Host: Dan Kennedy

Dan: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. On this week's episode, we're sharing two stories in celebration of Black History Month. Our first story was told just a few weeks ago at a high school slam by one of our education alums. The theme of the night was identity crisis. Here is Mmachi Dimoriaku, live at The Moth. 

Mmachi: So when my parents came From Nigeria about 20 years ago, they had decided for all their children they're gonna have traditional Nigerian names. And by they, I mean my father, because he was a very. He's a very traditional African guy. And, like, was all like, when we come to America, you have to be a traditional Igbo woman. That's really how he sounds. And my mother, on the other hand, she. You know, she wanted to give me a chance at life and at least give me one English name. But sadly, that didn't happen. So throughout my early stages of life, I always heard my parents speaking to me in our native language and also speaking. Saying my name. I didn't have really much of a problem with it until I started elementary school. 

Now, in elementary school, you know, like, when you're going through the roll call, and, like, the teacher starts going through names. So it was my first day of kindergarten, and the teacher's going through, and they just stop at my name, and then they just have this face of, like, utter confusion. It's like, how do I say this? Why is there an accent right there? Like, what's this? Like, dash? And at some point, I just started to, like, get used to the idea of the second the teacher stops during roll call to just raise my hand and say, hey, that's me. And funny, whenever it gets to the end of the school year, the teacher's like, oh, I finally got your name. And I'm like, yeah, it's June. When am I going to see you again? Like, doesn't make any sense. 

So, like, I just felt like I was always in this cultural. Cultural rift and stuff. Like, I was born in the Bronx, New York, but my parents, they're all raised. They're all, like. They were raised. And, like, all my family that I know are all from Nigeria. So whenever I'm over there in Nigeria, they're like, oh, you were born in America, So obviously you're an American. You talk like an American. But then when I'm over here, they're just like, where are your parents from? And I say, oh, African. They're like, oh, so you're African? Like, they just take out the idea of even though I was born here. Like, there's nothing really holding me here. So I had. So throughout middle school, I had decided, you know, I'm no longer gonna have these, I'm no longer gonna, like, people are gonna say my name. 

I had like these nice cool names like Victoria, Veronica, Vanessa. Like, I just loved the letter V for some reason and just kept that going. And whenever the teacher would go through roll call in middle school, they would stop on my name and say, hey D, don't call me that. My name is Victoria, please. And it was going really well until around summer school. And I'm going, and I'm going through, we're going through our assignment for the day. And my teacher, the teacher at the time, Mr. A, he was sitting in the front of the classroom. And let me give you a little description of Mr. A. He was this tall, dark skinned Ghanaian man with a really bald head. 

And he was strumming his guitar as like were doing our assignments and stuff because he just like really enjoyed like playing the guitar for us. And we're done with our assignment and one student starts talking to Mr. A and says, hey, you know, she doesn't call herself African, right? And as when he was saying that, as soon as the student said that, Mr. A just like was slowly stopped playing his guitar, like, looks at us and starts giving us a lecture on what it means to be where you're like your culture and where you're from. And even though he's talking to the whole class, he's also like talking to me specifically saying like, hey, you, just because you are, you are who you are. Your parents are from a beautiful culture, you are from a beautiful culture. 

You should accept who you are, accept your name, accept the love of your name and where it's from. And as he's saying all this, like all the students, everyone else is listening attentively and I'm just like in my seat, like, no, why are you outing me right now? Like, I was perfectly fine. Like, everyone knew me as Victoria. Like, don't. Like it was, I was just, I felt so defeated at that moment. But I pushed after that day, I pushed that all back to the back of my mind and didn't really think about it again until my freshman year of high school. And freshman year I was in our school's Black Box Theater. And we're just doing our assignments and one student got up out of nowhere and just started violating all the Africans. 

And by violating, I mean, just like he was Making really corny jokes, like African booty scratches. Then he started talking to one student, was like, doing the tongue click thing. And I was just like, oh, my God. Like, could you. Not exactly like that. It was like, so annoying. And I'm just like, nobody's saying anything. And I'm just like, why isn't anybody saying anything? Why isn't anybody doing anything? Like, somebody should say something. And as if I was hearing. As if I was, like, answering myself, I suddenly got up, looked him in the eye, and I said, don't violate my people. And when I said that, and when I said that, I felt as if my whole weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I felt so relieved after I said that. 

And I was just hearing Mr. A in the background saying, yes, accept who you are. Love yourself, love your name, Be like everything that. All the love of your culture. And like, I just felt. I felt so good at that moment. And now I am in my sophomore year of college and I go to a PWI and it's even. I feel like now it's even more imperative to accept my. Accept my culture, accept my identity, acceptance, the love that I have for these two beautiful countries. Like, yes, I am very proud to have been born a New Yorker. I'm very proud to be a Bronxite. But I'm even more proud to have such a beautiful culture in the beautiful country of Nigeria. And that all starts with who I am and my name. And my name is Machuku Ony Nyechuku. Thank you. 

