The Root: The M Word

The Audacity of Taupe

"I'm not talking about 'multiracial,' 'miscegenation,' 'mongrel,' 'mutt,' 'mestizo,' 'masala' or even 'Mariah.' I'm talking about a word imbued with a legacy of racial strife in America that goes all the way back to the summer day in 1789 that Sally Hemings forgot to lock her bedroom door and runs all the way up to Wentworth Miller getting blacklisted by the NAACP Image Awards (Prison Break, indeed...). It's that word you hear the kids freestyling on the street -- M to the izzo, L to the atto... Yeah, that word. The M-word. Mulatto."

Now that a biracial man is about to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, Americans again engage in a debate over what words we should -- and shouldn't -- use when talking about people of mixed racial heritage. Writer David Swerdlick was online Wednesday, July 30 to discuss his article, 'The M Word.'

David Swerdlick writes about politics for PopMatters. He is a former contributor to Creative Loafing, and his writing has appeared in EbonyJet, AlterNet and The American Prospect.

A transcript follows.

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David Swerdlick: Welcome...my name is David Swerdlick, and I write for a number of websites, including The Root. Thanks for joining the live chat today. I hope you enjoyed my piece on The Root yesterday, "The Audacity of Taupe." The idea was to poke some holes in the way we discuss controversies about the N Word, by talking about the "M Word"--Mulatto. I think we also got into some interesting dialogue about what folks, myself included, mean when they refer to themselves as "biracial."

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Houston, Texas: How is it that you want to legitimize the one drop rule in the larger African American community but not yourself????

African Americans are a people of mixed race. We are biracial, multiracial and, if still possible today, maybe mono-racial. African Americans, the majority, are a mulatto people. Yet you practice the same racism white people of yesterday imposed on "us" as a people when they mixed their blood with Africans. They denied the offspring a right to claim their entire birthright. You aren't any different than these early white Americans. African Americans are a MULATTO people!

Creoles are a people with mixed racial ancestry, not a white parent! In Latin America there is recognition of a collective shared blood that is mixed among Afro Latinos/Hispanics. The downside are the divisions between mulattos and those of pure African descent.

You are creating divisions. You are legitimizing the one drop rule in every African American who does not have an immediate white parent. You are creating an "them" and "other" caste among African Americans.

For the longest time, African Americans divided themselves by skin color. Is the new custom or habit to divide ourselves by race of one parent?????

I cannot believe how irresponsible you are. I cannot believe how you have legitimized racism against those "brothers and sisters" who share your same rich cultural and racial heritage.

This is the perversity of political correctness gone astray. It represents the kind of liberalism that as usual lacks common sense because it fails to look at the larger picture

Mr. Swerdlick, you are an oppressor of your own people. My father, the son of a white man, taught me how silly the blood game you play is. I love him like never before right now.

David Swerdlick: I wanted to try to have fun with some of the controversy about the N Word, but talking about race relations in our society can be very sensitive, so I can see how some people might have been offended, even though I thought it was clear that we were tweaking the N Word by talking about the M Word-"Mulatto." One thing about being a person of color in America, you're going to wind up speaking or at least thinking about this kind of thing a lot. I find it fascinating, so I'll talk about it with anyone. But there are people for whom these subjects are uncomfortable, or maybe they just think it's gauche to talk about in public. I can respect that.

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David Swerdlick: It's absolutely true that African Americans are a mixed race people. We have a wide range of backgrounds, family histories, views and hues. I think the idea of biracial specifically means that we're talking about a person who has a parent that's one "race" and a parent of another "race."

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Cincinnati, Ohio: So what made you pick "Mulatto"? as opposed to some other word, i.e. "colored"?

David Swerdlick: I've always thought, much to the chagrin of some people, that "Mulatto" has a smooth ring to it. But once you unpack the term and figure out that the root word is "mule" and that it comes from Spanish colonialism, the appeal kind of wears off.

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Manassas, Va.: My wife was born in Brazil, and she's perplexed with America's fetish for categorizing races. Now more categories are needed? Please! Why does it have to be so complicated?

David Swerdlick: Indeed. In Latin America, there are an assortment of words to describe an assortment of categories--"criollo" "mestizo" "moreno" "rubio" "oscuro." My impression is that in a broad sense, the descriptions in Latin American cultures have a lot to do with color, per se, more than parentage. There's a color hierarchy. There's a color hierarchy in the U.S., also. But when we say biracial, we're talking about having one parent from one cultural group and the other parent from a different one. Biracial people range from ecru to chocolate brown. African Americans span the spectrum of color.

