On Wednesday night, East Carolina University student Adedayo Adeniyi decided that he was going to attend the Donald Trump rally in Fayetteville, N.C. not as a protester or demonstrator, he came alone, but as a curious college student at a very strange and important time in the history of our nation.
"I was there just to watch and experience the surreal moment of someone like Trump running for president and speaking to thousands of people," he told the Daily News.
Without saying a single word during the entire event, Adeniyi was randomly targeted and thrown out of the event by police as seen and heard on video he recorded.
"At first I refused to leave because it was all just a product of being black at a Trump rally. Basically in that environment I'm guilty by association. But common sense told me to just listen to the cops and move along," Adeniyi told the News.
On his cellphone video Adeniyi, being told he has to leave, can be heard saying:
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. That's not me, that's them. I don't even know them. What? I don't even know them. I don't even know them."
In a complete state of disbelief that he was being put out of an event because of the color of his skin, the 20-year-old student was audibly shocked.
After reluctantly complying, Adeniyi was escorted down the stairs by the police.
What happened next, he told The News, "caused me to lose faith in America."
"The man at the end of the video is a moment I'll never forget," said Adeniyi."
"The hate in his eyes. The words. The hate in those words. The slap. It was disgusting and sad. At that moment I believed that America will stay and continue to be a hateful and bigoted country."
Having not protested or disrupted the entire event, the man Adeniyi is referencing, a middle aged white man, looked him directly in the face and said, "F--k you. F--k you. F--k you," right before slapping Adeniyi in the face.
"These are presidential candidate rallies. I'm not at a KKK rally. The fact that I experienced hate at a candidate rally tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump and the people that support him. People will act more hateful and racist in environments that they feel not only encouraged to do it, but accept it as normal," said Adeniyi.