That's Macie di Moriakou. Maci is an alumni of The Moths education program and also worked as a teaching artist intern in the program. Nowadays, Maci is studying to get her degree at Wilkes University as a sophomore theater art student with a minor in creative writing. She still continues to tell stories. You can keep up with her on YouTube as well. Or you can visit themoth.org for more info. Next we have a story from our community program. Sharif El Meki's father was a political revolutionary who was serving time in jail for an act of civil disobedience. When he was young, Sharif looked up to his father, but couldn't quite escape the pressure to be a revolutionary and activist himself. He told this story at a Moth community workshop we held in Philadelphia back in 2016. Here's Sharif El Mekhi. 

From early on, I knew my parents and teachers had the expectation that I was going to be a revolutionary. My earliest dreams were about protest and civil unrest and boycotts. They should have been nightmares. I was A kid. But they were just dreams of a child who knew he was supposed to be a revolutionary. My parents met and got married in the Black Panther Party. I was enrolled in a school that was founded by activists and revolutionaries. It was called Nitamusasa. It was in Queen Lane. We didn't have gym at that school. We had martial arts. And Baba Changa, My martial arts teacher, would always say, if you're going to speak the truth, you got to be able to defend the truth. By the age of 10, I had met some of the most amazing revolutionaries who were not locked up and still alive. 

Angela Davis, Sonia Sanchez, members of the Wilmington 10 Move members. In the playground was really a parking lot in the back. As kids, we would chant, we are soldiers in the army. We're going to fight, although we gotta die. I remember being 10, in my kitchen, my mother showing me a picture. And as I looked at the picture, she said, dad is in this picture. And I'm looking at it, and the first thing that stood out to me is Afros and seven guys and handcuffs. I felt such pride. I had a lot of emotions. I was proud that I was the son of this handcuffed revolutionary who I knew stood for something and stood for social justice. He and his friends also had rage. I had raged that someone had did this to my father and his friends. 

And also in the picture, what really got me upset was a police officer with a shotgun. And you could tell he was yelling something. And I just imagined that he was yelling something foul and racist to my father. I was angry. So I grew up, and I continued to be really upset. Furious, actually, about all the social justice issues that I would see. But I was also really confused because I didn't know how to become a revolutionary. So meanwhile, I graduated high school. I got a full academic scholarship to a state college. One day in October, after I graduated from college, me and some friends were playing pickup football in a field, actually Bartram High School's field in Southwest Philadelphia. We were playing, and quite often, I would channel my rage through football, because that's what men do. 

And at some point, I tackled someone really hard, and I celebrated. And all of a sudden, I felt this blow in the back of my head. And when I looked up, everyone from the field was running. And so I turned around to find out, what were they running from? And I had a gun in my face. He didn't like being tackled like that. And so he got a gun from his friends who happened to be in the stands. I grabbed the gun, and we're wrestling with it and he just starts pulling the trigger. I was shot three times. It severed an artery. So I was in the hospital for a month and 20 plus surgeries to try to save my leg. Periodically I would talk to my father who was in jail. 

My mother would come visit me, but I couldn't find any answers as to what to do next. And I would think about the person who shot me because a revolutionary training. I figured I would get shot by the police or something one day. But the guy who shot me did not look like the police officer in that picture. The guy who shot me looked like me. Eventually, after getting out of the hospital, a group called Concerned Black Men had a contract with the school district and they were looking for black men to become teachers. And although previously I had never thought of being a teacher, I thought about the young man who had shot me and I said, I'm going to do this. 

So I became a teacher and I thought about all the times when I was younger and just said, there's something wrong with the planet I'm in. Like God had it all wrong. I wasn't supposed to be born in 1971. I was supposed to be born in 1951. So I could have been part of the struggle of my parents and all these heroes. But on the first day of school, I realized that there were no mistakes. My revolution was to be a black man by a blackboard in southwest Philadelphia, in the same part of town where that young man had shot me. I am a revolutionary. 

That was Sharif El Mekhi. Sharif has gone on to become an accomplished teacher and leader in education. He taught for 10 years at John P. Turner Middle School and went on to become a principal of the Anna H. Shaw Middle School and even served as a principal ambassador for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Sharif currently serves on the Mayor's Commission on African American Males in Philadelphia and is a member of Education Leaders of Color. He's also entering his 10th year as principal of Mastery Charter School at the Shoemaker Campus. To see pictures of Sharif, his family, and even the picture of his father from the story, just visit our site, The Moth. Okay, that's it for this week on The Moth Podcast. And from all of us at The Moth here in New York, we wish you all a story worthy week. 

Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit. 

He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth Podcast, production by Timothy Lu Lee. The Moth Podcast is presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org.