Writer at Breitbart's Big Hollywood: "why, in 2009 America, are mulattoes invariably identified as blacks?"
October 26, 2009 10:28 am ET by Media Matters staff
From an Oct. 22 post by Burt Prelutsky at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog:
My final question is, why, in 2009 America, are mulattoes invariably identified as blacks? Surely there is nothing wrong with being a mulatto. There is no stigma attached, as once there was. It merely refers to those who have one white parent and one black. There are many notable individuals who are mulattoes, including Halle Berry, Derek Jeter, Lisa Bonet and Barack Obama. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, is a true amalgamation, being one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter black, one-eighth Native American and one-eighth Dutch. And, yet, with the possible exception of the New York Yankee shortstop, we insist on identifying all of them as black.
It's as if there is something shameful about their being half or even one-eighth white. If there is, I'd sure like to know what it is. If, on the other hand, there isn't, why do we insist on acting as if there were?
Previously:
Breitbart's Big Hollywood: Same old birtherism, comparisons of Obama to Hitler
If he had any understanding of the Pure Hell of American Slavery his Article he would have more carefully Parsed.
I don't know Mr. Breitbart but it sounds like he is fawning for Attention.
I have no plans to ever write about him again because he doesn't deserve the mention.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
It has been said that "Fate Favors the Prepared Mind" if this is true Mr. Olbermann is the winner & you don't have a Clue.
You achieve a greater audience not by Skill, but by being the "Don Knox" of Cable News.
You go after Young Teen Girls & Abortion Doctors, Hmmm, Fornication & Death, Oh Bill-O, no wonder you occasionally have the "Sexual Phone Predator Blues"
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Right, because there's nothing offensive about debating and questioning someone's identity based upon thoroughly racist historical notions of blood quanta. That's why Rush Limbaugh and others derisively called Barack Obama a "halfrican". But why be so imprecise as to use a term like "mulatto" when we could go totally 19th century retro and resurrect the terms "quadroon" and "octoroon", too?
(And just to be absolutely clear, yes, I offer the above comment with bitter sarcasm.)
And why doesn't it apply?
His father is from the continent of Africa, thus truly making him Afican-American.
To push the point further, the accepted vernacular is "Black" when referring to anyone you would call "Afican-American" unless they describe themselves as such.
Why do you ask?
Because not all "Blacks" are from Africa. and vice-versa.
Charlize Theron is from Africa... thus making her an Afican-American...and she is considered "White"
Don't hate me...hate the rules (and the AP Styleguide).
There are reasons -- legitimate reasons -- why terms like "African-American" emerged: to grossly oversimplify the matter, identifying as a person with more recent ancestry in Africa seemed preferable to identifying purely in terms of skin color. But Prelutsky is either ignorant or willfully ignorant to the history of terms of racial identification in America when he suggests a return to the term "mulatto". By his logic, why not just skip all of the inconvenient linguistic and historical impediments and start calling people the "N word"?
We have always known the overall American view will see anyone showing even a tiny bit of African blood as Colored,Negro,Nigra,Black,or whatever term the identifier uses.Of course one could self-identify but it didn't matter because society had already decided.Now this idiot seems to want to criticize individuals who know the reality of living in America so identify the way way people see them ..not necessarily the way they see themselves.This critical nonsense won't change that.Some black people may have more white blood than Barack Obama but technically had 2 "Black"parents so don't self identify as biracial .This is an old dilemma for Blacks in America.
Geez, this assigning of percentages to one's race is just so patently ridiculous!
And incidentally, didn't the word "mulatto" disappear along with "Oriental" and a handful of other borderline-offensive descriptors?
Right, because other people are of pure racial stock, Mr. Prelutsky?
Right, because other people are of pure racial stock, Mr. Prelutsky?
But for most of us, we don't look at them as one color or another. Do you worry yourself over what races are in Ann Curry? How about Soledad O'Brien - does the race she is 'assigned' affect her abilities in any way?
This is racism hidden under the guise of simply asking a question. Feeling the need to address what race or what combination of races someone might be is offensive.
Also look at the word, pass. If a person of mixed heritage is Caucasian looking and chooses to identify with that part of his or her heritage, are they considered "white?" Yes. Until, that is, that black ancestor is discovered. Then that person is no longer white, but "passing" for white.
Prelutsky turns octoroon on its head, by asking why we act as if there were something wrong with being "one eighth white." Obviously, we aren't doing that. We're still acting as if there's something wrong with the mixture of "races." We'll know that we've stopped acting like that when there are no longer reports on CNN, etc. about a Southern white guy discovering a whole extended family of blacks with his name and his genes, and happily claiming them as his cousins.
To quote Tolkein, "Praise from the praiseworthy is precious."
Why would anyone object to being called a mule, why why why?
Oh, wait! I know.
~
Please.
'Mullato' refers to 'mule.' That is, half breed. Furthermore: Unable to reproduce.
But... However misguided Breitbart's statement of this idea, it's true that we're going to have to come up with new ideas about race. The distinctions are falling away.