So my little cousin was selling water and didn’t have a permit so this lady decided to call the cops on an 8 year old. #PermitPatty pic.twitter.com/SiL61pnAgl
— Raj 🌹 (@_ethiopiangold) June 23, 2018
A white woman called the cops on an eight-year-old black girl because she was selling bottled water without a permit in the San Francisco Bay area just outside of AT&T Park during a Giants game. Video of the incident almost instantly achieved virality.
The clip itself is very brief–topping out at 15 seconds.
The footage opens with the girl’s older cousin tailing the white woman from a distance and narrating the situation. She says:
This woman don’t wanna let a little girl sell some water. She’s calling the police on an eight-year-old little girl. You can hide all you want; the world’s gonna see you, boo.
As the first bit of narration finishes, the white woman smirks before ducking behind a smallish wall.
The girl’s cousin turns the corner and the stooped white woman jolts to her feet. After apparently connecting with the San Francisco Police Department, the woman says, “Yeah and umm, illegally selling water without a permit. Yeah–”
The girl’s cousin interjects, “On my property.” The white woman then glances back and says, “It’s not your property.”
(An edited–five second longer–version of the video making its way across Facebook opens with the little girl in the frame, announcing her product and the price. She calls out, smiling, “Closed water for two dollars!”)
The Twitter version of the video is being widely shared and users on the micro-blogging site immediately likened the situation to a similar confrontation caught on camera in Oakland, California in early May. During that incident, a white woman called the police on a black family for barbecuing in a non-designated area and then cried on camera after being followed by one of the family members. Police showed up but no charges were ever filed.
May’s barbecue fiasco in Oakland resulted in the hashtag #BBQBecky and a series of memes gently mocking the woman. Saturday’s water-permit contretemps fared no better for the cop-caller involved.
The girl’s older cousin immediately supplied a hashtag which has already caught fire: #PermitPatty.
Ultimately, however, in this instance, the police declined to show up over the eight-year-old’s lack of permit.
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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