The 2/3 Southbound, 96th St, 11:30 pm

On boarding the train am confronted by that rarest of spectacles, an open subway conversation between people who don't know each other. Four black teens/twentysomethings on one side (one girl leaning on a guy in a bomber jacked, another girl with legs draped over the first), an old redboned Bible thumper and a New Lefty Upper West Side Jewish intellectual on the other.

The black guy in a bomber says bemusedly: "Yeah, a black man for President, it might really happen this time..."
Leaning girl 1: "Not like with that other guy, was it Jesse Owens?"
New Lefty: "Jesse Jackson"
Leaning girl 1: "Yeah, they didn't let him be in the main election. And it's the first time they got a woman running for real too."
New Lefty: "Actually, Lenora Fulani has been running for years, and she's a black woman."
Leaning girl 2: "Really? I ain't never heard of her."

And so it went for a while, Mr. New Lefty dispensing facts in a genial and avuncular way, and all the black younguns just generally in a fine mood because there was hope a black man might make it to the White House, or maybe a woman, but in any case maybe just maybe not another white man.

And frankly, it's all good. Watching these kids beam gave the impression that a black man in the White House in and of itself might inject the African-American community with so much pride that in and of itself it might instill large numbers with the confidence and direction they might need to better their lives.

Or else we could have Hilary.