Michelle Obama’s Brother Recalls The “Heartbreaking” Time Chicago Police Accused Him Of Stealing His Own Bike

Michelle Obama is no stranger to discrimination.

On a recent Michelle Obama podcast, the forever first lady reflected on the “heartbreaking” time when her brother Craig Robinson was 10 years old and accused of stealing is own bike by Chicago police.

Mrs. Obama, 56, invited her mother, Marian Robinson, 83, and Craig, who is now 58, to discuss police brutality. The trio recounted their own experience of discrimination, PageSix reports.

At the time, Craig owned a yellow 10-speed bike that his parents bought for him at Goldblatt’s in Chicago. Craig remembered two Chicago officers stopping him while he was riding his bike. “This guy grabbed my bike, and he wouldn’t let it go,” he said, as he recalled the officers asking him questions to purposefully trip him up.

“It was terrifying only because I was always taught that the police are your friends, and they’ll believe the truth,” Craig added. “I was absolutely heartbroken. And I finally said to him, ‘Listen, you can take me to my house, and I will prove to you this is my bike.’”

And that’s just what the cops did, took him back to the Robinson home where his mother Marian stood—with a “tight lip” ready to defend him.

Marian confronted the police officers, who were both black, on why they kept pressuring her son, and one finally admitted that he knew Craig was telling the truth about the bike.

Craig called the experience “heartbreaking,” mainly because he knew the cops were trying to “trip” him up when interrogating him about where he got the bike.

Mrs. Obama said the incident was an underscore of the reality Black Americans face in their encounters with law enforcement. “When you leave that safety of your home and go out into the street, where being black is a crime in and of itself, we have all had to learn how to operate,” she said.