By Leslie Larson
With unprecedented candor, President Obama spoke about the prejudice he has faced as an African-American man — prompting Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Rosman to recall witnessing Obama being mistaken for a waiter at a Manhattan soiree 10 years ago.
Calling discrimination against black men “inescapable,” the President addressed the controversial acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case that has sparked massive outrage this week, surprising members of the press Friday during the White House briefing.
“There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. ..who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator.”
n response to the President’s deeply personal comments, the Wall Street Journal reporter reminded readers of an encounter with Obama in 2003, then a candidate for U.S. Senate, when he was mistaken for a waiter at a NYC gathering.
Some of the best and brightest of the New York literati attended the shindig, hosted by British journalist Tina Brown, to celebrate Sidney Blumenthal’s book “The Clinton Wars,” Rosman recounted in a 2008 blog posting entitled “Before He Was President.”
Rosman noticed Obama “as awkward and out-of-place…one of a few black people in attendance” at the party.
Filed under: News from the Soul Brother
