You had "Black" Or "Negro" OR "colored" OR "White" OR "Other"
People simply went along with the system.
Remember that "CAUC" for Caucasion choice you used to have? It's gone ~ maybe still used in some places but in most of the country it simply disappeared. You had too many people interpeting that as "Colored" ~ and too many others imagining it meant something racial.
The doggone thing is an ethno-linguistic appellation which can refer to people of any color or race who speak an Indo-European language ~ e.g. Hindi, English, Pashtun, Iranian, Russian, French, etc.
Currently "Mixed Race" is acceptable in polite company, but most analysts view it as meaning "black/white' and not some other mix such as Cambodian/Thai.
There's a long way to go and the fact Obama is not currently meeting your expectations in that regard should be no surprise to his critics or his supporters ~ they aren't meeting the expectations of those affected by such descriptors.
Had to indicate race on a testing form for my son and it was ridiculous that my only option was “white”.
I wanted to scratch it out and write in “American”.
(I KNOW, “American” is not a race)