What a night it was. Millions of people gathered in front of televisions across the country nervously awaiting that grand moment at 11 PM Eastern time when Barack Obama was announced to have won the presidency. Someday our children and grandchildren will ask us about this president they learned about in history class, and we’ll be able to tell them exactly where we were and what we were doing when he became the president. But what other questions will they ask?

They will probably ask about his race. And we should say what Bernard Avishai said, “[We chose] an obviously brilliant, reciprocal man over a thick, cynical one–a man who articulates a coherent vision of global commonwealth over someone advancing vague, military patriotism–which proves we can come to terms with our future,” rather than talk about his race.

Remember how this election was supposed to be post-racial? But as soon as Obama was elected, everyone got doe-eyed and said how incredible it is that we elected a black president. As Avishai points out, we elected the better candidate with the vision and agenda to move us forward as a member of the international community. The fact that we elected a black man is indeed historic, but it is secondary to our rejection of jingoism, fear-mongering, and unilateralism.

Our children may also ask us why we transferred our bigotry from race to sexual orientation. I’m not sure we have a good answer. It shocks and saddens me that in the liberal bastion of California voters passed Proposition 8, rewriting the constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. (Josh has a wonderful and emotional piece here, it’s a must-read).

One of the most awful statistics I saw in the many exit polls released Tuesday was that 70% of African-Americans in California voted for Prop 8. Do they not recognize that their intolerance is just as supremely painful to homosexuals as white intolerance is to them? Also awful, but I suppose not surprising, is that 82% of voters who reported that they attend church weekly voted for the proposition. Using religion as a guise to hide behind in order to hate and discriminate against others is truly repulsive. (See all the exit poll results here).

I guess we can’t get all that change at one time. Electing Obama and delivering big Democratic majorities to Congress is a big step in the right direction. It will certainly help to dispel the “America is a center-right country” myth that echoes around the punditry. And perhaps a move towards liberalism will hope us form a real post-racial, post-sexual future. Let’s hope our children ask us about our bizarre, discriminatory past, not our bizarre, discriminatory present.