Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I feel worn out and tired and in need of rest and a bit of a down day to recover from the overnight in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana Book Festival. I’m not used to being “on” in public anymore–it was always draining–and apparently that is still the case. The drive back wasn’t terrible until I got past the airport, and the skies opened and two hours of thunderstorms and flooding rains for the metro area. It took me about an hour, since traffic slowed to a crawl and in times stopping altogether; visibility was incredibly poor and there was about an inch or two of water in places and in others, more. But it wasn’t raining in my neighborhood when I got home, so I was able to get inside without getting horribly soaked. Paul is also feeling better, which is nice, and I didn’t really pay much attention to college games yesterday. I checked in from time to time on scores, but there wasn’t any game that I was willing to sit all the way through. Instead, we finished AHS: 13 (I rolled my eyes a lot through the episode, which I am hoping is the end for AHS, honestly. It’s been hit or miss for a very long time, and I can’t really complain about Ryan Murphy shows when I have no excuses for continuing to watch them. I guess I enjoy them as “hate watches,” so I do get some joy from them.
The Book Festival was nice, and I had no anxiety. My palms were sweating while I moderated, but my body wasn’t all tensed up, and my panelists–Yoon Ha Lee and Kristen Illarmo–were absolute rock stars; smart, funny, and erudite. It was a pleasure moderating, for once, even though I was almost completely ignorant of the subject. Like I said, Yoon and Kristen made it easy for me, and I actually feel a bit more encouraged to attempt it at some point in the future. I also enjoyed listening to their processes and insights on writing scifi. I feel like I learned a lot from them, which made it lovely. The panel I was on was expertly moderated by Ellen Byron, and I appreciated that experience as well, heightened by meeting the recently Anthony nominated Michael Riggs. I also ran into Ashley Elston, which was terrific, but I didn’t see Farrah Rochon. Alas and alack and all that jazz. Oh, well, another time I suppose.
But the extra hour this morning was marvelous.
Iam also ridiculously pleased with myself for finishing Mazywood before Halloween, so I will finish wrapping up Halloween Horror Month when I post my newsletter about the book. The timing was delightful; and now I can dive into Nonfiction November with a clear conscience. I think I may read the first story in Skip Hollandsworth’s She Kills, which I am looking forward to, and revisiting some other nonfiction classics I already love while also diving into new-to-me non-fiction. I am really looking forward to revisiting some favorites like In Cold Blood and Blood and Money. I love nonfiction, but I so rarely read it anymore that I really need to do something about that, but I’ve been getting my nonfiction and history fix from documentaries and Youtube….but I prefer getting it from books.
All right, I’m going to bring this to a close. I plan to have a non-working, non-anything other than r4est day today, and yes, I’ll most likely do some chores and things around here, but primarily today is going to be about rest and relaxation. Hope you have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, as we move into what passed for fall/winter in New Orleans, and of course, I will be here again in the morning.
Halloween morning in Baton Rouge and I am up, needing to get everything packed and into the car so i can check out before my panels so I can escape as soon as my signing is over. That sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? This is actually a trial run for my anxiety medication, really; I’ve not done anything public like this in years and this is my first time on anxiety medication, so will see how good it is, won’t we? This is probably going to be a shorter entry than usual; laptop/hotel combination isn’t optimal. Hilariously, I was rushing to finish that short story, and for some reason, thought the deadline was the 31st; it was actually Octobr 1st, which was…rather stupid. It’s not like it’s the first time this has happened, either, and it’s more evidence of why I fucking need to put things on my goddamned calendar. Oh, well. On the other hand, the story finally works so that’s something; maybe I can try to get it published in another market. That’s two deadlines I’ve fucked up this year for short stories.
I truly continue to be amazed that I have a career of any kind in this business. I am so consistently terrible about the business side of the business and need to constantly remind myself that it is a business. Heavy heaving sigh. But it is what it is, and I can promise to try to be better about it in the future and do nothing about it, which happens all the time.
