Barack Obama and definitions of "Black"

An article on Salon.com today caught my attention. This article (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/22/obama/) written by Debra J. Dickerson essentially says that Obama, while black in color and in DNA is not "Black" in the way that Americans interperet blackness. She writes:

"Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both "black" as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term. 

The whole article is worth a read - for better or for worse it at least can inspire discussion - but I think the essence of her argument is in this paragraph. I may be condemned for saying this, but I do think in a sense that she is right. Right in a way that few dare to speak, because the racial situation in this country right now is so politically charged and so complicated.

While Barack Obama is black (or at least, if you want to be specific, half-black), is he "black" in the cultural sense? I guess in order to answer that you have to have an idea of what that means. Is there a cultural sense. Is it okay to say that "black" is necessarily associated with hip-hop, minority culture, slavery, or is deciding that being as narrowminded as those who think that?  I think it is.

So in the same way that I agree with parts of her assessment, I disagree with the idea that "black" needs to be defined as she defines it. We certainly don't define "white" that way. When you classify someone's ethnicity as white - you are not saying they are descendents of slaveholding Americans (which would be the opposite of the black cultural group she defines). In fact, you are not even saying they are American. White can mean anything from American to Romanian to Australian...White is not so clearly defined, so why must Black be? For some people it probably is, but why reinforce that? I would love to see a world where Black means just that - a superficial description that may be indicative of a multitude of ethnicities. If you want to be specific you can say "African-American" or "Nigerian" or "Kenyan"...

 Perhaps I am merely being politically incorrect....thoughts?