Stereotypes. Everyone's got them. There are so many out there. Across races, genders, nationalities and religions. In North America, they believe blonde-haired White women are dumb sluts, that Asian girls are submissive, Black men are hyper sexual, Black women are always angry, Hispanic folks are lazy, White guys are perverted and Arabs are dangerous. Wow. What a load of crap. Get to know somebody before judging them. My name is Alia Al-Shariff. I'm a six-foot-tall, curvy and big-bottomed young Arabian woman of African and Iranian descent living in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. And I am a Dominatrix. So much for the stereotype that Arab women are all submissive and meek.
I was born in the United Arab Emirates on the first day of January 1987. At the time of this story, I was twenty three years old. I'm currently studying business administration at Carleton University in the City of Ottawa. My family moved to the Confederation of Canada about a decade ago. My father Abraham Al-Shariff is the first Muslim person to become a City Councillor in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. If you ask me, I wonder what took them so long. My father holds a master's degree in business from Howard University in Washington D.C. He's half Black and half Arab and has lived in the United Arab Emirates for half his life. He married a gorgeous Iranian woman named Delkash Hamideh and they had me. A proud Arabian woman of mixed African and Iranian descent.
My mother, Delkash Hamideh Al-Shariff is a graduate of the University of Ottawa. She has a Ph. D in Psychology. These days, she has a practice in downtown Ottawa. Treating domestic abuse survivors is her focus. See? Women from the Arab world are perfectly capable of being hard-working and highly educated professionals. We're strong women. We're smart. We're resilient. And we're the backbone of the Arab world. Don't believe everything CNN and other racially and culturally biased reporters from the western world tell you. There's a lot more to us than what you see. Do you get it now? Cool.
It's been an interesting journey, navigating my cultural identities. My father is half Black and half Arab. The son of a wealthy Cleric from the United Arab Emirates who married an African-American woman from Washington D.C. My mother is a purebred Iranian woman who simply couldn't resist my father's unique charm and good looks, or so she said. I am proud of my heritage. My father wanted me to know much about both African History and Arabic culture growing up. We would visit Saudi Arabia, Iran and Somalia almost every summer when I was younger. The western world has a negative view of anyone from the Middle East. If they actually got to know a Middle-Eastern guy or gal, they might actually learn something.
