As I watched tears flow down the cheeks of the Rev. Jesse Jackson during the speech of President-elect Barack Obama on election night, I fully understood the source of those tears. Not only was this one of those magical moments in the history of our nation, the occasion of a self-identified black man becoming the 44th president of the United States was an event of unparalleled joy and reflection for all of those, such as Jackson, who have lived with the humiliation of having their skin color used against them in American life.

Watching Jackson caused me to realize that the election of Obama was less about Obama than it was about Jackson, other blacks and our beloved country. For me, I thought of my Uncle James, a man who never got beyond the third grade, primarily because of his skin color; who was always consigned to the most menial and back-breaking jobs in our society, because of his skin color; who was called a "boy" by many Southern whites well into his third decade because of his skin color; and who was denied access to certain restaurants and public accommodations because of his skin color.

I thought of the psychological damage that had been done to generations of people who had just "one drop" of black blood, because of their skin color; the constant message that "you're not good enough, you're inferior" because of skin color. I thought of the fact that when he was born, Obama's parents could not marry in many states of our nation, because of skin color.

It has not escaped me that on the day that America elected its first black president – a true milestone for champions of civil rights – the people of arguably one of the most liberal states in the country were proclaiming that the right of gays to "marry" needed to be stripped from the California Constitution. Moreover, I note that black people, who have fought valiantly throughout their history for human dignity and their civil rights, cast their votes in substantial numbers against the marriage right of same-sex couples, even taking offense that the right to marry is compared to "civil rights."

The unfortunate aspect of racial "firsts" is the tendency to overstate the symbolism and to understate the substance. Somewhat lost in the historic hoopla of Obama's victory is the fact that his election represents a potentially profound changing of the guard about the direction of our country. I will leave it to others to decide whether some of the changes that he is likely to propose will be good or bad, but the direction proposed by Obama will undoubtedly be decidedly different from that of Sen. John McCain regarding a host of issues.

In the interest of full disclosure, I voted for McCain; and I have no regrets for having done so. President-elect Obama ran a brilliant campaign and he impressed me with his poise, temperament and extraordinary communication skills, but I found myself unalterably troubled by my perception that Sen. Obama would support a level of government that would be too intrusive for my taste. Given my ideological disagreement on this score, it would have been the height of hypocrisy for me to vote for Obama.

That would have been a triumph of color over principle.

All Americans, whether we voted for him or not, now own stock in the presidency of Barack Obama. He now belongs to all of us, not just to blacks or "progressives," but all of us. He deserves a chance to succeed, although we have a tendency to be unkind rather hastily to our sitting presidents. George W. Bush, for example, is no dummy, as many often characterize him. He is a very decent man for whom fate dealt a very bad hand that was worsened, perhaps, by a lot of human error. Someday, something similar will likely have to be said of President Obama.

It would be naïve and wrong-headed to suggest that all racism, from whatever source, has ended because of the symbolism of this one election. Yet what a symbol it is upon which we can have a new racial beginning, a beginning that accepts the dignity of every individual! For my fellow blacks, this is a time not just to celebrate, but to reflect upon where we go from here.

Throughout our history, we have allowed ourselves to be depicted as helpless and subject to the mercy of what others would do for us. "Affirmative action" is a classic example of that way of thinking. I consider that self-defeating and a betrayal of the enormous contributions that we have made to our country and to the considerable talents that reside within us. Liberation from this debilitating paradigm is now possible. Indeed, it is essential.

There are so many problems in our country that go unattended because we approach them from a race-attentive perspective when, in fact, the problems transcend race. By listening to some, one would think that the criminal justice system simply swallows up young black males. In fact, the system is inherently flawed and ill-serves all of us. Young white women can also be found in abundance in our federal correctional institutions serving long sentences for first-time white-collar offenses when they could be home wearing ankle bracelets and working to make restitution for their crimes.

On the night of Nov. 4, my faith in the fairness of the American people was validated. It is time now to move past the racial implications of the 2008 election and to confront the problems that afflict our human family in a nonracial fashion. All of us should regard this election as more than a good faith deposit on America's ability to be fair; it should be seen as an escrow closer. We should liberate ourselves from the past and all of the racial baggage that had been heaped on our shoulders. I am hopeful that President-elect Obama will make this one of his primary objectives.