Legendary poet and writer Maya Angelou talks about her new book, Letter to My Daughter, and our changing world.
Marianne Schnall: What made you decide to write this book, Letter to My Daughter?
Maya Angelou: Well, I had started about 20 years ago making notes about subjects I wanted to talk over with Oprah, just one liners or two liners, about things that the next time we got together I wanted to be sure I tell her my thinking on this or that. And I threw all of that into something I call "Works in Progress" - it's a box called "WIP". And last year I went to see what did I have in there, along with suggestions for poems, songs and I looked and I thought, "Hmm, there's an essay here" and "Hmm, there's an essay there". Hmm. [laughs] I was encouraged by the notes themselves to write some words to some women who expect me - I think, from their letters to me - expect me to have something wise, or at any rate, considered, to say about issues they have obliged to confront. So that's why I wrote the book.
MS: What would you say is the essence or the message of the book? What are you hoping that readers will come away with?
MA: Well, hmm. I tried not to say what I had learned. I notice in a couple places, I did. But I think that each of us is so much alike, and yet at the same time we are so different, and I have a feeling that if you encountered difficulty, and I with my age encountered the same difficulty, I would respond one way, and you would respond another. Neither would be right or wrong. It's just that each of us is courageous, and that's what I encourage, courage, and the courage to see, and the courage to say to oneself what one has seen. Don't be in denial.
MS: I have two young daughters myself. What message would you most want to instill in young girls? What do you wish you had known as a child?
MA: That one, courage. Also, I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy. If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.
MS: Just yesterday I interviewed Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. At one point she talked about the importance of knowing yourself. She said, "Sometimes we become bound by other people's thoughts because we are not sure about ourselves" and that "when you know who you are you are free." Do you agree? And how does one go about discovering who we are, and living ones life authentically, with so many stereotypes and influences on us?
MA: Well, I think that we see how we can fall and rise. You see, we may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away - I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up! I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. I have so much courage in me that I have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. That's it. That's how you get to know who you are.
MS: I remember you had said in Letter to My Daughter, "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."
MA: Exactly. Exactly. It's raining like buckets here today. If friends were coming here for lunch, and especially if it was someone who was a fashionista, and she had plans to wear that particular costume for that particular period, and stepped out the door to encounter these sheets of rain, you may have to step back in to change what you are wearing. Or, get an umbrella and continue knowing that your hair is going to either get very curly or very straight. So you have to deal with what you encounter. But you must not be reduced. And so a way not to be reduced is don't whine! Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, that's life. And I've done that many times. And before I die I will probably have the occasion to do that many more! [laughs]
MS: We also should make sure to celebrate when wonderful things do happen. I saw some of your emotional appearances after Barack Obama's win. Did you ever imagine that you would live long enough to witness that?
MA: Never. Never. And yet somewhere, obviously I must have known. I know that my people did, because they couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better. And there's some songs from the 19th and 18th century that say [sings], "By and by, by and by, I will lay down, this heavy load." And I mean, so many songs that spoke of hope and understand it better by and by. Amazing songs. So that the slaves, just knowing that he, she, did not have the right legally to walk within one inch away from where the slave owner dictated, and yet the same person, wrote and sang with fervor, "If the lord wants somebody, here am I, send me." It's amazing.
MS: It really is. It feels like a new world.
MA: Yes, indeed.
MS: And there's something also beautiful about the fact that Obama was not just elected, but elected decisively across racial, and socio-economic and cultural groups and that we all celebrated in his win. MA: Exactly. Exactly.
MS: How do you feel when you look out at the world today?
MA: I feel very hopeful. I feel very hopeful, very expectant. I'm looking forward to it.
MS: There seems to be a growing movement around issues such as anti-war sentiment, awareness about global warming, and world poverty - a growth in awareness and compassion and a sense of responsibility - do you think humanity is experiencing an evolutionary shift to a new paradigm?
MA: I think so. I think we are making it very clear to people, whether they want to hear it or not, or whether they would like to think of this as some fluke, just sort of a drop in this misery of history - wrong, wrong. People are saying: this is what I will stand for. And I will not stand for any less than this. It's amazing. We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.
MS: What do you think is the root cause of all the problems we have in the world today?
MA: Well, ignorance of course. But most, polarization. You see, it's a long time arranging this sort of condition. And it will not be over in one term, or even two. But we are on the right road. If you have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is to convince yourself that the person is subhuman. And won't mind the enslavement. The second thing you must do is convince your allies that the person is subhuman so that you have some support. But the third and the unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he, she, is not quite a first class citizen. When the complete job has been done, the initiator can go back years later and ask, "Why don't you people like yourselves more?" You see? It's been true for women, it's been true for immigrants, it's been true for Asians, it's been true for Spanish-speaking people. So now we have to undo. We know this - and we have to undo these lessons which have been learned by all of us. And not just taught to us - but we've learned them. And so it will be no small matter. But we can undo it. We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.
MS: You talk about that so much in your book - and yet there are still so many ways we divide ourselves, by religion, race, gender, sexuality, nationality - are you hopeful that humanity will ever come to see ourselves as one human family?
MA: Yes, but it will be a long time. I think so. But that's all right - it's a wonderful goal to be working towards.
