"On one hand, I can't wait for this to be over," the African-American woman says to me, leaning in. We are on the bus headed toward the convention center. She is referring to people like me and David Alm and Liza Sabater and the rest of the crowd now flooding the city of Denver to attend the Democratic National Convention. After all, we are crowding their streets, jamming up their stores, and in general, making life more difficult for locals in a handful of ways. I know what this is like, as I told her, having lived in New York City for almost a decade.

"But on the other, hand... the historic moment that this is... what is happening... it's very important. It's very empowering." She didn't say 'because a black man may very well be the next president of the United States of America.' But she didn't need to. She leaned imperceptibly closer to me, and I to her. "If you know what I mean."

I do. I told her I do.

Perhaps it is just the mood of the city's residents anyway, or maybe it's the day. But looking around at the people of color on the bus as well as those proudly sporting Obama buttons or hawking Obama t-shirts, I experience a sudden feeling of... hope. And happiness. And it has nothing to do with the Democratic Presidential Candidate's placards or slogans. They are laughing with each other and the mood here is noticeably charged with joy. It's probably my imagination, but I imagine It has to do with knowing that finally, people of color in this society can see themselves represented as something other than in positions of serving, savagery, or stupidity. Those of us who are not "white" -- be it black, Asian, Latino, Native American and so on -- suddenly feel our own positions shift, as the cultural map shifts.

It's too late to go back now, and why would we? Isn't this America? And isn't America of and for all of us? And as I see it, today marks a time where suddenly it feels for a moment that the constantly echoed refrain of opportunity for all might perhaps have moved just a bit closer to reality.