I procrastinated departing New Orleans yesterday as long as I could, finally getting on the road around three-ish. There was traffic in New Orleans as always, at the usual suspects: the Superdome dysfunction junction, the Causeway, and Clearview. The drive up was nice, until I hit Baton Rouge traffic, which was the usual nightmare, and by the time I got to the hotel and checked in I was tired, hungry, and crabby. Valet parking was also a mess (and also not a choice), and so by the time I hauled my overnight bag into my room, I was kind of over everything. So, yes, sue me—I skipped the party because I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t drive up for the party—I didn’t want to do two panels after driving up here—but it was merely an option. I didn’t want to go and not get back in time to have something to eat at a decent hour. What can I say? I put my pajamas on, ordered me some room service, and curled up in bed to read. (I also listened to a Tananarive Due short story on the way up here, “Battle of the Round House,” which was about exodusters in Kansas, which was no end of delight for me—because I love that history, because one of the dead little towns where we lived was actually a Black town for decades until it dried up and blew away, which I only learned recently. Not to mention how good of a writer she is, and she’s become one of my favorite horror writers—hell, writers with no adjective in front. I’ll be driving Ellen Byron and her husband back to New Orleans, dropping them off at the airport where they will be picking up their rental car. And then it’s home, with a possible grocery stop on the way home. Stranger things have happened, you know.
I did finish Mazywood last night before falling asleep; it was terrific and I truly enjoyed it (more on thta later, of course), and must say again how marvelous Tananarive Due is as an artist. She’s truly remarkable, and if you love horror and Hollywood history, this is an excellent read for you.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning from my workspace in the windows. Till then, and as always, thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday and somehow, we’ve made it to the middle of the week. There’s only a few more days left in Spooky Season, so I’ve got to get moving on reading Mazywood, although I can also listen to it on the drive to Baton Rouge and can finish reading it while up there on Friday night, or when I get back to the city on Sunday. My responsibilities for the day end at three, and so I’ll probably get home around five.
Oh, here is my schedule for Saturday in Baton Rouge:
11:00 am to Noon Iberville Building, Le Francois, Room C Rebels, Empires, and Impossible Choices in Young Adult Sci-Fi Kristen Illarmo, Against the Red Sky: Colony Exposed Yoon Ha Lee, Starstrike with moderator Greg Herren (Ages 12 to 17)
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm Bienville Building, First Floor, Conference Center 173 Killer Calendar: New Orleans Mysteries for Every Season Ellen Byron, A Murderer’s Guide to Mardi Gras: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery and A Crescent City Christmas: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery Greg Herren, Hurricane Season Hustle: A Scotty Bradley Mystery Michael Rigg, Shadows of Frenchmen: A Jonathan Gray, M.D. Mystery
2:15 pm to 3:00 pm Cavalier House Books Tent Book Signing
So, as you see, I should be home by five. It shouldn’t be an issue, since I’ll get home early enough to do some things and not be a total loser, if nothing else I can watch the night football games, or not; it looks the evening line-up is Texas-Mississippi State or Missouri-Arkansas; I’m not sure why Georgia-Florida isn’t a marquee night game, but it’s not. I should be able to catch the end of that one; LSU is off this week (the Louisiana Book Festival is always scheduled for LSU’s bye week, in case you’re wondering about priorities in the Pelican State) so not really caring too much to miss games, frankly. It’s also Halloween on Saturday, which will make the drive through town from the interstate interesting. Halloween is a big weekend in New Orleans, as I am sure one can imagine, and we turn the costume dial up to at least 20 on any costuming holiday….even so, I don’t miss going out for the evening, either.
Yesterday was a pretty good day, over all. We weren’t busy but not slow, either, so I didn’t have a lot of down time because I was trying to stay caught up on everything administrative and my other responsibilities. I was feeling a bit tired on the way home when I stopped to make groceries; tonight I have to run uptown to get the mail. I managed to get some things that were weighing on me done yesterday, too–I don’t know why I procrastinate on some things because I don’t want to deal with them at the moment but…it’s never terrible, you know? I always make things worse in my head than they actually are, and the meds don’t help with that, alas.
Apparently we’re cancelling Freddy Krueger because (checks notes) he molested and murdered children…um, he is the villain of the films. Just because he also had funny lines doesn’t mitigate that he’s a predator; are people really this media illiterate? (Ha ha ha, what am I saying? Of course they are.) Freddy isn’t, and never was, the hero: he was a child molester/murderer who was murdered and burned alive by the Elm Street parents, so in the original he was invading the dreams of their children and killing them in their sleep. How that turned him into a pop culture icon was two things: Robert Englund’s scenery chewing performance, and his snarky-funny dialogue. I am sure there are any number of academic tomes, essays, and dissertations on how serial murderers like Michael Meyes, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger became the heroes of their franchises; we are all primed to root for the main character through being conditioned by media (people think Lolita is a love story, which always makes me roll my eyes)–and you can see the difference in the Scream series, where the killers change in every film and the survivors are the stars. We root for Sidney, not Ghost-face, who is inevitably as witty and snarky as Freddie.
