Let me get this straight.

[raybear]

I forgot one tiny part of the Gennifer Flowers story. After she called thebrownhornet a local, she talked about New Orleans is a great town for visitors, and how "we love visitors, but you have to be careful.....sometimes, we lose people." She then went on to talk about a friend from Dallas who claimed to know how to party, and then came to New Orleans and went missing for two days. He came back limping. Gennifer said, "I don't want to ask where you've been, but....are you at least alright?!" Apparently he got stepped on by a mule.

Which reminds me, thebrownhornet, I read that those generally are mules you see clopping around the city, not horses.

Mules which is also the basis for the word "mulatto" which is part of why it's not exactly an, um, appropriate term for a biracial or multi-racial person. Also, mulatto was the original technical term, along with quadroon and octoroon, when the colonials folks used to keep extremely thorough geneological records of everyone's exact racial content, with mulatto being "half" black, quadroon being a quarter, octoroon being an eighth. I'm writing this all because I recently got into a conversation where I was asked why it wasn't an appropriate word to use when referring to people of mixed racial heritage. I mean, I know there actually might be some people who self-identify as "mulatto", and that's certainly their business, but that doesn't mean I'm going to automatically up and call any person or persons by such loaded archaic terms.

Also, right before my trip, I got into a discussion at some bar explaining what the literary phrase "tragic mulatto" meant. I'm being haunted by the word, I guess. Or maybe it's just the word of the month, brought on by that whole Dairy Queen "moolatte" debacle.

I just woke up from a nap and my brain is all over the place.

Comments

lost time.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

the last time i was in NO, my friend RN insisted despite many hurricanes that of COURSE i could leave him on bourbon street, chasing after some cute boy who'd just passed us. of COURSE he was fine and could get back to our hotel on the edge of the quarter just fine.

9a.m., i get a message on my hotel phone. "hi, uh, this is RN. i just wanted to ask you where our meeting was this morning. but, i, um, lost my cell phone? so. i don't know where it is, really, and i'm not totally sure how i got back here, but can you call my room?"

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

People have called me "mulatta" and I'm like, "Dude, two different kinds of niggas came together to make me. I'm biracial. There was no white involvment. Don't get it twisted."

That seems to clear things up nicely. Most people don't understand that it only describes white/black mixtures and not much else.

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

Don't ya just LUV the old "one drop" rules?
Why even the blondest blonde could, in fact, be a Negrah according to the rules of the Beautiful South (and North,really...the whole damn country in fact).

I'm a dork

[vfc.livejournal.com]

but that doesn't mean I'm going to automatically up and call any person or persons by such loaded archaic terms

I don't know, I've recently become quite down with loaded archaic terms. After the first presidential debate, I referred to Bush as annoying and defended my position by calling him a carpetbagger. Actually, I turned carpetbagger into a verb and said, I believe, "Bush is fucking trying to carpetbag us!" Um. I didn't even know I remembered that word. And no one around me knew what I was talking about either.

Re: I'm a dork

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I'm totally down with the term carpetbagger. Probably because it was emphasized in my american history classes, growing up in the South.

"moolatte" and the "tragic mulatto"

[ladisastre.livejournal.com]

Or maybe it's just the word of the month, brought on by that whole Dairy Queen "moolatte" debacle.

it very well may be brought on by the DQ debacle, which astonished me when i first saw the ads. i couldn't remember how long ago that was. and until you brought it up, i have forgotten to be irritated about it. according to this msn column quite a number of people were up in arms. plus, for those like myself who didn't catch that "tragic mulatto" reference, it's defined here in the article with lots of links. this follow-up article describes an "Ali-G style" interview between the Houston Press and a DQ pr guy that leaves the author to conclude that DQ really had no idea "moolatte" sounds like "mulatto"

anyway, it no longer appears to be on their menu as of two months ago.