Alex Landis, 16, wears a t-shirt showing her support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as she enters the Redding Municipal Airport for a campaign rally, Friday, June 3, 2016, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (Associated Press) 
 
 Alex Landis, 16, wears a t-shirt showing her support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as she enters the Redding Municipal Airport for a campaign rally, Friday, June 3, 2016, in Redding,... (Associated Press) ||||| Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight 
 
 Gregory Cheadle, right, was singled out by Donald Trump during his visit to Redding on Friday as "my African-American over there." 
 
 
 
 SHARE 
 
 By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight 
 
 The recognition Gregory Cheadle received from Donald Trump felt good, considering he was singled out at a rally of about 4,000 people at Redding Municipal Airport on Friday. But the fallout after Trump said, "Oh, look at my African-American over here," has left Cheadle feeling dumbfounded. 
 
 And not because he was offended, but because of how the country has perceived his reaction. 
 
 Cheadle, the Happy Valley resident and Republican candidate running for the 1st Congressional District said after the rally he made his way back to his car and no one stopped to ask him if he was offended by Trump's comment. 
 
 Then his phone began to ring and he went online to see what was being said. 
 
 "At the time I couldn't possibly see how this became a story. I think that there is an element of [the media] wanting me to be upset over it. I was not. I know the context that the statement was made. Right now it's race baiting and it's working to get people upset," said Cheadle. 
 
 The context: an anecdote Trump shared with supporters at Redding Municipal Airport on Friday of a violent exchange between an African-American supporter and someone wearing a traditional Ku Klux Klan hood at another rally. 
 
 The comment has caused much criticism of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Cheadle said the comments he has seen on the internet have been far worse compared to Trump's choice of words at the Redding rally. 
 
 "The comments I see about me on social media are far more hate filled and racist than what Mr. Trump could have been construed as saying at the rally," said Cheadle, who does not see the issue going away anytime soon. 
 
 On Friday, Cheadle arrived at the airport at 7 a.m. He had his own campaign signs for his race and he wanted to be close to the front row at the rally. Cheadle wore a tie, suit and addressed voters on the issues he wants to address as a challenger to incumbent Doug LaMalfa in the 1st Congressional District. 
 
 Despite his name being on the tongues on political pundits on TV and online, Cheadle has not received any type of Trump bump or any type of outpouring of donations since the rally. 
 
 Instead, Cheadle has been held up as an example of Trump's troubled relations with African-Americans throughout the country. 
 
 But Cheadle does not see himself as an apologist for Trump and doesn't even know if he will be voting for the presidential candidate. 
 
 "I don't like the racist policies of Hillary Clinton. I think Bernie Sanders has a good message, but he fails in his execution. And I don't know anything about Donald Trump. I don't know how he's going to relate to the elderly, the poor and the disabled. Those are the people I'm concerned about," said Cheadle who has positioned himself as an 1856 Republican. 
 
 There was no immediate response from Trump's camp as of Sunday afternoon. 
 
 The backlash has not soured Cheadle's outlook. He knows how he's going to internalize the recognition from Trump, despite what the rest of the country is expecting him to feel. 
 
 "I'm confident in who I am. Fortunately I'm a strong black man who thinks and does the things that I think are important," Cheadle said. "I know I don't belong to anyone. I refuse to stay on anyone's plantations. We need to be able to have the freedom to be able to do what we want to do. Black people have been forced to think and act a certain way for a long time."
– Donald Trump lauded a man he called "my African-American" at a California rally on Friday, and that man, Gregory Cheadle, came out almost immediately to say he hadn't been bothered by the reference and was even "happy" about it. Yet that doesn't mean the Republican, who's running for a seat in his state's 1st Congressional District, is an unwavering Trump fan. NPR reports that when Cheadle was spotted by Trump at the rally, he was using a sign to block the sun—and that sign happened to read "Veterans for Trump." But "I am not a Trump supporter," he tells NPR, noting he hasn't decided who to vote for yet and that "I went to go hear Donald Trump because I have an open mind." He says that he's "a free man. ... I refuse to be chained to any particular party," adding to the Redding Record Searchlight: "I refuse to stay on anyone's plantations." He explains to the Record Searchlight that "I don't like the racist policies of Hillary Clinton; I think Bernie Sanders has a good message, but he fails in his execution; and I don't know anything about Donald Trump." Cheadle reiterates that even though his mind hasn't been made up about where his vote will be cast, he still wasn't offended by Trump's rally remarks. "He had been speaking positively about black people prior to that statement," he tells NPR. "Everybody was happy. It was a jovial thing." He parses Trump's word choice as well, noting that Trump could've avoided the "ambiguity" of his phrasing had he simply said "my African-American friend" or "supporter"—though he adds that had Trump followed up his statement with "'what's up, dawg' or 'boy' or even the n-word as they use it today, I really would have been offended."