I shook Bernie Sanders’ hand today.

I got there nearly two hours in direct sunlight before doors opened, then another three and a half for him to take the podium. Another hour listening to him talk. It was around 85 degrees, but felt hotter from the crowd and lack of wind.

He touched upon so many things. Medicare for all. Renegotiating rates on college loans. Removing marijuana from classification as an illegal drug on a federal level. Overturning Citizens United.

When he was finished, he came down and made the rounds, shaking hands with everyone at the barricade. I could have arrived later and just seen him talk, but I had waited so long so that I could have this moment.

As hundreds of people pressed their bodies towards the barricade in an attempt to reach him, I was able to get one passing photo. I wasn’t even able to get in the same picture, but that’s because that wasn’t the important part.

As I shook his hand, I clearly enunciated above the din, “Thank you so much for your foreign policy.”

For a moment, he made eye contact with me and squeezed my hand tighter. His lips pressed together and his brow furrowed in a look that conveyed sympathy and pity. It was similar to the look that someone gives when they hear a friend is going through a tough tragedy. It was a look that said, “I understand, and I’m sorry that more people don’t.”

Do you have any idea the hate that we endure? What we’re portrayed as?

As time goes on, I sympathize more and more with the black struggle. Occasionally, I’ll have moments of bonding with black people, moments where we understand that while our struggles are fundamentally different, we deal with similar brands of demonization and prejudice.

As Middle Easterners, do you know what we are in movies and shows? Occasionally side characters that are good with computers. We got lucky with Lost. But usually, we’re portrayed as terrorists. Villains. Haters of America. Goat-fuckers.

I have to watch the constant assault on our character. I have to listen to Donald Trump say that Islam hates us and that Muslims are out to get us. I have to be patient with the redneck in the lobby who says that it’s there are orders in the Koran to kill all non-Muslims, as though that defines the entire religion. As though Leviticus doesn’t exist.

We are painted with a broad brush to be terrorists.

These days, Iranians especially. All we see here is “death to America,” when most Iranians would love to see their government destroyed and replaced with a true democracy.

Iranians earned a democracy once, by the way. They were under the rule of a corrupt dictator and a man named Mossadegh managed to legally politic his way to ousting the leader and instating real elections. He won in a landslide and nationalized Iran’s oil, taking it back from Churchill’s imperialistic tyranny.

He was a patient man who played the game for his people, and won. When they were given the choice, they chose him.

Then it was taken from them.

By us.

Partnering with England, we sent in the CIA with a smear campaign and secretly destroyed Mossadegh’s legacy, destroying his reputation in the eyes of the people. He was thrown in jail and replaced with Churchill and the CIA’s dictator of choice, someone who would do business with them in their interest.

Mossadegh spent the rest of his life rotting in a cell, imprisoned by the very people he’d fought for and set free.

And then, decades later, the Ayatollah came to power and revealed the truth of what the Americans had done to the Iranian people.

So they hate us. They’re angry at us for what we did.

From them, we stole the very freedom that we champion as though it’s our purpose and our mission. But we paint them as irrational and freedom-hating because if we had to face that, we’d have to face the fact that we only want our own freedom.

When it comes to the rest of the world, we want money.

The dark heart of capitalism.

At the beginning of high school, I started using my first name, Mohammad, instead of my middle name, Mahan, to honor my grandfather Mohammad who had just passed that spring.

My first year of high school began in September 2001.

What can I say? I have a knack for timing.

I watched those towers go down in shock and horror. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.

The teachers didn’t know what to do with us. Shit, nobody did. This was unprecedented. What do you do, go back to math?

But the next day, one of my teachers had a plan to raise awareness. Bless her, she was new to the job and her chipper, slightly awkward demeanor would have made her a far better grade school or kindergarten teacher. She had no idea how to handle rowdy high-schoolers.

She wanted to have a class discussion. Carefully and delicately asked, “What do you think other countries think of America?”

Being “that kid” at the time, I raised my hand first. I tried to choose my words carefully.

“A lot of other countries in the world kind of see America as a sort of loose cannon — ”

One of the other kids in class, a rowdy bully who clearly romanticized the kind of abusive dominance that certain kinds of rap encouraged, immediately slammed his hand down on his desk and yelled, “Mohammad hates America!”

Chaos ensued. Sheer chaos.

One of my girlfriends had an uncle who accused her of “sleeping with the enemy.”

That didn’t bother me so much.

What bothered me was when she told him that I was Persian. Many Iranians who identify as Persian do so because their connection is to the thousands of years of culture and art and philosophy and poetry that Persia represented, not what today’s Iran has become.

He said, “So he’s Iranian.”

She said, “He prefers to be called Persian.”

“So he’s Iranian with a complex.”

It’s the first time I remember being genuinely offended as a target of racism.

I’ll never forget trying to laugh it off, or her odd need to let me know this bit of hatred.

A lot of Iranians hate America, yes, but not enough to attack. When they say “death to America,” there’s something lost in translation there. Iranian idioms are occasionally absurdly violent, such as a phrase that would best be translated as their version of a laughing “oh, shut the fuck up;” more literally, it translates to “I’ll put a stick through your heart.”

I know, Iranians are weird.

But when they say “death to America,” it’s more of a chant for the end of American meddling. It’s demanding an end to America’s interference.

Because they’re angry.

They’re angry we stole their democracy and freedom for money, and that we’ve never apologized or even acknowledged it. Some of our politicians have tried to bring it up, but there’s never been a formal statement.

So we’re trained to fear them. We’re trained to fear these chants and this corrupt, manipulative government while ignoring millions of kind, gracious people who would happily invite you into their homes with an attitude most akin to our famed Southern hospitality. They’ll feed you and laugh with you. They’ll love you as people, as brothers and sisters.

