Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: Her novel Push is a
New York Times bestseller, and
Precious, the film it was made
into, won a trophy case full of
awards, including an Oscar.
But despite the accolades, many
people feel that this story
should have never been told.
Award-winning poet, author, and
educator Sapphire.
I'm Maria Hinojosa.
This is One on One.
Sapphire, welcome to the
program.
It's an honor to have you here.
>> SAPPHIRE: I'm really exited to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
>> HINOJOSA: So you write this
amazing novel, Push.
Ends up on the New York Times
bestseller list, published in
1996.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: And then in the
year 2009, Push becomes
Precious, the movie.
And it's a movie essentially
about a young girl in Harlem.
She's obese, and she's
brutalized by her mother and her
father.
And a lot of people kind of
focus on the horrible things
that happen both in the book and
in the movie.
But you really see this story
about what?
>> SAPPHIRE: I saw it as a story of
transformation.
I saw it as a story of rebirth.
I saw it as a story of someone
who had been near dead or unable
to live fully.
And I saw it as a coming to
life.
And that is what has attracted
so many people to the novel and
especially to the movie, is that
it doesn't... while we see the
brutality, while we see the
evil, we mostly see and exalt in
this girl's coming to life, and,
you know, we're rooting for her.
And Gabourey, our star, we're
seeing her literally open like a
flower, you know, become
beautiful, become alive.
>> HINOJOSA: And yet... and you
know this, because, you know,
the book was published in '96.
And when the book came out,
people were attacking you.
They were like, "How dare you
write this book?
This is a horrible story.
You are stereotyping our African
American men and the entire
community."
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, my God.
And then when the movie comes
out, you're basically attacked
again.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
You know what?
It comes with the territory.
I made a conscious decision.
You know, I used to be... or
used to want to be a dancer.
That's a whole different medium.
I knew when I started to write,
and the subject matter that I
had chosen to write about, that
I wasn't going to get off scot
free.
And I was lucky, because so many
women had gone before me--
Ntozake Shange, you know,
Jessica Hagadorn, Toni Morrison,
Alice Walker.
So I knew what was coming.
I wasn't surprised.
Anytime you air out so-called
dirty laundry, anytime you dig
into the bowels of a culture,
people are going to accuse you
of being a traitor, accuse you
of stereotyping.
But for me, I was lancing the
wounds, I was cleansing the
deepest... the deepest, darkest
parts of our soul, and I was
doing what we needed to do so
that we could live, I thought.
>> HINOJOSA: There was a time in
your life, you were still a
young person, when you suddenly
realized that the life that you
thought you had led, which, you
know, you say pretty kind of
typical African American middle
class, and suddenly you start
realizing that you... you start
remembering that you were not
only physically abused by your
dad, you were sexually abused,
and that your mom essentially
abandoned your family.
>> SAPPHIRE: Mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: And you said you
almost went into having a
nervous breakdown, but that the
art saved you.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
I don't know if it's that just
one-two, but it's in the process
of overcoming my own trauma that
I had to find some outlet, you
know, I had to find something,
you know what I mean?
And I was always a creative
child.
And so... but I was never a
particularly... and I always
read, but I was never
particularly a literary kid, you
know what I mean?
But I had published a thing in
the school newspaper.
And I just started to see...
begin to see writing as more
than just transferring
information, but that it could
be a way of reordering my soul.
It could be a way of
restructuring the life that I
had lost in a certain kind of
way.
You know, because what had
happened to me in some ways had
broken me.
We can put it like that.
We can really say that.
And I could either stay broken
or I could begin to put myself
back together.
And that's what the process of
writing poetry, and a lot of it
very bad... but just the process
of trying to put words together,
the linguistic process of taking
bits of language and trying to
create experience that others
and myself could understand, I
think healed me.
>> HINOJOSA: Now, of course,
when I walk through the streets,
after I read your book in '96 I
always would look and think, you
know, "Is she being abused?
Is this woman being abused?
How is she..." you know, "How do
we make her visible?"
And you really wanted... you
wanted people to see a character
like Precious...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: ...and see her.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
I thought... you know the famous
novel by Ralph Ellison, The
Invisible Man.
And I remember contemplating
Precious and bringing her to
life, and thinking she would be
invisible even to the invisible
man.
So for... you know, The
Invisible Man was about a man
who is not seen by the dominant
culture.
And I was thinking Precious is
not even seen by her own.
Even by the underclass she is
invisible.
People have done everything...
she says it-- "They want to wipe
me away, forget that I exist."
So I began to see it almost as a
responsibility, you know, as a
task, you know, like a warrior,
you know, that this was... I was
going to slay these dragons that
kept her invisible.
