Earlier this year, presidential candidate Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Boca Raton, Florida, not too far away from where I attend school. Being a black American with mostly liberal political leanings, several sentiments, most of which fell into an area between the genuine desire to be open-minded and an admittedly condescending form of curiosity, encouraged me to attend the event. While I was able to record many different experiences through Snapchat and journaling, I wasn’t sure at the time how to present them in a necessarily cohesive manner. However, giving the timing of everything, I feel as if the story of my day at a Trump rally should be shared.

Donald Trump decided to campaign in Boca Raton for the first time earlier this spring, and given that in the previous week his campaign in Chicago got shut down due to protestors, the announcement was relatively short notice. Also, as a secondary precaution, it was mandated that people could only get into the rally by printing (free) tickets from the campaign website. Tickets were relatively easy to get, and besides the annoying Trump/Pence e-mails that I still get as a result, there wasn’t that much maintenance involved. After printing my ticket, I told my roommate, about the event, who then convinced many of his friends to go as well. Many of them were of Middle-Eastern descent, and understandably wanted to protest, but also, like me, had a genuine curiosity as to what kind of people would be at a Trump rally and what kind of messages would be conveyed.

The rally was set to start that evening at about 7:00, so using my friend’s car, I, my roommate, and some of our friends pulled up about an hour and a half early with the intent of standing with the protestors in the time before admittance to the venue. Upon exiting the car, I noticed dirty looks from old, presumably rich, white people (the general population of Boca Raton), in combination with clutched purses from older women and the sounds of car doors locking as we passed them. Being a group of black and Arab students, we weren’t experiencing anything new. However, it seemed like many of these people were more actively and maliciously adhering to their usual passive habits when dealing with people of color, almost as if they wanted us to feel unwelcome, even before knowing our political leanings.

After our uncomfortable walk from the parking area, we found and joined the protestors, who had carved out a relatively unimposing space to voice their dissent. Almost immediately upon joining them, I experienced the feeling of being ostracized by fellow American citizens, hearing words like “nigger,” “sand-niggers,” and slurs against Mexicans (I don’t think there were any actual Mexicans among us at the time) in the faceless ocean of people that navigated past us. Not even the white protesters were safe, with people referring to them as “traitors” and one girl specifically being shamed for being a “mud shark” (whatever that means).

When the doors finally opened up for admittance for those with tickets, I noticed that I’d never seen this many people in one place during my three years in Boca Raton. Boca is such a small town, I wasn’t even aware that there were this many people here. Yet, here they were. The premises were packed, and the lines were ridiculously long. However, my friends and I, along with some other protestors had gotten good places in line, and were making our way in, despite the racial slurs and words of animosity that still resonated from disembodied voices in the crowd.

At one point, right near the entrance, one of the guys I’d become acquainted with in the protesting area passed me on his way towards being escorted out. I asked him what happened, and he stated simply that they turned him away at the door because he “looked like” he’d cause trouble. This man was black, and probably in his late twenties, and while I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that the police and security personnel were racially profiling people, I’ve also been alive long enough as a black person in America to not be surprised by much.

Upon hearing this, I, some of my Arab college friends, and some white friends we’d made in the protesting area decided to conduct an experiment to see if they were actually racially profiling people at the door. Being that we were all acquainted, it would have been reasonable that if one of us got turned away for being a potential nuisance, we’d all be turned away. We decided that we’d send the white protesters through the security checkpoint first to see if security would let them through, and then we’d go afterwards.

Of course, the white protestors got through with no problem. When it came to us, however, there were more complications. Although we’d all been together the whole time, security singled us out and told us we couldn’t come through, and to make a long story short, I even ended up getting separated from the group and put in handcuffs not too long after our initial profiling. While all ended well, we were understandably left with chips on our shoulders about the whole ordeal. However, though I didn’t get to actually experience the rally from the inside, I felt like I still was able to use the experience to learn. One thing I had to come face to face with at this rally was overt racism. I see racism all the time, but it’s mostly just mindless, unintentional ignorance, people locking their cars, grabbing their kids’ hands, or switching sidewalks as I pass them, police officers pulling me over, and then approaching my car with their hands ready to draw fire, and things like that. This day, however, I saw the physical manifestations of what evil and hatred looked like. Otherwise rational people were transported about fifty years back in time. They foamed at the mouth, yelling racial slurs, words against young women, and xenophobic comments with venom behind them, with the intent of doing harm. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a terrorist, or a criminal, or even a fellow American, because those people saw one thing and made assumptions. I wasn’t like them, and so therefore, I was to be ostracized.

I’ve decided to share this story today to convey messages that I think are important takeaways from this experience. Primarily, during this campaign I’ve heard many well-meaning people say that Trump and his supporters are helping to bring racism and sexism back. While these things are said innocently, I take issue with statements like these because they suggest that these ideas ever went away in the first place. Racism and sexism, xenophobia and bigotry have always been a part of the American psyche. It’s just that for a time, it wasn’t okay to express these sentiments verbally. If we’ve taken a step back in history, it’s only through what’s said out loud. Concerning that aspect of it, though, I’d gone my whole life without actually hearing some things until the day of the rally, and upon hearing certain words, I’d understood why Trump was seen by well-meaning white people and people of color as such a representation of evil. The people that were there to support Trump were normal people. They went to school and worked. They had families and friends. They bought lottery tickets, and went to the movies, and took family trips to the beach on weekends. They were parents and grandparents, and for an hour and a half, they represented the worst versions of themselves, but not only that. In my resentment towards them and my dehumanization of them, I also realized that they represented the worst version of me, too, and served as a warning to the people we could all become. Being social animals, people fall into herd mentalities rather quickly. Whether people are inherently like this, or if these attitudes were exhibited in moments of passion isn’t a question I can answer. However, this experience showed me that to turn perfectly normal, understanding people against each other, almost to violent extremes, all it takes is a push in the wrong direction. That day, Trump was that push in the wrong direction.