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The story behind #PermitPatty
On Saturday in an Instagram post, a woman said her 8-year-old daughter was selling water outside an apartment building in San Francisco when a white woman threatened to call the police because the child didn’t have a permit. The mother recorded the woman, later identified as Alison Ettel, the chief executive of a company that specializes in cannabis for animals. In the video, Ettel is seen on her cellphone.
The video was shared repeatedly on social media with the hashtag #PermitPatty, as people discussed how race played a role in Ettel’s decision-making. The 8-year-old girl who was selling water is biracial, her mother, Erin Austin, told an NBC affiliate in the Bay Area. The girl was trying to earn money for a trip to Disneyland.
there are so many layers to unpack re: a white female entrepreneur trying to block a young black child from making her own money moves #PermitPatty
— Zeba Blay (@zblay) June 23, 2018
Austin said she’s “upset” that her daughter “had to go through this.” The police never came after Ettel made the phone call, she said. Meanwhile Ettel told HuffPost that “this has no racial component to it” and she only “pretended” to call the police. Ettel said she was talking to the building’s security guard on the phone. She had been complaining about the water stand because of the noise.
“It was literally nonstop,” Ettel told HuffPost. “It was every two seconds, ‘Come and buy my water.’ It was continuous and it wasn’t a soft voice, it was screaming.”
She Built NYC aims to make more monuments featuring women
More public artwork honoring women’s history is coming to New York City. Last week, the city launched She Built NYC, giving New Yorkers until Aug. 1 to nominate women or historical events they would like to see recognized. The subject of a new monument will be announced in January, along with the artist who will work on the project.
Va. restaurant owner asks Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen, a 26-seat restaurant in Lexington, Va., on Friday evening. Red Hen co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson approached Sanders’s table, where she was dining with a group of people. Wilkinson pulled Sanders aside, she told The Washington Post.
“I was babbling a little, but I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion,” Wilkinson said. “I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion and cooperation. I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.’ ”
Sanders was polite and agreed to go, Wilkinson said. She went back to the table, picked up her things and walked out. The other guests also decided to leave. They offered to pay, but Wilkinson said it was “on the house,” she recalled.
Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 23, 2018
When a Red Hen server shared the incident on Facebook, commenters praised and expressed anger at the restaurant’s decision. Some took to the establishment’s Yelp page, which is now being monitored closely by the tech company. In Lexington, there were mixed reviews. “Boo, Red Hen!” and “Yay, Trump!” were shouted from the windows of passing cars. A Lexington resident brought a bouquet of flowers to the restaurant. The person’s hand-lettered sign read, “Democracy requires principled gov’t. Thank you Red Hen!!”
Young Jean Lee will be the first female Asian American playwright on Broadway
On June 29, Young Jean Lee will become the first Asian American woman to have a play debut on Broadway. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, “Straight White Men” takes place at Christmastime, when a father and his three sons contemplate their lives and privilege. Lee, a Korean American playwright, explores the idea of how “straight white man” has gone from being the default to a label.
“I think it’s useful to write about straight white men from a non-straight-white-male perspective,” Lee told the Women’s Media Center. “Unlike people from other identity groups, they haven’t been constantly forced all their lives to be aware of the fact that they’re straight white men and what that means. But that’s slowly starting to change, especially with the younger generations.”
Five Indian anti-trafficking activists raped
Five Indian women were gang-raped at gunpoint after performing a street play to raise awareness about human trafficking, the BBC reported. After their performance, the women went to a nearby school, where a group of armed men forcibly abducted and raped them, police said. The five women are now under police protection.
The incident took place in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, where two teen girls were raped and set on fire over the course of one week in May.
Iranian women watch World Cup in the same stadium as men
On Wednesday, women entered Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to watch a live broadcast of Iran’s World Cup match against Spain. It was a historic occasion, given that women have been banned from watching men’s sporting events in Iran since 1980.
