People Magazine: Michelle Obama Had 'Racist' Experience at Alexandria Target

By Mary Ann Barton (Patch Staff)

In an interview with People magazine hitting the newsstands, first lady Michelle Obama says that during a 2011 trip to the Target store in Alexandria, she was asked by a customer to help get something from a shelf.

The Obamas talked with the magazine about dealing with “racist experiences,” as the magazine described it. The story is headlined: “The Obamas: How We Deal With Our Own Racist Experiences.”

The store is located at the Potomac Yards shopping center off of Route 1 in Alexandria, just across the river from Washington, D.C.

“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new,” Michelle Obama, who is 5’11”, told the magazine.

Michelle Obama said President Obama has been asked at a dinner, when he was wearing a tux, to get coffee.

The president told the magazine: “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 car keys.”

The magazine billed the interview, which they said took place last week, as one that included “encounters with racial prejudice.”

“The protective bubble that comes with the presidency – the armored limo, the Secret Service detail, the White House – shields Barack and Michelle Obama from a lot of unpleasantness. But their encounters with racial prejudice aren’t as far in the past as one might expect. And they obviously still sting,” the magazine wrote.

The Obamas have traveled across the Potomac to visit Alexandria on numerous occasions including visits to several restaurants in Del Ray and Old Town.

Photo is a screen shot from a recent appearance by first lady Michelle Obama and President Obama; courtesy of the White House