Loading ...Arab American Woman Kicked Out of a Trump Rally -- Again
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer
At a Donald Trump rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday, police escorted an Arab American woman out of the event. The woman, Rose Hamid, was passing out flower-topped pens that read, “Salam I come in peace” to Trump supporters. According to Hamid, Trump said she was being a “nuisance”.
This is the second time Rose Hamid has been kicked out of a Trump rally. In January, she was removed from a rally in South Carolina for standing in a silent protest behind the presidential candidate. Supporters booed Hamid, who wears a hijab, and threw Islamophobic slurs her way, too.
Hamid said she attended both rallies to combat the misconceptions many people have about Muslims and Islam, particularly those of Donald Trump. The Palestinian American woman told reporters after she was kicked out that she was merely passing out “peace pens” and having great conversations with attendees.
Getting kicked out with Hamid was 18-year-old Indian American boy, Jake Anantha. The teenager was very confused at first as to why he was told to leave. Anantha was wearing a Trump t-shirt and believes he was kicked out only because his skin is brown. Anantha and his family are conservatives who had planned to vote for Trump, but that may not happen anymore.
When the rally started, Anantha picked a spot near the stage to stand when a security guard tapped his shoulder and said, “We know who you are. You’ve been at many other rallies.”
But this was Anantha’s first rally. As a teenager, he doesn’t have very many resources to travel the country to attend Trump rallies.
Anantha was not protesting and told the security guards that he had no intention of doing so, but was still forced to leave the event. Anantha’s parents said their son is the perfect person to see at a Trump rally because he’s young and a minority. The young voter, who is a registered Republican, said he will probably vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson instead now.
Although Anantha is not Arab American, his experience is similar to Hamid’s. Both were the only minorities they could see at the event and neither of them were protesting.
Not only is their removal a cause for criticism, but the fact that police officers had no problem removing two people who were not committing a crime is cause for worry. Charlotte police should not escort people out of events because of what they look like or because Donald Trump’s team asked them to. There is a clear lack of ethnics coming from the decision made at this event to kick out two brown people, simply because they “appeared” threatening.