I honestly feel bad for how they treated you but I disagree that explaining wouldn’t have helped. They made some assumptions based on the media and how the protests have been characterized. That’s reasonable. However, by not saying what you just said to all of us, their ideas about the media were reinforced.

I know if must have been frightening to be around people yelling you and it’s not your responsibility to convince others and change hearts and minds. Still, people’s inability to justify their actions leads to further chaos. Just as they made their assumptions, you assumed that their passion would make them illogical. That’s not right either