American teen tennis star Madison Keyes, with one black and one white parent, says, “I don’t really identify myself as white or African-American.” But that did not stop Serena Williams, however, from ignoring her preference. “It’s good to see another American, another African-American, in the semifinals playing so well,” said Williams.

Similarly, golf star Tiger Woods, whose ethnicity includes Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian, calls himself “Cablinasian.” Yet when he won his first master, the media instantly dubbed him the first “African-American” to win that coveted tournament.

It all gets so complicated. But back the Oregon killer.

Again, after the Oregon shooting, most media outlets — if they referred to his race at all — described him as “mixed,” as Mercer indicated on the aforementioned dating site. But if Obama, with one black parent and one white parent is “black” or “African-American,” why isn’t Mercer?