Today, more than almost any other day, I awoke feeling as if something profound had shifted in this country, the world and in myself. It’s perhaps a sad commentary on my previous lack of faith that I did not believe that the day of an African-descended President of the United States would come so soon in my lifetime. So little did I believe it that I voted for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, assuming that Barack (though clearly special) could not (would not) be elected by a white majority U.S. citizenry–not when whites were already contending with African-Americans excelling in areas outside of talk shows, music and sports such as basketball and track and field.

“They are still mad,” I told myself over Venus and Serena dominating tennis with only one eye and one hand on the court while designing clothes, acting and doing all manner of other things besides (seemingly) committing themselves singularly to the sport that has made them queens. “They still don’t know how to wrap their minds around this phenomenon,” I believed in reference to Tiger Woods so completely monopolizing the once sacredly white world of golf. “Hell, they’re still smarting over O.J. having once had enough money to successfully defend himself and introduce reasonable doubt to a jury of his ‘peers’.”

“These white people are not gonna let this black man become President! Not if it means that we black and brown people will even more fully come to believe that we are worthy of more than the forty acres and a mule (the land of opportunity) we heard rumors about, but to which we were never in a wholesale, unprejudiced way given access. They are not going to risk us becoming agitated the way we were after we first watched Roots on t.v.”

Such were my thoughts.

How fortunate, then, that others (of all races) were more hopeful and visionary than I. Hillary Clinton’s loss afforded me the opportunity to throw the weight of my support behind Senator Barack Obama in a way that I never have for any other Presidential candidate–donating to the campaign, volunteering, diving into the fundamentals of civics and the political process in a way that at moments felt compulsive and far out of control.

Sure, I bit my nails as the returns came in. Certainly, I was afraid that Republicans would somehow steal this election as they have (in my opinion) others in recent history. I pictured myself (had Barack lost after leading in the polls for weeks) kneeling down on the sidewalk in Downtown Hollywood, Florida, crying and having to breathe really deeply in order to keep myself from becoming Grimace–purple, tear drop shaped, and on a violent rampage–before going home to finally pack my bags and leave this country that at moments has appeared increasingly Godforsaken and darkened by lack of compassion and greed.

But, despite my worst fears, Senator Barack Obama is now President-elect Barack Obama, and I am humbled by the errors of my thinking and the distance America has come. I am a good deal more than well pleased.