Connotatively, sure. Denotatively, no.

I do partially see with your point about MIA—she does already have some history of activism related to Islam. But isn't that what we're comparing? One of the things that established that history? Still, she is not Muslim and her culture is not Islamic. So I do wonder why predominantly non-Muslim women think it's…

Because all brown people are Muslim? There's another thread on here pointing out that MIA is not Muslim herself. Her immediate family is Hindu & Christian. The regional contexts she comes from are countries that are primarily Christian (UK) and Buddhist (Sri Lanka). She also has the cultural context of the Tamil…

I can't resist...

Question on this,

Is it only never okay for white people?

I think it's necessary to distinguish between an explanation and a justification, then between a justification and universal exoneration, for one thing.

Yeah, I'm not sure if that's the precise historical reason for it, but smoking tends to be a somewhat...ritualistic...behavior. When people learn "how" to smoke, flicking the the butt is part of it. There is a technique to it, even.

Dude, I heard that too. Even though we had halfway decent sex ed. Not perfect, but a lot of it (4 different school years, sometimes parts were sex-integrated), and mostly correct.

Trust me, as someone who has repeatedly experienced personal violence, when you're confronted with a crisis it's not as simple as thinking to yourself, "best thing to do is walk away."

But isn't that sort of the point? That we've remained so segregated in person and so unequally represented in media that white women know nothing about "black hair"?

I have the same experience. It's like if I go without for a while my libido sort of shuts down. But there are lots of other factors that probably contribute to the effect.

As a society we have defined certain expectations and behaviors: norms. Some behavior outside of those norms are odd, but acceptable. Some are rude, but not criminal. Others are criminal, or possibly should be.