US poet Amanda Gorman says security guard labelled her 'suspicious'
"This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat"
Amanda Gorman, the young poet who rose to international prominence after performing at President Joe Biden's inauguration, has spoken out against a security guard's alleged racial profiling.
On Twitter, the 22-year-old said she was approached on her way home on Friday and told "you look suspicious," reports the BBC/
"This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat," she wrote.
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Gorman's performance of The Hill We Climb earned her critical acclaim.
Gorman described being "tailed" by the security guard on Twitter, who she said did not apologize after she was able to prove she lived in her own apartment building.
In revealing her experience, she re-shared a post she made in February which said: "We live in a contradictory society that can celebrate a black girl poet & also pepper spray a 9 yr old" - in reference to a recent incident in Rochester, New York.
"Yes see me, but also see all other black girls who've been made invisible. I can not, will not, rise alone."
In a second tweet about the incident, Gorman added: "In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance."
The BBC has contacted her for further comment.
Gorman's social media posts have been widely shared - highlighted as an example of the every day prejudice faced by black people in the US.
"Let this story sink in," Mark Keam, a state legislator in Virginia, tweeted. "And realise how - while I'm glad it ended safe for @TheAmandaGorman - this type of confrontation is an every day occurrence for millions of our fellow Americans."
In her inauguration poem, Gorman described herself as "a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find her self reciting for one".
Born in Los Angeles in 1998, Gorman became the city's youth poet laureate at 16. Three years later, while studying sociology at Harvard, she was named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate.
She was the youngest poet to ever perform at a presidential inauguration and her performance was praised by influential national figures, including former First Ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.