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Charles Town, W.Va.: Should we be beyond using color to describe a person? He is a man. He is a tall, thin man. He is a tall, thin, very smart man. He is a very nice, tall, thin, and extremely smart man. He is the President of the United States. I like the last one! If we are going to still use skin tones, I would like to know what is acceptable. I have friends that prefer black and then some that prefer Afro-American. They sometimes use "brown skinned" to refer to other ethnicities. Is lighter skin and darker skin acceptable? Hispanic vs Mexican vs Salvadorian? Indian vs Pakistani? Arab vs Mediterranean? Chinese vs Japanese? Black Africans vs Congloid vs Egyptians? Help!

David Swerdlick: Good point about Obama. He's a man. He's a politician. There's a chance he'll be the POTUS. But he's also African American, he's biracial, and he's the son of an immigrant. I don't think there's anything wrong with exploring how those cultural narratives have shaped the kind of person he is or the kind of leader he could be.

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David Swerdlick: Since I have limited time here, I'll shamelessly plug one of my own articles.

The idea that Obama is biracial, but as a practical matter, in terms of what he means in our public discourse, he's a black man. I recommend reading "Dreams From My Father" if you haven't already. In his life, Obama embraced his blackness, and it has embraced him back.

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washingtonpost.com: Anonymous asks: can you please provide a link to the article being referenced? Yes, it's up with the intro to this chat - just scroll up! Enjoy!

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Louisville, Ky.: How would you explain it to people who aren't necessarily so concerned with root words?

David Swerdlick: People frequently reference the "one drop" rule, wherein one drop of black blood makes you black. It was initially a way to enforce segregation. But these days, people like me embrace that and say, yes, I have a parent or a part of my background that's not black, but I'm a black person. I'm African American.

Instead of looking at it as "one drop," maybe look at it as the "big tent" of blackness. In our society, blackness encompasses people who are biracial, multiracial, part white, part Asian, part Native American, part Afro-Latino, in varying "percentages" with various phenotypic traits, etc. Meanwhile, whiteness is defined, for better or for worse, in terms of exclusivity-you're either white or you're not. It has its roots in slavery and the era of segregation, and even though society has progressed, some of those constructs have persisted.

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D.C.: What about people who are of mixed race but not specifically black-white? Could be Asian-white, Latino-black, etc. Is there a term for them?

David Swerdlick: I'll get back to this in a minute, but yes, to me biracial encompasses people who are Puerto Rican/Chinese, Arab/Dutch, etc. There's a lot of ways to look at it. In this country we go to the idea of biracial as black/white. But that's not all there is to it. Google Kip Fulbeck's Hapa Project. "Hapa" is a Hawaiian term that comes from "hapa haole," meaning "half white." Now it's used colloquially to refer to people who are half Asian or pacific islander.

Again, some people don't like the term, but it's much better than "Amerasian" which makes no sense at all.

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Washington, D.C.: David, thank you for the chat. Would you please explain your authority in telling us what we should and shouldn't say.

David Swerdlick: It's a free country. You can say anything you want.

Hopefully, though, this discussion will give you some insight into how people might react to what you say.

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David Swerdlick: Can I take a detour here and address one of my pet peeves? Frequently you hear people say that a discussion like this is too "PC." My take is that you get a lot further with the discussion if you just apply the golden rule.

An example is the word, "Oriental." This has been an obsolete term for years and years, but you still hear it. Every now and then I'll point that out and the reaction I get is "why can't I say that?" You can. But just know that saying "Oriental" is like saying "Negro." Once it was the preferred term, and now it's not. If people want to be called Asian American, and you insist on calling them something else, that's on you. No foul if you don't know, but once someone breaks it down for you, think about trying to adjust to something new.

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Richmond: But can biracial folks identify as white as well? I guess that's what's making some people uncomfortable, that it sounds like you're advocating choosing one over the other. Identifying with your Black heritage doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't identify with your other parent's heritage as well. We all love our Mothers too!

David Swerdlick: Good question. I love both my parents and I wouldn't be who I am without both of them. That's why I think the idea of biracial makes sense. It's a way to acknowledge more than one thing about yourself.

