Hill Harper Wants to Help Today's Youth
by Angela Scott

In this Q&A with CelebratingChildren.com's Parenting Solo columnist Angela Scott, actor and activist Hill Harper discusses why every black parent should read and recommend Hill's book, Letters To A Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny:

CelebratingChildren.com: Many people recognize your work in movies such as "Lackawanna Blues" as well as the TV crime investigative drama "CSI: NY", but not many realize the work you do outside of acting.

Hill Harper: I've been involved in the Big Brothers organization in Los Angeles for several years. And, while doing that, I had been speaking at a lot of different schools, colleges, high schools and middle schools for the past four years. I'd talk about education and achievement. Every time I would get asked questions by young men, I would look at these guys and know that the money for guidance counselors has been reduced and they that they're being raised by single moms and peers, who have information that is not necessarily helpful to them. Yes, the friends you have, just because they're your friends doesn't mean they can offer you good information to take with you for the rest of your life.

CC: And so you wrote the book, Letters To A Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny in response to what was happening around you?

HH: Yes, it's part memoir of me growing up and the experiences that I've had and it's also a motivational tool ­ a self-help book if you will. It's so important that this book gets out to parents because it has to be a gifted book. I know that I have to market this particularly to women and ask them to buy it as gifts. Everything in this book is the questions and conversations that I have had and continue to have with youth and young adults looking for answers and keys to surviving. One of the most important things that I tell my young brothers of all colors, but especially my black and brown brothers is to choose your friends as if they were your family. You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Oftentimes, our youth are stuck with no one to give them good information.

CC: Which leads back to the subject of single parenting and the type of information that single moms can offer their sons who will soon be men.

HH: Yes, well no dis to the single moms. Because I too, was raised in a single parent home. But I was raised by my dad and didn't have my mother around for a very long time. So, I know what it's like to just have that one parent that you rely upon for all of your information. And as far as single parenting, the most important thing I found is that a lot of times when a young person struggles with choices, they want additional information to help with their choice. If they're getting it from their peers, they'll follow. Youth nowadays, for the most part, they don't trust their intuitive power. It's one of the best God-given powers that we have. Usually when folks follow this and their choice is wrong they end up getting in trouble. The type of choices I'm talking about is choosing to be unreasonably happy and I want to help you expand your life by giving you the know-how to realize that you have more choices, have more opportunities and more things to have fun with in life.

CC: And in Letters To A Young Brother, you address some popular subjects that teens and young adults aspire to have: the bling bling (jewelry), the whips (cars), money and women.

HH: Exactly, I go there in this book because this is a self-help manual to my black and brown brothers. I try to emphasize that there's more to life than having the bling bling, the whips, the cash and the women. Education and money are the same thing ­ neither can buy you happiness. But they both buy you choices. The more choices you have the more opportunity to make a choice that might make you happy. It just increases your chances to make a choice that will allow you to be happy. They're both extremely valuable, but they're both exactly the same thing. It's clear that as we go along our
life, what really defines greatness to me ultimately is repetitive good choice making. If you make a good choice today, you're still faced with making a good choice tomorrow. Just because you made a good choice yesterday, your bad choice today could wipe out that good choice that you made.

CC: And sex? What do you as one brother who's out there and constantly tempted say to the teens and young adults?

HH: I give it to them straight. That's what our young people want to hear. You don't have to sugarcoat anything. You can wear condoms and practice safe sex all you want. But if you have that one experience and don't wear a condom and contract HIV that wipes out all your previous good choices. Again, I tell them that good choices can be fun choices. A lot of times, young kids think that making the right choice is burdensome, but they're light choices. My whole thought is to make the right choice.

CC: Do you see our youth buckling under peer pressure too often?

HH: Of course. Since we all make mistakes, it's important to understand that mistakes are going to happen. Once we make mistakes we have to make sure that we don't allow them to compound. It's always when the second or third mistakes occur and then we feel like we're stuck. But we're never stuck! We will come out. But, when you're young it's difficult to see the distance ­ see the forest through the trees. But you will come out of it. There will be ups and downs. And peer pressure is difficult to stand up against, especially nowadays when so many kids are afraid to stand up for something. I constantly ask kids: Are you going to be a force of change? In the book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell, he talks about how "social epidemics" can change the forces in life much like viruses. Gladwell says at some point, if you're a force of change, they'll be other people that want to do the same thing. Even though you're in the journey and feel like you're doing it alone, the next day somebody else will follow and join you. It's really important for my young brothers and sisters to take a step and look back. And, try to figure out if the people that are pressuring you are really your friends. If you surround yourself with people that are supportive of you and not applying peer pressure, this way you can fight peer pressure. Many of us have friends that we should call acquaintances. People that don't meet that level who we would want to be our family members should be considered acquaintances. You can have people who are part of your life, but not necessarily part of your inner circle.

CC: You also touch upon loneliness in this book.

HH: Yes, it's another one of those "stigmas" that my young brothers deal with. Don't take it in as if you are alone because you are not. If you take a stand to ask questions, there are other people there, who just don't have the courage but have the same concerns. You do what's true to you and then you find out that internally other people have the same ideas and you won't be alone anymore. This book is a metaphor to that.

CC: Creating positive affirmations ­you wholly embrace that method in this book.

HH: Yes! I've been using positive affirmations for years now. It goes back to high school and college. I write myself notes and I put them up on my mirror and my wall. Sometimes I put notes in my car if it's something specific: I will win. I will be happy. I will do great on my math exam. I will get straight A's in college. These are the messages that plant seeds of hope within. Make sure that the affirmation is very clear, concrete messages to self. The affirmations that I do now aren't the same affirmations that a young person would. But, as you go along in life, your affirmations will adjust to the circumstances.

CC: When you look at youth and young adults, what would you say is one of their biggest battles?

HH: If you talk to most teens today, they don't mention happiness. It doesn't seem reasonable. They talk about things: car, sneakers, rims. A lot of things are material, but they're not associated with happiness or joy. The idea of happiness is unreasonable. So why not be so unreasonably happy. I believe that if you truly believe in what you're doing and how you're going about your life, it will happen. Truly believing something will make it manifest in positive and negative ways. There will always be ups and downs ­ no matter whom you are ­ it's the cyclical nature in life. It doesn't make the lows hurt any less. But it doesn't take away the fact that there will be light that the dawn will not last forever.

CC: You also write about the importance living a more passionate life.

HH: Again, your life isn't passive. When we are living our lives, we're faced with choices everyday. The more passionate you approach your life, the more opportunity comes in different arenas. As long as you are doing your best and living passionately, good things will come. There will be ups and downs, but good things will ultimately come.


Hill Harper is originally from Iowa City, Iowa. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduated cum laude with a J.D. from Harvard Law School and has a master's degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government. For more information on his quest to save our young black and brown brothers, visit www.manifestyourdestiny.org.

Angela Scott is a nationally-syndicated award-winning writer on parenting issues. She lives in Los Angeles with her two children.

July 6, 2006