Tanya Petty, who has been identified as the white woman in a viral TikTok video who confronted a Black fisherman at a lake in his own Georgia neighborhood, was reportedly fired from her job after the incident.
In the video, filmed by the fisherman, the woman—later identified on YouTube as Petty—approaches him to ask if he and the woman accompanying him are residents. She then adds that the lake "is presently for residents only" and that he should move away.
The fisherman, whose TikTok handle is @Fishingbay2ga, says to the camera that Petty was the third white person to bother him while he was fishing and telling him to leave the neighborhood, though he was a resident. "I'm in my own neighborhood and a white person came and bothered me while I'm fishing," he says. "This is the third time."
The woman asks him not to film her but backs off and walks away after the man replies that it is within his right to film her on his phone.
The video, posted earlier this week, contains an on-screen caption that reads, "Black man fishing problem," expressing the man's frustration at being harassed by his white neighbors. The clip was viewed over 3 million times on TikTok. In a later video, a white man approaches him to ask again if the two are residents.
Petty was identified by a YouTube user as a massage therapist working as an independent contractor at Sea Glass Therapy, a Newnan, Georgia-based company offering counseling and personal therapy. Petty's Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, which appeared in the YouTube video, have now been made private or taken offline.
@fishingbay2ga I Get harassed when i Go fishing because these privileged people don’t think i live in this nice neighborhood! #racistneighborhood #fishinggonewrong #ijustwanttofish #oldladyharrassingme #iliveinthisneighborhood
♬ original sound - fishingbay2ga
While Petty has apparently not commented on the incident, Sea Glass Therapy, which employed her, announced that it had dismissed the woman following the controversy around the TikTok video.
"Sea Glass Therapy is a place of acceptance, healing, and inclusion of all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or background," the company wrote in a statement shared on social media earlier this week.
"We stand against discrimination of all forms. We have terminated our business relationship with the independent contractor, Tanya, in order to uphold our values and standards. We strive to be a service to our community and do whatever we can to accommodate the needs of it, operating with integrity."
The company accompanied the statement specifying that Petty was fired "in response to the video containing a contractor who was working with us."
Newsweek reached out to Sea Glass Therapy for comment.
