Muslim Women for Harris is disbanding
Got any spare brooms to hand? I think the folk at the Democratic national convention may need a few extra because they’ve been very busy this week trying to sweep the carnage in Gaza under the rug.
Hope and joy have been the big themes of the convention. On Wednesday, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, told the crowd that working to get Kamala Harris elected would mean “joy, joy, joy comes in the morning”. It is wonderful to see all this exuberance, all this optimism for a brighter future. But it is also impossible not to contrast the revelry in Chicago with the Biden administration-sponsored suffering coming out of Gaza.
Well, it’s impossible for some of us, anyway. For plenty of delegates at the convention, the suffering of Palestinians, the harrowing images on social media of charred babies and toddlers in Gaza whose heads have been caved in from US-manufactured bombs, seem to be nothing more than an annoying distraction. Pro-Palestinian protesters at the convention haven’t just been met with stony faces, they’ve been met with jeers and violence. One delegate inside the convention was caught on camera repeatedly hitting a Muslim woman in the head with a “We Love Joe” sign. The woman’s crime was that she had peacefully unfurled a banner saying “Stop Arming Israel”. It’s not clear who the man assaulting this woman was but one imagines he will not face any consequences.
To be fair, Gaza hasn’t been completely ignored. On Monday, there was a panel centered on Palestinian human rights, in which Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric doctor who treated patients in Gaza, talked about the horrors she had witnessed. But the panel, while important, wasn’t on the main stage. It wasn’t given star billing like the parents of the Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who gave an emotional speech on Wednesday. It felt a lot like pro-Palestinian activists had just been tossed a few crumbs.
For a brief moment, it did seem like a Palestinian might get a proper chance to speak. The Uncommitted National Movement, which launched an anti-war protest vote during the primaries, had been urging convention officials to include two Palestinian American speakers on the convention’s main stage. “We are learning that Israeli hostages’ families will be speaking from the main stage. We strongly support that decision and also strongly hope that we will also be hearing from Palestinians who’ve endured the largest civilian death toll since 1948,” the movement’s statement released on Tuesday read.
By Wednesday evening, however, it seemed clear that the convention had rejected these requests. In response, a group of uncommitted delegates staged a sit-in in front of Chicago’s United Center. Ilhan Omar joined the demonstration, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called in via FaceTime.
In light of the convention’s refusal to have a Palestinian American speaker, the group Muslim Women for Harris made the decision to disband and withdraw support for Harris. “The family of the Israeli hostage that was on the stage tonight, has shown more empathy towards Palestinian Americans and Palestinians, than our candidate or the DNC has,” Muslim Women for Harris’s statement read.
For those of us who have been cautiously optimistic that Harris might break from Joe Biden’s disastrous policy of unconditional support for Israel, this week has been bitterly disappointing. Whoever wins this election, it seems clear joy, joy, joy will not be coming to Gaza anytime soon. Just more bombs, bombs, bombs.
Dismiss ‘grannies’ as frail old biddies at your peril
Whether it’s “Nans against Nazis” protesting in Liverpool or the Raging Nannies getting arrested at US army recruitment centers, older women are some of the toughest activists out there, writes Sally Feldman.
Armed with a bucket and spade, Jenny Paterson undertook the resurfacing work against her doctor’s orders. She’d had surgery and wasn’t supposed to lift things but said: “I’m fine and I’m not a person to sit around and do nothing anyway.” Which has given me some inspiration to pick up a rake and go tackle the raggedy roads of Philadelphia.
The late Queen Elizabeth II thought Donald Trump was ‘very rude’
Apparently, she also “believed Trump ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife, Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him?”
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How Tanya Smith stole $40m, evaded the FBI and broke out of prison
The Guardian has a fascinating profile of Smith that touches on how the FBI couldn’t catch her for so long because they didn’t think a Black woman was capable of orchestrating her crimes. In Smith’s memoir, she recounts how one officer told her that “neeee-grroes murder, steal and rob, but they don’t have the brains to commit sophisticated crimes like this”.
A clueless Alicia Silverstone eats poisonous fruit off a bush
If you’re wandering the streets of London and see a bush in someone’s front garden with mysterious fruit on it, should you a) admire it and move on? Or b) reach through the fence and film a TikTok of yourself munching the lil street snack while asking whether anyone knows what the heck it is? This week, Silverstone chose option b. The woman thinks vaccines are dodgy and yet she has no problem sticking an unknown fruit into her mouth. Turns out it was toxic but Silverstone has confirmed she’s OK, which means we can all laugh at her without feeling too bad about it.
Women use ChatGPT 16%-20% less than their male peers
That’s according to two recent studies examined by the Economist. One explanation for this was that high-achieving women appeared to impose an AI ban on themselves. “It’s the ‘good girl’ thing,” one researcher said. “It’s this idea that ‘I have to go through this pain, I have to do it on my own and I shouldn’t cheat and take short-cuts.’” Very demure, very mindful.
Patriarchal law cuts some South African women off from owning their homes
Back in the 1990s, South Africa introduced a new land law (the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act) that was supposed to fix the injustices of apartheid. It upgraded the property rights of Black long-term leaseholders so they could own their homes. But only a man could hold the property permit, effectively pushing women out of inheriting. Since the 1990s, there have been challenges and changes to the Upgrading Act, but experts say that women’s property rights are still not sufficiently recognized and “customary law has placed women outside the law”.
The week in pawtriarchy
They stared into the void of an arcade game, and the void stared back. Punters at a Pennsylvania custard shop were startled when they realized that the cute little groundhog nestled among the stuffed animals in a mechanical-claw game was a real creature. Nobody knows exactly how he got into the game but he has since been rescued and named Colonel Custard. “It’s a good story that ended well,” the custard shop manager said. “He got set free. No one got bit.”