Barack Obama: ‘I’ve been mistaken for a valet and a waiter’
Michelle Obama: ‘I’ve been asked to grab items from a shelf at Target’
The United States’ first African-American president, Barack Obama, and the First Lady, Michelle Obama, have revealed that they too have been a victim of racial biases.
Speaking to People magazine on Wednesday (17 December), the US President said: “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”
“There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”
– Barack Obama
First Lady, Michelle Obama, joined in the conversation by recalling her own experience at a Target store recently, when she was asked by a shopper to take something down from a shelf.
“I think people forget that we’ve lived in the White House for six years. Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs,” said Michelle Obama.
“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new.”