And the dragons were denial,
embarrassment, and ignorance,
you know?
We... many of us in the African
American community were ashamed
of Precious, you know?
She wasn't our...
>> HINOJOSA: She was a loser.
>> SAPPHIRE: She wasn't our Halle Berry,
type, you know what I mean?
She wasn't a winner.
She was what we had been taught
to think of, also, as ugly.
She was... you know, in all
nonwhite cultures we've been
taught to think of the darkest
of our people as ugly.
She also was not a fashion model
in terms of physique.
You know, she didn't have long,
flowing hair.
So there were a lot of things
there that put her in a category
that would cause her not to be
seen.
But even more than that, the way
that anyone is seen and
acquaints themself with a larger
culture is through language.
And in a certain kind of way,
Precious didn't even have
language to express herself.
>> HINOJOSA: Which was an
amazing thing about the book.
I mean, so many people now have
seen the movie, but I always
tell them, "You have to read the
book."
Because you write this book as
if you are Precious.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: And so you're
writing it the was she as an
illiterate teenager would write.
It's a dialect.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: How did you do
that?
>> SAPPHIRE: Well, you know, for years
I've... for years and years I
taught adult literacy.
And I taught teenagers from 16
and up to women in their 70s and
80s who had come back to school
because they wanted to learn to
read the Bible.
And they would keep notebooks,
and a lot of... some of what you
see in the movie, like the
dialogue journal going back and
forth.
And... but a lot of my students
would... due to life
circumstances they would
disappear.
You know, I wouldn't know what
happened.
Maybe they would go back to the
Dominican Republic, maybe they
would go back down South.
And they would leave me the
notebooks.
And that would be all I would
have.
And I would just pore over it.
And I would... you know, many of
these students I formed deep,
intense attachments with.
Sometimes I would even go to
their homes to try to find out
where they had went.
And I couldn't, you know?
And so there I was with these
notebooks, which eventually I
just bundled up and gave back to
the administration where I was
teaching.
But for months I would just pore
over these notebooks.
>> HINOJOSA: And there were
horrible, horrible things in
these notebooks.
>> SAPPHIRE: There were horrible, horrible
things, but there were also
wonderful things, like, "I can
finally read, and I was able to
open a checking account, and now
I don't have to give my man my
money no more."
Things like that, wondrous
things, you know what I mean?
That whole... you know, I would
get them young adult versions of
the Bible.
So here's these religious women
who have basically been
controlled by their priest or
their preachers, now taking
command of what... of God's word
themself.
So there were some wonderful
things, and then there were the
stories, the stories of the
abuse, the stories of the
ridicule, you know, the stories
of just... there was a black
historian who wrote a book,
Carter G. Woodson, and he
said... he was talking about the
psychology of the oppressed.
And said if there was no back
door that often African
Americans, because they'd been
trained to go to the back door,
would make a back door.
You know, they would go to the
back of a house, even if there
was no back door.
And that translated in the movie
and in the book to these
students who would... I would
have to make a circle, because
they would always want to sit in
the back row.
They would always want...
>> HINOJOSA: Want to be
invisible.
>> SAPPHIRE: They want to be in the back,
as far back as they could get.
And so that whole thing of being
in a circle where they can see
and where they can be seen...
and then they would write about
that, you know, their self
consciousness, and not feeling
that they had been beautiful.
And, you know, some of the ones
who were more open would just
write me and ask me, "Am I
beautiful?"
You know what I mean?
And I would say, "Yeah, you're
beautiful," you know what I
mean?
Just things like that.
And so their souls would open
up, and we had deep
confidentiality agreements.
You know, I said no one, unless
you... you know, unless you
threaten to take your own life
or someone else's life, no one
will ever see this notebook.
>> HINOJOSA: So they were really
able to be entirely honest.
>> SAPPHIRE: There was a deep intimacy,
and that comes through in the...
not so much in the movie, but
you really see that in the book,
where she... Precious reveals
things like her status, the
abuse, you know, what was
happening with her mama,
things... the unspeakable.
The unspeakable can be written.
>> HINOJOSA: And you actually
say it has to be written...
>> SAPPHIRE: It must be.
>> HINOJOSA: Must be written
over and over again.
I'm thinking about the character
of Mo'Nique.
What was it like for you...
whoa.
Because what a total
transformation...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: ...of this woman
Mo'Nique.
I mean, her own personal story
of allowing herself to be
transformed into this monster.
Talk about what it was like to
see Mo'Nique onscreen, and also
about that very untold story
that actually I reported about
in the 1990s, which was about
women who are perpetrators of
sexual abuse against their own
children.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly, exactly.
