I found it interesting that he was describing himself as African American in those comments, and generally identifying with that community - of course his wife is African American, and no doubt he has integrated himself into that community over time, but the way I see it, he definitely wasn't born into it, not even half (apparently his mother may possibly have had one distant ancestor who was actually "African American", but then we're getting into very small fractions). I'm not really sure what the general view of him being "African American" says about America. Just because he has the same skin colour, people just figure that that must make him part of the community despite the fact that none of his family was part of that community, he doesn't share any of their history and none of his ancestors (with that possible exception) lived through either slavery or segregation. In terms of his upbringing and childhood experiences, it makes more sense to call him Asian American than African American.

But okay, if the African American community has no problem accepting him as one of them, which they clearly don't, so much the better... I just keep finding it weird, especially back when this whole big deal was being made of him being the first African American president. I do wonder if he would've climbed the political ranks as easily if he actually had been.

I guess this is all only tangentially related to the discussion at hand, though. Sorry.