
First day he say, "Class turn the book pages to page 122 please." I don't move. Even though I know that back door be locked. I sit in the same seat everyday, in the back, last row, next to the door. We don't have assigned seats in Mr Wicher's class, we can sit anywhere we want. I jus' fall in Mr Wicher's class sit down. I actually don't mind maff as much as I had thought I would. Why they put some shit like maff first period I do not know. I am walking down the hall from homeroom to first period maff. 146 on 134th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd. The building I'm talking about is, of course, I.S. And there is no, none, I mean none, air conditioning in this mutherfucking building. What he mean is, it's hot, 90 degrees, like summer days. It's hot but I do not take off my leather jacket even though it's hot, it might get stolen or lost. So, OK, it's Thursday, September twenty-four 1987 and I'm walking down the hall. But I'm gonna try to make sense and tell the truth, else what's the fucking use? Ain' enough lies and shit out there already? Some people tell a story 'n it don't make no sense or be true.
Two weeks from now? Sure you can do anything when you talking or writing, it's not like living when you can only do what you doing. Guess 'cause I don't know how far I'm gonna go with this story, or whether it's even a story or why I'm talkin' whether I'm gonna start from the beginning or right from here or two weeks from now. I got suspended from school 'cause I'm pregnant which I don't think is fair. "In 2009, we have a tremendous range of black families in the media, form the Cosbys to the Obamas, so now, I think, we are safe enough and secure enough to show this diseased situation with the hope that we can see it as something that needs to be healed, as opposed to something that we need to hide from the public's view," she says. Though she initially worried that allowing her work to be adapted to film would reinforce negative stereotypes about the black community, Sapphire says that times have changed in the 13 years since her book was written. I thought, 'This is someone who will not back up from the material and will present something true and vital to the public.'"

"But because he had gone over the edge with his own work.

"I just knew this was the person who could do this, although none of his films dealt with the issues in the book," she says. But then she saw Daniels' films Monster's Ball and Shadow Boxer and reconsidered: But she turned them all down - including an offer from director Lee Daniels. She's locked out by her class, and she's locked out by her color.Īlmost as soon as the book was published, Sapphire received proposals to turn it into a film. She's locked out by her physical appearance. I wanted to show that this girl is locked out by literacy.
