NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Former first lady Michelle Obama interviewed Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate who read "The Hill We Climb" at Joe Biden's inauguration, for the new issue of Time magazine which pays tribute to Black artists.
"Like the rest of the country, I was profoundly moved as I watched you read," Obama told Gorman. "The power of your words blew me away—but it was more than that. It was your presence onstage, the confidence you exuded as a young Black woman helping to turn the page to a more hopeful chapter in American leadership."
Obama continued, "No matter how many speaking engagements I do, big audiences always trigger a little bit of impostor syndrome in me."
This is where the pair bonded, with Gorman admitting that she too has bouts with imposter syndrome, which refers to believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be.
"Speaking in public as a Black girl is already daunting enough," Gorman told Obama. "Just coming onstage with my dark skin and my hair and my race—that in itself is inviting a type of people that have not often been welcomed or celebrated in the public sphere. Beyond that, as someone with a speech impediment, that impostor syndrome has always been exacerbated because there’s the concern, Is the content of what I’m saying good enough? And then the additional fear, Is the way I’m saying it good enough?"
Gorman added, "For Black women, there’s also the politics of respectability —despite our best attempts, we are criticized for never being put-together enough; but when we do, we’re too showy. We’re always walking this really tentative line of who we are and what the public sees us as. I’m handling it day by day."
Related
Related
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram