Progressive NYC Chef Angela Dimayuga Shuts Down IvankaTrump.com Interview Request

Angela Dimayuga, executive chef at New York City’s Mission Chinese Food, publicly responded to a request for an interview on the IvankaTrump.com website with an emphatic 'no, thanks.' 

The chef noted that she could not differentiate between the brand and President Trump, writing: “So long as the name Trump is involved, it is political.”

Read Dimayuga’s response in full below, via Forward:

Thank you for thinking of me. I’m glad you are a fan of my work so much that you want to provide more visibility for my career to inspire “other working women.” However, I’m for women who actually empower other women.

I don’t believe that IvankaTrump.com is truly “a non-political platform of empowerment for [women]”. So long as the name Trump is involved, it is political and frankly, an option for the IvankaTrump.com business to make a profit.

I don’t see anything empowering about defunding Planned Parenthood, barring asylum from women refugees, rolling back safeguards for equal pay, and treating POC/LGBT and the communities that support these groups like second class citizens.

As a queer person of color and daughter of immigrant parents I am not interested in being profiled as an aspirational figure for those that support a brand and a President that slyly disparages female empowerment. Sharing my story with a brand and family that silences our same voices is futile.

Thank you for the consideration.

2017 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon Doubles Entries Of Women Artists

Editors at work at the 2016 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the Museum of Modern Art. Courtesy of Marily Konstantinopoulou via Wikimedia Commons.

The fourth annual 2017 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon happened in over 200 events held around the world in March 2017. Over 2,500 global participants edited the inclusion of over 6,500 women artists with new or expanded Wiki entries. Created after a 2011 survey confirmed that less than 10 percent of Wikipedia contributors were women, the 2017 events nearly doubled the impact of the 2016 campaign. 

“We were heartened by the response to our call to arms to fight against disinformation and fake news with facts,” Art+Feminism organizers Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, McKensie Mack, and Michael Mandiberg told ArtNet News. “We continue to be inspired by all the dedicated folks who make room in their busy schedules to share skills and improve a collectively held resource like Wikipedia.”

Among the new entries in Wikipedia are Hannah Black, who called for Dana Schutz's 'Open Casket', the Emmett Till painting at the center of the 2017 Whitney Biennial controversy, to be destroyed.

Ultraviolet O'Reilly Protest Hires NYC Plane To Fly “FOX: #DROPOREILLY, THE SEXUAL PREDATOR” Banner

Fox News star Bill O'Reilly is on a previously-scheduled two week vacation and won't be around to see the Manhattan flyover by women's rights group UltraViolet on Tuesday. The group will lead a protest with women survivors of sexual assault outside Fox headquarters on Tuesday, April 18th, preparing to deliver a petition signed by more than 140,000 people calling for O'Reilly's resignation.  In addition, the group has commissioned a plane to fly around Manhattan with a banner reading “FOX: #DROPOREILLY, THE SEXUAL PREDATOR.”

O’Reilly, who is scheduled to be on air again on April 24, has been under siege since a New York Times report surfaced stating that five women had received payments coming to about $13 million.  In exchange for the settlements, the women and their lawyers agreed not to pursue litigation or speak about accusations related to sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior by O’Reilly.  In a statement the star, host who just renewed his contract with Fox,  said his fame had made him a target, but that no complaint about him had ever been made through Fox’s human-resources hotline.

LA radio personality and author Wendy Walsh is at the center of the latest Fox News scandal, charging that O'Reilly propositioned her in a LA hotel in 2013 and then retaliated against her when she rebuffed him. Part of the New York Times interview, Walsh has no signed documents with Fox and is seeking no compensation or even a lawsuit.

The Washington Post writes that the Walsh allegation is potentially the most explosive of all, catching Fox News in a total surprise. Responding to O'Reilly claims that no one has ever called the recently-installed Fox News hotline to complain about him -- an action that would force an investigation -- the Walsh team went into action. 

In 2016, Fox News severed ties with Roger Ailes, who built the cable news channel to new heights of viewership and profitability, over the issue of sexual harassment. Now mounting pressures demand that O'Reilly leave the Fox boys club over his own soiled reputation. 

In an open letter to Fox News CEO James Murdoch, Ultraviolet warned that his network was cementing itself "as a company where rape culture not only thrives but is promoted to viewers."

The letter also states: "The lurid details of Mr. O'Reilly's crimes, and Fox News' role in protecting him while systematically destroying the women he has victimized, are disturbing yet completely unsurprising, We know firsthand that survivors of sexual crimes are silenced, shamed, and vilified by perpetrators and onlookers, and 21st Century Fox has gone as far as to protect O'Reilly from his accusers with monetary payouts."