Most Americans don’t describe him that way.
The issue is NOT skin color, it is ethnicity.
A Pew poll says the majority of Americans describe the president as “mixed race.” Of course this is correct, maybe even more so than most Americans realize. As a Kenyan, Obama’s father come from a very mixed race: culture with roots in the Arab/Semitic peoples as well as different groups of African peoples.
The bigger issue, if we are talking about him is whether he is seen as culturally African American? I suspect most Americans … including African Americans … see Mr. Obama as what I would call an affected African-American, a black by choice.
This means that I am not at all sure that the country is yet ready for a culturally black president. A good way of testing this for yourself is to think of any of the prominent black athletes. Is the idea of Michael Jackson … the black jock … or Oprah … the black TV star … more unlikely than Arnold Schwartznegger .. the Austrio-American, Rick Perry .. cowboy , or Ronald Reagan? Hell, Mitt Romney was as white ethnic as a Mormon can be.
Is it relevant to this question that Mr. Obama IS a descendent of slaves on his mother’s side? For that matter, are Africans “black?”
Could an Indian American be President? Ask Bobby Jindal. What would happen if he reverted to being a Hindu?