Personally, I have also always felt that "person of color" was a far more highbrow way of saying 'colored person' and I have always felt it was lame.
As if white people are actually colorless - transparent, maybe ?
With that being said, if this is what the community wants to be referred to, then thats fine with me.
Frankly, I think it would be better for racial communities made of Americans to refer to themselves as 'Americans' (Imagine that ! ), instead of by racial labels that help foster discrimination, but thats just me.