It's interesting.
Many, many women had come to me,
and they had done, like,
one-woman plays of Push.
Some women had done it in
Amsterdam, France, a young woman
here had done it as an MFA
thesis, as a one-woman show.
And they would come to me, and
literally they would always say
the same thing-- "You know,
Sapphire, that section with the
mother?"
And I would say, "Yeah, that
section with the mother."
"We left that out."
So...
>> HINOJOSA: They just really
didn't want to...
>> SAPPHIRE: They just... they didn't
touch it.
It would not be in their text,
and it would not be in the
performance.
>> HINOJOSA: It is so not talked
about, that women can be
perpetrators.
>> SAPPHIRE: So I was totally prepared for
Mo'Nique to leave it out, or for
Lee Daniels not to have that in
the movie.
And for Mo'Nique... I didn't
know Mo'Nique was going to go
there.
But I had an inkling.
I met her on the set.
She hugged me, and she said... I
forget her exact words, but she
said something like, "I'm going
to do this, and if I ever get
off track, Mommy, I want you to
let me know."
And it just went into my heart.
I said, "This woman is serious,"
you know what I mean?
But because I was
unsophisticated, and I didn't
know what the dailies were, you
know, I didn't know anything
about filmmaking or anything, so
I didn't know that at the end of
each day's shooting they show
the dailies, what has been shot.
So the first time I saw the film
was just like everybody else.
I was in a...
>> HINOJOSA: You're kidding me.
>> SAPPHIRE: Even though I had had a cameo
and been on the set, when I saw
the film in its entirety it was
in a screening room with other
people.
And I remember I was just dazed,
and I was... I thought, "This is
some of the best acting I've
ever seen in my life.
This woman is phenomenal."
And she went there.
She was fearless.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, she went there.
>> SAPPHIRE: And I just felt that...
>> HINOJOSA: She was horrible.
>> SAPPHIRE: I felt she was true to my...
true to the text.
She was true to the text.
She took these words, and she
made them alive.
And I just thought, "This is
phenomenal."
And I was scared, because this
was the first screening, and I
was like... you know, and Lee
was talking, because it's a
different movie then, you know?
And I thought, "My God," you
know, "We're going to cut this."
And I thought, "Oh, my God, I
hope he doesn't cut Mo'Nique."
This is perhaps some of the best
acting in modern cinema.
>> HINOJOSA: Now, she did win an
Oscar.
>> SAPPHIRE: She sure did.
>> HINOJOSA: And you were there,
actually.
I saw you right when you were...
>> SAPPHIRE: I was there, I was there.
>> HINOJOSA: Sapphire at the
Oscars!
>> SAPPHIRE: And when I was... when I was
flying in, I was... you know,
there was, like, no doubt in my
mind that she was going to get
it.
You know, and I also... I really
thought Lee should have gotten
Best Director, and that we
should have got Best Picture.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, I was rooting
for Gabourey.
>> SAPPHIRE: And I was also rooting for
Gabourey.
>> HINOJOSA: Because when I saw
that performance... and Gabourey
does an amazing job of being
Precious.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: But the moments
where Gabourey goes into her
fantasy life, and suddenly she's
got these, you know, boas, and
she's, like, a queen, that's
when I was like, "Oh, my God,
she has got to win Best
Actress."
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: Because that's when
you see the depth of her.
And she didn't win Best Actress.
>> SAPPHIRE: I was deeply disappointed.
>> HINOJOSA: How was she?
How did she handle that?
>> SAPPHIRE: I think she's handled it as
any 20-something would, you
know?
Like, she knows there's going to
be a next time.
That was the other thing.
I thought, "If there's a good
part to this, and there's not
really, it's that she's in her
20s, and that now there will
have to be other major films for
her."
>> HINOJOSA: Do you trust
filmmaking a little bit more now
in terms of...
>> SAPPHIRE: You know who I trust?
I trust myself.
I... you know, I did the right
thing.
All those people I told no, I
was correct.
You know, Madonna wanted to do
the film.
I mean, all kinds of people
wanted to do...
>> HINOJOSA: Madonna.
>> SAPPHIRE: Yo.
So... and there's nothing wrong
with those people.
>> HINOJOSA: That's right, I had
heard about that, that she was
trying to...
>> SAPPHIRE: And she's a brilliant woman,
but what does she know about
race and class?
This movie had to deal with race
and class.
There were a lot of people who
came to me, and I talked with
them, or I had them write me,
and I looked at what they were
putting down, and I said no.
