ugh

MBD is angry at me this morning for not being nicer to his mother. The thing is, I know I am not very friendly to her. I can't be. we cannot have a conversation without me acting like a bitch, simply because I am so busy biting my tongue that I can't really say much of anything.
she wanted to know at breakfast if "mulatto" is an offensive term. And whether or not it's okay to say "people of color" and aren't some people bothered by that - on and on with this business of "I just want to know what I'm supposed to say." And I just feel like there is nothing I can say that won't prompt her to say something worse. But it all came up because I couldn't stop from flinching when I asked her who waited on her at the coffeeshop this morning, was it my friend kea, and she says, "oh it was a nice mulatto woman."
Like, what the fuck year is this?
Do you know people who use that word?
Am I just ridiculously uptight?
I associate that word with archaic bloodline fixations. Then MBD starts in and he and his mother are sitting there talking about what people of color say about other people of color and blahblah blah skin color distinctions and shit and I'm just like, enough already. I am totally uncomfortable sitting around talking about people of color in this context of total Otherness while wrapped in a cloak of "I'm-not-racist" bullshit.
And MBD says "she doesn't mean anything by it"!!!
Exactly the same thing various relatives used to say about my N-word spouting great aunt. "Aw heck, that's what she grew up sayin, she don't mean nothin by it y'all..." as my parents hustle us out the door...

I think I'm going to the movies. I wish some of y'all were here with me to share the popcorn and make snarky comments during the previews.