, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Hi Sheffield, with respect, I don't think consensus yet supports adding "widely referred to.." "media describe him.." into the lead. He's African American, self identifies as such, the overwhelmingly vast majority of RS's identify him as such (not just media, but academia, U.S. Gov't, etc.) We're talking about labels here and the fact of the matter is that the label applied to him 99%+ of the time is African American, including by the RS's that discuss his white mother and black father. There is no controversy or 'increased accuracy' that we need to account for in the lead. Plainly saying that he is the first AA President-elect in the lead, without any weasel words that may suggest otherwise is the most policy (NPOV, RS, BLP) compliant. The details of his parents are succinctly documented in the first paragraph the follows the lead.   | talk 16:49