i have the opportunity to meet a very
light-skinned haitian at the university who would feel offended if called a "mulatto".
she told me that she cannot be a mulatto for she is the offspring of two loving parents of the homosapiens species who happen to be of different skin-colors.
the term "mulatto" comes from the ignorance of the french colonists who likened the offspring of an african and a european to that of a donkey and a horse.
my late grand-father had stopped talking to one of his best friends because the latter had once called him a mulatto to which he had taken great offense.
he always believed that if another man reduces you to the color of your skin( whether in favor or disfavor), he, as consequence of that act, has no genuine respect for you. so if you wish you bestow praise upon mr laforet, say that he is a great man, a man of courage, a proud haitian, a nationalist, a humanist, or that he comes from a very self-loved and self-respected family.
only people that respect others can have respect for themselves, those haitians who would reject their brothers and sisters do not really love themselves_they are self-demeaning chronic sufferes of the "Rigaud complex", they are existing in a self-hating existential dillema, they are assymetrical caricatures of man and women.
so when meeting such individuals, they should not make you feel bad, in fact, you should pity them.
