[LWalk18]

Under the Jim Crow laws present until the 1960's, she most certainly been subject to same restrictions as her darker counterparts, so that is irrelevant. Calling her an octoroon is speculation- I know persons born of two black person lighter than her or Halle Berry.

[wardaddy]

Hardly, the Greater New Orleans area (and the Miss Gulf Coast) has had a very lightly mixed mulatto class who never abided by Jim Crow and in fact were part of the "oppressor class". I am 7th generation Mississippian and have been around huge numbers of blacks my entire life and have never seen a woman looking like Mariah Carey who was considered "black". Halle Berry..yes. Mariah..no way. I grew up with several folks who it was fairly common knowledge that they had some slave or freedman blood and they were part of the white establishment. If you were white enough looking and had the social and economic pedigree then you were innoculated from Jim Crow.