Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman Says She Was Racially Profiled Outside Her Home

Poet Amanda Gorman was racially profiled outside her own apartment, she revealed on social media Friday.

“A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight,” wrote the Los Angeles-based 22-year-old. “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,” added Gorman, who earned rave reviews with her recital of her original poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January. She later performed at the 2021 Super Bowl.

Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, said that “in a sense, he was right.”

“I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance,” she said. “Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.”

“A threat and proud,” Gorman concluded.