Oprah, Tiger, Barack, Beyoncé

Just so you know, I don’t think much of TIME.

The last time TIME picked an African-American Person of the Year, he was the chief symbol of the Negro race's drive for equality. Decades have passed since 1964, when TIME made the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. its Man of the Year.

In 2006, it’s no longer about being black. It’s about being dominant and incidentally black. For we surely live in a completely different world.

And is this world big enough to contain Beyoncé? OK, so “Dreamgirls’” Jennifer Hudson may have better pipes (she certainly got the better part and the better songs), but Beyoncé is unquestionably the “It” woman of 2007. It’s been coming on for years, and now it’s move aside Britney, sorry Christina, and bye-bye Madonna. You're all hardly "Irreplacable." Nobody is bigger than Beyoncé. Color? Being non-white in a non-white world hardly hurts. But with Beyoncé, it’s beyond color; it’s the overwhelming power of the total package. Beyoncé, at 25, is Entertainer of the Year. Worldwide.

And yet she’s fourth on our list. The top spot goes to Oprah, the single most powerful influence on Western culture today. How could Oprah not have been TIME’s Person of the Year years ago? Is she a competitor to TIME? Actually, I don’t think TIME is any longer in Oprah’s league. Really, in this era of money buying not happiness, but rather big hips, who speaks more directly to our needs than Oprah? If you ask American women who they most admire, Oprah is #1. Oprah—way, way, beyond being a successful black woman.

Not a surprise, Oprah’s power. And does anybody dominate any single sport with such grace, such intelligence, such articulateness as Tiger? Such an upper class, once lily-white activity. Because golf is an individual sport, person against the elements, because it is played everywhere, because normal sized people play it well into their 50’s and 60’s, golf has incredible appeal. And Tiger is golf, the symbol of golf’s worldwide growth, bigger than any golfer ever.

Barack, unlike the other three, is still mostly potential. But the job he seeks, President of the United States, is the world’s biggest. And look. No president has ever been a Harvard Law Review editor. Barack was not only an editor, he was President of the Law Review. Now, Barack is perfecting his skills at appealing to moderation, to consensus, to working together at a time when the country is crying for an end to the bitter, partisan divisiveness that has dominated American politics almost continuously since 1988, and maybe since 1966. Yes Barack is black. He’s white too. Bringing us together.

Oprah, Tiger, Barack, and Beyoncé. Four amazing Americans, four outstanding citizens of the emerging, 21st Century world.