I hope this email finds you hydrated.
If you missed last week’s newsletter, I interviewed Toms Juice NYC. Tom makes delish cold-pressed juice and hops on his bike and hand-delivers it to you. You can read it here!
& maybe subscribe if you haven’t already?
grand opening!
Remember when I interviewed Tired Thrift? Their dreams of opening a brick-and-mortar location have come true ✨ Today is their grand opening at 10 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11222 (in Greenpoint, right at the top of McCarren Park). Go check out their fantastically curated and ACTUALLY AFFORDABLE vintage clothing and accessories. Tell Ledi and Elona that I sent you 😉 Also watch this TikTok of their space :)
add to cart!
Thanks to subscriber and bestie Anne Homans for showing me Source Unknown, an online store where you can find trendy pieces at a more affordable price. Can be described as “Paloma Wool type shit.”
Everyone wants that perf black square toe heeled boot and I’ve found it!!!!
I forgot I owned this necklace, which is probably a sign of a bad purchase lol. But get your initials on a chain in cool Bauhaus letters! Comes in silver too.
I know none of us need more tote bags…but here is a good one, and another larger one, and we all know about this one, but it deserves to be mentioned!
if you still don’t get it, she tells you at 2:38
Just guess who this text is from.
thank you for donating!
Every month I choose an organization to raise funds for + match up to $50. September’s organization was The Bail Project™. Here is a quick and easy post that explains America’s cash bail system.
Thank you so much to everyone who donated! Together we raised $135 :)
this month’s organization:
This month I’m collecting donations for P.A.’L.A.N.T.E. (People Against Landlord Abuse and Tenant Exploitation) Harlem, Inc. P.A.’L.A.N.T.E. is a nonprofit based in New York advocating for tenant rights and working to reduce poverty. They also provide free or reduced-rate legal services to those affected by tenant exploitation. Read more about them here.
Venmo me at @elisebang (email me if you prefer a different method) and at the end of every month, I’ll match up to $50.
feature of the week: @uhhhhmad
Ahmad is an old friend who runs a Twitter account that became relatively popular, seemingly out of nowhere. I don’t need to inflate his ego any more 🙄, but I thought this would make a fun interview.
A funny anecdote: The first time I ever visited NYC was with Ahmad, and literally my first meal in the largest and most iconic city in the country was at the Popeye’s in Bushwick (note: Chicago has multiple Popeye’s locations), which I ended up living very close to when I first moved here. Actually now that I think about it, we had Popeye’s TWICE on that trip omg.
Hi! What is @uhhhhmad for those who don't already know?
“Oh god, this is so formal LMFAO. I don’t know. I like to think I’m a Twitter baddie, but really I’m just a Muslim Caucasian of color who tweets funny (very rarely actually funny) commentary on politics, current events, and just general nonsense, and people have seemed to somewhat enjoy it over the past year or two. I’ve been actively tweeting random shit since 2015, but I would say I started to gain more attention this past year especially during Bernie’s primary run. I was going all-in for Bernard Mohammad Sanders, so a lot of the people that follow me probably came from that Bernie primary run era…..RIP. Before that, I was doing the usual Twitter jokes; dunking on white people, trying my best to incite a race war.”
Why is Twitter your main medium of choice?
“Idk I feel like it’s easy to find people who have similar interests as you on Twitter. As opposed to Instagram, where it’s just like the same light skin conventionally attractive people posting pictures of themselves on Portrait Mode. We will abolish the Instagram industrial complex and free our people from the shackles that lizard Mark Zuckerburg has put them in inshAllah. Anyway, I also feel like people are more prone to be themselves on Twitter which can be cool, but can also suck cause some people do be Nazis.”
What are some of your favorite moments on Twitter?
“Lmao I think my interaction with Rabia Chaudry is definitely up there. She’s like this blue check liberal who’s a CVE proponent and helped the US government surveil the Muslim community post 9/11. I got in Twitter beef with her when I randomly called her a cop and she got extremely butt hurt over it, which was so funny. Like this woman was DMing and tweeting about me at like 1AM. Like ma’am please, you are in your 30s.
Yeah, she’s wack as hell lmao this one time she threatened to sue this group of teenage activists because they called her out on CVE involvement. Yeah anyway, she blocked me…
Oh another top moment was when Jon Favreau from Pod Save America blocked me cause I tweeted “Allah Save America.” Which, now that I think about it, seems pretty Islamophobic, but I will let the readers be the judges of that.”
In what ways have you used your platform to amplify causes that you care about?
“Hmm, I feel like something cool I got to be a part of was the hashtag #MuslimsforBernie. I helped boost that with other Muslim progressives. It was super rewarding to see how big the hashtag had gotten and how so many people shared their personal stories about why they supported a Bernie Sanders presidency. The hashtag was trending at one point and oomf (one of my followers) Congresswoman Ilhan Omar even used it at one point. She also liked my pictures I dropped on Eid, but I won’t get into that 👀 👀
I also got to raise money for Covid Relief Packages in Pakistan through this organization called PaaniProject this past Ramadan. We were able to provide COVID relief packages to over a thousand families in Pakistan. For the record, I am not trying to eat my own ass. This was just something wholesome that came from using my “Twitter platform.”
Any hopes, goals, or dreams for yourself / @uhhhhmad?
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m just praying the FBI doesn’t show up to my house one day. I feel like I’m gonna be at a job interview one day and they’ll pull up one of my tweets that’s like “Osama bin Laden was a 6’5 baddie” or like “Spiderman could’ve stopped 9/11 why didn’t he” and then I’m gonna have to sit there and explain myself.
Ok, this is the last question before I leave, I would like to say…Free Palestine inshAllah.”
Follow Ahmad on Twitter at @uhhhhmad.
hahhahahdiiurfwe
The Election EditionThe Sociology of Business
”How not to get lost this week” by Ana Andjelic.
7 of Julia Roberts' most iconic outfits i-D
90s fall fashion inspo! Whenever I go home my mom is always like “A lot of the things you wear look like things I used to wear when I was younger,” and I’m like cool can I have it, and she’s always like “lol I threw it away.”
The Magnificent Nonchalance Of Mr Dev Hynes Mr Porter
I would die for this man!!! A lil thing on the guy behind one of my favorite artists, Blood Orange.
same time next week?
Thanks for reading! It means a lot 🥺
Here is a hint for next week’s guest: 🏀🎾👕👖
Is there anything you wanna see in a future newsie? Shoot me an email at eliseabang@gmail.com, Tweet me, or DM me on Instagram.
Talk to you next week! (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
Please continue the RPatt updates