Geography and ethnicity aren't destiny. That's all I've got to say on the subject. People assume that just because I'm from the City of Montgomery, Alabama, a town with an infamous history of racial turmoil, then I must be bigoted. Well, I am definitely not. Get to know me and you will see. The name is Marianne O'Malley and I am a Southern gal with a story to share with you fine folks. I'm what they call a Mudfish around these parts. A White woman who loves Black men and doesn't apologize for it.
The first time I laid eyes on Omar Suleiman, the six-foot-tall, lean and athletic, dark-skinned Somali stud simply took my breath away. We got a lot of Blacks here in the beautiful State of Alabama but one look at the handsome, dark-skinned brother with the curly hair and bronze eyes and I knew that he was most definitely a different breed. Omar walked into the public library where I worked as a clerk while studying for my accounting degree at the local college, and I haven't been the same since. When I asked Omar where he came from, he smiled and told me he was born and raised in a town called Mogadishu, somewhere in the Somalia region of the beautiful continent of Africa.
Now, I consider myself a good Christian gal and I go to church three times a week but I had some definitely sinful thoughts when Omar introduced himself, and told me he'd be staying in town while working for a construction company. The guy was simply beautiful, with his charcoal skin, really nice-looking hair and pearly White teeth. I am a sucker for a guy with nice teeth. A man's smile has a way of melting a lady's heart, you know.
When I asked Omar if he was a construction worker, he smiled and told me he was an architect. I studied architecture at the Azrieli School of Architecture at Carleton University in Ottawa, Omar said proudly, and I marveled at that after surreptitiously checking out his credentials on Google. It's amazing what you can find about people online these days. Someone's entire life is just a click away thanks to information technology. As a library worker, I know this intimately.