Living in a small town, news travels fast; but imagine when news from a small town makes national headlines on websites such as Buzzfeed, the Washington Post, Yahoo ,and Fox News. This is exactly what happened on Saturday, August 19 in my hometown of Union City, Pennsylvania when two girls from our high school visited Washington D.C. on a field trip. What started out as an educational trip to our nation’s capital quickly turned sour after the group took a lunch break at Howard University.

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When the two girls, Allie Vandee and Sarah Applequist, entered the school cafeteria, they were met with indignant glances, profanities, and even an angry student who took a hat from one girl’s head. Some details to keep in mind, however, are that for one, the two students were wearing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats; two, both girls are white; three, Howard University is a historically black college; and four, all of this took place the week after the events in Charlottesville. Yikes.

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After being met with such strong reactions, one of the trip’s advisors suggested finding somewhere else to eat, and both the high school and university students took their opinions to social media. Applequist posted a picture on her Snapchat story of her and Vandee with smiles and thumbs up, captioned: “well that college loved us and their Trump apparel.” On Twitter, Vandee posted a lengthy statement of her take on the event, including, “This is America. These are the people who are racist and disrespectful. It's unfortunate that more Trump supporters have to fear going places... I will always support OUR president when, and wherever, I please.” In response to the tweet, one Howard University student wrote, "You came to an HBCU [Historically Black Colleges and Universities], one of the few places Black people have historically been relatively safe from racism, and openly supported a racist. What did you expect?" In addition to this, the Twitter account of the Howard dining hall posted: “We will take any action necessary to ensure that HU students feel safe& comfortable in our dining spaces. This group is no longer on campus.”

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This event raises many questions pertaining to free speech, the heat of the political climate, and most importantly, white privilege. As I said before, word like this spreads faster than wildfire in town like Union City. Furthermore, many community members posted their reactions on Facebook, and these girls received a great deal of support. One person even wrote, “I don’t seem them as being racist.” Another went on to write about how if everyone ignored the color of skin, problems like this would disappear. When our town’s population, according to City-Data.com, is 96.4 percent white alone, I think these opinions are more or less empty.

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Whether or not the girls’ shirts were out of line, to me, it just does not seem appropriate for members of my white community to decide what is offensive and what is not. This is simply because we will never fully understand the adversity that black Americans, like the students at Howard, face on a day-to-day basis. Whether the girls were supporting their president or attempting to start an uproar, it is not up to anyone but the students at Howard to determine what they find insulting. In light of events like this, I often reflect back to a post I saw while aimlessly scrolling through Tumblr that changed my view of the world; it was a gifset with Louis C.K., and a quote that said, “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.”