Actions always speak louder than words and one woman let reading be her power during Donald Trump’s recent presidential rally.
This week, a video of Johari Osayi Idusuyi, 23, went viral after she was seen reading the award-winning book Citizen by Claudia Rankine on stage as Trump spoke to supporters in Springfield, Illinois. The writer spoke with Jezebel this week telling how the vine came to be and how Trump almost had her vote.
Idusuyi says she was invited to the event by a friend. Because she wanted to give Trump a chance, she decided to attend. There weren’t a lot of minorities within the 10,000 supporters so Idusuyi was invited on stage, seated behind Trump. While she was interested to see if Trump was different than she perceived, she says he and his supporters bullied protestors, which lead her to whip out her favorite book–which just happened to be racism.
Jezebel reports:
“I think we were chosen for obvious reasons,” she said about being picked to sit on stage. “We are minorities and there weren’t a lot of minorities there. He also instructed us to sit in the middle, so we kind of already knew what this was.
“I got tapped on the shoulder” she said. “I think it was a couple. The woman kept saying, “If you don’t wanna be here then leave. You didn’t even stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.” I said, “I do want to be here, that’s why I’m here. You don’t know who I am. I’m reading my book because I’m uninterested. Did you not just see what happened? This person disrespects women, minorities, everybody and you’re still supporting him. He’s not saying anything of substance.”
Idusuyi says she didn’t plan to protest the event but once she realized Trump didn’t have her interest, she turned to her book.
Jezebel reports:
“We weren’t trying to start anything,” she said. “We weren’t trying to make a scene and it wasn’t originally planned to be a protest. We just wanted to go in with an open mind and it turned into something bigger.”
The vine has been viewed over 7 million times and now, more people have been introduced to the Jamaican poet. Rankine’s publishers took to Twitter to thank the writer for her “reading protest.”
The moment couldn’t come at a better time–Rankine will be at Howard University today to read her book.
SOURCE: Jezebel | VIDEO CREDIT: Vine
Black Woman Shades Donald Trump In The Best Way was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
