Her comment did not surprise me. After the series ended in July, the Times held a similar press panel just for Times employees and affiliates to attend. I got to attend because a friend of mine was working there. The July panel included the same four representatives. In response to the same criticism, Ms. Behr had said, "With Asians, there are the Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, etc.--so many of them, it just got too complicated." Too complicated. Since when is a subject "too complicated" a just reason for not covering it in journalism?

Deputy Managing Editor Mr. Boyd had an even greater response to the criticism that the series was overwhelmingly black and white during the July panel. "There's a longer history between whites and blacks…There was a lot of 'unfinished' business between whites and blacks that needed to be addressed," he said. Asians have been in America since the sixteenth century, however, when Filipinos first created communities in Louisiana. Read any book on Asian American history and you'll see that Asian relations with other races in America has had just as long a history as white and black relations. Read Gary Okihiro's Margins and Mainstreams, and you'll see that Asian and black relations in the global sense goes a thousand years deeper than the relations between whites and blacks.

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Since when is a subject "too complicated" a just reason for not covering it in journalism? . . . In the end, [to the journalists] it's all about getting the Pultizer...

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Furthermore, when is the business ever "finished"? Why, towards the end of the October panel, was I the first to mention the possibility of continuing the series so the dialogue of race can continue? As a friend told me, "If the Times really cared about race and knew that the issue of race comes up in every second of our lives, especially with people of color, why wouldn't there be something everyday on race?"

I remember talking to one of the series reporters in the audience after the July panel as he came up to me, noticing that I had wanted to talk to the panelists but didn't get a chance due to time. "Yeah, that was bullshit, wasn't it?", he said, "The series was too black and white. There weren't enough Asians represented. I'm half Native American, and where was that story?" I asked him why he didn't write about Native Americans. "I'm just doing my job. But you know what? What can you do? In the end, it's all about getting the Pulitzer for them. That's all they care about."

As I looked at everyone in the audience during the October panel, each with a complimentary New York Times key chain, bi-color highlighter, and pen while the panelists advertised that their book on the series will "be in book stores everywhere, so please check it out," how race is lived in America finally seemed to come together.

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