FIRST PERSON: At Trump rally in Chicago, a student is silent no more

By Michael Regan
GSS Correspondent

CHICAGO — Two weeks ago, I was scrolling through social media when I discovered Donald Trump was coming to the Pavilion at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

An acquaintance posted a link to RSVP to the event. At first, I was stunned to see that she seemed to be supporting Trump, but I quickly realized she was letting her peers know they could reserve seats to the rally and not show up. I quickly reserved two seats for my girlfriend and me.

“There are more Chicagoans willing to stand against Trump than there are willing to stand with him,” I thought. “What if I went and protested?”

I am a white, 20-year-old Chicagoan.  I was born into middle-class wealth, I have never been oppressed, and I have been given more than enough opportunities to succeed. I am privileged. I was raised by a lawyer and a housewife, with older twin sisters by my side. I am lucky to have a family that has given me more than enough opportunities to succeed. I have never had to pay for my education. I have never had to fear for my future or my safety. I have never truly struggled. But this has never felt right to me. I never did anything about it. Not until last Friday night.

My girlfriend and I went to the protest at 4:30 p.m. We arrived two-and-a-half hours before Trump’s rally was scheduled to start. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought people would simply gather outside the Pavilion, at the corner of West Harrison Street and South Racine Avenue, but we discovered that all the student-led organizations were meeting in the university’s quad and marching together to the Pavilion.

As we began walking there, I noticed at least 200 protesters marching east down Harrison towards us. At the front of group was a woman leading everyone in chants through loudspeakers mounted on a wheeled platform. However, before we could reach the main group of protesters, the Chicago police on bicycles started using them to barricade us, essentially blocking our access to public property. Meanwhile, dozens of people began gathering behind me. The cops were not letting us get to the protesters and they were not letting the protesters get to us.

Suddenly, someone yelled, “Let them through!” Soon, hundreds of people were chanting: “Let them through!” Another student took over the microphone and announced that the police were trying to move us into the parking lot across the street from the Pavilion.

“Will we go to the parking lot?” the male student asked. “NO!” everyone shouted.

After what seemed like 10 minutes of chants, the bike cops were ordered to move out of the way by a higher authority and our two groups became one. Now we were in the front lines.

Notwithstanding what the Trump campaign later reported, from what I could see this protest was 100 percent run by students. A small group of Latino and African American students seemingly were in charge, taking turns speaking out of the microphone. Many students were carrying signs that read, “STOP TRUMP! SHUT DOWN WHITE SUPREMACY!” There were countless posters with pictures of Trump dressed in a Klu Klux Klan gown with Adolf Hitler’s infamous mustache.

Other signs bore personalized slogans: “Sith Lords 4 Trump” and “Jedi 4 Bernie” made me laugh, but “White Silence is White Terrorism” made me chant louder, more passionately, and spoke to what I was beginning to realize: I did not want to be a part of the problem. I did not want a president who approves of racism.

The crowd I was a part of was not hostile. After I got home, I was surprised to see “violent” on almost every headline about the protest, but I was there. I didn’t see it.

To be sure, Trump supporters were shouting things at us on their way into the Pavilion, trying to agitate protesters before the rally had even begun. The worst thing I witnessed was someone who threw a hamburger at a police officer, and and other protesters chanting “F—k Trump.” There simply wasn’t any violence on the front lines or anywhere that I could see because the majority of protesters weren’t allowed by the police to stand next to Trump supporters. It doesn’t make sense why the press reported violence in the streets involving us when it simply wasn’t true.

I can’t speak for all 6,000-plus protesters, but I think I can say that we weren’t intimidated by Trump’s right to freedom of speech or else we wouldn’t have stood up to him to begin with. I believe we wanted him and his supporters to feel intimidated by us — not to truly scare them or hurt them, but to try to get them to see what they believe in is morally corrupt.

We were not young liberals getting riled up just for kicks. This wasn’t an anti-Republican protest. It wasn’t strictly pro-Bernie. It was an anti-Trump, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist statement. A phrase that was being chanted on Friday was, “Together/United/We will not be divided,” proving that the protest was meant to be positive and to bring Americans closer, regardless of who they are or where they are from.

My name is Michael Regan and I am a white, 20-year-old Chicagoan.  I was born into middle-class wealth, I have never been oppressed, and I have been given more than enough opportunities to succeed. I am privileged. This has never felt right to me.

But last Friday night, I did something about it.

—Videos by Michael Regan. Featured photo: Screenshot of Wikimedia Commons video shows demonstrators cheering after Trump rally is canceled.

Regan is a writer living in Chicago. He plans to attend community college in the fall to study psychology, and he will vote in a presidential primary for the first time on Tuesday. Contact Regan at mpregan13@gmail.com.