What a class act. Lindsay Lohan, in an interview with Access Hollywood Monday night, referred to Barack Obama as "our first colored president."

It's funny how words in our vocabulary change over time. Not necessarily in meaning, but definitely in spirit.

For instance, the term we use to identify African-Americans has evolved several times in my lifetime. When I was a child, the most horrible racial epithet (you know what I'm talking about) was used in polite conversation without a second thought. Today, that same racial epithet is used freely within the African-American community.

I feel a certain sense of pride in the fact that I never felt comfortable with that word, even as a child, even when adults around me used it without a second thought. It seemed unpleasant and wrong to me. I never used it.

Perhaps it was my latent liberalism that made me uncomfortable with that awful word. Or perhaps it was the fact that one of the dearest people in my childhood was a woman of color. Her name was Clotese. She was an employee at my parents' restaurant. She cooked and cleaned for us. But more importantly, she cared for me. She loved me as if I were her own child.

Clotese is long dead now. But I wonder what she would say if she were alive today, one week after her people voted overwhelmingly to discriminate against gays and lesbians. I would like to think that she would not approve of that. I'm pretty sure she would tell me to fight the good fight until my rights were restored.