"Whereas, if I say to someone that I'm Italian because I look white they still assume that I'm American and don't make jokes about pizza."

I don't think it's a bad thing that when you are meeting someone from another country, you go and tell them you like the food from their country.

This is the kind of stuff i tell Italian people when i meet one.

Well, being in an Easter cofradia is more a matter of family tradition, and personal tradition, than committed faith.

Girls get so many sets of conflicting instructions that they'll be punished by either their peers or their school no matter what they do.

I have to differ: Drogo and Dany's first time was rape in the novels, too. Even if Drogo tried to make it better for her, understanding the situation she's in, the whole matter of being sold into marriage against her wishes and then having sex against her wishes, that's still rape.

I know, i'm a physicist, i know it sounds unreasonable. But there are other factors to consider:

Well, i can't certainly give you reference to actually peer reviewed papers, but according to science popularization magazines (like SciAm), research shows that long term weight loss doesn't happen. The body seems to react to weight loss as if you suddenly were dying of hunger, as if obesity was the optimal situation,…

Exercising makes you lose weight. But you don't stop being obese no matter how much weight you lose and for how long.

I'm reminded of this:

I didn't say "white people" in any moment. That was the other poster. And yes, you are an American, and hence, a member of the dominant culture that destroyed the Native nations and absorbed their cultures, and that is trying to subjugate the rest of the world.

Whatever...

The tribes you destroyed? The tribes whose social cohesion you disrupted in a (succesful) effort to eradicate their culture and absorb it into your own? The tribes whose lands you took by force?

You Americans have conquered and destroyed the Amerindian culture, and absorbed the small bits that survived into your own. You genocided that people. So don't act all high and mighty about preserving the very culure you killed. Thanks.

I'm not going to waste time with you, really.

It's cultural privilege. Those who belong to the dominant culture cannot tolerate seeing elements of their culture borrowed by others, or used on the "wrong contest". Being culturally hegemonic allows them to enforce those strictures.

More than lightening up, what you need is check your cultural privilege.

You probably shouldn't go to the carnival in Spain. You'd spend the whole time offended. So many people dressed as the pope, or priests, making fun of religious symbols...

Saying that something is not necesarily a factor implies that "it might not be a factor". That's not a possibility. Sex is a factor in gender, a strong one, even if not the only one. Even if for some individuals, other factors might exert a bigger influence.

Surely you're not claiming to know their sex, right? We're not sure how to identify all the sexual characteristics, specially when it comes to the brain.