The Top 40

No. She's avoiding the trash and filth collected at her feet. Anyone with eyes can see that.

Not to mention maintaining a perfectly normal amount of personal space between herself and the total stranger at the other end of the bench. For that matter, maybe he's the one who choose to sit way on the other side from her.

In the second, I'd just assume they actually know and like each other. I can't imagine any other reason she'd sit so close. If they're strangers, that's a serious invasion of personal space when there's an entire bench free, and obviously she is sitting close to him. If I were him, that would make me seriously uncomfortable. Skin color has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But we're racist. You and I have normal reactions and that gets psychoanalized....yeah, I meant to spell it that way, until the illness is found.
I once had an encounter that really frightened me, and only using my head kept me from maybe getting raped. The black guy was looking to intimidate me. Otherwise, he wouldn't have said that he'd just gotten out of prison for raping a woman.
Since I was the only women in the McDonald's and the only white one, too, everyone watched to see my reaction.
I just looked at him and said, "Are you familiar with Prison Fellowship?" And he moved away from me a bit. I continued. "I support that ministry. I am glad you are out of jail. What would you like to do with your life now that you are out?"
And we actually had a good conversation. He respected me, and I respected myself for not crying like a scared little girl.

More than likely, she's a hooker.

Jewel - wow, now that's what I call a good response.

I wonder about the guy. Said he wanted to be a barber. Never saw him again.

I said what Jewel said over at the Last Psychiatrist site. It's obvious -- you see how the man has some cleared space around his feet? There was no place in the middle, though, that didn't have trash. No woman is going to put her expensive shoes -- or even her cheap shoes -- on a dirty plate and discarded banana peel.

But I also didn't think of pointing this out: strangers naturally leave space between each other. This space differs from culture to culture, of course, but in Northern European (I believe this study was conducted in the Netherlands) the default space is pretty wide. And even where it isn't, no strange woman will sit right next to a strange man, no matter what color he is, unless she's a hooker looking for business.