And then Lee came, and I said no
too, but then I saw Monster's
Ball, and I saw Monster's Ball,
and I said yeah.
He's fearless.
Here we have a black woman
falling in love with a white man
who has helped to execute the
black woman's husband.
He's not afraid of offending
people.
He will go there.
So it was like... and then I
said, "Yeah, he can do it."
>> HINOJOSA: How do you... I
mean, I think probably people
will say...
>> SAPPHIRE: And I was right.
>> HINOJOSA: Right.
And people will probably say,
"Wait a second.
But Sapphire wrote this book,
and she's written all this
poetry.
What do you mean she learned to
trust herself?"
People assume that you've always
trusted yourself, that just by
putting that writing down, that
you trust yourself.
And yet it's a process.
>> SAPPHIRE: Yeah, it's a process.
And to trust... you know, it's
interesting, because you asked
me earlier, had I done a lot of
television.
And I said no, and not because
people haven't come to me, but
because I didn't want to be
exploited or made to look stupid
or something like that.
And so it is that thing of
beginning to trust myself, and
then trust that if I trust
myself, if I really have a sense
of dignity and honesty, then I
can begin to trust that other
people will treat me with
dignity and a sense of honesty,
as opposed to the Kitty Kelley
treatment or something, you know
what I mean?
>> HINOJOSA: So you actually
feel...
>> SAPPHIRE: Yeah, so I'm learning that.
I'm learning to gauge who I can
trust and stuff.
>> HINOJOSA: And the interesting
thing is that you... even though
you've been highly criticized
and targeted, you can still come
out feeling... feeling good,
feeling like this was an
absolute positive?
>> SAPPHIRE: I do, I do.
I mean, I think it's good that
we were... the people who
criticized us, and the reasons
that they criticized us, I
wasn't surprised by.
I mean, there is tremendous
denial in American culture.
We're a culture that idolizes
youth, that spends millions and
billions of dollars on trying to
look young, but we despise, in
some way, young people.
So here we have to beg... you
know, community groups have to
beg for funding for our
kindergartens and this and that,
you know what I mean?
So there's that paradox that we
have this youth-orientated
culture, but we actually don't
really love young people.
You know, we want to... you
know, if people have enough
money, they hire someone else to
actually raise their children.
We don't value them, and we
exploit their bodies in a way
that has never been paralleled.
I mean, the level of child
pornography, the level of sexual
abuse of young people, has
gotten worse, not better, you
know what I mean?
So yeah, you're going to get
criticism.
People, instead of thinking I
was talking about a worldwide
phenomena of sexual abuse,
people thought I was talking
about black men.
And that's so myopic, you know
what I mean?
But what... so I knew that that
was coming.
There were actually people...
some people who I gave credit
for more intelligence actually
asked... put it in the New York
Times, why is Gabourey dark?
Why did we pick a dark star?
>> HINOJOSA: They actually...
>> SAPPHIRE: That's in an article by
Felicia Lee.
Someone comments on the shade of
Gabourey's skin.
These type of things you can't
predict.
We picked her because she was
beautiful and she was talented.
>> HINOJOSA: Amazingly talented.
The story that you also point
out with Push, the movie
Precious, is that... it's about
these community groups, these...
you know, these community
organizers.
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: Look at you.
You're just like...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: Because you want
people to...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: ...say, "You know
what?
If we actually see someone...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: ...who is entirely
different than us...
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
>> HINOJOSA: ...and we give of
ourselves, we can in fact
transform someone's life."
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly.
And I really wanted to show...
you have this dysfunctional
family, a family of colored
dysfunctionals, but you also
have this functional community.
You know, so the first person
who... she has angels.
You see that in the book.
Each blade of grass has an angel
that tells it to grow, grow.
And so the first person who
comes to her, she's literally
going to die if she doesn't get
the baby out of her body.
And it's the Emergency Service
man, a Hispanic man, who tells
her, "Baby, you've got to push
to give birth, to give life to
yourself."
Then she comes to her teacher,
then she comes to her friends,
then she has a halfway house
teacher, she has a a social
worker.
There's a community, a
functional community of working
class and middle class African
Americans around her who will
help her live, who will help her
live.
So it wasn't just the story of a
dysfunctional family, it was the
story of a functional community
that rose to save her.
And I think that's the part that
people overlook, you know?
>> HINOJOSA: And it is
overlooked.
I mean, you've had to kind of
say...
>> SAPPHIRE: I've had to, like, pound that
into people.
>> HINOJOSA: ..."It's about
literacy, it's about empowering,
it's about community-based
organizations."
>> SAPPHIRE: Exactly, exactly.
