GOBAMA!!!

How late did you stay up last night? Did you feel certain that Obama would win, or were you wondering if somehow John McCain could pull a rabbit out of his hat? Were you celebrating or worrying?

No matter what the answer, all of us shared one thing: We were witness to history.

Record voter turnouts. Dramatic shifts in voter demographics. A populace engaged like never before in recent memory. And a black man elected president.

I was at an election results party at the home of close and long-time friends of ours. They are lifelong Republicans who had voted Democrat this time around. They are also old enough to remember the struggles of the civil rights movement. One of the most interesting conversations we had last night was about the idea that some white voters might say they would vote for a black man and then not be able to do it when they were in the privacy of their voting booth. All of the guests gathered there (besides us) were in their same age group and shared this opinion.

But Chad and I both agreed that this seemed unlikely. We aren't naive, but we didn't believe people would get to the voting booth and have a sudden change of heart based solely on skin color.

Our friends remarked that we are part of a different generation. We are post-civil rights movement, part of the generation that brought rap into the mainstream and has grown up in a much more multi-cultural world than our parents.

That's true. We grew up watching Sesame Street and Fat Albert, the Cosby Show and Different Strokes. We listened to Run DMC, Bobby Brown and Michael Jackson. We looked up to Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. We wanted to be Will Smith and Whitney Houston (before she hooked up with Bobby Brown!).

It's almost impossible for us to imagine the struggles the generations before us faced. Yes, we've learned about them, talked about them. But we haven't lived them. At least for me, it's hard for my imagination to stretch so far that I can imagine what it was like when people were treated differently based on one criteria over which they had no choice or control.

The more I thought about it the more I realized how proud and thrilled I am that my daughters will grow up not remembering a world without a black man as president. I can't wait to tell my grandchildren stories they will barely believe about how exciting it was when this man was elected. How, even though we had come a long way, we had not yet leaped across this important hurdle. But most of all, I will be proud to tell them how we, as a country, made our voices heard. How we voted for a man who inspired us, who showed remarkable calm in the face of almost unbearable uncertainty about the economy, the environment and the middle east, who was a father, a son, a husband and a human being. How we chose the best man for the job and the color of his skin was totally beside the point.