This week we present two stories from Black people who were dealing with the ramifications of our racist systems.
Part 1: As a science teacher, Mamoudou N'Diaye was supposed to have all the answers, but he struggles to explain being Black in the USA.
Mamoudou N'Diaye is a Mauritanian American comic, writer, filmmaker, activist, DJ, and former teacher. N'Diaye has been a correspondent for digital media companies Mic and Seeker, a creative comedy consultant for social justice nonprofits Color of Change, Hip Hop Caucus, The Center for Cultural Power, and The Center for Media and Social Impact, and a winner of 2019's Yes And Laughter Lab for his pilot, Franklin. He has written and appeared in the Comedy Central Original They Follow, written for Refinery29's After After Party, and is in post-production for the webseries Bodegaverse with Karen Sepulveda. N'Diaye is developing By Us, For Us, a late-night sketch/talk show centering Black voices, for Color for Change and Flyovers, a half-hour dramedy about being Black in the rural Midwest. N’Diaye holds a degree in cognitive behavioral neuroscience from the College of Wooster.
Part 2: Rhonda Key fights to be taken seriously by her white co-workers and students when she gets a job at a middle school.
Rhonda M. Key has served as a teacher and administrator in suburban, rural, and urban school districts throughout her career. Currently, she serves as Assistant Superintendent of Jennings School District. Under her purview as the former Principal/Director of Secondary Education-Community Partnerships, Jennings Senior High School achieved 100% graduation and job placements for the past three years. In 2014, Dr. Key was named one of Five Women to Make a Difference in the Decatur/Macon County area of Illinois. In March 2019 she was named Principal of the Year by the St. Louis Association of Secondary School Principals. Dr. Key is also the co-owner and founder of Key/Ming Educational Design LLC, educational consultant and co-author of articles regarding Urban Education. Dr. Key earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University, and she completed her educational specialist and doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Episode Transcript
Part 1: Mamoudou N’Diaye
Hi. What's up? I have the answers to everything so just don't ask questions. I'll get to all of them tonight.
So I was raised mostly in Ohio. Did I hear a whoo? That's weird. Ohio gang, we'll talk after this.
But I was raised in Wooster, Ohio and, as you can see, I'm a black African and Muslim person. And that is very hard to do in Ohio.
Let's start with black. Wooster, Ohio is 88% white and 12% white, so it's very, very difficult to find your footing there.
I'm also from Africa. I am Mauritanian. Anyone know where Mauritania is? Cool. There will be a quiz after this.
For those of you who don't know, it is not Nigeria. It is not Ghana, nor is it Nigeria. It is one of the other 54 countries.
And I'm also Muslim. Right now is Ramadan so I am struggling, but we're going to have a good time.
Growing up in Ohio it felt weird. I had to explain things to people all the time because people they didn't grow up around a lot of black people. They didn’t have to grow up around a lot of Africans, they didn’t grow up around barely any Muslims, so I always had to have the answers for things.
Mamoudou N’Diaye shares his story with the Story Collider audience at Caveat in New York City in May 2019 as part of our 9 year anniversary show. Photo by Zhen Qin.
You guys remember like when you were watching a DVD and then like three hours after you're not watching it, the DVD logo would bounce around? That's how I felt growing up. All the time just bouncing around.
What was the most magical moment? When it finally hit that corner, right? It's been bouncing around, it finally hits that corner. Those are the moments I live for. I felt like I fully fit into where I was in Ohio.
Very fleeting, but it’s the meantime and in-between time when I wasn't really hitting those corners that I had to live with myself and I was like, “How am I going to connect to all these people that I'm around? How am I going to connect to kids I'm at school with, to neighbors? I want to know all these answers.”
So I learned all those things. It became like a survival sort of thing.
A little fun fact about me. My dad's an African Studies professor, so basically while kids were going to homecoming, I was writing book reports about Nelson Mandela.
I was like, “Oh, yeah, you look cute. Well, do you know the ANC did this in 1984?”
That was my sort of upbringing. So I had to understand all this sort of stuff.
Once I got into high school, I started taking psychology classes. I was like, “Oh, wow. I can understand the way that people interact with each other using these psychological studies.”
I was reading all sort of Piaget and all sort of Jung. I was like, “Oh, this is like all the developmental stuff. That might explain why I am the way I am, why all my peers are the way they are.”
So I kept studying then I graduated from high school. I got into college and I was studying neuroscience, because I was like, “Oh, I'm African. This is all I can do to make my parents happy. So I'm going to study neuroscience.”
