I have an acquaintance who refers to his biracial cousin and her children as “mulattos”.

It's neither derogatory nor racist, OP. At most, it's old fashioned.

A super-woke woman in our office shared in our all-staff meeting that she'd had an interview with a Black guy who is extremely well-known and accomplished in our field. She was very proud of this and said that "he was very articulate."

I forgot to add that he often mentions his “mulatto” cousins because he thinks it makes his family more interesting (which it does because everyone else in the family is plain if schizophrenic) but mainly because it gives him what he perceives as street credibility by proxy that rubs off on him (how I do not know).

R2, did she also say that he’s a credit to his race?

[quote] When I told him about the use of the term mulatto he asked what else he should call them? I said bi racial or mixed race.

Mulatto is only a subset of biracial and mixed race, so they are not suitable equivalents. You need to supply a word that specifically means the offspring of one black parent and one white parent.

Mulatto = Mixed

Not racist, but odd since that word is not used that much in the English language.

American's obsession with race never stopped to amaze me, in what context, does he or do you need to describe his cousin and his children as biracial, can't they just be the cousin and the children, simple as that?

Mulatto is both old fashioned AND offensive. And yes, R7, their racial background should be irrelevant, but unfortunately our messy history with race means it is always part of the subtext of everything.

Mulatto sounds better than mixed, not that it matters since black people have decided to adopt the old racist rule that one drop of black blood makes you black, e.g. Obama, Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, etc...

[quote]he asked what else he should call them?

The little brown ones

What do you want us to do, or think, or express, about this, OP?

NICE TRY, CLETUS!

Stealth Slur Celebration Thread. F&F the OP.

Mulatto is absolutely a derogatory term. It's calling people mules.

It's also calling inter-racial breeding "miscegenation," or declaring whites a different species than blacks, which they are not.

Life-long liberal here.

I just don't understand how a couple of nukes could hurt Mexico.

R13 Actually, that etymology is not universally accepted. One position is that it comes from that root, but refers to the person being a hybrid not that they are mule like, another thought is that it comes from the Arabic muwallad, a description of non-Arab/Islamic people who nevertheless adopt Islamic customs. The word comes from Spanish and Portuguese which had much Arab influence. The racist idea that mulattos were sterile like mules did not arise until around two centuries after the term came into use, even though most use that idea to push the thought that mulatto refers to mules.

If RuPaul uses octoroon on television, why can't we? You people have sticks up your asses. There's nothing offensive about mulatto or negro said in a respectable manner. Negroid is an anthropological term. As quite a few people posted in another thead American blacks do use the term African-American. I find that offensive. Case in point, Tina Turner is not African-American. She is mixed race, Native American and African-American. I heard mulatto often as a boy. I'm from the Ohio Valley. Only minority i saw as a youngster other than blacks was my mother's female Korean acquaintance.

^Oops, American blacks do NOT use the term African-American

Is your white trash cousin hung?

R18 I put your sorry ass on Ignore and see that you're a true hateful, negative jerk, So do not have a happy holiday and rot in Hades! And in the Catholic primary school school i attended, all the boys saw each other naked and there was not one uncut dick.

R16

Are you acquainted with Princess Michael of Kent, OP?

[quote] It's neither derogatory nor racist, OP. At most, it's old fashioned.

[quote] Mulatto sounds better than mixed, not that it matters since black people have decided to adopt the old racist rule that one drop of black blood makes you black, e.g. Obama, Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, etc...

Black people didn’t decide that. In our society, your appearance establishes your race or at least the perception of race.

It’s common knowledge that this term is now considered to be derogatory.

[quote] Mulatto (/mjuːˈlætoʊ/, /məˈlɑːtoʊ/) is a historical racial classification of people who are born of one white parent and one black parent, as well as mixed-race people in general. The term mulatto is now chiefly considered to be derogatory or offensive.[4][5]

It's shocking how many people here don't know that mulatto is offensive.

[quote]Mulatto sounds better than mixed, not that it matters since black people have decided to adopt the old racist rule that one drop of black blood makes you black, e.g. Obama, Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, etc...

Sure. black people made the rules on this one. Not like white people had that lovely picture of Obama with a bone through his nose or have an unhealthy hatred for that Markle woman or white people SEE black when they look at Obama or Halle or Markle

[quote]It's shocking how many people here don't know that mulatto is offensive.

On here? No, it's not shocking. If anything, knowing it's offensive, turns them into even bigger assholes who look for any excuse to defend its use.

[quote]It's shocking how many people here don't know that mulatto is offensive.

