For me, a young black man with his future ahead of him, watching Trump rallies go south is always frightening. Seeing young black people get ousted, called names, and beaten is frightening. I hope it would be frightening to anyone. Yet still, as a journalist, this is my big break. How many up-and-coming journalists from a public college can say that they were there at a Donald Trump rally? How many can say that they were at any rally? This is my career.

But to others, it wasn’t that.

Let’s rewind to a week before the Trump rally. I wasn’t sure I would attend, but since I missed going the Bernie Sanders rally, I really wanted a chance to see a presidential candidate and report on something.

I knew about the controversy that goes along with Trump. I knew that going to the rally meant that I might become part of a long trail of stories that have the headline “black man assaulted at Trump rally”—a narrative we’ve gotten to know a little too well these past few months.

As I began to tell people that I was thinking of going to the Trump rally—as a journalist—I wasn’t met with the support or courage that I felt I would get.

“What? Why? Do you know what could happen to you?” people would say.

“But, you’re black,” another person said to me.

Yes, I am black. I am also a reporter. Just as Trump seems to be using his supporters to further his narrative, I wish to further my own. As well as my own career, if I may be so selfish.

As the day of reckoning approached, someone new would hear about my endeavors, even without me telling them. They would approach me with a smile that said, “We have to talk.”

“So, I hear you’re going to the Trump rally,” they’d say.

“Yes, I am,” I’d say plainly.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Well, no.”

Why should I be scared?

Because I am a black man at a rally full of people who believe in Trump. Belief in Trump is belief in a certain kind of rhetoric. One that closes both minds and borders. One that believes in racism, xenophobia, and that a giant wall will keep immigrants from Mexico out of our country.

11,000 people all in one place. All believing in Trump. That’s got to mean something if you’re a lone black man going into the Trump rally. Right?

For days leading up to the event, I could not walk around my house or around work without someone stopping to ask me if I was “really going to the Trump rally” or about some story about some black guy or black girl being beaten or punched or whatever.

I heeded the many, many warnings and spent the next couple of days scrounging around to find some white friends to go with. Initially, I was in this alone. It didn’t bother me that I was alone, really, it just bothered me that everyone thought I needed to be escorted or else I’d be beaten up.

It turned out that we, at The Record, Buffalo State’s student-run newspaper, were going to check out the rally as well. I had already planned on writing something for The Public, but figured I could probably do both. Especially if it meant I could go with people. I ended up enlisting two of my friends from The Record to be my escorts.

As D-Day arrived, I found myself swimming in a near-literal sea of white people. Harley Davidson as far as the eye could see. Tough Mudder T-shirts. Preppy boys and pretty girls. All of the stereotypes were there. Not that it bothered me or anything. Perhaps I felt it to be comical, if nothing else.

We entered First Niagara Center. Got checked at the door. Got our press pass. And so we made our way to the press area.

I couldn’t help but feel the eyes of Trump supporters on me. To be honest, I didn’t feel welcome. Or like I belonged. I nearly bumped into one guy, but he didn’t even acknowledge me. It was more like he was walking into me because I didn’t exist.

As I passed by one person I heard, “Oh, there is a black person here.”

I was a monolith. An alien.

I felt as though I was going to be stopped at any moment. As though someone was going to out me as a black liberal protester with intent on disrupting the rally. When of course, in reality, I just want to write.

I’ll admit, I was scared. At least a little bit.

It wasn’t long before I was in the small designated press area, that I felt like I was being judged for being a young journalist. Where the eyes of my peers looked me up and down and the question wasn’t about skin color or what my intentions were. Instead it was a judgment of my skill, what publication or news station was I from.

I felt so liberated.

It feels good to me to be judged based on my skills and as a person, not as what I am perceived to be by 11,000 mostly white people.

Carl Paladino said it best: “The media puts their pants on one leg at a time, they’re nothing special.”

I’ve never wanted to thank Paladino for anything until that night. Thank you, Paladino, for making me feel like a filthy journalist. Not a filthy black person. Thank you for lumping me in with a profession, not a race.

Although, I suppose I shouldn’t put it past Paladino to be racist, but that is beside the point.

In any case, it was at that moment, that I felt less afraid. Less concerned for my safety. I felt that I was not just a black man at a rally. I was a journalist. If I was going to be attacked, or booed, or flipped off, it would be because I was a journalist.

At least, that is what I would like to believe.

The narrative for any black person at a Trump rally is probably similar. And not just black people. Muslims, Hispanics, any person of color. There is both a danger and an ignorance toward us. We are a monolith. We are estranged. We don’t belong. We are the problem.

For us to be there presents a danger to angry white people, that makes them angrier. We are not a part of their silent majority. We are the puzzle piece to the wrong puzzle.

In a sense, I had a privilege. A shield. The media was my shield. Not everyone gets that. As I scanned the arena for signs of other black people in the audience (and there were some) I could only wonder how they felt. If they felt the same as I did.

It is a surreal experience. And when you escape from it, unscathed and un-arrested, you feel powerful. But, isn’t it also kind of awful? Isn’t it kind of awful that I feel like I’ve just come back from a war? That I’ve been in a serious fight and escaped with my life?

When does the narrative of young black men and women being attacked at supposed peaceful rallies end? Where are the stories with the headline: “Donald Trump actually welcomes Black Lives Matter to talk with him”? When do we stop becoming an alien, and start becoming accepted?