"Mulatto?" Did you say, "mulatto?"

I love Heather Havrilesky, writer of the "I Like to Watch" TV column over at Salon. I find her taste a little lowbrow, but how can you argue about taste? One likes what one likes. She is a good writer and she has turned me on to some things that I didn't watch before.

Her writing ability notwithstanding, she made a truly unfortunate word choice today in her blurb about the latest episode of America's Next Top Model.

And speaking of silly, "America's Next Top Model" slipped into the realm of slapstick this week, as Keenyah, who gets fatter each episode, has continued to eat like crazy and started picking fights with her only ally, Britney. You know, subtle, sweet Britney, who spent the previous week's episode drinking and barking out egocentric corkers at a dinner party, causing a roomful of eyes to roll? Like a scary cross between Yaya (Respeito!) and Kelle (Yikes!) of last season, Keenyah prattled on about how important and meaningful it is for her, personally, to be in Africa because she's black. Fine, except when asked about Naima, who's a light-skinned mulatto (emphasis added), Keenyah said, "I don't really think of Naima as black" -- disregarding the fact that Naima does.

Uhh... Heather. Babygirl. We don't use that word anymore. The memo went out several weeks ago, at least.

First of all, "light-skinned mulatto" is redundant. The word "mulatto" is a throwback to less-enlightened times. Like, say, the days when slave women would inexplicably give birth to babies whose skin color looked like a combination of their own and... Massa's for example. Nobody could figure out how this was happening, but the word they came up with for those oddly light-skinned babies was "mulatto." It's a bad word, though. The etymology provides a clue as to why.

Etymology: Spanish mulato, from mulo mule, from Latin mulus

To be fair, I must acknowledge that you are by no means the only wordsmith to employ "mulatto" in recent years.

The marketing department at Dairy Queen used a derivation of the word to name a frozen coffee-flavored drink, the Moo-latte'. Seriously. No, seriously.

I understand that sometimes it is hard to keep up with what different minority groups are calling themselves this week. Is it "Indian" or "Native American?" Is it "Negro" or "Black?" Or, is it "Afro-American?" Or, is it "African-American?" It can be confusing, I know. But, it has been a long time since black women, light-skinned or otherwise, liked to be called "mulattos." Last time I checked, black women preferred to be called "black women."

BTW, Heather, please start updating Rabbit Blog more frequently.