Mulatto
A mulatto is a person whose ancestors (especially parents) have ever had black and white skin color.
In German, the term is often perceived as racist. However, it is sometimes used as a self-designation.
Etymology
Mulatto goes back to the Spanish and Portuguese word mulato and was 16-17. Century taken over into German. For the origin of the word are three different ways to find.
1 The Real Academia Española, which is the highest authority for the Spanish language, indicates that mulato on the word mulo / mula = mule, the cross between horse and donkey, goes back, which in turn is from the Latin word Mulus with the same significance derives. This derivation follow the Duden, the German-language dictionaries as well as scientists. Muleto or mulato originally referred to a young mule.
2 In the Oriental one keeps going back to the Spanish linguist Eguilaz the Arabic word muwallad for the origin of mulatto. Muwallad (plural: muwalladin ) denotes a hybrid, ie a person with parents of different origins. In medieval Moorish Spain was called muwalladin the descendants of natives and Arabs.
3 According to the authors Marco Carini and Flora Macallan also the origin in Madagascar could be found. The island of St. Marie ( Nosy Boraha today ) 18 km north-west of Madagascar location served from the 17th century, many pirates as a trading center. Since the most fair-skinned pirates enjoyed at the Islanders a very high value - a lot of money, good warriors - it was not uncommon for marriages between the light-skinned and dark-skinned pirates islanders. The children of these compounds were then in the 18th century even an independent social group that Malatas or even mulattoes.
Use of the term
Especially due to the derivation of the term mulatto mule is rejected by many, as the comparison with an animal is perceived as humiliating. It previously was the idea, mulattos were like mules infertile.
Although the term mulatto is increasingly perceived as discriminatory, it is still used, as previously was interspersed no exact equivalent name, which can be dodged. The replacement of a loaded term by a politically correct term, however, is always a risk of the euphemism treadmill.
Possible alternatives are:
- Half Europeans, Half Africans: not in use
- Afro Europeans see there
- Afro German: related only to Germany
- Eurafrikaner: similar to Eurasians, has so far been used only in academic context
- Color: see above
Some see the origin of the term is not as critical to the use of this term and choose consciously to describe their mixed African-European identity.
In the part of the world where most people live with a mixed African- European descent, namely in Latin America and the Caribbean, the term mulatto is very common, is used as a self-designation and widely seen as unproblematic. However, there are also there aversive response to it. Then, resorting to Dark, Dark ( span. / Port. Moreno, morena port., also escuro, escura ) or Brown, Brown ( span / port. . Pardo, parda ).
Historical use of the term
Mulatto was in the system of Castas, in which the people in the Spanish colonial empire were divided according to racial criteria, as used in the parlance of the French and English colonies in America, and the United States only for the first generation of descendants of Blacks and Whites (see illustration). For further generations of mixing had their own names.
In the USA the term mulatto was common until the advent of so-called Eintropfenregel. After Eintropfenregel each was with a black ancestors ( " one drop of blood " ) as Black. This principle was included in the legislation and spread in the general consciousness of the population. As a result, from 1930 were mulattoes in the census no longer listed as a separate ethnic group. Although the Eintropfenregel is legally abolished long ago, it is rooted in the consciousness of the American people both in whites and in African-Americans today still. People with a white and a black parent, or with only one black grandparent are usually considered as black. A general awareness of a mixed race takes only about since the 1980s, and the census is now offering the opportunity ( " two racy " ) as biracial or multiracial ( " more classy " ) to classify.