Yeah I’m all for breaking down barriers and destroying prejudices but... At the end of the day it’s still judging women on their looks.

I am not a big fan of pageants, but I think, given that they exist and will probably continue to exist for some while, there’s nothing wrong with using a pageant as a forum to spread a message of inclusivity. A lot of people who watch pageants are probably the same people who have never met a Muslim and only know them…

I think she’s doing her best to try and provide a positive example of her faith and culture where she can to masses who might otherwise not see someone in a hijab or a “burkini”, but I’m also firmly of the belief that beauty pageants are outdated, sexist, and harmful. So... I guess good for her for trying to combat…

I really want to feel positive about this. But. I’m struggling with feeling positive about beauty pageants? I get why this is a feel-good story and baby steps toward normalizing the “other.” I just can’t cheer for it being in the context “but they can be pretty too!”

She can’t take her skin colour off.

But the thing is that Muslims doing stuff that notable and normal is a big deal, American Muslims are living in country where they know that so many hate them, her being in a pageant is not directed at you but to all the young Muslim women who dealt with hijab being pulled off or being told they are not beautiful. But…

Damn, look at that fabric.

Yes all this! Awesome article, Lauren!

Seriously, this is not thorough account of the story and Lorenz is not a reliable narrator. She spent her life in the spy business and told, and sold, many contradictory and highly dramatic versions of her relationship with Castro. Given that many, many women threw themselves at him for decades and no one else had a…

Good old Delta, where they’ll kick you off a plane for being Muslim and not believe you’re a doctor if you’re a Black woman but this is NBD.

Better yet, what if it were another white guy who sat him down/knocked him out? His whole worldview could be crushed, because he’d never see it coming from one of his own. It might just help him realize that there is no such thing as impunity for repugnance.  

I’m college-educated, white and female and I once kicked a guy in the shoulder for texting in a movie theater. He was so startled he didn’t do anything but stop.

Compare that with the actionsof brown people on flights being removed because someone “felt uncomfortable.”

Nope. He’s exercising his right to free speech and white privilege, which apparently in the last 8 years have been suppressed by that Kenyan Muslim with no birth certificate.

Ugh, my phone. Anyway!

I haven’t heard that shittiness was a pattern. Lorenz has told several versions, typically for profit, and led a very shady life, so I wouldn’t take her word for it.

Trump brings emotional gratification to man babies, they don’t care what he does as long as he keeps them feeling like they are winning.

he talks to you very close

Typical. Nice guys get banished to the friendzone while girls chase after jocks and bad boys and Fidel Castro.

Interesting. I didn’t know Castro was a swaggering alpha. Doesn’t this lend credence to the nice guy theory that women enjoy being treated like shit?