A big shout out in thanks to Kristopher Zgorski–the font of all information, I swear1–who let me know you can buy the entire run of Friday the 13th–The Series on DVD, which will arrive today or tomorrow! Then I can start my gradual re-watch of the show, which will include episodes I’ve not seen; it wasn’t a network show but rather syndicated so I would often forget to watch when it aired. I had friends who also watched and I watched it with them when it was on, or watching an episode they’d recorded. I loved the show and the entire concept behind it–an antique store selling objects cursed by the devil, with each episode centering on one object the team was trying to track down by checking newspapers for odd deaths (if it is ever rebooted–please and thank you, God–they can do the Supernatural thing of looking on-line). I still want to do some kind of supernatural style series of my own a la Sookie Stackhouse/Dark Shadows, but this concept, much as I love it, wouldn’t really work outside of New Orleans and I’d rather do it in a more rural, bayou parish.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely morning and day, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow morning.
Will this revealing lace pair of briefs escape the eye of the Meta censors? It shouldn’t, since it’s from one of their ads, but we will see, won’t we?
Wednesday morning and somehow we’re already halfway through this week; how did that happen already? IT didn’t hurt that I left work early yesterday. The taping of Susan’s show went well1; it’s always nice when someone who has chaired the National Book Awards/Pulitzers for fiction multiple times likes your work, you know? It’s always lovely to get affirmation, which isn’t something you get a lot in this business. I suppose royalties are affirmations, but…they’re kind of cold and emotion-less, you know? It also helps that the work is going well for me now, too. My visit to the stomach doctor also went well; he was most pleased with how I am doing and how my labs turned out, which was lovely and marvelous, and now I don’t have to worry about him for another six months. The Skyrizi is working well, and my plaque psoriasis is also gone; thank you, side effect of Skyrizi. I told him in the last month I’ve been feeling much better–not tired, not fatigues, not sore or achy–and he said that was about right; about a year to recover when I was that sick. My next injection is due Monday, and were it not on my calendar I would have completely forgot; I used to be able to tell it was coming because I’d have a little distress two weeks or so ahead of time. This is the first time I couldn’t tell the shot was coming due, which is also very cool. Huzzah!
I’ve also been invited to speak at this year’s Louisiana Book Festival, which is pretty cool. It’s been a long time since I’ve done the LBF; I don’t think I have since we started going to Baton Rouge for LSU games? I really should start checking into other state book festivals in the South; Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas; does Tennessee have one? Anyway, those are much easier to get to and more affordable than the mystery conventions.
We finished The Boroughs last night, which was a nice. self-contained series but was also left open for a second season. The acting was superb, and it was so lovely to see actors of a certain age carrying a show rather than having them shoved into some sort of showy supporting role. We’re also really enjoying Widow’s Bay, which is amazing and fun and funny and incredibly well-written. We’ve never seen the last season of Stranger Things or the most recent Bridgerton, but maybe over the next few weeks we can get that watched and out of the way. We also have to finish The Comeback; maybe this weekend will do for that. There’s also new seasons and new shows dropping next week that look interesting. This weekend I want to get really reading on Lev Rosen’s Rough Pages, and I think I may revisit Celebrity–primarily to talk about Mack Crawford, his sexuality, and gay representation in a book/mini-series in the early 1980s–also the era of Stephen Carrington’s sexuality on Dynasty.
I feel pretty good this morning. The daily rains have taken some time off–rumor has it we’re in for an incredibly horribly hot few days this week–but the rain will make its return next week, while the rest of the country is enjoying a cold front. I feel rested and like I can get a lot done today. I was thinking about running errands tonight after work, but it can wait until tomorrow after work, methinks. Especially if it’s going to be miserably hot outside.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have yourself a lovely little Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I shall return on the morrow. Till then!
Happy? Angry? Nice body, in any case.