But at the same time, here's the thing. Imagine if Obama was in a press conference and he said, "oh, I'm not black, I'm white." It would sound a tiny bit ridiculous, wouldn't it? Because that's not the real world for most people. Back to black being a big tent. Whiteness is more like American Express--membership has its privileges.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Do you see a generational effect on this issue? Do people under 30 with no memory of the 60s or 70s see racial identity with the intensity of their parents and grandparent? Will we still be discussing this in another 20 years?

David Swerdlick: Generation has a lot to do with it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think of Obama (age 46?) as the beginning of the post-civil rights generation and the pre-Gen X era. I'm in my 30s, and consider myself squarely in Gen X.

As time has evolved, the way we've looked at it has changed. Definitely, it makes sense that people who are Obama's age would think of themselves as black, based on the timeframe they came up in. The same is probably true or people my age, but not quite as uniformly.

When you talk about Gen Y or Gen Z--Facebook generation, whatever--people in their 20s or younger, it's a whole new ballgame. We had a reader comment on The Root yesterday that said that the idea of biracial is "divisive." I think the idea is to say that if you're biracial and consider yourself that, instead of "black" that you are trying to downplay your blackness or that you're self-hating.

Remember that Larry David line from Curb Your Enthusiasm when he's whistling Wagner and another Jewish person says that he's a self-loathing Jew? His response was something like, "I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish." I dunno. It's funny to me.

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David Swerdlick: But seriously, the idea of race and talking about race relations can be divisive. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it or even joke about it.

Once upon a time, if you heard about a biracial person making a point about the fact that they were biracial, you might be able to assume that they were trying to distinguish themselves as something other than black only. I consider myself African American, Jewish American, and biracial American. These aren't mutually exclusive to me. People who want to box us in need to check themselves. This is Biracial v2.0. We're not your grandfather's mulattos out here anymore.

Tiger Woods set us back, I think, when he first came on the scene with the "Cablinasian" interview on Oprah. I can't tell you how much that pissed me off at the time. But over the years, he's settled into his own space and he has indirectly made being biracial more mainstream. He's nowhere near as smooth with his as someone like Derek Jeter is, but not everyone can carry it like that.

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River City Q: And Caucasians are mixed race too, it's just not as apparent by looking at one's skin. I'm Scottish/French/British/Welsh.

David Swerdlick: Yes, in a sense. There's research out there that shows that if geneticists have enough data, they can tell you what part of the world your ancestors came from. To a degree it shows that our broad, color-centric ideas and categorizations about race are unscientific. But just because they're unscientific, it doesn't mean that they're not real. Society says that someone from Scandinavia and someone from Sicily are both "white" and someone from the horn of Africa and someone from the Congo region are "black." But that is an oversimplification. Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Editor-in-Chief of The Root, has looked at this in some of his PBS documentaries.

I'm not really talking about that, though. Socio-politically in America we have broad categories that were originally established and enforced to gird slavery, segregation, and economic exploitation of immigrant groups (including "white" immigrants).

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New York, N.Y.: David, what is it with certain famous beige people celebrating their 100% blackness and bringing their poor white parents along? Is this a media construction? I've seen Halle Berry and Alicia Keys at several award or concert-type things where they've made some comment about their trailblazing Africanicity and then the camera flashes to their poor mommas in the audience, clearly victims of horrifying skin-lightener accidents. It just all feels vaguely disrespectful to aforementioned mommas. Obama uses his grandma as a punching bag in ways that make me kind of uncomfortable, too. Tiger doesn't seem to need to do this kind of thing, so what's up with that?

David Swerdlick: I think your question is sincere, but let's do away with this Charles Krauthammeresque idea that in his Philadelphia speech, Obama "threw Grandma under the bus." If you can't use your own life experiences to try to help different people come to a better understanding of each other, then we may as well just pack it in.

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Omaha, Neb.: I really liked your article, and I thought the "make it Obama" order on your coffee was clever. Here's my question, do you think it would ever be possible/inoffensive for a white person to order a coffee and request "make it Obama?" Clearly, certain words (N-words, M-words, I'm sure we could come up with some O-words next) are NOT ok for white people to use. But would it be possible for white people to make _casual_ references to the shade of someone's skin? Sure it happens in formal, political/classroom discussions... but to just make a throwaway joke about "make it taupe"?

