As Salam Alaikum, dear readers. In a past life, my name was Rhea Thorne. That's not who I am now. I am here because I have a message to share with you. And also because I have a confession to make. I am a former racist and an ex-feminist. I am both Canadian and a proud Muslim. There, I frigging said it. I was born and raised in the City of Calgary, Alberta. To say that my family and I are rednecks would be an understatement. We fit every stereotype of the flag-waving, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, minority-hating backwoods redneck you can think of. I'm not proud of it but this is where I come from. I used to hate minorities, especially people of African descent. And then I met Suleiman Sadiq at the University of Calgary and my life changed forever.
The tall, handsome young Black man destined to change my life forever is originally from the City of Dakar, Senegal. Born to a Senegalese father and a mother who was half Somali and half Moroccan, this yummy Black stud had exotic written all over him. He caught my eye at the campus library and even though I told myself that as a redneck woman I could never be with someone like him, I was drawn to him. What is it about Black men that simply sets many a white woman's heart afire? I don't know. All I know is that I had to have him. I told myself that like many uppity white women who railed against minorities, I'd taste the forbidden fruit and then go back to my lily-white life, with no one the wiser. I mean, I'm a five-foot-ten, blonde-haired and green-eyed, twenty-something white woman. What Black man wouldn't want to fuck me?
That's what I told myself as I set out to seduce Suleiman Sadiq. For the first time ever, my advances were rebuffed. The tall, majestic young Black man with the Kufi hat told me that he only dealt with women from his faith. I am Muslim and proud, Suleiman told me, looking me straight in the eyes. With that, he walked away from me. I stood there, stunned. As you can imagine, I wasn't used to being rejected by men. Few women are. When you look like I do, tall, fit and blonde, the embodiment of Western society's standard of beauty, you expect people to throw themselves at you. And I just threw myself at Suleiman, with zero results. I was, um, flabbergasted, that's the word I'm looking for.
After this incident, I became obsessed with Suleiman Sadiq and his religion, Islam. I watched videos on YouTube featuring women from feminist backgrounds who converted to Islam. Lots of these women were white, attractive and educated, like me. I grew fascinated by what I was discovering. My family didn't like that one bit. My father, Paul Thorne told me that Islam was evil and the growing number of minorities in metropolitan Calgary had him worried, especially the Arabs and the Somalis. The Muslims shouldn't be allowed to come to Canada, my father shouted at me. I'm just doing research for school, I said defensively. Scoffing, he walked out of the room, ignoring me.
One day, I surprised myself by going to the Islamic Cultural Center at school, and guess who I ran into over there? Suleiman Sadiq, the tall, dark and handsome stud from Senegal. Welcome to our humble abode, he said cordially, looking me in the eyes. Hello again, I said. We talked a bit about religion and culture, and the more he told me, the more I liked what I heard. At the end of this meeting, Suleiman and I added each other on Facebook and exchanged numbers. I hope we can be friends, I told Suleiman as I got ready to leave the center. Allah works in mysterious ways, the handsome, dark-skinned young man told me with a wink and a smile.
