Response and Reaction to Inaugural Coverage

This week's Inauguration and the super-saturated media coverage of the event made it difficult to miss for just about anyone (unless you happen to not own or watch a television). The event was, to say the least, historic and monumental. And this, to me, was not necessarily just due to the election of the nation's first African American president, but rather it found many Americans (whatever their ethnicity or social background) together, in one place, all looking forward to the bright new future ahead of them.
And for the first time in a long time, after 8 long years of idiocy, ignorance, and deceit, I felt as if we the people that day were able to take a collective breath, a sigh of relief as a much-needed changing of the guard unfolded before our eyes. And it is with confidence that i say that this day was perhaps the first in almost a decade that utter hope and wide-eyed optimism were both rampant and contagious. A feeling that I'm not even certain I have felt in the span of the three administrations i have seen in my short life.
However, because MLK day was observed on the previous day, many correspondents were persistent in bringing up the names of those who had fought almost fifty years ago for the cause of civil rights, and many also kept begging the bigger and more difficult question: "Do you think Martin Luther King's dream has been fulfilled with the election of the first African American President?"
This question by itself is flawed, and the mere fact that news anchors and on-location reporters kept referring to the incoming American President with the prefix, "First African..." is problematic when simultaneously talking about the ideals and hopes of Dr. King, who's dream included first and foremost, the notion of equality. This issue stuck with me for the better part of the day, and made the news affiliates who insisted upon the title of First African American President look like fools.