My niece Freya found this in the street the day after the election. She wrote, “The anger I have feels so righteous that it’s difficult to replace it with optimism and courage. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be brave. Today I’m in mourning.”

Me too.

Eight years ago, I wrote an elated post celebrating the election of Barack Obama. I really thought the U.S. had turned a corner. I wasn’t naive. I knew there were problems the U.S. Deep intractable ones that aren’t solvable overnight. Some of those problems became worse, as the Republican party radicalized and Obama’s management of the economic wreckage left behind by Bush did not work fast enough (thanks partially to an utterly intransigent Republican party that blocked almost everything Obama did, holding the budget hostage and forcing a credit downgrade). Even still I had a lot of hope. And Obama ended up being a fantastic President. Last week I voted for Hillary Clinton.

Eight years later, I now realize how complacent I’ve become. I knew injustice happens, even though it doesn’t really happen to me. I knew that women and people of color, and especially women of color, get a raw deal in this country. And as a white man, I profit off it without lifting a finger.

A few weeks ago I tweeted, “Hermione is so bossy and shrill! That’s why I’m voting for Baron Harkonnen” as a joke. But apparently that’s how white America actually feels. And make no mistake, this is white people’s fault. Don’t recite to me statistics about how a nonzero percentage of people of color voted for the wrong guy. That’s a rounding error in comparison. White men and women, who make up 70% of this country, overwhelmingly voted for a monster.

So now it’s time to figure out what to do next.