Demonstration Turns Ugly at the RNC
Ventana externa
“USA!!! USA!!!” they chanted at us to drown out our own chants of “DREAM ACT AND FULL EQUALITY!” The gay priest was at the front of our little group, and a balding man with a red face and sunglasses got within a few inches of his face to scream. Balding Guy, a member of Gay Priest’s former congregation, grabbed the priest and pushed him back violently. The next thing I knew, a man in a cowboy hat and large, crooked, cigarette-stained teeth that he was baring bulled his way into our priest. Erika was behind him, and took a misfired punch in the face as Cigarette Teeth barreled forward, cursing, swinging and pushing. A few people were sent back into me, and for a minute there he stood in front of me in the open. I wasn’t sure if I should take a swing or not to slow the guy down for my friends. Erika was stumbling backwards into Felipe and Mayra. Mayra was tiny, so Felipe grabbed her as the crowd was isolating her from the group. Both Balding Guy and Cigarette Teeth ultimately ignored the neatly dressed redhead with the camera while he and a few other self-appointed redneck peacekeepers pushed them past me while I trailed behind.
“You see, Obama was an organizer, and organizers have no experience creating jobs. They’re just agitators, looking to force a few corporations to make concessions, which a few of the weak ones do” she told me. She was a 52-year-old woman standing next to me in a blue Romney shirt. Sweating alongside her while someone 20 feet to our left hit the ground from heat exhaustion was a white haired friend. They both wore blue Romney shirts and a rhinestone elephant pin. I told them that I was an undecided Independent just here to cover the RNC, and they instantly became hardcore evangelists, asking me if I liked taxation and big government, clapping their hands and then saying “then you know who to vote for” after I answered. Traveling across the country, you learn that EVERYONE lives in some sort of bubble, though for these Floridians it seemed far stronger than normal.
“USA!!! USA!!!” they chanted at us to drown out our own chants of “DREAM ACT AND FULL EQUALITY!” The gay priest was at the front of our little group, and a balding man with a red face and sunglasses got within a few inches of his face to scream. Balding Guy, a member of Gay Priest’s former congregation, grabbed the priest and pushed him back violently. The next thing I knew, a man in a cowboy hat and large, crooked, cigarette-stained teeth that he was baring bulled his way into our priest. Erika was behind him, and took a misfired punch in the face as Cigarette Teeth barreled forward, cursing, swinging and pushing. A few people were sent back into me, and for a minute there he stood in front of me in the open. I wasn’t sure if I should take a swing or not to slow the guy down for my friends. Erika was stumbling backwards into Felipe and Mayra. Mayra was tiny, so Felipe grabbed her as the crowd was isolating her from the group. Both Balding Guy and Cigarette Teeth ultimately ignored the neatly dressed redhead with the camera while he and a few other self-appointed redneck peacekeepers pushed them past me while I trailed behind.
“You see, Obama was an organizer, and organizers have no experience creating jobs. They’re just agitators, looking to force a few corporations to make concessions, which a few of the weak ones do” she told me. She was a 52-year-old woman standing next to me in a blue Romney shirt. Sweating alongside her while someone 20 feet to our left hit the ground from heat exhaustion was a white haired friend. They both wore blue Romney shirts and a rhinestone elephant pin. I told them that I was an undecided Independent just here to cover the RNC, and they instantly became hardcore evangelists, asking me if I liked taxation and big government, clapping their hands and then saying “then you know who to vote for” after I answered. Traveling across the country, you learn that EVERYONE lives in some sort of bubble, though for these Floridians it seemed far stronger than normal.