Anthony Bourdain did an episode of No Reservations in Iran. It opens with him musing in amazement at the fact that out of all the places in the world, Iran was where the most people smiled at him in the streets and said hello. They were the most welcoming and loving people he’d met in all of his travels.

There was a game called Braid published in 2008. It was a clever parable; hidden beneath a simple tale of a man chasing a princess that he shouldn’t have been chasing in the first place is the story of mankind’s pursuit of the atomic bomb. After beating the game’s secret mode, you are shown written passages about the death of man’s innocence and the regrets of the scientists that worked on the Manhattan project.

After completing everything, you can climb to the attic of your character’s house and see two shining points of light glimmering above the skyline of the city in the distance.

The World Trade Center.

The direct parallel drawn between 9/11 and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left me stunned. I’ll never forget that moment, after investing all of these emotions into this pursuit throughout the game, that the end of mankind’s innocence led to the same senseless murder of civilians over and over throughout history.

And that it was truly the same senseless murder.

That moment solidified my choice to vote for Obama. He was the only politician who was suggesting negotiations with the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Hillary had stated that Iran wouldn’t dare take any action against Israel because they knew that if they did, we would “obliterate them.”

Consider that rhetoric.

“Obliterate.”

She had no problem suggesting that she would kill innocent bystanders as retaliation. Not take out those responsible. Not dismantle their government.

Obliterate Iran.

The rest of their policies were similar enough to each other that this was the deciding factor.

Since then, Iran and Islam have become increasingly feared caricatures.

I watch as Iranians are constantly slammed as a threat, an enemy needing to be killed. Thanks to America’s wonderful attitude towards war and the cost of its violence, many Americans are perfectly fine with the idea of the genocide of my people. This attitude is likely because we’ve never had to deal with its horror in America.

The one time this generation got a taste of war’s violence was 9/11, and we handled that so well, didn’t we?

Some other countries have a 9/11 every month.

But God forbid we let in refugees. One of them might maybe be a terrorist.

So fuck all of the screaming, terrified, helpless people running from violence.

Fuck the Palestinians because some of them are terrorists.

Because some of them are terrorists, schools and hospitals are bombed. I get to see terrified men who look like me and my father, women who look like my mother and aunts, children who look like my baby cousins, all running around, covered in blood, screaming at the horror of losing everything. Screaming at the sight of their loved ones in pieces.

Then I get to see hardcore conservatives shrug it off or celebrate it as a victory. I get to be yelled at by people I thought were my friends that “My country [Israel] has a right to exist!”

I don’t dispute that. I want peace. I want Israelis to be free and happy and safe.

I just want the same for the Palestinians.

There are progressive, left-wing voices in Israel that are fighting for the rights of the Palestinians, but we don’t get to hear them. Similarly, we don’t see the mobs of Israelis happily dancing and singing,

“Today all schools in Palestine are closed/

because today all of the Palestinian children are dead.”

I get to see John McCain dance onstage with a modified version of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” singing “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” Cheers and laughter greet him.

The idea of committing genocide against my people, indiscriminate murder that’s excused because they’re lumped in with the evil of their government, is cheered on not only as a good joke, but also as a good idea.

I get to go through this election cycle watching the hatred rise, having to watch my words and criticisms because I might be immediately labeled as anti-Semetic, or worse, anti-American. A terrorist sympathizer.

I love my country. The place I’ve grown up my entire life, the country I love dearly and call home. The freedom and equality we fight for.

People say they’ll leave for Canada if Trump is elected. I would never.

How could I abandon my home to the bigots and make it theirs?

I dare to see everyone as human and deserving a chance. I dare to not lump citizens in with their governments, or hold them liable for the crimes and words of their leaders.

So aside from having so many problems with Hillary’s evasive behavior and clandestine meetings with the very people that she promises to regulate and tax as she accepts their donations, I see her holding similar meetings with hard-right pro-Israeli groups. The kinds of groups and people that like the idea of a pre-emptive strike on Iran.

The murder of my culture, my people. Of family members of mine.

Just in case.

I see her promise that Netanyahu would be the first person she invites to speak at the White House. I see her promise to support Israel at all costs, even when inside sources have gone on record stating that the current government of Israel has an “apocalyptic” mindset and is just waiting for America’s support to attack Iran.

And then there’s Bernie.

There’s the old Jewish guy who has fought for the oppressed and those who others haven’t seen as human just yet. He’s fought for the humanity in everyone. He fought for black rights and gay rights back when it was considered career suicide.

And now, he’s the only candidate I’ve ever seen that openly states that he supports Israel, but also sees the proper treatment of the Palestinian people as “essential.”

They’re not invisible because they’re brown, or because some of them are terrorists.

They’re people to him.

We’re not invisible to him.

We’re human again.

We have a chance to be human again.

So when I told a friend of mine tonight about the moment when I shook Bernie Sanders’ hand today, I unexpectedly broke down sobbing because I suddenly realized how much I’ve held in all of this time, and how raw this election cycle has ground me.

This isn’t about cute little catchphrases like “Feel the Bern.”

This is about how hard it is to describe what it’s like to fight against white people who say I’m speaking from a place of privilege when I say that I won’t vote for Hillary. I see them post condescending articles about how anyone who believes in “Bernie or Bust” is throwing a temper tantrum. I’m accused of misogyny because my resentment of Hillary must be because of her gender. I show them what she’s said and I’m brushed off because our lives don’t matter.

My family’s lives are expendable to so much of my countrymen.

They accuse me of male privilege when they’re so blind to their own.

I can’t properly explain how much it meant to me, that look that Bernie gave me.

But this is me giving it one last shot as I give up on trying to make them see.

Today, Bernie Sanders shook my hand.