I had no idea. I thought of it as archaic perhaps, but I did not know it had woke urine on it. When did that happen?

I had to tell a co-worker that "colored" was offensive. She acted shocked and said, "what should I say?" I said black or AA. She said she thought colored was far better than the other two. She was from a working class, rural area. Smart and kind, but not educated.

To me "mixed" sounds worse because it conjures the term "race mixing" which was forbidden in the old days.

Half-breed.

high yellow?

Well, technically his cousin’s children are Quadroons, not Mulatto.

Is Edna Turnblad your aunt?

R22 So Wikipedia says it's a derogatory term at the beginning of the article, but then continues with a long article beyond semantics and etymology, finishing with a reference that Obama was America's first mulatto president.

Any old terms are automatically viewed as 'derogatory' whether they are or not, because everything old is viewed as racist.

I always thought it was strange that saying someone is a 'negro' is wrong, but saying they're 'black' is wrong, even though they mean the same thing.

R27 So you can't say 'colored' but 'person of color' gets thrown around a lot these days.

How can he be in his 20's and voted for Obama twice? It doesn't add up.

R36, he’s 21 and a lifelong Democrat who has voted for Obama twice and even Al Gore. Just go with it, it doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that OP got to start a thread with the word “ mulatto”. OP’s next threads will be titled: “Why is it offensive to hand out watermelons to black children on Halloween?” and “My mulatto neighbor is mad after I did the paper bag test on him!”

In a decade “biracial” or “multicultural” will be a “slur”, too.

You can’t even say “autistic” anymore - which is an actual diagnostic medical term like “epileptic” or “diabetic”.

[quote]When I told him about the use of the term mulatto he asked what else he should call them?

How about “cousins??” Why does he need to racially classify them when he talks about them? People who do this are always racist.

R22 Anyone who fully believes anything on Wikipedia is not very bright. That site, started by two now-millionaires, begs users for donations, polices and bullies users, and can be edited by any idiot with internet access. SMH.

I do not consider "mulatto" offensive; i've been an advocate for minorities lifelong. Does not matter what society considers offensive or acceptable these days; society is wacky, weed & substance abuse is rampant and a lot of people are high and the wheels have come off the world. I respect minorities' plight. The human race originated in Africa. Earlier this year, i had the pleasure of getting acquainted with a retired black military officer. I agreed with him that the confederate flag is racist and as he said, we're still fighting the American Civil War.

R16/R17

[quote] It's shocking how many people here don't know that mulatto is offensive.

It's shocking how many people here don't know that most people are not ultra woke Yale students majoring in gender studies who think EVERYTHING is offensive.

[quote]which is an actual diagnostic medical term like “epileptic” or “diabetic”

Yeah but now we say or "neuronally hypersynchronistic" or "insulinally special."

-0.002/10

I believe that in South Africa colored is the term mixed race citizens use for themselves?

[quote] In our society, your appearance establishes your race or at least the perception of race.

To you it does.

No one can explain why the word is derogatory. To describe someone as being half black and half European is not offensive, so why is a word meaning that derogatory? It’s never used as an insult or slur.

[quote]It's shocking how many people here don't know that mulatto is offensive.

Because they're mostly old, white, gay men who think they're so above it all and how everyone is hyper-sensitive, but make any gay jokes and they think you should get fired. Introspection and empathy are not their strong-suit.

[quote] Sure. black people made the rules on this one. Not like white people had that lovely picture of Obama with a bone through his nose or have an unhealthy hatred for that Markle woman or white people SEE black when they look at Obama or Halle or Markle

Maybe some white people, but as I have grown up with children of mixed heritage being quite normal. I do not see them as one or another but as equally white and black.

[quote] How about “cousins??” Why does he need to racially classify them when he talks about them? People who do this are always racist.

OP here. That was one of my questions to him. Why can’t they just be his cousins like his white cousins? As I noted in my opening post, he said and has said previously that he thinks having biracial relatives makes his family more interesting and, by extension, him. The way he describes it is almost like street credibility by proxy which is awfully ignorant.

No OP, or his time an plae he is right. They ARE mulattos, Blanche, they ARE.

[quote] In our society, your appearance establishes your race or at least the perception of race.

When you walk into a room. Before you ever open your mouth. People look at you and make decisions about what and who you are, including your race. The world perceives Barack Obama to be black. He moves through the world as a black man, despite being biracial.

