What's up people? The name is Ali Diriye and I'm a young Black man of Somali descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Sometimes I honestly wonder why I don't just leave this bogus town. I recently got hired by the Canada Revenue Agency, better known as the CRA. I am twenty four years old, and recently graduated from Carleton University with a Bachelor's degree in Commerce. Nice job, university degree, and a deluxe apartment in suburban Barrhaven, you'd think life looks good to me, right? This is where you're wrong.
As a tall, slightly chubby yet handsome and well-dressed young African Muslim brother walking around downtown Ottawa with my government worker's ID hanging around my neck, I attract a fair amount of attention. I receive a thousand hostile stares from middle-aged, insecure White guys and old wrinkly White chicks. Gosh I hate these Canadian government worker motherfuckers. They're full of themselves and act like they're all that, with absolutely nothing to back it up. Seriously, they need to march out of those offices, head to a nursing home and start playing bingo.
Look, I got a good reason for despising government worker bozos, alright? Seriously, the City of Ottawa is changing demographically and socially, and I think the presence of so many young people of non-European descent in the workforce worries a lot of these dinosaurs. They know they're on their way out. It's the natural order of things. Out with the old and in with the new, you know? In a few years, those smug old bozos will be forced to retire and the Canadian government will have no choice but to hire young people.
Dinosaur, that's my term for any middle-aged White person working for the Canadian government who happens to have a problem with anyone of a different skin color who does the same job they do. Seriously, a sociologist would have a field day if he or she were observing these clowns in their so-called element. I can't wait for them to die of old age or retire and play bingo like geezers are supposed to. Anyhow, they're not what this story is about.
Nope, this tale is all about me relaxing and enjoying myself now that I'm out of my Hooyo ( mama)'s basement. To my Somali immigrant parents, Mariam and Abdullahi Diriye I am their Hero. After my older sister Khadija essentially walked out of Islam ( seriously, she moved in with a masculine White chick ) and decided to be a lesbian. Oh, and my younger brother Omar abandoned his mechanical engineering studies at Carleton, running off to Calgary to work in the oil sands. After all that, I was their only hope. I am the good son. The one who didn't rebel against parental authority and embarrass the family.
The Somali Canadian community has many wayward sons and high-achieving daughters, so I am kind of a break from the norm. The good brother you never hear about. I go to the mosque almost every Friday. I observe Ramadan and give nice gifts to friends and family at Eid Fest. Oh, and I look good in a suit. I just wish they'd stop putting so much pressure on my narrow shoulders, seriously.
I recently met someone cool. Look, there's a lot of hot chicks of all colors in the City of Ottawa but a lot of them are uptight and boring. This one was different. Nadia Mishra, a six-foot-tall, curvy and absolutely lovely young Indian Muslim woman who works at the Silver City movie theater. I walked into the theater on a Tuesday, to see the new Matt Damon movie where he's stuck on the planet Mars and grows crops by using his own crap as fertilizer.
That day, I ditched work early, which is totally the thing to do if you work in a CRA office in downtown Ottawa. Seriously, my fellow government workers and I come down from our offices at least once per hour to smoke, talk, drink coffee and waste the taxpayer's time and money. Oh, and if you're a security guard, a food server, a cleaner, or any person making less money than we do, we will be mean and condescending to you.
We waste basically one hour of work time per work day, not counting our official breaks and lunchtime. Hey, if everyone, including your manager is doing it, you'd do it too. Anyhow, that fateful day, I went to the Silver City movie theater and ran into an Indian cutie with one hell of a booty. Usually, I don't bother hollering at Indian chicks since they're typically brainwashed into hating men of color while worshipping Whiteness. There was something different about Nadia Mishra, that much was clear to me.
