I didn't see the Nov. 9 "Oprah Winfrey Show" on Mariah Carey (http://www.oprah.com/show/scoop_way_19991109.html) and biracial children. A friend of mine did see it. Her observations are given below:
On Tuesday, Oprah had Mariah Carey and her mother on her show to talk about how hard it is to be biracial. The spin seemed to be that it is tragic to be mixed. They had a piece by newswoman Ann Curry (NBC?) who claimed it was great to be biracial (she's Japanese and Caucasian) but Oprah dismissed this by claiming it is a whole different thing to be black and white. Before a commercial break, Oprah asked the "What about the children?" question. When she came back and put a question like this to Mariah's mom, mom admitted that she had been naive about the issues going into her marriage (in 1960) but Oprah cut her off as she was about to continue with further (probably more positive) observations. The question was never answered but the tone of the show suggested that biracial kids have it very tough and thank God that they can look to Mariah as a role model of someone who made it, despite her mulatto status.
I wrote Oprah to tell her we've had enough of the tragic mullato stories.