In a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Erin Aubry Kaplan criticizes President Barack Obama's racial politics and expresses frustration over his late-July appearance on The View in which he ostensibly whitewashed his biracial heritage:

And perhaps for Obama, as Kaplan goes on to say, blackness isn't a choice -- one drop makes him black. No matter how "white" his DNA, he can only ever be an "exceptional Negro" in the eyes of not-so-post-racial America. But what if you're not an internationally known politician, constantly under a microscope clouded by public opinion, current affairs and race politics? What if you're black, but few, if any, see it? What is at stake politically and racially for biracial Americans whom no one recognizes?

My story starts like this: His name was Daniel, a tall, dark-skinned boy in my class with cornrows and clear, smooth skin. We were 14, and it was the last week of our final year of middle school, so we were saying our goodbyes, since I'd be heading off to a new school after the summer break. We were friends, but not close ones. Still, we hung out during lunch; we talked; we'd known each other for three years.

Perhaps I was berating him for shaving off his cornrows and mentioned that my mother always complained about her hair, too. Or maybe someone told him in passing who my mother was and he connected the dots. What I do remember is how I stood there incredulously by his locker as he stared at me in shock.

"I didn't know you were black!"

I scoffed. How was that even possible? "Did you think I was just really tan, Daniel, or what?"

He looked chagrined, and I felt an irrepressible annoyance rise up inside as I stalked away. It didn't surprise me when new white friends didn't figure out that I was biracial until they met my parents, blinded as they were by the presumption that everyone was white unless they weren't. But I had counted on him to recognize me, to recognize my race and correlate it with his own.