Except that Obama is much more black than he is African American. That is, racially, in this still rather non post-racial society, he's black, but, those years on the South Side notwithstanding, his background isn't African American. Grew up in Indonesia with a white mother and Indonesian step-father, then Hawaii with his white grandparents, then went to Columbia and Harvard Law. The African-American culture with its roots in the South is one he learned as an adult, not one he absorbed growing up.