Barack and Michelle Obama. - AP

Awesome. This sums up President-elect Obama's ascendancy to the presidency of the United States of America and the Obama family's move into the White House as First Family. Tuesday's events change the game forever.

Assumptions rooted in 400 years of history that undergird relations between white and black Ameri-cans are no longer central. As the first majority white democracy to elect a black leader, the United States of America creates a seismic power shift with colossal psychological, social and economic implications, both real and potential.

New ways for americans

Now white and black Americans will have to find new ways to deal with each other. Many will wrestle mightily with aged prejudices and fears. Unearned privilege, access and benefits won't vanish, but will be challenged. African Americans will no longer accept barriers they know are artificial. Young people will leverage their newly earned place at the table, along with Internet savvy, to challenge the status quo and to pursue agendas. Elsewhere in the world, black and white people will have to make adjustments as the possibilities for black people have changed forever. There is no return to how things were before the Obama family becomes America's First Family, notwithstanding President Obama's biracial heritage.

The most astounding change implication is that white Americans now trust the power to press the nuclear button with someone whose ethnicity was never seen as sufficiently trustworthy for this awesome responsibility and black Americans never thought was possible. First Lady, Michelle Obama, and her daughters, now reset the standards for beauty and attractiveness, social status and rank, power and influence, black family relations and child-rearing practices. Michelle and Barack's coupling signals to the world that a most powerful man openly finds bliss in the arms of a dark-skinned woman with nappy hair and big hips. Yes, indeed, changes aplenty!

Uncharted terrain

This is mostly uncharted terrain and so no one knows exactly how any of this will play out. Black people understand that the possibilities implicit in the Obama change may be endless, but many know that winning the end game or even benefiting from the new paradigm, is not inevitable. Young people understand that they have a powerful voice for change, but it is not altogether clear which priorities will elicit action. After all, President Barack Obama's most pressing charge is to deliver prosperity and peace to a nation with a shredded economy, a country that remains under terrorist threat and is at war on two fronts.

Obama's domestic agenda

President Obama's domestic agenda will necessarily focus on reorienting America towards achieving prosperity in the shortest possible time and on providing the required stimuli and incentives to do so. His administration's foreign-policy agenda will no doubt pursue American interests abroad. The resulting strategies will benefit the Third World to the extent that these support America's vision of how things should be beyond its borders.

Yet, most Third-World people likely believe that economic benefits are inevitable, given President Obama's ethnicity, his instinct for inclusiveness, his grasp of global issues, his ability to inspire change, his competence and his brilliance. Black women worldwide are hopeful that Michelle's and the Obama children's obvious blackness will translate into meaningful change for them and for their children.

Young people everywhere clamour for opportunities to shine and to contribute. There is good reason for such beliefs and hopefulness. The willingness of Americans to entrust leadership to the Obamas is a clear declaration of their own humility and deepening humanity. This, alone, is intrinsically hopeful and deserves sustained applause and support.

Kay Osbourne is general manager of Television Jamaica.