African American is the name of the race. In no way is it calling attention to them by calling them the name of their race. It is also used to describe the person.
"What did he look like?"
"He was a young African American boy with dark brown hair"
Also, no one but you "gets extra happy" when making a black friend. If [i]you[/i] find it to be something special, [i]you[/i] are racist.
But people of European decent are just.... White to you. Racist. African-American is PC for Black/African. When are Whites ever Anglo-American, European-American, etc?