I kept going on the same track. I want to learn about where the neural correlates in the brain were for different types of biases, what sort of amygdalic responses people would have, or what parts of the prefrontal cortex would light up when you found yourself at a moment of making decisions, like am I going to be a little bit racist or am I gonna hold my purse a little bit closer when I, y’know? That's what I wanted to explore.
Also, I was just like I wanted to just be around other people and see the way they're looking at the world, because the school that I went to was actually also in Wooster. It was the College of Wooster. It has a lot more diversity if you're white. If you're black, it is you're like, “Wow, we still have numbers.”
But it was a very wonderful experience that I had at the university but I found myself in this sort of situation where I kept trying to explain things to people. I kept having people who were black needing explanations about being African or Muslim, like, “I don't understand these Christian people.”
I'm like, “I don't know. Santa's the whole thing.”
And I had to do all that sort of stuff. I found myself always in these positions.
And I had questions for myself too. I wanted to learn about me. I wanted to learn where I came from, because being so far away from where I'm from, Mauritania, I didn't really have a lot of people like hang out with from Mauritania here. As you can see, none of them are here, so I had to figure out how to do that.
I wanted to learn why white people love Fleetwood Mac so much. Like I have questions so I wanted to understand this sort of stuff.
But in college, it's also a time for exploration of yourself in other ways. Like I wanted to have other hobbies. So I deejay and I started doing stand-up comedy, because I wasn't invited to be on the improv team. I'm not bitter.
But like I started doing stand-up and it was a very fun experience. I think I liked the idea of talking about all these hard things I want to talk about. I want to talk about race, I want to talk about gender LGBTQ issues. I want to do it, but I wanted to do it in a way that wasn't like accusatory and yelling at you. I wanted to do it in a way that was it felt like you were getting medicine inside your applesauce, like you still won't go to sleep but like the applesauce was rocking, right? That was what my approach comedy was.
Then I realized. I feel like there's a lot of people who always ask me, “How did you go from neuroscience to comedy?”
It's really easy. I feel like in order to do any sort of scientific thing, there's a creative element to it. There's so many people who are like doing all this biochem but also going to go play the violin. There are a lot of people that were out here just doing improv but also going to the biology classes.
I feel like all the time, people will ask me that question. It makes a lot of sense. You're doing a lot of trial and error in science. You're doing a lot of trial and error in comedy. I come up here, I make a joke about Fleetwood Mac. We see if it hits. If it hits, I keep doing it. See? It hit, so I kept doing it.
Same thing with deejaying. If I'm DJing, I play a song, but, oh, cool. I'm going to play this Lil Wayne song. If it doesn't go well, Fleetwood Mac. And it works well. It's trial and error. You change little variables, things get a little bit better, right?
But then I graduated and I decided, you know what? Maybe I don't want to continue doing neuroscience the rest of my life. I love it so much but I needed to explore if I could do other things. So I told my parents I was going to be a comedian in New York City.
Now, for those of you who don't have African parents, the best job that you can have for an African parent is not a comedian. End of list. So they were not happy with all that. But they've come around on it because they saw that I wanted to still talk about science. That's why I took a job as a seventh grade science teacher in Bethesda when I moved here.
And for those of you, spoiler alert. Kids are terrible. I love them so much, but like I mean, like how are you so evil? I love my kids so much.
Teaching is basically you get paid very little money to be gas-lit by 12-year-olds all day. You go into class, you say, “Hey, you throw this pencil?”
He goes, “Nah, I didn’t throw that pencil.”
You're like, “No, I saw him throw that pencil.”
You're up at 1:00 a.m. grading things, like, “I saw him throw it and I can't prove it.” And that's teaching.
But teaching science was something I really like doing, because I liked to instill the sort of curiosity about things that I had growing up into these kids. Until one day in 2014.
December, 2014, the police officer who killed Eric Garner was let off. That day, I was ready to go in to teach kids about energy and energy transformations, all that sort of stuff. When I walked into the classroom, I realized that I was going to be not talking about what they wanted to talk about because they're kids. They don't understand the world.
And, I told you, I have all the answers. And they're looking at me for the answers, but I don't have them. I can't, I don't know how to explain police violence to 12-year-olds. I don't know how to explain what the color of their skin means in the world. I don't know when is the right time to do that, because I felt like I had to grow through that. I told you, I was raised in a very racially homogeneous area. It took me a long time to do it.
And I realized that for my entire life, I was explaining myself and how I looked at the world and how the world looked at me to other people, but not letting myself live in that.
And now, I'm watching kids in the same position I was in growing up, trying to understand the world. And I was like, “They can't do what I did.”
