"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."
He may be President now, but Barack Obama says he’s a black man who has been mistaken for the valet.
“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,” Obama told People magazine in an interview out Wednesday. That happened to him, he said.
First lady Michelle Obama said her husband also once was mistaken for a
waiter at a black—tie party and asked for coffee. She said even when she
went to Target as first lady, a fellow shopper asked her to get
something from a shelf.
“I think people forget that we’ve lived in the White House for six
years,” she said. “Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived
on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching
cabs.”
The first couple spoke about their experiences with racism amid protests
nationwide over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and
Eric Garner in State Island, New York. The president said racial
relations have gotten better, but more progress is needed.
“The small irritations or indignities that we experience are nothing
compared to what a previous generation experienced,” Obama said. “It’s
one thing for me to be mistaken for a waiter at a gala. It’s another
thing for my son to be mistaken for a robber and to be handcuffed, or
worse, if he happens to be walking down the street and is dressed the
way teenagers dress.”
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