What ISN'T racist?

I was reading a story from Good Morning America about a teenaged white girl and her two black male travel companions. In the story, the girl's mother says she knows the men, and they are good honest people, who happen to be black.

I'm confused*. My old boss is married to a melanin-enhanced American, and when I used the term "black" to describe another person, she informed me in no uncertain terms that 'black' was racist.

Scooter sporting a stylish eyebrow look...

She married a darker-than-thou individual, so I would assume she would know proper racial etiquette, right? Her husband was not 'black' he was African-American.

Nope. Still confused here. Her husband is no more 'African' than my dog Scooter is a 'wolf'. At some point, ancestry is what your ANCESTORS were, hence the term....

So if he, by definition, isn't African-American, 'black' is racist, and nigger is a no-no, what the hell should I call someone for whom just being an AMERICAN isn't enough?

*(Sometimes this shit just pops into my head, and I have to question other people's sanity. I know I'm not the nutjob here. Right?)