Here's the kicker - most of the black people at least in the United States likely have some European DNA in their blood. You see - during slavery it wasn't unknown for masters their children etc. to want to fuck some of those very slaves. So I think mixed is a good term.

R51 I know Obama is not only black, but how he wants to be categorized is his business. R52 Lucifer, You're like school on Saturday -- no class.

R40

R51, we're supposed to pretend that people weren't constantly telling Obama to "Go back to Africa" but never told Trump to go back to Germany/Scotland.

Obama's family has been in here longer than Trump's, yet Trump is viewed as "more American." Trump's own mother's path here is questionable.

[quote]to want to rape some of those very slaves.

Fixed.

R53 my problem with him choosing to be classified as black is that he seems to be disrespecting his white mother and her family, the people who actually raised him. As much as I dislike Tiger Woods, for other reasons, I very much respect him for refusing to be labeled black, as he says his mother is not black so he isn’t either, so he identifies as Blasian to respect his entire heritage. We have no power over how others classify us, but we do have power over how we classify ourselves.

[quote]my problem with him choosing to be classified as black is that he seems to be disrespecting his white mother and her family, the people who actually raised him

Have you SEEN the way he dresses casual? I would say it's an homage to his white side

Why does someone's racial makeup have to be brought up at all?

They got "a touch of the tar brush."

[quote]my problem with him choosing to be classified as black is that he seems to be disrespecting his white mother and her family,

HE didn't classify himself. I mean for fuck sake, do you even know what site you're on? Even on this site, we have racist morons obsessed with skin color to the point people are called "white adjacent." People are obsessed with skin color whether you like it or not and Obama has had to deal with it for his entire life INCLUDING with his white side. People see Obama and they see BLACK. Most black people in the US have Euro ancestry and it doesn't fucking matter. Everyone sees color - it's your perception of that color that makes you good or bad.

I am more black than Obama!

^I love you

That’s nothing OP. I have a biracial cousin who refers to split skirts as culottos

Is it derogatory and racist? I can't follow the trend in the USA, in my country mulato (it's with only one t in spanish) is exactly that, someone biracial with black and white parents and it has no negative connotations

There was a time when the term 'mulato' was not considered derogatory, but today that term along with 'high yellow', on their own may not be racist unless someone is using them as a racial epithet, but they are considered outdated and somewhat derogatory terms.

My go to term is "ersatz Melungeon".

As Conan O' Brien revealed, he is pure Irish - which also means inbred.

I prefer " Cafe Aú Lait "

I’m biracial and I find the term to be really offensive

which one?

Can I ask you a question? Is your daughter mulatto?

Octaroons and Quadroons

[quote] Octaroons and Quadroons

My favorite Girl Scout Cookies!

Why would a super woke liberal even find it appropriate to refer to someone by their ethnology?

Not to steal thunder from the "Little Women" thread, but I was horrified when reading (age 10 or so) Louisa May Alcott's "Little Men" and her description of all the misfits Jo had taken in at the Bhaers' school: stupid boys, crippled boys, and a "merry little quadroon."

It's OK to stop using words from the past that are offensive.

In Stevie Wonder's eyes, everybody is black!

Macaroons

As you all know, Larry David used this term on Curb, as the baby shower invitees looked on in horror ...

Does he go on and on about their big mulatto dicks, too?

Nice try, Cletus @ r15.

If you want to stir the shit for the amusement of white trash racists, go shake yo mama’s colostomy bag.

R79 As you obviously cannot understand the academic arguments about etymology, I think you are closer to a Cletus, than I am.

R67 Haven't heard that since the song Lady Marmalade. R68 I've seen you around and find some of your comments interesting, but had a laugh when i learned what a bodega is, so you have little justification to shout about being offended about bigotry. I had great visits to NYC and Manhattan, where during one i met two celebrities at Radio City Music Hall. I'm not a yokel in a flyover city. R78 Everyone who has experience with black men know it's a myth that all have large endowments.

I'll remind readers that ethnic terminology is acceptable if that's how a person applies it to himself or herself. If i have a mixed race friend or acquaintance who identifies as mulatto and tells me it's acceptable to refer to him or her in that manner, then i may. Otherwise, i won't. I resent those who imply i'm a bigot simply because i'm caucasian and was born and raised in a surburb in an area where there were no minorities. I had nothing to do with that. I attended parochial school where i was taught not to be bigoted and had a mother with minority friends who taught me not to be bigoted. I'm not. Happy holidays.

R16/R40

ff..

Oh, an you have permission to call me a bellend.

R70 - See R32

P.S. That’s a PERSONAL question!