At BuzzFeed, Mat Johnson breaks down the logistics of an oft-ignored, always tumultuous descriptor for multiethnic folks everywhere:

I know that many people, they hear mulatto, and they think of the word mule. This is often the first complaint I hear about mulatto: that it derives from the hybrid product of breeding a donkey with a horse. Yeah, mules, smelly, brute, beasts of burdens. I get it. This is extremely offensive, I agree, sure. Thing is, it’s also probably not true.