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Just two months ago, Amanda Gorman made history as the youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration when she performed her poem, “The Hill We Climb.” Making history couldn’t save her from being racially profiled. On March 5, the 22-year-old took to Twitter to share that she was racially profiled at her own home.
“A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight,” she wrote on Twitter. “He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious.’ I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat.”
Gorman added that she is indeed a threat, but not a dangerous one.
“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,” she added.
After Gorman revealed what happened, her followers offered her support.
“I am sorry this happened to you!,” one follower tweeted Gorman. “Black people should be able to enter their apartments w/o looking suspicious to white people. We are NOT living in the Jim Crow era. Those days are over. It’s messed that this is the modern way of them telling us we “don’t belong in their space.”
One follower even offered a tip on how Gorman can reply if it happens again.
“If this ever happens again and someone says “you look suspicious “, please reply with “Oh, I thought you were going to say I looked familiar. You may have seen me on January 20th on just about every TV channel. I spoke at President Biden’s Inauguration. Have a good evening.“
After achieving a first at president Biden and vice president Harris’ inauguration, Gorman took her talents to the 2021 Super Bowl and performed the poem “Chorus of the Captains.” She was also tapped to be a model with the agency IMG Models, which is also home to Chrissy Teigen, GiGi Hadid and Naomi Osaka.