David Swerdlick: Here's the thing. You have to know the flavor of your own Kool-Aid before you go dipping into someone else's. What I mean is this: a couple of years ago, Farai Chideya interviewed KRS-1 on NPR and he pretty much said that he's o.k. with a young white person using the N Word if they've accepted the black idiom or Hip Hop culture as their own. But you just can't go off the cuff with it if you're not part of that rhythm.

Stand-up comic Mike Birbiglia has a great bit where he situates the term "cracker" in the same way-"cracka, what?" and "cracka, please " Funny stuff.

To answer your question, if you have to ask, maybe don't. I'm not trying to be a killjoy, but it's not funny enough to risk having your local barista think you're an ass.

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David Swerdlick: I know this wasn't the question, but I have to say that I've never understood why it bothers certain white people so much that black people say "N Word" to each other and they can't say it. You see shows like The Sopranos where Italian Americans are referring to each other as "Guineas" and Never once in my life have I wondered why it's not cool for me to use the word "Guinea."

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Silver Spring: My wife and I are white; our daughter, now two, was adopted in the US. She has an African - American birth father and a white birth mother. She's too young to be aware of race; but do you have any advice for us as she gets older? Also, I consider her mixed race but does that mean she won't fit in any community or category as she gets older?

David Swerdlick: Several people have posted questions about what to do to guide children, so I'll try to catch it all here.

I'm married (to a beautiful black woman, not that you asked) but I don't have kids. I would say this--make sure that they have love from you and that they learn the basic understanding of tolerance for people who are different. Difference can be values, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc. Let them know that people are people.

As far as their heritage, I would say teach them both/all. My parents reared us to know black culture and history and Jewish culture and history. I grew up in a predominantly white suburb, and that was my frame of reference as a kid. When I went to a big university in a diverse urban area, my eyes opened up to the whole world out there. First it was a challenge for me, but quickly I saw it as a gift. Being African American didn't mean a whole lot to me in the suburbs in the late '80s, but when I grew up, I have to say I was happy that I was/am black.

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River City: It seems to me that racial identity is much influenced by environment. If a mixed race child grew up in a neighborhood primarily one or the other, the music, slang, etc., what he learns might direct his identity rather than any theoretical umbrella/drop idea.

David Swerdlick: I think I touched on this in my last response, but let me add that I would be remiss if I didn't refer you to two sources as food for thought if you're a parent of a young biracial kid. Not just black/white, but any biracial (or multiracial) kid.

First, I recommend Danzy Senna's novel, Caucasia. She's more or less the patron saint of biracial people my age.

Second, rent and watch the first 3 seasons of The L Word. I know, I know, it's a soap opera, but the Jennifer Beals character is a very helpful representation of what the experience can be like. But that's not what the experience will be like for your kids. They live in a Tiger Woods, Hines Ward, Rashida Jones world.

I thought that Monique Fields' article on The Root yesterday was a very refreshing look at what the thought process is sometimes for parents of biracial children.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: I'm a millennial, or at least that's what they told me on "Sixty Minutes", who is the child of a white father and a black mother. I completely understand and agree your tent argument. I think of myself as a woman of color, and if someone where to ask me what my heritage was, I would tell them biracial. However, I know that when most people look at me, they think black and I have no problem wearing that label either. That being said, I think people from mixed race backgrounds are much less naive and more pragmatic than others about the state of race relations and the use of racial categories. Although with that pragmatism I have had more than a few blacks, although the usual thought we have is the poor curly haired brown girl being picked on by white people, react with shock when I describe myself as biracial and have even tried to convince me that somehow my African American heritage trumps all else. I just hope that my generation and the next ones, which will inevitably be more and more mixed, encourage people to identify however they feel comfortable.

David Swerdlick: Yeah, it's different for y'all. And that's a good thing. I think people need to understand that you can be biracial and proud, and at the same time be equally proud of your "component parts."

If someone asks me if I'm African American, I answer, "yes." If someone asks me if I'm Jewish American, I answer, "yes." If someone asks me if I'm biracial, I answer, "yes." These are not mutually exclusive.

That said, you want to avoid the trap of being a person of color when it's convenient for you, but then saying you're something else when it's not. Uncool.

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Denver Colo.: At last--someone who gets the "PC" thing. Thank you, seriously. As a hapa, I hate that "oriental" label. Makes me think of Jennifer Jones playing a hapa. Sorry.

Call people what they want to be called. Why is that so hard? My niece is hapa/black. She gets to pick, not me or her mom or dad or her peers. That's just how I see it.

