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A pink rose garden. A landscaper trims a hedge.

Sometimes we just need a good hug and a good cry. That's most certainly what happened when a woman who goes by the name Lady Ak (@Ladya2thek) on TikTok was able to hug her beloved friend and landscaper, after he was detained and incarcerated by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

Rewinding a few days prior, she posted a video of all the wonderful work her landscaper, Fernando, had done in her garden. Under the chyron: "Our landscaper is not a criminal, but ICE took him away anyway," she gives a tour of the beautiful rose bushes, oranges, pears, marigolds, sunflowers, and more. She then asks, "Why am I showing y'all a video of my garden? I'm showing y'all because this morning, the man who planted all of this, built that garden bed, and has cultivated food and beauty for my family for the last few years, got deported this morning."

@ladya2thek

He was more like family....

She explains how her family met Fernando and how her husband reached out to him when they bought their first house. Her voice quivers as she continues. "When we moved in, our garden looked like this." She pans the camera from an empty cement square to a flower bed full of blooming flowers and fruit, "And Fernando did this."

In tears, she relays, "Now he's gone. He's headed to Mexico. His children live here. His wife is here. And the way I know that he's been deported today is because my husband is a police officer. And they locked him up in the jail my husband works in. And my husband couldn't even talk to him or tell him everything was gonna be okay."

Her empathy extends to her husband, as well. "I feel bad for my husband because I know this is really hard on him too. He's a really great guy, and a great officer. He's kind, he's compassionate, he's courteous."

 landscaping, garden, strawberries, fruit trees, gardening Red strawberries in a garden.  Photo by Oliver Hale on Unsplash  

Half a million likes and thousands of comments flooded her page. One TikToker writes, "Thank you to you and your husband for caring so much. We need more people with compassion like you. Thank you so much."

But it's the follow-up video that truly exemplifies the good in humans. Simply captioned, "We got Fernando back," we see the original poster hugging Fernando in a sweetly protective embrace. She writes, "Thank you to everyone who helped us get him back. We still have an uphill battle ahead, but we won't do it alone. Fernando is our family, and family fights for one another. Fernando is no criminal. He's a father, husband, and entrepreneur."

@ladya2thek

Thank you to everyone who helped us get him back. We still have an uphill battle ahead but we won't do it alone. Fernando is our family and family fights for one another. Fernando is no criminal. He's a father, husband and entrepreneur.

The first of tens of thousands of comments is: "That's my Dad!" And after quite a few messages back and forth, it would appear to be so. The OP writes, "We got your all, Liz."

Another family member vulnerably shares, "From the moment my father was detained, you and your family have shown us tremendous support and stuck by our side. We are extremely grateful to have Fernando back and fight this uphill battle. Thank you for all the support, we are grateful to have you guys in our corner."

The comment section continues to glow with love and support, not only for Fernando and his team, but for the woman and her law enforcement husband too. The idea that these bridges across all walks of life are being built, simply by looking out for one another, is a hopeful one. The two people in this embrace aren't bound by a political matter, but a human one.

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France's ban on the burkini might not last much longer.

France just learned that telling women what they can or cannot wear never ends well.

When Aheda Zanetti designed the burkini more than a decade ago, she did it for one very simple reason.

"I created them to stop Muslim children from missing out on swimming lessons and sports activities," the Australian-based designer told Politico. "There was nothing out there to suit their needs."

For the uninitiated, a burkini — a portmanteau of "burqa" and "bikini" — is essentially a full-coverage wetsuit that some Muslim women choose to wear for personal or religious reasons.


Australian-Lebanese designer Aheda Zanetti. Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images.

The burkini was a huge success, as Zanetti explains, because "[it] did wonders for Muslim women and girls. It created confidence to get active."

The swimsuit design has been in the news as it has come under attack in France.

Telling women what they can or cannot wear never ends well — and yet, that's what some parts of France are trying to do.

In mid-August, a number of cities in France began implementing bans on burkini swimsuits on local beaches.

Fitness instructor Fatma Taha models a burkini swimsuit. Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images.

Those who proposed the ban on burkinis claim the garment is a threat to others. But they're not. They're literally just pieces of swimwear.

In Cannes, the ban says that "access to beaches and for swimming is banned to anyone who does not have (swim wear) which respects good customs and secularism."

Cannes mayor David Lisnard, who introduced the local ban, said he did so to prohibit "beachwear ostentatiously showing a religious affiliation while France and places of religious significance are the target of terror attacks" as a means to avoid "trouble to public order."

Others have championed the bans as a move meant to empower women, claiming that the burkinis are a symbol of oppression. They're both wrong.

A woman wearing a burkini in Mahdia, Tunisia. Photo by Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images.

In the last week of August, a series of photos from a beach in Nice went viral, highlighting exactly what's wrong with the ban.

The photos show four police in Nice approaching an unnamed woman wearing a burkini on the beach. The officers hovered over her, forced her to publicly disrobe, and then fined her for violating the ban.

When you contrast that image with some of the reasons being trotted out in defense of the ban (like this one from French ambassador to the U.S. Gérard Araud), it's really hard to see the logic behind the ban.

Araud suggests that by banning the burkini, it's somehow liberating women from "a patriarchal, regressive and misogynistic clothing code." But if the ban is about respecting women, it's not quite clear how forcing a woman to publicly strip under penalty of law is empowering.

It also doesn't account for the fact that many women simply choose to wear the burkini the way other women might choose to wear a bikini or a one-piece suit based on what makes them feel comfortable.

Sometimes it seems like no matter what women do, no matter how they dress, there's just no way to win.

In recent days, the hashtag #WearWhatYouWant has gotten a lot of traction on Twitter to promote the idea that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about how they dress. In so many cases — whether it's dressing too modestly or too provocatively — women are derided for making these choices.

One French artist summed up the whole conundrum perfectly:

The good news is that the attempt to ban the burkini has failed — for now.

On Aug. 26, a French court suspended the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet (near Nice), ruling that these types of bans may only be implemented if there was a "proven risk" to the public. No such risk has been established.

While this doesn't affect the other 14 bans in effect around the country, this precedent will likely result in those being overturned as well in the near future.

A woman protests outside the French Embassy in London on Aug. 25, 2016, during a #WearWhatYouWant beach party. Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images.

Amnesty International lauded the court's decision, issuing a statement saying, "By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand."

Zanetti has hope for the future — not only about the burkini, but the way society treats women.

"It doesn’t matter why they make these choices," Zanetti added in her Politico interview. "The beach is there for everyone to enjoy. We are women. We should be able to wear whatever we want to and do whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it."

Three types of bathing suits. None more or less appropriate than the others. Photo by Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images.

Long live the burkini.