A funny thing happened on the way to Alabama's football game yesterday.

I met a man who moved to Alabama three months ago. We sat at a communal table sharing food, as crowds do before games while tailgating. We cautiously approached one another in conversation, careful - in this political climate - not to hit any hot-button issues.

I could tell he was trying to fit me into a box. What did I do? Where was I from?

I could have saved him the trouble. I, no more than anyone, can be put into a box, but I'll try.

I am a middle-aged journalist and journalism professor, yet I love The Muppets, Hello Kitty and Pixar movies. I am a homeschool mom who homeschools for the opposite reason many people in the South do. I am a liberal blue dot in a red-dot state and family. I went to a majority-black Birmingham city high school then joined a (then) all-white sorority in college. Don't let my pearls, blonde hair and blue eyes fool you: I know every lyric to every Public Enemy song ever. I am much more than almost everyone assumes.

And assume they do.

Several times this week people have assumed since I am a white, born-and-raised Southern woman that I voted Republican. (I voted a mixed ticket.) Every time this happened, the venom they spewed publicly toward my side, assuming I agreed, made me want to say: I am here. Notice me. People like me are everywhere. So I did.

Back in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium, over eggs and grits, the man asked me where my 14-year-old daughter and I were headed next. My answer surprised him: A protest.

I was headed to a protest to stand up for every person who has felt frightened or ignored by the president-elect. I realize many people don't agree with my politics and that's great. That's what makes America beautiful. We can agree to disagree.

I practice the First Amendment each day. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press. And yesterday I practiced the freedom to peaceably assemble, which I had done before (and covered dozens of times as a journalist), yet this time was different.

As I marched with my daughter from Bryant-Denny Stadium, down University Boulevard with about 50 other protestors toward Government Plaza people spewed hatred and slurs our way. I expected that.

What I didn't expect was the depth of their hatred for people simply practicing their American rights. We were young and old, students and grandparents, babies and children. It was a vulnerable feeling, given that we were outnumbered by tens of thousands.

Afterward I asked my daughter if she thought those people hated the First Amendment.

"No," she replied quietly. "They hated us."

I nodded and a quiet resignation passed between us. We all know she's right.

A few weeks ago I attended a TEDx event in Jacksonville, Florida. At these events participants are encouraged to share "Ideas worth spreading," which is the TEDx motto. One person posted on his profile this idea, and I'm summarizing:

What if we assume, with every person we meet, that each of them is doing the best he or she can? How would that change our interactions?

Brilliant! I have clung to that for weeks. When I was stuck in traffic, or the clerk at the store was slow, I reminded myself: People are doing the best they can.

But yesterday, in the span of just a few hours, I was called "worthless," "idiot," "socialist turd," "cry baby," "loser," "dumb," "whiny" and "Marxist," among other things, simply for exercising my First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. (And those were just the nice ones I could put in this post.)

So I've decided that people are not, in fact, doing the best they can. Tuscaloosa can do better. Alabama can do better. Our nation can do better to remember our rights and respect those that are enjoying the freedoms guaranteed to us.

Left or right of the aisle, I don't dare suggest we might all come together in unity - I'm a cynical journalist. Being disappointed in the presidential election is something I can live with. But what has left me heartbroken beyond repair is the vicious disdain my fellow Americans have for our basic rights.

A funny thing happened on the way to Alabama's football game yesterday.

The man I talked to happened to be a blue dot too. The odds of that happening in a town like Tuscaloosa on game day are not fantastic. We had a pleasant conversation and laughed about our similarities.

Yet after the Alabama game, after the protest, I wasn't laughing. Nothing was funny anymore.

I love my country. But the people of America have let me down with their lack of tolerance, just as Alabama fans did as they poured out of the stadium, or stumbled drunk out of bars to degrade people of a different color, religion, or opinion, and anything else they didn't understand. Just minutes before that we had sat alongside one another, united by our favorite team, their hatred cloaked in houndstooth and crimson.

Now at every turn I will wonder. When I get on an elevator I will wonder. When I attend a public event, such as a lecture or basketball game I will wonder. When I meet a new business associate for the first time I will wonder:

Does this person hate me too?