SPENCER: Louis, my good man, do you know what time it is? Does anybody? Does anybody really know what time it is? What the fuck do you want? By the way, I Googled up some convincing-enough fakes of Michele O. naked to keep me happy in the hotel room until the end of my very brave and gallant life.But will I be inundated or Onandated -- or, I shiver, even _both_?

LOUIS: I before U except in Onanism, when it's you first.

DICK: Let me guess, like Karnak the Lumberjack or whatever dumb-ass skit Johnny Carson used to do: It's coming in cleared, much clearer -- her it is! You've only just today read the new Atlantic Monthly and you're worried about the cover story "THE END OF WHITE AMERICA?"
Louis, may I attempt again to explain that _you_ are Black. Don't know how the fuck I've never managed to bang it through your thick skull.
No offense intended.

LS: It's not a question of race anymore, it's a question of what it means to be an American. Obama is not a purebred anything, which completely qualifies him for American. It's not that he's half-black, half-Asian, half-Hawaiian, half-Chicagoan, but that he's all-American.
He's already started to warn the Democrats of a possible veto if they get uppity, which makes him a white president by anyone's standards.

DS: How many 'anybones' have you interviewed to come to this conclusion, Lou? I'm willing to be quite serious here, at least until I find another convincing PhotoShop of Michele. Since you were a gleam (or a shadow of
dread) in your father's eye, I've tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed to gently and with respect and reverence convince others that race only exists for the pitifully short-sighted, the vision-less drone bees of academia. The history of manking isn't so much history as it is a continuum -- like slicing a summer sauage and then deducing the amount of pork fat, lean beef, sage, fennel, beef hearts, pork shoulders, grain filler, MSG, nitrites, red dye No.87-x09b, salt, pepper and lard. But that's not what it is -- not a sliced moment of time. Jesus, Lou it's a goddamn hunk of salami.

LS: Fair enough. But how long until the rest of our honored profession learns to see him as a salami, not a blackened steak? As an African- American, I'm proud and relieved to see a fellow African-American in the White House. But more importantly, as an American, I'm prouder and more relieved to see a man in the White House who has proven himself to be of great intellect and though and humilityt, to not be a lowest- common-denominator politician, and to be a signal of that stigmatized
word: Change. Not because of his color, but because of his approach to his job.

DS: Jeez, Lou, jeez. I'm not entirely accustomed to dealing with you on such an astoundingly straightforward level. But the truth is, in my eye, that next-to-no-one will ever (in our lifetimes) cease to first identify the President as a black man. Is that unjust? I hope not, but no one has ever convinced me that justice was guaranteed or that even the bare minimum of civilized conduct was anyone's promise nor inheritance. Lou, my truly dear friend: I am plainly convinced that you differentiate on first glance newcomers in your surround: men/ women. Children/adults. Just stick with those two for a moment. Are children better, more worthwhile, less-tainted than adults? I think not. So explain to me the common headline -- 148 Die in Gaza; 53 Children. What does that mean, Lou? Do you step into an elevator and perhaps speak without noting the gender of your brief companion? Are men better than women? And children better than their mothers? Are mothers more blessed than fathers because women have the genetic ability and the required organs to bear life?

LS: What does that distinction ultimately do, Dick? When a newsman is told to give casualty numbers with a breakdown of children, is that not for the outrage value? And if that reporter himself chooses to give the number, is it not for ratings? Unless you want to get into scripture, children are just as valuable as adults in any society, except to the most inhumane who would find a disparity for economic reasons. But returning to my point, what is the community advantage to continuing to give President-Elect Obama the designation of 'First Black US President?' He is a president, not just for blacks but also for hispanics, Asians, Alaskans, and whites. Continuing to make that distinction is going to maintain a racial divide, even if the next eleven presidents are of a darker skin tone than Dick Cheney.

DS: This distinction, I am compelled to suggest, is not going to maintain any such divide between the many races and ethnic groups which -- despite our countless blunders -- make up this country and, far further, _define_it. The flaw I see in your comparison between the body-count headlines I mentioned and the First Black US President that you mentioned can be answered by understanding a simple and valuable word, one I thank you for first using in this odd correspondence. That word would be 'outrage.' I agree with you, the poor bastard in the slot on the copy desk that night may well have had only a single column 24-point headline to assign. Yet 'outrage' is the only soup available in our surviving press to serve up alongside news of the latest Mid-eastern insanities. Very simply, 'outrage' was indeed sought. But in reference to the President's skillful campaign, victory, inauguration and then ascension to power? I don't see outrage, Lou.

LS: Then perhaps a finer point is necessitated, Dick. I was not suggesting outrage brought Obama to the Oval Office; that was perhaps your single malt coffee's suggestion. I was suggesting that the only reason we currently have such a victim/child distinction in the news was to provoke outrage in the viewer. Pay attention, old friend: we have had this racial divide in this country since the country was first trod upon by some Europeans in a leaky boat half a millenia ago.

In the past century, the negro, colored, black, then African-American has been assigned a 'plight' by some well-meaning writers who sought to bring attention to the reality surrounding them that, in America, the white man was In Charge. The plight that gives such historic decoration to Obama's inauguration is still a terrible idea to assuage guilt and culpability. Here in the 21st century, as the forty-fourth president is sworn in, should we not find something else more pressing to note about this remarkable human being, something other than his epidermis' ability to absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others? For should we not see reflected in him the good in all of us, and in doing so, shed this oppressive system of labeling each other by our race? That our grand nation wasand still isincorporated by the best and worst of humanity from all nations, should that coalescence not rise above the antiquated notions of color and get on with the far more essential work of bettering ourselves, our nation, and our world?

Do I care if you are white or Native American or of Cuban descent? Of course not, and why should I? It is your deeds, your heart, and your mind that I find worth noting. I believe this world will be a better place, if I may be allowed to indulge in a sentimental mood, when we stop noting something as superfluous as our ethnic group, and why not start now? Perhaps our children, or more likely, Dick, _your_ children will find this an easier thing to overlook. I welcome the day I'm no longer referred to as an 'African-American reporter,' but simply as a 'reporter.' I realize some people, of all diversities, will find those to be shootin' words, particularly since some of those people embrace their racial heritage as their 'culture,' but I'll not subscribe to their perpetuations of division.=