Why does everybody call our first black president?

Isn't he 1/2 white? Besides skin color he has very little in common with most Black Americans.

I wondered that too, he's just the first president to be not fully white... but whatever. Most likely it's because even though he's technically half, rule of thumb (at least it used to be like this) when it comes to race, and what usually gets placed on record, unless parents say otherwise, the day you're born, is that you're the same race as the father. To my knowledge it's not like it's a law or anything like that, that's generally how it goes. Since Obama's father was black, we take it as him being black too, despite being raised by his white mother with little to no influence from the father. Kinda stupid, isn't it?

oh and as far as skin tone, that depends on what view you look from. I'm only a few shades darker than Obama and I'm a mix of African-American and Jamaican, with a touch of Native American from single ancestor a few generations back. in fact... my dad's the exact same shade as me, and he's 100% black Jamaican, came to the US when he was about 16.
I have a friend whose parents are both black and about the same complexion as I think you're thinking of, but her skin tone is a bit lighter than Obama's... I mean it's not like she's an albino, or the result of infidelity or anything like that... apparently it was some kind of recessive trait or whatever... Like how two parents with brown eyes can have a baby with blue eyes.

What I'm saying is, complexion has little to nothing to do with whether a person his considered black or not. In fact, you don't even have to be black at all to be considered so by peers or friends... I have a friend, white and has a Jewish surname, amongst our friends, they say she's about the blackest person in our group... despite myself and three other black people in this group... Actually some of them even forget that I'm black...XD My personality apparently best matches Japanese lol, so I'm lumped in with the Asian part of the group.

Hmmm, lets see, he has a black wife, black kids, black dog, black moves and half of white america hates him because he is black. So he has a lot in common with black americans

His father was from kenya and he was raised by a white woman. He has about as much in common with african americans as chop suey. Face it blacks voted skin color.
And he never would have won the election without the white vote.

So if u saw him on the street you would not say that's a black guy? Get over yourselves already this is one of the dumbest things I ever heard.

African Americans are defined as Americans with at least partial Ancestry from people native to sub Saharan Africa.

And this idiot above me saying cause he was raised by a white woman somehow negates his ancestral lineage is mind boggling. So a kid born of 2 black parents gets adopted by a white couple thn becomes white. Really? What a dumbass

The Man wrote:

Isn't he 1/2 white? Besides skin color he has very little in common with most Black Americans.

Please look up the definition of the term first before wasting time on this stupid topic.

I thought Bill Clinton was the first black president!