Despite being able to watch Wednesday’s broadcast, the ban is still in place, prompting Iranian women to stage demonstrations in St. Petersburg, where the World Cup is taking place and women are free to enter stadiums. During Friday’s match between Iran and Morocco, fans held up posters and spoke out against the ban.
One poster, held by a man and woman, read: “4,127 km to be at this stadium as a family.”
In an open letter to FIFA from the Center for Human Rights in Iran, high-profile women asked that soccer’s governing body hold their country accountable. FIFA should “demand that the Islamic Republic permanently end the ban on female attendance,” the letter said.
Women permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive for the first time on Sunday, and more than 120,000 women have applied for licenses, the government said. The country’s ban on women behind the wheel was the last of its kind in the world. Women still need to get permission from a male relative to travel and work.
Saudi women have fought for the right to drive for decades, and some suffered imprisonment and harassment as they campaigned for their rights. Despite the new law and some progress, the Saudi government has continued to arrest women’s rights activists.
U.S. Open to change seeding process
Starting with this year’s tournament, the U.S. Open will not penalize players whose rankings have tumbled because of pregnancy-related breaks from the game in awarding seeds for its women’s field. The decision follows criticism leveled at French Open officials in May for not seeding Serena Williams, a three-time champion of the tournament, in her return to competition after giving birth to a daughter in September.
“We have top players who exemplify womanhood, becoming mothers, and are not being allowed to return following their pregnancy with a record that reflects that,” said Katrina Adams, president and chief executive of the U.S. Tennis Association. It is still unclear how the USTA will fairly determine Williams’s seed for the upcoming tournament, which begins Aug. 27.
On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order to halt the family separation process he created, but at least 2,500 children have already been taken from their parents and sent to shelters in the past five weeks. The federal government uses about 100 shelters to house children who were separated from their parents or crossed the border unaccompanied.
Facilities holding the children are not owned and operated by the federal government. Instead, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates within the Department of Health and Human Services, awards grants to nonprofit organizations.
The Texas Tribune has compiled a list of organizations that are working to help children separated from their families. Some are looking for volunteers.
Last week in Pennsylvania, Duquesne City Mayor Nickole Nesby was one of many who gathered to remember 17-year-old Antwon Rose Jr. Rose was fatally shot by police on Tuesday in East Pittsburgh.
Protests continued throughout the week in Pittsburgh, despite occasional rain.
On the night he was shot, Rose was in a car that authorities said matched a witness description of a vehicle that had been involved in a nearby drive-by shooting. When an officer stopped the car, Rose and the driver of the vehicle fled. The officer fired three rounds as the two ran, striking Rose “several” times. Rose was unarmed. Two firearms were recovered from the vehicle, and the surviving person, a 20-year-old male, was taken in for questioning. He was later released.
A graphic video of the incident shows Rose falling to the ground. The woman recording the incident can be heard saying, “All they did was run, and they’re shooting at them.”
‘Daria’ returns with a focus on Jodie Landon
Grace Edwards, a writer for the “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” is bringing “Daria” back to television. Last week, MTV Studios announced it would create a new version of the animated classic, which premiered in 1997 and followed the intelligent, sarcastic and cynical Daria Morgendorffer as she navigated teenage life at Lawndale High alongside her best friend, Jane Lane. But the revival will focus on one of Daria’s other classmates: Jodie Landon. In the original series, Jodie was an outspoken and driven student who talked about being her school’s token black girl. The revival — tentatively called “Daria & Jodie” — will follow Daria and Jodie as they “take on the world” and deconstruct “popular culture, social classes, gender and race.”
Petsfit Comfort Dogs Carriers Backpack
I have weird guilt for leaving my cat at home alone all the time, so I bought this backpack to take him outside this summer. It’s perfect not only as a more comfortable option to take small pets to the vet, but the sides completely unzip so it also serves as a little shelter. It’s comfortable to wear while walking, and the mesh sides seem a lot more friendly than sticking him in an enclosed bag. The product is, however, for people comfortable with getting odd looks from walking around with your cat on your back.
