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Life lessons for the little brothers
Book
Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny
 Hill
Harper
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In Hollywood, even bad publicity is good publicity. But in the real
world, the bad news about black men is overwhelming.
Actor Hill Harper of “CSI: NY” wants to help.
His first book, “Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest
Your Destiny,” offers life guidance to black youngsters. It was written
as e-mails sent between Harper and a young fan and includes advice from
the spiritual to the practical.
Woven throughout is empathy for the harsh realities
faced by young black men, who are increasingly living on society’s
fringes, new studies show. In 2000, more black men were in jail or
prison than were in college or the military, according to a report by
the Justice Policy Institute. And in 2004, 72 percent of black male high
school dropouts in their 20s were unemployed.
So Harper’s advice starts with how to choose good
friends and make school less tedious, even fun. One chapter helps
readers make sense of being raised by a single parent, true for
two-thirds of black children. There’s advice on how to impress girls,
recover from mistakes and not get caught up in today’s bling-bling
culture.
These are not typical topics of conversation for a
young actor looking to elbow his way into leading-man roles. But Harper,
39, isn’t typical. He was studying economics and sociology at Brown
University when he stumbled upon an acting class. He got a law degree
and a master’s in public administration at Harvard University,
graduating cum laude, while going on auditions. Looking like a normal
guy in a button-down white shirt and scuffed black boots, he recently
talked to The Associated Press at a hotel overlooking Central Park.
Highlights of the interview:
AP: You’ve mentored black boys for years, and you
often visit schools. Is that where the book idea came from?
Harper: Yes. About a year and a half ago, two young
men at a middle school in New York pulled me aside after I gave a talk.
They said they wanted to go to college, but no one in their family had
done that and they didn’t have any money and they weren’t good at taking
tests. “What can we do?” These were answerable questions, but I realized
I can’t talk to every kid. I went home and started writing the book.
AP: The questions from your “young brother” are
specific. “Hill, Why do girls change their minds a lot and act so
complicated?” and “Hill, What if school is not for me?”
Harper: Those are all questions and issues that real
young men have asked me personally. I write about my life lessons, but I
bring other voices in, too. There are quotes from people like James
Baldwin and Will Smith. I have an e-mail from the rapper Nas about being
a man. I also have my professor from Harvard Law School, Charles J.
Ogletree, Jr., write about how he succeeded even though his parents
didn’t finish high school. I want to show that these people can exist in
the same place. They’re not mutually exclusive.
AP: That’s tough for a lot of kids to accept, isn’t
it? Many black kids feel like being good in school is not cool. So much
of “cool” today starts and ends with hip hop.
Harper: My biggest problem with hip hop: It doesn’t
explain the journey. Rappers say, “I went from standing on the corner to
riding in a limo.” But they don’t talk about the work they did to get
there. I mentor a little boy, and a few years ago he said, “Hill, I
cannot be happy unless I have a platinum Rolex and a Bentley with
20-inch rims.” He was dead serious. Where does a 9-year-old get that?
It’s from TV and music videos.
AP: You talk about the material culture and other
heavy ideas, like AIDS and drugs, but this book is for youth.
Harper: Those are the problems they’re dealing with.
The big challenge of the book was taking sophisticated ideas and making
them understandable to even the most reluctant reader. I don’t talk down
to them. The key was to NOT Bill Cosby it. He’s been looking down on
people, talking down. That’s not inclusive.
AP: Some actors and musicians use fame to sell
international causes — the war in Iraq or the Darfur crisis — but not
many black celebrities talk about the problems in black America.
Harper: I think a lot want to, but they don’t feel
like they’ve been given permission to. I’d like to try to change that
paradigm and go back to the days of Paul Robeson and Ossie Davis, when
black actors were some of the more intelligent and active members of the
community, the beacons of positive change.
AP: Why didn’t you write a screenplay and make a
film with these messages? Why a book?
Harper: People watch films with others around them, so
boys in a theater with their friends would need to keep up a front and
act cool. They won’t get the message. But reading a book is an
experience they have with themselves. So I’m hoping black women will buy
this book as a gift. Black boys probably won’t read it for a week or
maybe months. But sooner or later, they’ll be alone one night and flip
through and see the pictures. They just need to read half of one letter,
and I got them.
AP: How can you be so sure?
Harper: A lot of these young men have nobody in their
lives saying, “You’re brilliant. You can do anything you want.”
Erin Texeira
17 May 2006
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article?id=233237
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