How does the short, skinny dude at the gym end up with the six-foot-tall, gorgeous and muscular chocolate Amazon that all the fellas want? Simple, it’s all about confidence, son. If you don’t have it, fake it. The name is Hakim Osman and I’m a young black man of Somali descent attending Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I was born in the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba, to a Somali immigrant father, Malik Osman, and a white Canadian mother, Genevieve Gilbert. I moved to Ontario for higher education basically because I was tired of being practically the only brown face in the town where I lived. I attended an all-white high school, trust me when I say it wasn’t easy for me.
As the youngest of three, I sometimes feel like I drew the short end of the stick in my family’s genetic lottery. What do I mean by that? My older brother Ariq is six-foot-three, muscular and jacked, and he currently plays football for the University of Calgary in Alberta. My sister Nadia is five-foot-eleven, curvy and gorgeous, caramel-skinned and raven-haired, with our mother’s hazel eyes. Somehow, in a family of tall, athletic people, I ended up being short and nerdy. I’m five-foot-eight, and weigh one hundred and forty six pounds soaking wet. Oh, and I’m legally required to wear thick nerdy glasses because I can’t see shit. Pardon my French.
At Saint Anthony Academy in the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba, my older brother Ariq was respected for his athletic prowess and my sister Nadia was admired for her talent in art and music. She ended up winning a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Me? I like comic books and science fiction movies, and my grades were not exactly spectacular. I’m a B student. I’m not the super smart nerdy type you see in the movies. When I won a partial scholarship to Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, my parents were really surprised. Like I said, I’m not exactly the family’s golden calf. I’m the last one, the youngest, the runt of the littler. I am the one who shouldn’t be here because my parents decided that one son and one daughter was enough, but somehow I happened.
It wasn’t easy for us as an interracial family in Winnipeg, one of the most racist cities in all of Canada. As a white woman who married a black man, my mother endured her fair share of bigotry at work. I mean, mom has an MBA from the University of Manitoba and yet, quite often, it seemed to me that she was the last person hired and the first person fired at her various jobs. Nothing scares or upsets white guys more than white women who get with minority men. Winnipeg folks aren’t used to such couples. It’s not like Ottawa or Toronto where people smile to your face but stay racist stuff behind your back. In Winnipeg, the white people are very outspoken about their hatred for visible minorities and Aboriginals. The only students who got picked on worse than the black or Persian students at Saint Anthony Academy were the Aboriginals. This at a supposedly liberal Catholic institution. Once I turned eighteen, I left Winnipeg, vowing never to return except for holidays and family reunions.
