One of my best friends is a highly trained professional from a family with roots in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. His family live in Jedda, Beirut, London, and Los Angeles. They happen to be, though no one presumes this, Eastern Rite Roman Catholics. My friend’s late uncle was a senior bishop with authority over an entire region of North Africa.

My friend and I watched the election returns together on November 16, and while we were both stunned and horrified, he was personally frightened. I minimized his concerns a little and reassured him that the United States was stronger than any one politician.

Sadly, and in hindsight obviously, I was wrong and my friend was right. My friend and multiple members of his family have been subjected to constant harassment crossing borders, loss of professional opportunity, and general stigmatization, because of the color of their skin and their national origins.

My friend, who has been a US citizen for more than a decade, and now lives in a liberal city in the American Northeast, has been the subject of open hatred and taunts in the street, not just once but several times. He doesn’t like to get on airplanes, because he knows he’s going to have problems. His sister, who is also a US citizen, and has darker skin and more obvious Arab features than he does, has stopped flying. She won’t go anywhere she can’t drive.

This is the country we live in right now. And sadly, it’s the one conservatives and Republicans want to keep. They like it like this. And that’s terrifying.