Based on her old photo, it's clear that she had her hair styled to look more "biracial" and probably has a sprayed-on tan because her skin clearly was paler when she was young.
She's been sarcastically compared to John Howard Griffin, a white man who darkened his skin then pretended to be a black man in the South in the 1950s. His book was called "Black Like Me."
Also turns out that Cleaver may have committed some phony hate crimes.