Irony?

On page 104 of the 18th edition of Barron's GRE study guide is the following test question:

There is some _______ the fact that President Barack Obama is viewed as representative of African American society, for he spent his childhood growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and did not live in the black community until he was an adult.
(A) gratification in
(B) irony in
(C) validity to
(D) uncertainty about
(E) apprehension about

According to the answer key, the answer is "(A) irony in." Now let's unpack the assumptions made in this question: first, that only a certain sort of black American--not defined, of course-- can represent, without irony, "the black community." What is "the black community"? Is it a physical location?  Well, of course not--but the question suggests that it is, that someone has to live there to be considered un-ironically black. So--if one is black, but grew up in a neighborhood that's majority white, is one precluded from being "African-American"? Is a certain percentage of "blackness" required in the neighborhood in which one grew up in order for one to be able to un-ironically represent African-Americans? The "black community" is taken as a whole to be representative of all African-Americans. And that "black community" is indeed diverse, is now, has been in the past. There are people who identify themselves as belonging to the "black community" who are poor, who are rich, who are middle-class, who grew up in the South, who grew up in the North, who grew up in the East or the West, and who live overseas on military bases or in foreign countries as government employees or even as citizens whose parents are employed by multi-national companies . So wouldn't it stand to reason--and not be "ironic"--that any African-American could represent this very diverse group? And does where one spent one's childhood somehow define whether or not one is truly "American" or "African-American"?

The second assumption? That growing up in Hawaii necessarily precludes someone from being seen as truly African-American? I thought that Hawii was one of the fifty states, as American as Alaska or Texas. Why is it "ironic" that an African-American born in Hawaii might represent the "black community"? Except for four years spent in Indonesia with his mother and step-father, Barack Obama lived in Hawaii as a child and adolescent.

This question--with its suspicious fill-in-the-blank answer--raises troubling questions about how African-Americans are viewed in our society. And it's very troubling that Barron's GRE Guide seems to perpetuate those narrow views.