Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation.

Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game.

The boomers will eventually have to accept that it is not possible to stay young forever or to stop aging. But it is possible by committing to show up for each others in community after community, to earn a measure of immortality.

As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don't have to do much. Very little is asked of us.

Great numbers of Asian Americans do not fit the model minority or 'tiger family' stereotypes, living instead in multigenerational poverty far from the mainstream.

To be sure, the United States has profound problems, not least our faltering educational and physical infrastructure.

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.