I also got to talk about John D. MacDonald and his environmentalism and hurricane books, and wishing that we had that kind of writer going after Louisiana’s politicians and corporations. ↩︎
TRIGGER WARNING: Racism, homophobia, and archaic racist terms.
I learned long ago that the best way to deal with assholes was to develop a razor-sharp quick wit. I don’t know how I trained myself to be snarky and fast with my sense of humor, but at some point in my teens—in college, I think—I realized that not being filtered, and not being able to recognize most social cues, could actually prove to be a powerful defensive tool, if controlled. It has worked marvelously for me ever since. I also learned that a really good thing to do was say things to people I disliked that could be taken as either a compliment or shade, leaving it up to them to decide what I meant.
A few years ago, I had an experience at Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque where my usual biting sense of humor deserted me when I really needed it the most. I’ve grown used to dealing with homophobes and contemptuously cutting them off at the knees; I even relish doing it at times. But this? I’d never dealt with this kind of bigotry before, and my only excuse is that I was caught completely off-guard. I’ve also turned what happened over and over again in my mind in the time since, wondering how I should feel about it. It still hasn’t finished processing yet, and I’ll probably keep processing it for a few more years.
This was my first (and so far, only) time attending Left Coast Crime (unrelated; I want to go again but it just hasn’t worked out). I had always heard wonderful things about it, but the timing was always difficult for me to actually attend; all too frequently it is around the time of the Festivals here. I’d come home to the locks changed, methinks, were I to go away at that time.
At the time, I was still serving as Executive Vice-President of Mystery Writers of America. It was 2021, we hadn’t had any kind of crime publishing events since March 2020, and the events were just starting to slowly to come back. MWA had signed on to sponsor the Lefty banquet, and I felt someone should be there to rep the org at the event, and it wound up being me. I felt a bit uncomfortableabout registering and agreeing to do panels; we were a sponsor, and I didn’t want Programming to feel pressured to give me anything because of that (I tried very hard not to use the position to promote myself; I may have been a bit over-zealous on that score, but better safe than sorry). I arrived in Albuquerque on Thursday, had a quiet dinner with a friend, and the next day I went to panels, ran into people, and had a lovely time. I also had dinner plans for Friday that I was excited about–I was having dinner with Marco Carocari, whom I had just met at Saints and Sinners; John Copenhaver, whom I was starting to get to know better; Oline Cogdill, a dear friend of well over a decade; Mia Manansala, whom I met at New Orleans Bouchercon before she was published and I’ve always felt a bit protective of her (my neuroses, not hers) and someone new to me–Wanda Morris, whom I had neither read nor met before.1
Constant Reader, that was such a fun dinner, the kind I always dreamed of being a part of when I was that lonely kid in Kansas wondering what his future would be. We talked about books, writing, gossip, and I believe everyone, other than Oline and I, was up for a Lefty. We toasted their nominations, and when we headed back to the hotel I felt marvelous; giddy almost. I was having a good time and was excited to be around writers again, and I wanted it to keep going. I didn’t want the evening to end…
Little did I know what I was in for as we walked back into the hotel lobby, and we three gays decided to go have a drink at the bar, while the women wisely all went up to bed.
It started with a chair.
So innocuous, so nothing, just a little thing that happens in hotel bars all the time; you join a table without enough chairs so you grab a free one from the next table…but this time? Very different.
Basically, we had decided to join friends at a high-top table with room for eight, with all the chairs already taken and some others pulled up. There was a tall bar chair standing at the next table–a low table, so it didn’t really belong there in the first place–and several people were sitting around that table. I smiled, said, “is anyone using this?” and one of the three people shook their head no, so I took the chair…which bothered the woman who was sitting closest to me and who decided, in her inebriation, that I shouldn’t have the chair.
DRUNK WHITE WOMAN (Henceforth, DWW): You can’t take that chair because you have to sit here and talk to me.
I’d never seen her before in my life, but I’ve also been drunk in public before, so I just smiled as I sat down at the other table, and said politely, with no idea of what I was letting myself in for: “Can’t you talk to me if I sit here?”
DWW: Great!
I nodded to her, hoping that was the end of the interaction. I’d had two drinks at dinner, but wasn’t even slightly buzzed. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio in my clutches, I’d had a marvelous evening already, and I was looking forward to catching up with the others at the table. I started to turn back to the table to talk to my friends, when…she leaned towards me, narrowing her eyes, and saying, in a very low tone, “Are you a mulatto?”2
Needless to say, I was taken aback–not by the assumption, but the language.
