US poet who performed at Biden's inaugural 'tailed' by security guard tailed for 'looking suspicious'

The first youth poet laureate of United States, Amanda Gorman, acclaimed for her performance at President Joe Biden's inauguration, has said that she was "tailed" on her way home and confronted by a security guard who alleged that she looked suspicious.

"A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight. He demanded if I lived there because 'you look suspicious.' I showed my keys and buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology," Gorman wrote in a social media post on Friday.

Gorman said that "This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat."

Later, she said in a tweet, "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. A threat and proud."

Gorman who turned 23 on Sunday was nationally acclaimed when she recited her poem, "The Hill We Climb," at President Joe Biden's inaugural ceremony on January 21.

In her inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb, Gorman described herself as "a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find her self reciting for one".

( With inputs from ANI )