I actually love the word mulatto. I love it for its rolling linguistic sound — moo-lah-toe — sliding off my tongue the way Lolita did for Humbert Humbert. But I also love mulatto for the illicit pleasure of watching the uncomfortable cringe the word sometimes elicits from others, even when I say it to describe myself: an African American novelist who just happens to look like a washed-up Latvian rugby player. The discomfort is a response I’ve encountered from black people, from white people, and even sometimes from many mulattoes — or rather, I should say, “first-generation mixed people of black and white ancestry.”
What about the negative connotations of the word? The idea that it comes from the word “mule”?
This is often the first complaint I hear about mulatto: that it derives from the hybrid product of breeding a donkey with a horse… This is extremely offensive, I agree, sure. Thing is, it’s also probably not true. Mulatto most likely finds its roots in an Arabic word, muwallad, meaning person of mixed ancestry; the word mule came later. Which means, instead of mulattoes being named after mules, mules may be named after us. While this is still offensive, I’ve met a few mules, and I found them to be quite pleasant, and am willing to forgive them.
