They say that the apple never falls far from the tree. I don't think that's always true. Take me for example. Everyone in my family is dark-haired and squad but somehow I came out...Teutonic. I'm five-foot-eleven, slim and fit but with curves where it counts. I have shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair and lime-green eyes. I was born in the City of Calgary, Alberta, to a redneck family. Gun-toting, Bible-thumping and xenophobic. By all rights I should be deeply afraid of and hostile to anyone who isn't pure white bread and close-minded, right? I hate to burst your bubble but that's not who I am. Not anymore. The name is Rebecca Gorman and I am a young woman with a story to tell.
When I opted to study at Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, I surprised a lot of folks back home. My father, Samuel Gorman studied business management at the University of Calgary in the 1980s, hell, it's where he met my mother, University of Alberta adjunct professor and oilman's daughter Samantha Tremblay. My older brother Sean works for an oil company, my younger brother Arthur works at the local prison as a corrections officer and my older sister Janice studies nursing at the University of Alberta. It's where I was expected to go, but I opted out.
Why did I do such a thing, you may ask? I guess I was tired of life in the Prairies and wanted to explore other places. I've lived my whole life in Alberta and honestly, I was getting bored of the place. I wanted to spread my wings and fly over, as it were. Ontario has always mystified me, partly because folks from Alberta really don't like it. While many of us Albertans are fairly decent and open-minded folks, a sizeable number among us hate and fear anyone from the outside world. By outside I mean of non-European extraction, if you catch my drift.
You should have seen my father's face the night the City of Calgary elected a Muslim guy named Naheed Nenshi to its Mayoralty. The frigging Muslims want to take over Canada and this bozo is part of their scheme, Pops swore. I bet he's going to try to introduce Sharia Law in Alberta, my mother chimed in. You can see where I'm going with this, right? My parents, like many Albertans, have worked in the oil and gas industry their whole lives and are conservative-minded. The election of a visible minority candidate to the position of Mayor in one of Canada's most conservative cities surprised many, in Alberta and beyond.
At the time, I'm ashamed to say, I was just like my parents. I was deathly afraid of the Muslim invasion of Canada. I saw the growing presence of Arabs and Somalis in metropolitan Calgary as a threat. I was a gun-toting redneck's daughter, through and true. And then I moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, and enrolled at Carleton University. That's where I met Omar Haile, a six-foot-tall, ruggedly handsome young man of Ethiopian and Lebanese descent. We were stuck working together on a project for my Intro to Civil Engineering Class. At first, I was reluctant to work with the tall, light-skinned black dude with the easy smile and wide eyes. With a name like Omar, I thought he had to be Muslim. Later, I would learn that the handsome young man I viewed as a visible minority/Muslim invader was born and raised in the City of Toronto, Ontario, to a Lebanese Christian mother and Ethiopian Orthodox father. This proves the depth of my ignorance.
Sometimes, life throws you into odd places, outside of your comfort zone, mainly because it's trying to teach you a thing or two. I tried everything to get out of working with Omar Haile on my first project as a first-year student in the civil engineering program at Carleton University. Unfortunately, none of my lame, half-assed excuses worked on the prof and I found out that I was stuck with Omar Haile as my lab partner. Just do it and get it over with, I told myself. So I put a fake smile on and went to meet with Omar at the university library's second floor to discuss the project. The dude proved to be quite different from what I expected. According to my limited and totally biased sense of perception, black guys were supposed to be loud, arrogant and cocky. They weren't supposed to be smart, sensitive and oh so polite.
The first time I went to meet with Omar Haile at the library, I expected him to come dressed like a wannabe rapper/thug/baller with his pants hanging low and gold teeth in his mouth. I'm sorry but that's all I saw on TV. We don't have a lot of black people in Calgary. They're mostly immigrants from places like Jamaica, the island of Haiti, Nigeria and Somalia, and I often heard about young black men clashing with the police in Calgary. I assumed that's how all black people were, prone to angry outbursts and troublemaking. Until I sat down with Omar Haile, who carried himself like a gentleman, dressed professionally, and spoke perfect English. In spite of myself, I was both surprised and impressed.
As we began working on the project together, I learned a bit more about Omar. The tall and ( I must say ) handsome young black man spoke fondly of his multiracial family, and his old life in Toronto. I was surprised to find out that his father Emmanuel Haile, an immigrant from Ethiopia, is a Constable with the Toronto Police Service. His mother, Amanda Abdullah of Baalbek, south Lebanon, is a schoolteacher. He has an older brother, Joseph Haile, who's a corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces currently stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I marveled at the pictures he showed me. Him and his family at the Orthodox church they attended, at the beach and at backyard barbecues. They were so...normal. Slowly, my opinion of Omar Haile began to change. I began to warm up to him. Now, I wasn't ready to become one of those white chicks who goes to Africa, holds hands with the locals and sings "Kumbaya" but I was okay with becoming friends with Omar Haile. A handsome, well-read and well-spoken, pious renaissance man who simply happens to be black. Well, half black anyways.
When Omar Haile asked me to visit his church one Sunday, I accepted. I was raised Catholic and I am damn proud of my Christian faith. I think all immigrants coming into Canada should respect our Christian faith and our democratic values. I support the Quebec Values Charter by the way. I don't think public servants should wear turbans, hijabs or ceremonial gear while on the job. The Canadian workplace is a secular environment. Keep your religion and your other crap in your mosque or temple where it belongs. That's how I felt. To my surprise, when the subject of religion came up, Omar told me he strongly approved of Quebec's defense of the Judeo-Christian nature of their province and the secularism of the Canadian workplace. Muslims refuse to integrate and will corrupt any nation from within if given the chance, Omar told me.
