I don't know, thurg.

From my reading and my experience , "Red" is/was not used as much among African Americans as "Yellow" or White [as in "Whiteboy" or "Whitey" or "Casper"-the name of the cartoon "friendly ghost"] to describe a describe a Black person who is very light skinned or is an albino. However, a Black person [and I guess a person of any race/ethnicity] who is an albino can have red hair, so they might be called "Red" for pejorative, or friendly, descriptive reasons.

Not that I have known very many Black people {or people of any race} who are albinos. But I did know one. A long time ago when I was in elementary school, I ws walking home with my sisters and some older girls and we passed by a house and noticed a Black girl about my age on the porch. The girl's skin was very pale, and her hair was a reddish color. Though the red haired girl was about my age, she didn't go to my neighborhood school. Maybe she was Catholic and went to the city's Catholic school. Anyway, as a bunch of other kids walked past that girl's house, I heard a couple of them shout out "Hey, burnt rice!" The girl quickly put her head down and ran into her house.

I remember asking one of the "older" girls I was walking home with "Why did those kids called that girl "burnt rice"?. She said it was because of the color of that girl's hair. Since we lived in an all Black neighborhood, just about all the kids we knew had black or dark brown hair so a Black girl with red hair was different. I remember asking that older girl "Why is her hair that color?" And that older girl said something like "That was the way she was born".

I seldom saw that girl again, but when I did I made a point of waving and saying "Hi" to her. Years would pass before I figured out that that red haired girl was an albino. I never forgot her, and I never forgot the second hand lesson that words could hurt. In all the years that have come and gone, I still remember that little red haired girl. I wish her well where ever she is.