Basic Trope: An elderly person who carries racist attitudes and/or uses racial terms now considered derogatory.
- Straight: Alice refers to Bob as "that negro over there."
- Exaggerated:
- Old man Alex committed war crimes in the SS.
- Alice treats Bob like he's there to serve her even though he isn't.
- Alice refers to Bob as a far worse N-word.
- Alice upbraids Bob for not being out in the cotton fields toiling, and demands to know where his "master" is.
- Alice turned her backyard shed into a gas chamber
- Alice hates everyone who isn't completely white, straight, male, cisgender, Christian/atheist/agnostic, neurotypical, and healthy to the point in which even Eric Cartman would believe she's too closed-minded.
- Downplayed:
- Alice ignores Bob in a reception line because she doesn't shake hands with black people.
- Alice says that Bob is a credit to his race.
- Calling Alice "racist" would be a bit of a stretch, but she does believe in a lot of stereotypes and may use terms that are outdated and nowadays considered offensive.
- Alice is in her 50s as opposed to outright elderly, but the trope plays out anyway.
- Justified:
- Alice is unaware that the term "colored" is no longer acceptable.
- Alternatively, Alice is South African, and is unaware that, in America, "colored" is an out of date term for Black people, rather than the more or less acceptable term for mixed-race people it is in South Africa.
- Alice hasn't been around many different-race people in her life; anyone who looks different really stands out to her.
- Alice grew up in a time when her behavior would have been seen as normal and acceptable, and has a hard time accepting that times (and standards of behavior) have changed due to Values Dissonance.
- Or, she has accepted that times have changed, but is going senile.
- Alice is a member of a Neo-Nazi group.
- Alice realizes such terms are generally considered offensive, but actively considers such modern values Political Overcorrectness.
- Alice grew up in an environment where many different-race people bullied and possibly tortured her. The end result is a Broken Bird who despises people of different races.
- Alice is unaware that the term "colored" is no longer acceptable.
- Inverted:
- Alice is one of the most politically correct characters on the show, possibly even to the point of Political Overcorrectness.
- Alice is only 7 years old, and she's already a consummated and utterly bitter racist!
- Subverted:
- Alice keeps staring at Bob because he looks different... But then it turns out she's staring because Bob reminded her of someone she used to know.
- It turns out that Alice was just an Innocent Bigot, or had done something that was Mistaken for Racist.
- Double Subverted:
- She then realises that Bob isn't the person she thought, and promptly calls him a negro.
- Alice was trying to get out of it by using the "Just Joking" Justification.
- Justified and Double Subverted: Alice is South African, and is unaware that, in America, "colored" is an out of date term for Black people, rather than the more or less acceptable term for mixed-race people it is in South Africa... but is also an Amoral Afrikaner who shows extremely vocal support for Apartheid.
- Parodied: Alice has the attitudes towards racial matters of the Deep South in the Fifties. The Eighteen-Fifties.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice doesn't show outdated prejudice against people of color—as long as they're professionally dressed and groomed. Any variation from business attire brings out her bigoted side.
- While Alice does refer to blacks as Negros, her words and action were considered progressive for her time as a civil rights activist. If called upon it she apologizes for it as being Innocently Insensitive but unfortunately has trouble remembering.
- Averted:
- Alice uses no racially-insensitive terms.
- Alice never meets or sees Bob.
- Alice only refers to Bob as "The darker skinned gentleman" there, and asks for his name so she can use that rather than descriptors for him.
- Enforced: The story takes place in the South sometime after the period of the Civil Rights Movement, Alice is from an older generation that still caries some racist attitudes.
- Lampshaded: "I'm sorry, Bob...Grandma hasn't caught on with the whole PC movement..."
- Invoked: Alice can't reach something at the supermarket, and requests (or demands) help from Bob.
- Exploited: Alice is running for City Council and her opponent sets up a situation with Bob to reveal her outdated views.
- Defied:
- Alice doesn't want to be seen as racist, so she reaches for the MacGuffin herself.
- Someone informs Alice of the social changes of the last few decades, and Alice makes an effort to comply with current social norms. (But not in a Totally Radical way.)
- Discussed: "Grandma, you shouldn't say those words in front of Bob!" "Poppycock! People are too damn sensitive nowadays."
- Conversed: "Why are old people usually racist in fiction?"
- Implied: Alice seems to treat Bob worse than most of the other characters, but it's unknown if it's because of racism or because of something completely unrelated.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is one of her grandson Charlie's best friends and their relationship becomes strained.
- Bob and Charlie refuse to tolerate Alice's racism just because of her age, and they abandon her to a life without seeing a part of her family.
- Reconstructed:
- Charlie is mortified by Grandma Alice but Bob, tired of dealing with subtler, more grating back-handed racism, finds Alice's combination of candor and impotence entertaining.
- Alice blames Charlie for Bob abandoning her, and so her racist views are reinforced.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice unnecessarily gets off the bus when a black person gets on.
- Alice's racist attitudes are played as Crosses the Line Twice - a regular person saying racist things is upsetting, but when a grandmother holding a tray of cookies says racist things, it's considered hilarious.
- Played For Drama: Bob takes Alice's remarks personally.
- Played For Horror: Alice is the Big Bad, and is planning a genocide.
I don't want to be the one who has to back to the main trope and tell Gran that she doesn't have N-Word Privileges anymore...
