Sometimes it doesn’t matter who you are when it comes to being racially discriminated against, including Amanda Gorman, the poet who won over America after giving a stellar performance at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
On Friday, Gorman posted about her racially motivated encounter with a security guard who followed her home and told her she looked “suspicious.”
Gorman,22, went to Twitter to call out the security guard, saying the incident was emblematic of “the reality of black girls” in the US, in which “one day you’re called an icon” but the next day considered a threat.
In another tweet, she added, “In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.”
In February, the Los Angeles native spoke out about another incident in Rochester, New York. “We live in a contradictory society that can celebrate a black girl poet & also pepper spray a 9 yr old.” The incident led to protests and the suspension of three officers.
The Guardian contacted Gorman for further comment on the recent incident, but she did not say the ethnic origin of the guard.
“Let this story sink in. And realize how – while I’m glad it ended safe for Amanda Gorman – this type of confrontation is an every day occurrence for millions of our fellow Americans,” Virginia legislator Mark Keam tweeted.
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