On election night, I watched the results come in like everyone else, with my own fears acting as a filter for the news that Donald Trump would be our next president. The following day, it was clear to me as a civil rights lawyer and a Black man, that the future of civil rights and their protections in America were going to come under swift attack by the incoming administration.

Even as we have read the myriad ways in which Project 2025 stands to erode, if not altogether erase our civil rights, the bigger and more troubling matter is the removal of the system's guardrails that serve as the backstop for accountability.

For many, especially Black and LGBTQIA people, the sense of danger that has risen since Election Day is not imagined, it is so real it's palpable. Curbside bigotry has already been emboldened and given an upgrade, now using technology. Only days after the election, Black Americans across the country—many of them young and in school—have been micro-targeted with hateful racist text messages.

The swift timing of these messages, some referencing cotton picking and a return to the days of chattel slavery, suggest that we are entering yet another era for heightened racialized violence. Instead of crosses burning in the yards of Black people and those opposed to racial injustice, text messages and cyber-attacks are being curated to accomplish the end, terror and harm.

As disturbing as these actions may seem, what's worse is that they are a signal that more is coming. It also prompts important questions about how our civil rights laws will be enforced, who will be charged to protect them,........

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