This why the same individual could be "black" in the US
> (where historically the "one drop of black blood" policy was in place,
> "coloured" under the apartheid categories of SA, and "white" in parts of
> the Carib. and South Amer. I believe that SA also had an "honorary white"
> category for Japanese?
>
> Madness.
If my memory serves me right (it often doesn't), in the 1940s and 1950s, Africans (of the right class or political position -- e.g., ambassadors) were given something like an "honorary white" status so they could obtain rooms in all-white luxury hotels.
Carrol