Huffington Post
By Tyler Kingkade
September 14, 2015
A
group of Donald Trump supporters erupted in cheers and shouted racist
comments outside an Iowa college stadium on Saturday when a woman tore
the sign an anti-Trump demonstrator
was holding in half.
A
group calling themselves Students Against Bigotry staged a protest in
the parking lot of Iowa State University's Jack Trice Stadium in Ames,
Iowa, on Saturday during
tailgating for the ISU-University of Iowa football game. Golf course
aficionado and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was
scheduled to campaign in the tailgate area, but instead made an
appearance inside the stadium.
The
ISU students were specifically protesting Trump's anti-immigrant
comments, the Iowa State Daily reported. The poster that was destroyed,
held by ISU senior Jovani
Rubio, read, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the
things that matter."
The
woman who attacked the sign is from West Des Moines but is not an ISU
student, according to the Iowa State Daily. She has since deleted her
social media accounts.
A moment before she rips the sign, she can be heard in a video saying
that she's going to destroy the poster and "vote for white supremacy."
In response to the poster being ripped, someone on camera shouts, "Get 'em, girl!" Others just cheer and shout, "Yeah!"
Cell phone videos of the incident were posted on YouTube and Twitter.
Another
sign that was not ripped read, "I did not struggle for 16 years to be
called an anchor baby by my future president," according to photos
posted on Tumblr.
"I
grew up watching a lot of the old civil rights videos and how they were
treated, and I always thought, 'Wow, we've made a lot of progress.' But
it was evident on Saturday
that we really have not," Monica Reyes, a University of Northern Iowa
senior and co-founder of DREAM Iowa, told The Huffington Post on Monday.
Reyes, who grew up in Iowa, said she heard people make comments that the Latino activists should "learn to speak English."
"One
of our protesters -- her face was grabbed by a caucasian woman, and
that caucasian woman told her to go back from where she came from,"
Reyes said. "One man actually
said, 'If it ain't white, it ain't right.'"
According
to a post on Tumblr from a woman who said she witnessed the protest,
other people in the crowd shouted “Send the illegals back to where they
came from!" "Excuse
me immigrants," and "Is that English or is that stupidity?" toward a
sign written in Spanish. Reyes said this description was accurate based
on what she witnessed.
The
Students Against Bigotry protesters, Reyes noted, were from multiple
backgrounds and ethnicities. She said she largely blames Trump's
comments about immigrants for
inspiring his supporters to behave this way.
In
a statement sent to HuffPost on Monday, Rubio, whose sign was attacked,
said he had a message to women who harassed him at the protest:
"You
can tear and deface my poster all you want because I will not stop
using my voice and my right as a U.S. citizen to speak against hatred
and bigotry. Go ahead and
show your hatred and racism because that is all everyone else saw. As
an educated Latino leader on campus, I am involved in many student
organizations such as Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity Inc. and SHPE
MAES both organizations founded under the principles
to unite the Latino Community, the same unity that was present at the
protest. For my final words I would like to quote my Fraternity motto
'En La Union Esta La Fuerza,' ('In Unity there is strength')."
Trump is currently polling in first place among GOP presidential contenders in Iowa and nationally.
"For
us, it was really eye-opening to see this rhetoric," Reyes said. "I've
never felt this much hatred from people in Iowa. That is not something
our communities are
going to stand with. We don't want to feel unsafe in our own
communities, but that is kind of what [Trump's] rhetoric is
instigating."
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