We are all Mia Khalifa. And not just in the tongue-in-cheek way that the world’s arguably most notorious brown woman references, in the bio of her 27.6 million-strong Instagram account — (“Are you even a brown girl with glasses if you haven’t been called Mia Khalifa?”).
IT WASN’T ENTIRELY WHAT I was expecting, when I first logged onto a Zoom call with the Lebanese-born, US-raised 30-year-old, but two minutes into the conversation with the barefaced Mia, sitting in a tan silk shirt in front of a colour-coordinated bookshelf in her Miami home, it felt like we had long been friends.
It wasn’t just because I — like Mia — am also a Middle Eastern woman in her early 30s who moved to the ‘West’ at the age of eight, one who also lives outside the stereotypes and expectations of what culture — both East and West — would like to box us into — although, for sure, that helped. Especially when we began the conversation joking about shaving our then-considered bushy (now considered on trend) eyebrows off, in our respective school bathrooms. It was the candour and authenticity of a woman who — despite having all the reasons in the world to be guarded — seems like she has never been more herself.
Having moved to Maryland from Lebanon in 2001, amidI could have some fucking friends,” she laughs. “It was not cool to be the kid bringing in a zaatar sandwich for lunch…
