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Pretty much thinking along the same lines. There is something a bit off with the Yank's obsession with splitting hair over race issues.
There was also that recent uproar over a white actress playing a character that was meant to be mixed race.

I may have been totally overthinking this, but given that it's morally / ethically / legally / culturally acceptable to self-identify as other gender / transgender, isn't there a case that a person could identify as another ethnicity?

It's a mildly interesting (if inadvertently offensive) question, but a large part of the problem is one of privilege - an American woman who has grown up white doesn't have the same lived experiences and exposure to racism, violent assault, and discrimination that a black American woman has. If this story is true then you have an organisation that's supposed to be acting as a voice for black people appointing a white person to speak for them in that capacity, which is fucking ridiculous.

In the case of transgender folk, yes, they are identifying as the gender that they've transitioned to, but they have an additional identity, that of being trans. If you had some major council for the advancement of transgender rights, and a white chick became president on the strength of being a transgender woman, and then suddenly the press said "hang on! But her mother's just appeared and says that she was of female sex her whole life!" then questions would also be asked - not because the nature of one's personal identification is a huge deal, but because you've got a person who is sitting right at the very top of the privilege pyramid taking a public voice from those they are supposed to be representing as equals.

I think showing people pictures of a black man and claiming he was her father goes a bit above and beyond issues of identity.