I was scolded for using the term a few years back, told by someone that it meant “donkey’s ass,” which I knew right then was clearly wrong (but, unaware of the real etymology, I kept silent).
Now I refrain from using the term (unless I want to stir up trouble and challenge someone to school me on the word’s origins), but still can’t decide if it’s truly offensive or not (its etymology, it seems, remains uncertain).
Should just not use it anyway because some people will be offended? It wouldn’t kill me to just say biracial, but on the other hand, could that lead to me strike, say, niggardly from my vocabulary?
I know two people that are half black and half white. One is offended, the other isn’t.
The one that’s offended says it bothers him because it makes him sound like a drink at Starbucks.
“Could I have a Grande non-fat mulatto please?”
Hey, I’d even take a fat one, if she was cute.
A link to the column you’re commenting on is appreciated. It’s this one, I presume: What percentage of black parentage do you need to be considered black?
Would you like an octaroon with that?
I’m biracial - white dad, black mom. I find mulatto not offensive exactly but certainly outdated. Kind of like using “Negro” or “colored”. I wouldn’t think you were some cross-burning redneck for saying it, but I would think you hadn’t been paying much attention to the last 40-odd years of race relations.
If it wouldn’t kill you to say biracial then you should say it instead of mulatto.
Oh, NO! Well, I suppose you are joking about “niggardly”, are you? I reckon anybody you can talk to who gets the meaning of “niggardly” wrong is doing you a favour by indicating that they are just not worth talking to, thus saving a lot of time and bother.
I didn’t think anyone actually used “mulatto” now or in the very recent past: it sounds like something straight out of an old book to me, but I’m in the U.K. and we know what sort of “divided by a common language” confusions that can cause. Your kilometres may vary.
But I sort of like the interpretation of “mulatto” as some kind of complicated coffee drink and “octoroon” as some kind of cake or biscuit. The word just sound like that, somehow. 
Well, I, for one, would use “mulatto” (and “quadroon”, etc., for that matter) in a historical novel, if it mattered to the story. But for all practical purposes, in America today, thanks to the heritage of the “one drop” rule, you’re either “black” or “white” (or a number of extraneous possibilities), and there is no such thing as a “mulatto”. (Except, perhaps – I don’t actually know – in Louisiana, where things have always been different.)
Is there such a thing as “high yellow” anymore?
The problem is a bit more wide spread than that… people aren’t sure what to call ‘others’… i’ve had people offended by both ‘black’ and ‘african-american’… ‘mulatto’ AND ‘biracial’… and certainly ‘chinese’ instead of ‘asian’… but then ‘asian’ is only ‘non-offensive’ to those on the acutal contenient… you are playing craps if you use it with any of the pacific nations (including Japan)…
Then again, I find it seldom necessary to use terms like that, as they are normally not important to a converstation… they only seem to be ‘needed’ when describing physical characteristics for purposes of identification… and even then you run into issues… saying he is ‘light skinned’ upsets people… is he white or is he light skinned ‘brown’… or light skinned ‘black’… etc…
Frankly it is all silly to get upset over any term others use… if they use it in a matter of superiority, doesn’t matter if they use the ‘N’ word… or if they say ‘black’… in their mind it will have no difference… and frankly who cares what others think?
Well, I am from the South, and haven’t heard that term for quite a while.
But…it is a term my mother uses on rare occasions, and years & years ago, I did hear it from others. Mainly in the 1950s. I doubt that many of the folk here now have ever even heard it.
And just from where I lived, it was always perjorative. Not at all a racial description, it was a no-excuses-here demeaning term. Highly so.
In the Southern dialect, it was always said as “high yeller,” thus IMHO further demeaning those who said it.
the way i see it; no matter what race someone is there is always a chance that they will be offended if someone of another race gives them a “title” such as mulatto or even something worse. if i call a latin person mexican they will be offended; if i call a mexican person latin they will be offended. though in west texas (were i live) it hardly applies seeing as how almost everyone is accually mexican. today everyone is so concerned with not being racist, or with not being the object of a racist act that you can hardly call someome white anymore without being considered a flaming racist! unless everyone in america is willing to look up their exact herritage and wear a tag naming it, then i think they should all lighten up a bit.
~ kaci the white/mexican/asian girl!
My friend’s mother is white, father is black. He’s taken to calling himself “Halfrican” or “Halfrican-American”. I like it.