AITAH for sending a nuclear SMS to my (30F) uncles (65M, 59M) in response to their "jokes"?

Apologies for posting here. Originally posted to r/AITAH but they removed my post for supposedly not asking for judgement... even though I clearly have.

At Easter Sunday lunch today, two of my (30F) Uncles (let’s call them Uncle T (65M) and Uncle M (59M) were making comments which were racist, ableist, and homophobic. The rest of the family present were laughing along and generally the mood was happy.

1. Racist examples - Uncle T consistently makes a racist joke about the reason Chinese people having monolid eyes is because they cringe hard at the taste of their own food, say "EUUUWWWW" and their face gets stuck in the monolid eye position. This joke showed up again today. Uncle M also made a joke about how Indian peoples' turbans are so tight that it suffocates their brains and then they defecate in the same turbans, so that they have "shit for brains".
2. Homophobic example - Uncle T called his son-in-law (who wasn't even there to defend himself) a “poofter”, all because the son-in-law could do one of those TikTok tricks that women are supposed to be able to have no trouble with, but men have issues with due to a different centre of gravity.
3. Ableist example - Uncle T was talking about what it was to briefly work on a mine site for a little while. He described it as being lonely and isolating, because he was sitting by himself during meal times and felt that he didn't fit in with the other workers there. He went on to make a comment that he was sure that all the people who work on mine sites are "drongos", "bogans", "prisoners", or "druggies" and anyone who is within one of those categories will fit right in. Uncle M said to add "spastics" to that list, and did a physical mocking which included a facial expression and hand-flapping.

I didn’t say anything to the jokes at the time because trying to manage my anger as well as come up with a polite response is very difficult to do. I did refuse to engage when Uncle T tried to get me to laugh at the joke about Indian people having "shit for brains". This was easy to do at the time, as I was playing a game together with my cousin at the time on his laptop.

After the lunch when we went home, I continued to feel so angry at the nature of what I’d heard that I thought I couldn’t say nothing. I have witnessed these two Uncles make similar racist and homophobic comments before (less ableist comments but I believe it wouldn’t be out of character based on the racist and homophobic comments I’ve heard them make) and decided that enough was enough today.

I initially hesitated about whether I should send them both an SMS in the first place, because I was worried about how the impact might be on my mother (it’s my maternal side of the family) but then decided that the issues the Uncles have are with me and not with her so if they have any issues, my mother doesn’t need to get involved and they can deal with me personally. So I sent the SMS and it was very strongly worded to say the least.

I said:

"I cannot believe the level of disgusting racist, ableist, and homophobic behaviour that I heard today at Easter lunch.

Uncle T - For someone to say they know what it's like to feel bullied and lonely when they're up at the minesites to then turn around later in the day and use the word "poofter" to describe your son-in-law all because he did something you couldn't do is hypocritical. It's playground bully behaviour. You made that same joke that you always make about Chinese people having slanted eyed because they grimace at their own food. Insisting on making the same joke every single time you see people doesn't make it funny. For fuck's sake, you ARE Asian. Some Caucasian person has probably made the exact same joke with people who look like you or me in mind. You're any less of an Asian by blood just because you married into an Italian family, or completed your schooling in Australia. For all people like Pauline Hanson or Donald Trump care, families like ours would be considered slanty-eyed chinks.

Uncle M - For you to agree with Uncle T about minesites being easy to feel bullied/lonely at and then not too long after mocking disabled people and calling them "spastics" was gross. It's exactly the kind of bullying behaviour that those same folks up at the minesite you were talking about would single others out for. Later on, to make a joke about Indian people having turbans which suffocate their brains and they shit in the same turbans was in such poor taste that I was alarmed that everyone else seemed to be laughing along with it. I can only hope they were laughing out of discomfort and not because they actually believe in something so racist.

I hope one day that you both get to experience the psychopathic lack of empathy from the very people you made fun of, and that it would make you realise how it feels to be the target of such behaviour. But of course, that would probably be wishful thinking on my par.t People who lack enough empathy to bully others in the first place think that people being different somehow justifies treating them poorly. And people who don't take accountability for being hurtful will only see victims biting back as evidence that they deserve to be further bullied, instead of taking a long hard look at their own behaviour.

Disgusting. And I am ashamed to have family ties to people who think that it is okay to be casually cruel at the expense of others.

I'm fully aware that me speaking up will probably not lead to any remorse or change in behaviour. I also fully expect that I'll probably be ostracised by my own family for speaking up. Well, so be it then. It goes against my values to be cowardly, stay quiet, and give off the impression that today's behaviour is excusable. Trying to pass it off as a joke will not cut it."

The outcome is that one of my Aunties rang my mother crying. My mother said that the SMS I sent had caused her and Uncle M to have a big argument and now he feels hurt that I thought he actually is racist and ableist. Granted, this is only what I’m hearing through my parents and not what I heard from the Aunty herself so who knows if there's some level of triangulation happening.

My mother and father initially said that I have caused problems for the entire extended family and that while they did not see the message I sent to the two Uncles, it sounded as though it was hurtful based on the response. I did give my mother a heads-up shortly after sending the SMS but chose not to get any input from her or my father first because I felt that almost definitely, the suggestion would be not to rock the boat and that those comments are only made in jest. Which is not good enough for me.

After I spoke to my parents about why I did this in the first place, they eventually said that they would not force me to apologise if I didn’t mean it but that I should think things over and try to send an SMS in the morning to "smooth things over."

I personally feel at this stage that if I were to send a “smoothing over” SMS, that it would confuse things. It would be like saying “sorry for hurting you, but I still mean everything that I said”. It would be like a non-apology in my view, which I communicated to my parents. I also was explicit to my parents that a good night’s sleep will not change my opinion on how that behaviour was racist/homophobic/ableist etc..., because it is.

Where I feel I might be TAH is because of how my Aunty has become the middle-person between myself and Uncle M. Uncle M is very mechanically intelligent but reading and literacy was not his strongest subject at school. My Aunty is essentially the person who supports him when it comes to doing things that involve literacy and comprehension, like filling out forms, reading official documents etc… She was the one who had to read my SMS out to him and from how my parents described things, she may potentially have been put into a position where she felt caught between defending me and defending her husband. Supposedly Uncle M feels so shocked and hurt by what I sent that he now doesn't want to talk to me either in person or over the phone. I personally feel that this is plain old sulking at best, and manipulative conflict aversion at worst. He's an adult and if he is hurt, he needs to be the one to voice that instead of my Aunty doing that for him. Or he could actually address that his comments were racist/ableist too.

On the other hand though, I have gotten feedback professionally and personally that I use a lot of "big words" and my tone comes across as aggressive. I am fully aware of that and in this case, it was a deliberate choice because schoolyard bully behaviour doesn't respond to nicely phrased requests to stop. Schoolyard bully behaviour understands aggression, and I feel like my SMS was the verbal equivalent of someone punching them in public for saying those types of comments.

Uncle T has not told his wife (due to some relationship conflict between them) and will probably keep it that way. I don’t know much about his reaction yet if at all.

So… AITAH?