The young black American poet Amanda Gorman, famous since she recited a poem during the inauguration ceremony of Joe Biden, claims to have been followed, in her neighborhood, by a security agent who considered her “suspicious”.
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As she returned home on Friday night, the 22-year-old recounts on Twitter that she was accosted by the agent, who asked her if she lived well in the neighborhood. “You look suspicious,” he told her, according to his account.
She then showed him her keys before entering her building. “He left without apologizing,” she added, still on Twitter. “It’s the daily life of black girls: one day, they say you are an icon, the next day, a threat.”
Asked by AFP for more information on the incident, Amanda Gorman, whose Twitter account indicates that she lives in Los Angeles, did not immediately follow up.
Winner of several poetry competitions, graduate in sociology at Harvard, Amanda Gorman seduced America, and beyond, with her poem “The Hill We Climb” (the hill that we climb), recited on January 20 in Washington during of the inauguration ceremony of US President Joe Biden.
The poem was meant to be a message of hope and a call for unity addressed to a divided country.
Since the inauguration, she has signed a modeling contract with the IMG agency. She also has three books in preparation.