President Obama has revealed that he has in the past been mistaken for a car-parking valet, in a frank interview on everyday racism in the US. “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,” he told People magazine. Michelle Obama recalled another incident, when he was mistaken for a waiter. “He was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get a coffee,” she said. She added that he’d also struggled to get cabs when they lived in Chicago – and that even since becoming first lady, she has been mistaken for a shop worker.