I was at my oldest daughter’s volleyball try outs, strolling my youngest around the gym, trying to keep him quiet as I watched my Dev giving her all to make the varsity team. As I circled back around my “loop” I passed by an older woman going in the other direction. At first, I didn’t think she was going to acknowledge me but my eyes stayed locked on her, and I was “on ready” to offer her a smile if she wanted it. She finally looked up at me right as she passed by and I asked a polite “How are you?” Her eyes were instantly drawn to the baby boy in my stroller.
“Oh, is he a mulatto?” she asked. I found myself sort of caught off guard, my response seemed to take forever to crawl up my throat as her question echoed in my head…”Such a cute, little mulatto…I have yet to see an ugly mulatto.” the elderly woman continued. She asked which of the girls on the volleyball court was mine and as I pointed her out, the woman asked “Oh, is she mulatto too?”
Mulatto…Some people consider the term pejorative, as it derives from the Spanish and Portuguese word Mula, mule; literally the sterile hybrid offspring resulting from the crossbreeding of a male donkey and a female horse. Another possible origin is in the Arabic word Mwallad which originally referred to persons who were not ‘genuine’ Arabs, especially individuals born of black-white ‘misalliances’. In the United States, hundreds of years ago, the notion that even one, single drop of black blood would contaminate and make inferior the “pure” white blood at that time (and still today for many ignorant, misguided, and fearful people) the term mulatto was used to classify this group of the population. To be viewed as maladjusted, and for centuries to come to be considered degenerate, unintelligent, immoral, and mentally inadequate…Mulatto.
For some people it’s just a word. I knew she didn’t mean anything by it…and as I looked at her dark, wrinkled skin I could only imagine the things she has experienced in her lifetime. After the initial shock of the word being thrown at me ( I felt like someone had just asked me if my baby was “colored”) wore off, I could see right down to the sweet, sweet woman that was standing in front of me, making over my beautiful children…
My beautiful, beautiful, black and white, very intelligent, well adjusted, extremely athletic, compassionate, popular, friendly, Jesus loving, self loving (too much at times), happy and healthy children…that “one drop” (much more than that in the case of my children) has certainly made them stronger and I thank God for that!
