Meet the Woman Who Read During a Trump Rally: Johari Osayi Idusuyi

At a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a woman sitting behind the podium was reading a book. She was interrupted by an older couple, pissed that she could be so rude, and she gave them some attitude and kept on reading. Hell yeah.

The woman is Johari Osayi Idusuyi, a student at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Illinois, who ended up at the rally by accident and tried to keep an open mind.

“I heard about it the night before and I wasn’t really interested in going, but my friend Gabby Chavez said, “My family bailed out on me.” I was going to go to just see Donald Trump. It’s an opportunity to see a presidential candidate. We tried to take an unbiased stand. Maybe he’ll talk about something of substance, we thought. So I think it was just to see and if that failed, then we would have a good story.”

Indeed! She goes on to explain that she lost interest when it became clear that Trump didn’t have any respect for “women, minorities, everybody” so she pulled out Citizen by Claudia Rankine and started to read it, like any normal person would at a Trump rally.

“The way the supporters treated the protestors was really unbelievable and that’s what made me mad. Then there was a man who snatched a lady’s Obama hat. She was one of the protesters and was leaving and her hair just went with the hat. Then he threw it into crowd and everybody cheered. I thought, “That’s bullying. That’s aggressive.” I don’t think Trump handled it with grace. I thought, “Oh, you’re really not empathetic at all.” That’s when the shift happened.”

She spoke about her interaction with the couple behind her which certainly didn’t help her opinion of Trump and his supporters. The man told her that if she didn’t want to be here she should leave.

The lady, actually, she mumbled something. I didn’t hear but my friend told me the next day that she said, “I’m so glad you’re not my daughter,” or something along those lines. And I was thinking, “I’m glad I’m not your daughter either!”