The whole book is a tribute to
community-based organizations.
I mean, the halfway house.
I mean, the most... one of the
most beautiful scenes in the
movie, I think, is where
Precious is dunking the baby in
the water, it's a baptismal
scene.
I don't have a swimming pool.
Working class and poor people
don't have access to swimming
pools.
That swimming pool is paid...
that's a state-owned swimming
pool.
That's our money at good use,
you know?
The halfway house where she
learns mothering skills, you
know what I mean?
Her friends, where she overcomes
xenophobia, homophobia, where
she gets a new world view, where
she begins to see herself.
That's us, you know what I mean?
That's a functional, strong,
healed community who is reaching
out for one of their own who has
been destroyed.
What's negative about that?
Why should anyone be ashamed of
that?
Why should black people be
ashamed of that picture?
>> HINOJOSA: So, Sapphire, you
were once a struggling artist,
unsure about writing of your own
poetry.
Wow.
>> SAPPHIRE: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: Wow.
>> SAPPHIRE: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: How are you
processing that?
Because it's a total, "Whoop!"
>> SAPPHIRE: It is, it's a flip.
>> HINOJOSA: You don't have to
work.
>> SAPPHIRE: Yeah, yeah.
Well, I do have to work.
>> HINOJOSA: I mean, you have to
work.
>> SAPPHIRE: I'm working on my novel right
now.
I do speaking engagements.
And I'm taking some classes,
hoping to be able to get into a
Ph.D. program.
But no, I no longer have to work
at a fast food joint.
I no longer have to go from
Harlem to the Upper West Side
and clean white ladies' houses.
So, you know, my life is really
blessed.
And in some ways, my life... now
I can look back, that I don't
have to do any of that anymore,
and say my life has really been
enriched by all those
experiences, because I am a
child of the working class.
And I have an... because I've
come through that, I will always
have an allegiance to writing
about the working class and
underclass.
And now I feel more than ever
that I have a responsibility.
And not a responsibility to
produce what people want, but to
keep telling the-- I love Al
Gore-- the inconvenient truth,
you know what I mean?
And so that's what I'm...
>> HINOJOSA: And you actually do
love Al Gore.
You said that that was a very
inspirational moment for you, to
see that.
>> HINOJOSA: Tell us about the
novel that you're working on.
Is it finished?
>> SAPPHIRE: It is.
It is actually finished now.
I was... as I was catching
the... riding the Acela up here
I was doing some... you know,
some... I had an editor look at
it.
So I was doing some little...
you know, little bits and pieces
here and there.
So I'm hoping to be able to hand
it in to... this is my own
editor, but to hand it in to a
publishing house and have it out
by 2011.
And in this novel, I have really
tried to look at the life of
young men, which is interesting
for me, you know what I mean?
So it was literally a world that
I observed but didn't know.
I tried to inhabit the body of a
young man.
This young man, he's a dancer.
So again, I'm still looking at
some issues of race and class,
but also looking at what it
means to be an artist in
America.
And also a thing that has
impacted not me personally so
much, but that I've watched a
lot in my community, and I think
we all live in fear of it, and
it impacts our behavior and
keeps us in line.
I'm looking at what it means to
be homeless, what it means to...
what that experience means, and
how that has shaped so many men.
>> HINOJOSA: And yet, you know
what?
We hear the numbers about
homeless this, homeless that,
it's almost, like, forgotten.
So to wrap up, there are
probably some young people
watching this who may be
surviving very horrible things.
What do you want to tell them?
>> SAPPHIRE: I want to tell them hang on.
Hang on, don't give up.
What we see with Gabby, with the
fantasies, is the ability to
imagine a situation other than
the one you're in.
The kids who commit suicide and
give up, in an odd kind of way,
it's a lack of vision.
It's because they think it'll
never get better.
And I want to say it gets
better.
It gets better.
And one of the things I look
back on, sometimes I just
marvel, because there were times
when I was young when I was
suicidal, and I... and right now
I just... I just... I'm so glad
I didn't kill myself.
I'm so glad I hung on.
I'm so glad I didn't kill
myself.
I came this close to not... to
none of this ever happening, you
know what I mean?
I would have just been another
statistic.
You know, friends talking about,
"Remember so and so?"
I'm so glad I hung on, I'm so
glad I did not die.
>> HINOJOSA: That's what I'm
talking about.
We are glad, too.
Thank you so much, Sapphire.
>> SAPPHIRE: Thank you.
>> HINOJOSA: And
congratulations.
>> SAPPHIRE: Oh, thank you.
>> HINOJOSA: Continue the
conversation at
wgbh.org/oneonone.
Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org
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