A few months back I had to Uber it to an appointment. The driver oddly knew I was Somali despite wearing a mask. He confided that he had many Somali friends that just so happened to be women. I think the gentleman was testing me when he blurted out of nowhere "
Somali men are violent and abusive." I think he made a miscalculation as I'm not the type to feed into gender bashing. I categorically disagreed and told him that his mischaracterization was unfounded.
He hilariously shot back with,
"you're very attractive. That's why you have no problem with them; they must like you."
If someone is abusive, they aren't going to spare you a heavy hand just because you are attractive. Eventually, the mask will slip, and you'll find yourself black-and-blue and held captive for months, if not years, to a petty tyrant.
Collectively, Abdis don't appear to exhibit highly possessive behaviour. If that was embedded in our culture, honour killing would be a thing. Yet, it hasn't caught on.
How many times have I threatened their lives only to be met with a lukewarm response in return? Plenty. I might be the dangerous one. Maybe this is endemic of a culture where women are free to say what they want and travel unchaperoned.
During that encounter, I felt like the Twitterverse cascaded into the real world. I thought this dude was either a member or avid reader of SSpot threads. It seemed like a copy paste.
Defending my own was a matter of principle. How can anyone trust a person that openly condemns members of their ethnicity? If I'm going to vent, it won't be to the delightful ears of an ajnabi shamelessly simping and validating the experiences of a handful of embittered women. He also threw them under the bus with his accusations about them. So much for loyalty, huh. I even had to defend Halimo kind, but that story is for another time.
Cheers,
Soph