This article documents various metaphors that have been used to depict mixed-race individuals as animalistic, infantile, or commodified subjects in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In doing so, it reveals the discordant affinities between the politics and poetics of Frantz Fanon and anti-colonial intellectuals in the 1950s and 60s; postcolonial theorists who emphasize Fanon’s continuing relevance in the fight against neocolonialism and neoliberalism in the twenty-first century; and the carefully constructed civility of contemporary politicians and journalists who seek to distance themselves from Fanon’s trenchant radicalism. It also encourages further reflection about the language and style of academic debates in critical mixed race studies.