So basically, I came in wearing a very nerdy t-shirt to let them know I'm cool, sat down and we talked through it. We just sat down. For a moment, I remember being like I want to intellectualize this. I want to make this into like this sort of study or read this and this, but they're 12. If they're not doing their homework, they're not going to read.
Mamoudou N’Diaye shares his story with the Story Collider audience at Caveat in New York City in May 2019 as part of our 9 year anniversary show. Photo by Zhen Qin.
So I'm sitting there and I'm talking to them and I will tell you that those kids were the most engaged I've ever seen children be ever, because they were talking about something that they don't understand it but they want so desperately to understand it.
We came up with a list, talked about gun violence, talked about police violence. Then one of my kids was bringing up hunting, people have guns for hunting.
Then another kid, a kid who doesn't talk at all in my classroom goes, “Yeah, but people are hunting us with guns.”
And I was like, “I hate that that is your reality. I hate that that is my reality. Why am I not able to have this sort of clarity at your age to talk about this sort of stuff? I'm at my age right now like heartbroken that this is the world you have to grow up and live in.”
I think that as a comic and as somebody who has been forced to know all the answers growing up, I spent a lot of time being an observer and not really living my life. So I felt like I've always been the funnel. I've been the black ‘Ask Jeeves’ for everyone to get their race and Islamic questions through.
Honestly, I’m still very speechless. Every time I think about that story, I'm just like I don't remember feeling more like, wow, I don't even understand the world so I spent so much time trying to understand it. But what is my place in that sort of thing? Where do I belong in this sort of narrative about these different stories, these different traumas and different biases that I'd like to explain to the world? And honestly, I came here with the story that's still in progress.
I remember looking into those kids eyes and seeing them hanging on every single word, and I wish I had that growing up. And I wish that I never had to be the answer dude. Now, I can't be going out to nice, white communities and pulling out the diversity. No. That's a crazy man's thing.
But I do believe that in a time where, politically and socially, everyone has a lot of questions, we need to think about how much we're putting on each other to explain ourselves to other people. We live in a pretty white, homogeneous country, world, power structure and I think that is very, very important for people to get that information on their own, because then you end up 27 years old, still wandering the world, being like, “Where do I fit in? Where do I belong?” You spend your entire life bouncing between explanation to explanation to explanation to explanation.
I was invited to parties but I kept looking at it through the glass. I wasn't there. As a deejay, I wasn't there. I'm playing music for people. I'm not enjoying the party. I'm just doing the thing I'm doing.
As a stand-up, I'm in front of you. There's a wall between us. I'm trying to connect through it but I'm never going to step through it. That's just where I am currently.
So I'll leave you with this. Fleetwood Mac. Thank you.
Part 2: Rhonda Key
The year. 1982. I was walking through my high school and I enter this room on the second floor in this room there were test tubes, jars full of chemicals, biology posters, life-size skeletons. The desks were aligned straight, side by side.
I was in this course called biology. The course where mammals, reptiles, birds and insects feared. Only the smart, the strong and the elite survived.
Then came the teacher, Mr. Science, I will call him. He was this well-dressed black male. He had a trim beard and he was doused, I mean just covered with cologne. He was very articulate. He spoke the King James language. That's what he told us. He did not accept Ebonics nor slang in his classroom.
He aligned us in our chairs by our last names and we were called Miss and Mister. Wow. I was Miss. I felt privileged and proud to be in this classroom.
Now, if you made an A in this classroom, your name will be placed in the main hallway of the school and you will be part of the smart elite.
I made A in that classroom. I made first chair. My name was in the main hallway of that high school because I made an A. When I saw my name I knew I was going to major in biology and I was going to be a medical doctor.
1990. I was preparing for an interview. See, I received my biology degree, but I also received a teacher certificate. During that time, I had an opportunity to be a substitute teacher and I became Mr. Science.
Rhonda Key shares her story with the Story Collider audience at the Ready Room in St. Louis, MO in July 2019. Photo by David Kovaluk.
My kids were saying, “Where's my lab coat?”, “I'm not Rachel. My name is Miss Adams,” “She's teaching us to be doctors and nurses.”
That converted me. I forgot about the medical school. So that day in 1990, I was preparing for my interview in this small, majority white conservative town in mid-Missouri where the sidewalks rolled up at 5:30 p.m.
See, I was confident. I knew I had the job. You know why? Because Mr. Science taught me.
I walk in this office and they're set behind this desk with this white, middle-aged male. He had on a white shirt, short sleeves and a black tie.
I sat. We made pleasantries. And I would call him Mr. HP for High School Principal.
He said to me, “The kids would not accept you. You are black and you're a woman. They will not respect you because they're not used to someone like you.”