I literally thought, are we really still using that word in this year of our Lord 2022?
I didn’t know what to say, I was so stunned and shocked that my ability to lobby back an icy, conversation ending retort, something of which I was so so proud, had deserted me. I just smiled and said, “no,” which she countered with a scoff, “Well, you’re at least a quadroon.3“
And rubbed each side of her nose with an index finger, adding with a knowing smirk, “Especially with that nose.”
I said, rather sharply, “I know who all my grandparents were, so no.”
Again, it wasn’t the racial profiling that bothered me, but it was the entitlement and the language she was using.
First and foremost, my racial heritage–anyone’s, really–is no one’s business.
She was being racist to me, but even as I floundered, I couldn’t figure out why I was so flustered and having trouble figuring out what to say next. It didn’t bother me in the least that she thought I was part Black (more on that later), but she was using racist language to inquire, which I was offendedby, and I was more than a little insulted by her condescending assumption that I’d lie about it? And again, what business was it of hers if I was or wasn’t? (I’m still not sure how to wrap my mind around this; two years later I am blogging about it in order to process it in my brain.)
DWW: (waving her hand, poo-pooing me) Oh, everyone’s mixed there.
Hoping this ordeal was over and still in shock, I turned back to my friends…only to hear her voice loudly asking me, “Are you gay?” I confirmed that yes, I was–and then she went on a long, incredibly tiresome (and repetitive) monologue about how she’s always been good with the “L and the G and the B and the T”, tried bonding with me over hot male asses (in horrific terms: think locker room talk), and just kept on until finally I was able to finally excuse myself. I got up and left my friends, never to return. Definitely made me uncomfortable, so yeah, it also counts as sexual harassment–what I do or don’t do in my bedroom, DWW, is none of your fucking business.
I still can’t believe that happened, that someone felt comfortable using that kind of language to, and about, me about my racial heritage (when I was a child in the 1960’s I knew you don’t use those words, and they usually only appeared in old racist books, like Gone with the Wind), not to mention trying to get into my bedroom and what I do there. It’s not okay for anyone to use those horrible, archaic old terms that were humiliating and degrading even when they were in common use…and I also felt like I’d failed. I should have stopped her, I should have called her out for using racist and homophobic language, not to mention the fact that she felt, in her drunken stupor, perfectly okay to treat me not as a person but as a thing.
That is the real shame I feel. Not that she used such language to me, but I allowed it. I have to do better than that. My silence was complicity.
And yes, I should have filed a complaint with the conference. I’m still ashamed that I didn’t correct her or say anything before I made my escape. But I sensed it also wouldn’t do any good. Alcohol brings your barriers down, after all.
It also wasn’t the first time this has happened–but at least the first time, it wasn’t so offensive.
This, for an illustration, was my second author photo.
Taken by Sylvester Q, a photographer in New York, he also loaned me the shirt and some other clothes for the shoot. It was my first professional author photo shoot, and this was the best image, in my opinion, to come out of the session. I used it for Jackson Square Jazz (when I got the book down to reread it for the new edit for the 20-year anniversary edition, I noticed the picture) and for several other books. I don’t remember which image I used to replace this one–I think it’s the black and white one of me sitting and hugging my knees–but I am very well aware that I need new author photos. The one I just referenced was taken in either 2008 or 2009; the one of me with my stack of books is from around 2013 or 2014 (and yes, old age has hit me very hard since those last ones were taken). I did a shoot at Sleuthfest with Morgan Sophia in the summer of 2022; the pictures look like me but I don’t like the way I look in them, so I’ve not really used them.
Anyway, this was the image I provided to the Louisiana Book Festival when I was on a New Orleans Noir panel for their program in 2007 (I think). I don’t remember everyone else that was on it, other than editor/moderator Julie Smith and the person I am about to mention.
I was a little taken aback when said contributor sat down next to me, and exclaimed after we were officially introduced, “But I thought you were Black!”
She’d only seen my photograph in the program.
I was more amused than anything else, and perplexed. But when I looked at my image in the program later, it had printed even darker than the image above, which was already pretty dark. I think it had to do with how the shot was lit more than anything else. It was kind of funny, and it became a story that I told sometimes over drinks.
