President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in a recent interview with People magazine spoke about how the president felt the sting of racism on many occasions before he became president.
“I think people forget that we’ve lived in the White House for six years,” Michelle told People.
The first lady spoke about how before her husband became the president of the United States, that he too was once “a Black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs,” she told the magazine.
The first couple’s comments came while their country is exploding in outrage after two grand juries declined to indict police officers for killing unarmed Black men.
“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 keys,” President Obama said.
The first lady also mentioned a black tie dinner where someone asked Obama to get him coffee.
The president did say that he and his wife’s experiences didn’t compare to the previous generation, and that it could be worse.
“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,” the president told People.