Immediately, for me, the room got silent. All I saw was his mouth moving. In my mind, I saw myself standing up, towering over this person, screaming and yelling and taking my arms and just clearing his desk, but I did not. I just sat and stared. And from behind him rose a two‑headed serpent hissing.
That two-headed serpent for me was the black woman's glass ceiling. It was the realism for me, the biasness of gender and race. I felt attacked. I felt defenseless. And I said to myself, “Where is my protector? Where is my angry black woman with the ‘S’ upon her chest? Where is she? Come and help me.”
Then I realized she did not exist for me. I did not know her.
So, I finally spoke and I said to Mr. HP, “How come I'm not good enough?”
He said, “I'm just being honest. I don't want to waste your time.”
I got up and I walked out, and I was walking to my car and I was confused. Because my father taught me I can be anything I wanted to be, have any adventures I chose to do. He did not tell me of a two-headed serpent. He did not tell me of the black woman's plight.
So on my way to my car, I heard the voice of my mother saying to me, “You are black. You have to be twice as good.”
Well, my cooperative teacher in this area where I was, I was getting ready to say the name. I'd probably get sued. The cooperative teacher had convinced the middle school principal to give me a job. So he gave me a job at the In-school Suspension Supervisor and to teach biology in the summer. Only in the summer. Not in the fall and spring. In the summer. I took it because I wanted to prove Mr. HP wrong.
My first day of summer school I walked to my room. The custodian was there and I asked him to open the room.
Rhonda Key shares her story with the Story Collider audience at the Ready Room in St. Louis, MO in July 2019. Photo by David Kovaluk.
“Who are you? Do you belong in that room? All visitors go to the main office.”
I said to him, “I am not a visitor. I belong in that room and I am a teacher.”
At that moment, my angry black woman was born and became an infant.
Now, kids came in, sat in their seats. Of course they were looking at me, who is she. So I began to talk and one student began to talk over me.
I said, “Would you please be quiet. I'm talking.”
He said, “Shut up, you black bitch.”
At that moment, I saw Mr. HP and the two-headed serpent only in time that moment.
So I said to Mr. Red, because this was a white boy, red hair, freckled face, had on a General Lee Dukes of Hazzard t-shirt, straight leg jeans and some muddy cowboy boots, and he had a smirk on his face.
So I said, “Mr. Red, you and I are going to be great friends,” what I mean by teacher and student, “because you're an honest student. Yes, I am black. Yes, I can be a bitch. But the next time you call me black bitch, it's Miss Black Bitch.”
And I said, “I will not shut up because I want you to graduate. I want you to have a high school diploma.”
So if crickets were in that room, it would have been playing a symphony. Everybody stared and myself and Mr. Red stared at each other. Mr. Red, he stepped back, retaliated. In my mind I said, “Checkmate,” and the class began.
At the end of the class, I was walking to my car. And I got in my car that day and I still remembered I was so angry because I said why did this student, white male, feel so comfortable to call me out, tell me to close my mouth, call me a dog and put me in my place? Why did he feel that comfortable to do that?
I was angry. That time, my angry black woman became a teenager.
1992. I am still at this middle school. I'm In-school Suspension Supervisor and I'm teaching summer school biology. I had a visitor that day, this tall, black male. He was Assistant Principal at the high school, the only black administrator during that time.
He came into my office. He was well-dressed and had pretty white teeth. I remember that.
And he said to me, “We're going to offer you a job. We got a full-time biology position at the high school for you.”
I said, “Do Mr. HP, the high school principal know you're here offering me this job?”
He said, “Yes. He sent me.” And I mean he was so proud to say that to me like he was offering me a brand new car.
So I got up, we went eye to eye, I stuck my chest out and I said, “I decline.” So he got up and walked away.
The next day, Mr. HP called me, the high school principal on the phone. And he says, “Rhonda,” no, he didn't call me Miss Key, “Rhonda, we have this full-time biology position. We want you to take it.”
I said, “I decline with glee.”
I remained at the middle school as an In-school Suspension Supervisor and I taught, continued to teach summer school biology. I did that because I wanted to stay in a space where people did not want to see my face. I want to stay there on my terms, and I did.
That day when I declined, my angry black woman grew into womanhood.
My angry black woman would never retire. She is still with me today as an Assistant Superintendent. I continue to use my voice for black women, young women, children, women of all races. I will continue to use my voice and speak out for those women who cannot speak for themselves or unable to speak for themselves or fearful to speak for themselves. My angry black woman still speaks for them. She is my and for others a protector and advocate. Thank you.