The brown girl in the mirror stood looking back at me. Long black hair, big brown eyes and deep dimples when she smiled. She wasn't smiling now.

"I wish I was white Mom," she told me, as we stood side by side in front of the bathroom vanity. "If I was white, people wouldn't think I could be a terrorist just by looking at me. Half of the country wouldn't hate me just because of the way I look."

As I watched the electoral votes slowly tip in favor of Donald Trump on Election Night, I knew that I would be having a tough conversation with my two oldest children before they went to school the next morning. While still only 13 and 9, my daughter and my son followed the presidential election closely and tried to make sense of the political rhetoric.

As children, they couldn't fully comprehend the controversy over e-mail servers or income tax statements. They had little context on U.S. relations with Russia or NAFTA. They didn't understand the impacts of economic policies on working class Americans.

My kids' understanding of politics solely revolved around the manner in which people were being discussed. They understood that one candidate called Mexicans rapists and vowed to ban Muslims. They comprehended that the other candidate repeatedly placed a harsh burden on Muslim Americans to stand on the front lines of terror, somehow implying that their main value as American citizens was in their role in the war against terror. For my kids, it was all about race and religion.

I didn't realize how much my daughter internalized that. As a third-generation Pakistani-American Muslim, she struggles to find her place in our predominantly white town. Having lived for six years in Egypt and Dubai, her international upbringing makes her interesting but sets her apart from her classmates. All she wants is to feel American.

But this election year has made her question what it means to be American, particularly one of color. Watching white Trump supporters cheer as their candidate denigrated Mexicans, immigrants and Muslims helped shape her understanding of how a large segment of the country views people of color. Seeing black protestors attacked at rallies while supporters proudly waved Confederate flags clearly demonstrated who has the power.

I can see why my daughter would find it easier to simply wish away her beautiful tan skin color.

Undoubtedly, Donald Trump's main base of support, middle-class white men with high school diplomas, has suffered in recent years. The Associated Press reported that Inflation-adjusted income for this group plunged 9 percent between 1996 and 2014, according to Sentier Research, while white male college graduates saw their income jump 24 percent in the same period. No wonder Trump struck a chord when he said he would make America great again.

But Trump did not win this election solely on the backs of the economically disenfranchised. He won because he tapped into a fear among white Americans, especially among the struggling working class, that the country is slipping out of their fingers and into the hands of the other: the minorities, the gays, the immigrants, the Jews, the Muslims. Barack Obama taking office was further evidence that a new demographic was gaining the power and control they had long enjoyed. And for some people, that fear turned to seething hatred as their economic prospects slumped.

Trump used that to his advantage. It didn't matter that he never provided a concrete plan to lift the financial burden of his supporters living paycheck-to-paycheck. He gave them someone to blame, allowing them to shake off some of the shame they had felt at their own personal failures. He made it about race.

There has been a lot of back-and-forth over whether Trump supporters are racists and bigots. Some fall under that category, as evidenced by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke's effusive tweetstorm during the election, where he credited "our people" for the win. I can assure you my family wasn't included in his people.

And the decision to name former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist -- a move hailed by white nationalists as reaffirming Trump's commitment to their cause -- also doesn't do him any favors.

But what of those that genuinely voted for Trump because he was anti-establishment and seemed to understand their pain? To them, I say: willfully ignoring a candidate's bigotry because you like other policy points makes you complicit in that bigotry. There is no gray area.

Trump's victory gives bigotry and racism the highest stamp of approval. And his supporters -- those who cheered at his rallies or silently signaled their approval in voting booths -- have created a different America for my daughter.

It is an America in which she wishes to be white in order to belong. It's an America I don't recognize.

Shaheen Pasha is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Twitter: @profpasha