m also extremely disheartened. Thank you.

Do I Say Anything?: Ugh. I hate this question. I hate the circumstances that make it so relevant. I hate the messiness that makes it so hard to answer.

I hate that just before this chat, I was enjoying a video by my kid’s team manager — great kid, talented, works hard — set to music by a notoriously Nazi-curious performer.

Here’s all I’ve got: It is a parent’s job to raise children to find their way to sound moral reasoning. It is not a parent’s job to do the moral reasoning for their children, or to get them to the point of perfect soundness today/by tomorrow/immediately upon adulthood. Or to keep trying to rear them when they’re clearly adults. Ahem.

Think back to your beliefs at his age, and before, and after, and I think it’ll be clear that beliefs always evolve and deepen with time. We get there when we get there, at our own pace, using or discarding new information and others’ input as we see fit. You may have listened to offensive artists yourself at 20, but thrown away the recordings at 40.

Plus: A moral adult’s own reckoning with artists of grim character can be complicated. Are there painters whose personal lives you know to be problematic? Okay. Do you turn your eyes away from their works? Or do you look and admire because it was … enough years ago? You’re seeing them free? The artists can’t profit? No one knows you’re looking? Everyone was an oppressor back then!!

What about movies? With so many in the cast and crew and front office, do you boycott for one corrupted influence? The whole Miramax oeuvre: out?

So where does this land as far as advice … good question. That also depends on your kid, and how responsive he is to a parental intrusion on his thoughts. Some young adults will gratefully engage, some will eye-roll — and some are still immature enough to double down just because you butted in. That has a way of blurring even clear moral lines.

Overall, I advise playing the long game. Trust that your moral teachings have hit their mark and will be absorbed as he is receptive to them. If you can’t stop your mouth from moving, then I urge conversation over pronouncements. “How do you feel about X’s music since [relevant events]? I always struggle myself with art vs. the artist.” Then listen, listen, listen, because you’ve reared him already, and because you may just learn something from him.

Part of why this question is so challenging is that soft approaches feel wrong in the presence of such casual dehumanization. If ever there were a time for arm-flapping outrage, this would be it, right?

But what’s the point of the outrage: for its own sake, or to persuade? That’s both the crux of this answer and one entirely unto itself.