Call me Mak, because I know that for you Westerners, the Somali ethnic name Makkah is tough to pronounce. My name is Makkah Abdullah and I was born in the City of London, England, to Somali immigrant parents. These days, I attend Brunel University, where I study Criminal Justice in preparation for a career in law enforcement. Being Black, British and Muslim...
"This is too haram," Jamila Ahmed said to herself, as she walked walk around the Riverside Mall in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. With tremendous effort, Jamila pried her gaze from what she'd been gawking at...a trio of young brown women in tank tops and booty shorts. The summer was in full bloom, and this meant middle-aged males in Hawaiian shirts, whi...
"Yasmeen, um, when I see you, I feel things, and I honestly don't know what to do about that," Jannah Kafando said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. Standing there with her hands in her pockets, clad in a long-sleeved red T-shirt featuring the smiling face of U.S. President Barack Obama, blue jeans and black Timberland shoes, her long black hair care...
My name is Ceren Armaghan, and I'm a young Turkish woman living in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. I'm an international student at Carleton University right here in the Capital. Whenever I tell people that I come from Turkey, they always assume that I am Muslim. Nothing wrong with being a Muslim, of course, but not everybody in Turkey is Muslim. The...
"Hello Selena," Jamila Ahmed typed into the messenger box, and the young Somali-American Muslim woman paused, wondering what she should say. It was the middle fo the night and she was stark naked. She'd gotten up to pee, and then, on impulse, went on the computer. This was her first time getting on Facebook in quite some time. It had been months since Jamila...
"What kind of security company doesn't do direct deposit for their employees? I hate these fuckers," Nadia Barnes said angrily, as she walked to the bus stop at Pinecrest Station. Try as she might, she couldn't find the damned cheque which she'd lost right after picking it up at the offices of First Response Security Inc. If those fuckers had direct deposit,...
The Confederation of Canada can be a wonderful place but it can also be a funny place. I've heard horror stories from highly educated immigrants hailing from places like southeast Asia, continental Africa and the Middle East whose credentials aren't accepted by Canadian institutions. Canada can be quite xenophobic that way. If you're not White and you're edu...
I walked to the jewelry stand inside Saint Laurent Mall with a purposeful stride. For months now, I had been saving up for the perfect engagement ring. Today, I can finally afford it. I smiled at the saleswoman, a pretty blonde chick, and indicated the one I wanted. I admired it, and made sure it was the right finger size. Smiling, I took out my Royal Bank o...
As Salam Alaikum, dear readers. My name is Faduma ( pronounced Fa-Doom-Ah) Ismail and I'm a young Black woman of Somali descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I was born in the City of Mogadishu, Somalia, and moved here with my parents, Aden and Amina Ismail, in the summer of 1999. We've never even left the country since that magical first summer, I...
When most people think of racism, they usually think of white folks oppressing Blacks and other ethnic groups, they overlook the vast history of exploitation between Arabs and Africans. Long before the first European colonist ever set foot in the continent of Africa, the Arabs were mistreating my ancestors in the sub Saharan regions. Today, a lot of black Mu...