That wasn’t the first time my genetic heritage has been questioned by someone.
White people have this strange curiosity thing about people’s backgrounds, always trying to figure out where you’re from. “Are you German?” “Are you Italian?” That sort of thing. I will comment on a name–“oh, is that French/Spanish/German etc.”–but I would never ask anyone what are you?
I’d never really thought about it before the LCC incident, but people have very often wondered–and asked–what I am.
And in all honesty, I’ve never liked being asked, mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure.
I guess I am what is I’ve sometimes seen referred to as “ethnically ambiguous5“; in other words, had I been a movie star in Hollywood back in the golden age I probably would have been cast in roles that today would be considered offensive for me to play. People have often–again, this weird thing white people have about trying to figure out “what” I am–taken me for everything from Greek to Italian to indigenous to Syrian to Persian to Latino. I’ve never given it much thought, and I don’t really see it. My skin tone is what is called olive, and I’ve always tanned easily, a very dark brown with some red mixed into it (I’ve only been sunburned twice in my life). My facial features are a curious mix of my family; I look like both my parents, and my nose was broken in high school, with the cartilage never reattaching to the bone. I also shave my head, which apparently adds to the confusion.
Almost all of the ancestors (that I’m aware of, but I only know my father’s side, and there’s not anyone left on Mom’s side who’d know more) were British (Scots, Irish, English and possibly some Welsh) but white people have this weird need to classify people. I don’t know if it’s an American thing, or what, but it happens. Not so much anymore as it used to–maybe people are finally starting to realize that it’s offensive or that it doesn’t matter or some combination of the two.
But still. Basically, the woman in Albuquerque othered me. She looked at me and was confused, so she just had to find out what I was.
What I am. “What ARE you?”
And for the record, what happened to me at Left Coast is the kind of horrifically racist and offensive behavior that racialized people have to deal with multiple times every damned day. In some ways I’m glad it happened; that I got to experience racism targeted directly at me, but at the same time…it shouldn’t happen. To anyone, regardless of who they are or how they identify. It also made me very aware of my own privilege, which is something I do need a reminder about periodically; I get so wrapped up in being marginalized as a gay man that I forget how horrible it is to be a person of color in this racialized country and society and culture.
And ultimately, white people? It’s really none of your fucking business in the first place!
And would people have considered me white in the antebellum South? is a question we might have to revisit at another time.
Part of the struggle in writing this all down and sharing it with you, Constant Reader, comes from not wanting to make myself seem like either a martyr or center the conversation about racist bigotry on me. Unsettling as this all was–the privilege on display, the language used, the shame in not putting her in her place–it was momentary, something that didn’t impact or effect my life in any way; another anecdote for cocktail parties or dinner conversation. The sexual harassment aspect of it, had that been all there was (oh yes, during the ass conversation she also talked about mine), would have merely been something I would have laughed about with friends later, but the racial component was horrible. All I could think about was, really, how lucky she was that I wasn’t biracial.
Which makes me squirm more for not reporting it to the conference–what if she does this to authors or readers of color at one of these events? Was I coward for not only not stopping her but not reporting her? It’s been two years now, and I still am not entirely sure what I think or feel about this, which is very unusual for me; it’s very rare that I am unsettled this way.
But putting it all down has helped somewhat. I probably should have written this years ago.
I did buy her book that weekend, and once I read it became a fan. ↩︎
If you aren’t aware of this word, it’s an old, ugly, and pejorative term used for biracial people during the human trafficking era and the Jim Crow time that came after it. I’ve not heard anyone say the word aloud in at least fifty or so years. AT LEAST. If you want to understand just how offensive it is, it’s root word is mule–the product of interspecies breeding. Go fuck yourself, you horrible racist. ↩︎
Again an archaic deeply problematic word that actually comes from antebellum New Orleans, indicating how much Black blood someone had. These were the days of the “one drop” rule, which meant any Black ancestry, no matter how remote, made you Black in the eyes of the state and the law. Quadroon means one quarter, so the person had a single Black grandparent, the “roon” comes from “maroon”, which is another old and archaic racist term for Black people. Despicable, really. ↩︎
Credit where it’s due, she was using racist language that originated in New Orleans. ↩︎
