Silent Protest: Woman Reading Book at Trump Rally Is Your New Hero
No matter what the polls say, Donald Trump isn’t winning everybody over. Case in point: a woman who attended Trump’s rally earlier this week was more interested in her book than anything he had to say.
Johard Osayi Idusuyi, 23, is being called as a “hero” for her silent protest against the presidential hopeful. Coincidentally, Idusuyi didn’t go to the rally with intentions of stealing the show, she was genuinley interested in hearing him speak.
A volunteer at the rally seated Idusyi and her friends near Trump's podium. The plan to put them near the camera essentially backfired for Trump. “We are minorities and there weren’t a lot of minorities there,” Idusuyi told Jezebel of the volunteer. “He also instructed us to sit in the middle, so we kind of already knew what this was.”
Idusuyi decided to whip her book out in reaction to how Trump protesters were treated at the rally. She was particularly upset by the treatment of one woman. “There was one protester left and the crowd started pointing at her and booing,” she explained. “First of all, she’s a young woman. She doesn’t have her friends anymore. If she’s the only one left, just let her be. There was just a lot of bullying going on and I didn’t like that. And some people were cheering.
“To hear 10,000 people cheer for something so disrespectful is what made me so mad. And that’s when I was like, I am now genuinely not interested in your speech. I wanted to leave, but I came, I’m in the middle, I’m on camera, so I might as well read because I don’t have anything else to do. I’m not going to waste my time listening to somebody who I can’t respect anymore, so I started to read.”
Citizen, the book of poems Idusuyi’s chose, investigates how racism in America leaves “certain citizens politically invisible.”
The book option, however, was a coincidence. “I was just reading the book at the time,” she said. “I actually wanted to bring two books. It was The Alchemist and that book, but I forgot The Alchemist on my table. I just started to read it. Then I was like, I’m in the middle, I’m on camera, so why not use the opportunity to promote a great book?”
All in all, Idusuyi didn’t expect for her reading break to go viral but she's now sure of one thing: Trump won't be getting her vote.
See the clip of Idusuyi reading below.
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