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Amanda Gorman gives unforgettable response after being stopped by ‘suspicious’ security guard

Amanda Gorman gives unforgettable response after being stopped by ‘suspicious’ security guard

Joe Biden’s inaugural poet Amanda Gorman has revealed that a security guard followed her home because he thought she looked “suspicious”.

The former National Youth Poet Laureate said that a man tailed her on her walk home on Friday and demanded to know if she lived at her property.

“A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight. He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious,’” Gorman wrote on Twitter.

“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.”

In a follow-up tweet, the poet and activist 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.”

The 22-year-old poet rose to international acclaim after she became the youngest person to perform a poem at a presidential inauguration, when she read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s ceremony in January.

On Friday night, Gorman received support on social media for speaking out over the incident, with users thanking her for sharing her experience:

Her follow-up tweet also went viral, with one Twitter user suggesting the quote belonged on classroom walls.

More: As a human rights activist, I began to realise that the US is based on systemic racism

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