Fani Willis is doing her job. For Black women in America, that’s enough to earn them scorn.

In America, when Black women acquire power, they often become targets, standing squarely in the sights of those who weaponize both misogyny and racism.

That’s especially true when Black female executives carry out their duties diligently. In doing so, they inevitably encounter the white male power structure, and that’s when the backlash begins.

Fani Willis knows that all too well. The Democrat is the duly elected district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., and she has fearlessly carried out the duties of her office by indicting a man who allegedly schemed to illegally subvert the electoral process in her state.

Donald Trump is set to turn himself in on Thursday to face those charges, but I believe that he and his followers are hell-bent on breaking Willis, even if it means destroying the criminal justice system along the way.

This goes beyond the dog whistle racism of Trump using his social media platform to call Willis and other Black people who challenge him “riggers.” No, the attacks are carried out just as they have always been — through unjust laws.

Even now, the Republican-dominated Georgia state legislature is laying the groundwork to remove Willis from office before the case against Trump can go to trial. State Sen. Clint Dixon has said he will file a complaint against her in October under a new state law that created a so-called Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission. His reason? He believes Willis’ indictment of Trump is about her goal of “trying to become some sort of leftist celebrity.”

Or perhaps, in the view of Dixon and his white male colleagues in the state legislature, Willis has become too uppity.

That, I believe, is the bottom line. Black women can be given access to power, as long as they don’t use it to challenge the status quo, to aspire to higher office, or to hold white men accountable. In other words: Sister, you can hold power, but you’d better not try to utilize it. If you do, there will be hell to pay.

First lady Michelle Obama was called a monkey and portrayed as a terrorist. Groundbreaking tennis star Serena Williams was somehow dismissed as too masculine. Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, was castigated by many in her largely white female audience as a traitor who couldn’t see beyond race.

The three of them had something in common beyond their Black womanhood. They had power, and they were using it — not only to blaze trails for themselves but also to open doors for others. In a country where race and gender too often determine outcomes, a Black woman who is strong enough to move the needle is seen as dangerous. In the view of those in power, she must be stopped.

That’s why Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Black woman who will hear the federal case centered on Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, received racist death threats from a woman in Texas. Chutkan’s very presence on the bench challenges the notion that Black people are inferior. Having a Black woman in a position to control the leader of a movement that includes white supremacists is a threat. It means that whiteness may no longer be enough to assure victory.

Fani Willis is the latest in a long line of strong Black women with power. Her name means “prosperity” in Swahili, and she will need every bit of that meaning because the coming months might bring lean emotional times for her. Already she is facing racist and misogynistic threats, and more are sure to come.

She’s known that for some time, and said as much last month, in an email to Fulton County commissioners that included a copy of one of the threats she received in connection with the case against Trump. The person who sent the threat called her both the N-word and a “Jim Crow Democrat whore.”

In her correspondence to the Fulton County commissioners, Willis explained that the threat was “not very unique. In fact, it is pretty typical and what I have come to expect.”

Like any Black woman in power, Willis must expect that there will be more attempts to pull her down. But just as she expects the racist threats to continue, I expect that Fani Willis will do what Black women in power have always done. I expect that she’ll continue to fight.