On a lighter note, is it cool for a hapa such as myself, to order my iced coffee a la Swerdlick? Some of the more informed baristas in Denver just might get it, too.

David Swerdlick:"Hapa/black." Try "Blasian."

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why?: did Woods' Cablinasian piss you off? Because he didn't want to admit to being Black? He was just trying to represent his folks, who just happen to be Caucasian, Asian, Black...

David Swerdlick: You have to rep your set, as they say. But what if it's not your set? I'm black/Jewish. I also have American Indian blood (most African Americans do) and Indian American blood ("red dot" AND "feather"). But I typically don't claim those, not because I'm trying to downplay them, but because those aren't really woven in with my life experience.

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McLean, Va.: Do you think it's a valid choice for a biracial person to "identify as white" or at least to view themselves as "just an individual" rather than accepting categorization? Do you think it's harder for, say, a black-white biracial person to do so than, say, an Asian-white biracial person? It would seem to me that it may be, maybe because historically black Americans have been most subject to pernicious categorization and persecution.

David Swerdlick: Again, just picture Obama in front of a crowd or on Meet the Press and him saying, "I think of myself as white." It doesn't quite work in the context of how our society has historically spliced and diced race.

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White mother: I guess the poster from New York bothered you with their "Krauthammer" tone, but the underlying question was interesting. The white parent's influence seems to be marginalized in the embracing of the African American side.

David Swerdlick: It shouldn't be marginalized. Clearly, part of who Obama is today is a result of his mother's influence. But try to think of how society will interface with the biracial person, who is of color.

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Atlanta: I think Obama has made it great to be biracial. Just a few years ago, black folks would shun you called yourself biracial, even if you had blonde hair and blue eyes, or mainly like your Asian American parent. Now, checking the "other" box doesn't seem so bad.

David Swerdlick: People used to say black, and then Jesse Jackson advanced the term African American, which seems more precise to me (now he's back to "N Word," but that's another story). We still say black, but now African American is accepted.

Same with "biracial." When I was growing up in California, we said "mixed." When I moved to North Carolina as an adult, I remember laughing when people occasionally would say, "You got something in you?"--I'm picturing myself with a harpoon sticking out of my flank.

Anyway, somewhere along the way, "biracial," along with the corollary, "multiracial," became the norm. It's not a pretty sounding word, but I think it says what it means and means what it says.

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well: most white folks I know don't "identify white". We "identify" as "Scottish heritage," "Polish," etc. Not WHITE; there is no WHITE identity or heritage.

David Swerdlick: Well, wait a minute. Whites in this country are the majority (or at least plurality). Yes, whites talk about their Polish American, Scots-Irish American heritage, etc. But if there's black, then there's white. I can't explain why we don't refer to white people as European American, but I will say that I think this election year has been an eye-opener for a lot of white people who aren't used to hearing themselves referred to as "white Americans" or better yet, "blue collar, rural, NASCAR, etc., white Americans."

Folks of color are used to being categorized and labeled. I'm not saying we always like that, or that it's always a good thing, but it's true.

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Maryland: How come the existence of a few horrible neo-Nazis and other horrible mean-spirited whites means that I cannot evidence pride in my European heritage when in a mixed-race crowd without partly being apologetic? Is there any way around this problem?

David Swerdlick: It's all in the delivery.

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Washington, D.C.: How do you feel about "people of color?" How do you unpack that?

David Swerdlick: This question came in a while ago, and I meant to get back to it. Because whites have traditionally been the political and economic power in our society, racial issues have historically been treated in a white/other framework. The "other" is black, American Indian (or Native American if you prefer), Latino, Asian American, etc. People of color catches all of those broad groups.

By the way, I consider Semitic Middle Eastern people and South Asians (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, etc.) to be "Asian" or "Asian American," but there are different views on this.

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Collingswood, N.J.: I'm half Japanese, half white and would resent being called "Asian" or "Hapa" or anything else of that nature. When people ask me my race, I say I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

David Swerdlick:"Hapa" I get. But why would you resent being called Asian or Asian American if you're half Japanese? I don't think the term you use is as important here as how you feel about yourself. Read up on the history of Japanese Americans, particularly in California. You'll find that they are intricately woven in with American history. Be proud, my brother.

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David Swerdlick: O.K., we're about a half hour over the time now, so I'm going to wrap this up. Thank you for all of your questions. Apologies to those whose questions we didn't get to today. I enjoyed it.

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