by Hill Harper
Afraid to express or discuss negative feelings
Try writing about them first and see if it helps
Acting talent (I hope)
Uncle who believes in me
Cheated on my ex-girlfriend; don’t want to cheat on my new girlfriend
Don’t exchange info with new women; work to keep relationship fresh
Active in mission to help young Brothers and Sisters
Have trouble chilling out or relaxing
Try yoga, running, meditation
Okay, your turn. We’ve been choppin’ it up by letter and phone for a hell of a long time. But I bet there’ll be some surprises for me when I get a look at your chart.
Oh, my fault. Hold up. Listen. Take your time working on the chart. I won’t be around for ten or twelve days. I’ve been invited to the KAN Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, as a judge. I said yes mostly because I’ll be making a film in Romania in a few months and I wanted to check out the former communist bloc.
Guess I got to start pulling that trip together in my mind. Traveling is getting easier, and I’ve got the packing thing down to a science at this point. I’ve got doubles of everything I have at home that I also need to travel: toothbrush, toothpaste, phone charger, a week’s worth of underwear, shirts, pants, sports jacket . . . and they’re always waiting in my carry-on bag for the next trip. I never unpack them. All I’ve ever got to do is grab my cell phone, keys, passport, and coat before I head to the airport. Preparation and planning, man. That’s the name of the game.
Warm regards,
Hill
ASPIRATION
LETTER 19
Commit to Endure
To endure is greater than to dare.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to wining? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There’s that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?
—LeBron James
Hey, man,
I’m back from that film festival in Poland, jet-lagged as hell. I don’t regret going, though. It was my first time in a formerly communist country. Signs of it were everywhere. By trying to industrialize the country too fast, they shat on the ecology of some of their regions. I had dinner twice with the organizers of the festival. The stories of deprivation were mind-boggling.
One of my dinner companions had been there in 1970 when the workers demonstrated in the streets to protest food prices and were shot by the dozen. The other guy who was at dinner talked about the squelching of the rebellious Solidarity movement by the hard-line communists, pitting neighbor against neighbor, even brother against brother. You had to keep your guard up at all times in front of neighbors, even family, many of whom had no compunction about snitching to the authorities about you for some small infraction. Sounds like some of the false friendships and alliances of the prison house, doesn’t it?
There was definitely something heroic about everyone I spoke to, though, and it was obvious that a lot of it developed in a context of endurance. They radiated a capacity for it like I’d never seen before. I thought of some of the stuff you’ve had to endure this last year in that maximum-security facility, and I admired you for the way you handled it. Meanwhile, I’m really looking forward to the experience of shooting that film in Romania so I can find out more about another country in post-communist Europe.
MORE ASSETS THAN YOU THINK
Got your assets and liabilities chart in the mail. You don’t do yourself justice! I was expecting plenty of swagga to show up in it. And mostly external stuff. But you did find the courage to go in, and go in you did. Thank you for trusting me enough to share it, fam.
Because you see, most people (especially in my business—the entertainment business) have the habit of exaggerating their masculinity, calling themselves pussy magnets, bragging about how much ass, how much cash, how many cars they get, and on and on. Those who talk the most usually have the least. Obnoxiously flaunting your riches is the same thing as obnoxiously flaunting your insecurities. We all know that kind of arrogance is a way of covering up fears and low self-esteem. Even they know it! But it’s the elephant in the room that nobody wants to point to, since they all consider it a technique of “survival.” Loud confidence is quiet insecurity. So I was kind of expecting you to come with some of that in the time-honored tradition of the streets when you talked about your assets. Instead, what do I get? A dude who seems painfully aware of what he considers his failings but has not a clue as to how valuable he really is. As soon as you’re born, you have value.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss a couple of the items in your “Liabilities” column. Maybe things are a lot more complex than you were thinking. What do we have here?
Excuse me, but I can’t buy your calling yourself a “lousy father.” Naw, I can’t let you get away with that. I was moved by how broke up you were about R. J.’s needing to go to a group home. You truly wanted to be there for him. In your heart, that kid embodies everything you care about, right? That’s not being a lousy father; that’s a father who cares deeply for his son.
That’s why we have to find a way to put some of that love outside your heart and into the real world, and bring it to R. J. As I promised, I’ll help you work on that. Since the last time we talked, I’ve spent several hours on the Family and Corrections Network, that directory of national and local programs for families with a parent in jail. I made a couple calls to some government agencies in your city and found out that I could get R. J. here for a visit if the group home signs off on it. And to be sure, I’m not above using the currency of my “name” to talk them into it. The main thing we’ll need is somebody bonded (with no criminal record) who can visit R. J. regularly at the home, because I’ll be traveling for much of the next year or so. And if R. J. likes the person, I’m hoping he’ll get to the point of feeling comfortable getting on a plane with her or him to come and see you. I’ll take care of the fare. There’s a young woman, name of Lynn, who used to work for me who’s very political. She thinks the prison industrial complex sucks and has really taken to what I told her about you and R. J. She’s got a vacation coming up and plans to spend it flying to your city to see R. J., if I can arrange it for her. We’ll see what happens from there.
As for being a follower and not a leader, I think I know why you believe that. As you’ve told me on several occasions, you followed right behind your brother as he sank deeper and deeper into street life. At a certain age, all kids need somebody to follow, and Vernon, your big brother, was the only paternal image available to you, your only mentor. But I’ve seen you stand up to me and stick to your principles on lots of occasions (even when you’re wrong, ha ha!), which is why I think you’re a leader in training, my man. Once again, it’s just something that needs to be actualized. So do me a favor: In the “Actions” column, on the same line as “I’m a lousy father,” write something like “I’m going to try to communicate with my son.” You’ll write a letter to him when you feel you can handle it. Then, go to “Feel like I’m a follower.”
THE ENDURANCE FACTOR
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
—Charles Barkley
The fact that you’ve already weathered two incarceration environments means you’ve got some skill for it. What’s more, making it through a maximum-security facility is proof that you’ve learned adaptability. So put those two assets on the chart: endurance and adaptability. You got those, Brotha, just like the formerly oppres
sed people I met in Poland. They are flourishing now, and so will you!
Take care,
Hill
ASSETS AND LIABILITIES
LETTER 20
Cleaning House
The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.
—Eldridge Cleaver
Hey, Brotha,
You were definitely on one tonight. But I totally get it. How long ago was it you wrote your aunt to tell her you’re on the verge of turning your life around? That you were working with me on a plan, and that part of the plan is getting educated, which is going to cost some money? Was it about a month ago? She should have at least answered.
Then she shows up unannounced on visitors day, and it’s like a great weight has been lifted off your chest. You feel less alone. It makes perfect sense that you’d think she’d come to talk to you about the money you want for books or a couple of the correspondence courses that we talked about. Instead, she walks in there with a hostile attitude, saying she wants to get some things off her chest. She proceeds to lay into you for asking for money for a correspondence course. And just before she leaves, she casually mentions—as if it were an unimportant detail—that she can’t let you live with her when you get out.
I hate the way your aunt handled telling you all this. Obviously, it was her way of dealing with the guilt, anger, and embarrassment she felt about letting R. J. end up in a group home. But maybe if your aunt had let you know this stuff earlier, rather than ignoring your letters, you wouldn’t have gone off on her like you did, telling her you’re convinced that she merely tolerated you when you lived with her and doesn’t give a damn what happens to you now. Then ending it by referring to her as a “skanky ho.”
Come on, man, really? I know you were pissed, but c’mon, that’s one place I can’t go with you. At some point in history, some very rage-filled person sat down and made a long list of words meant to demean all women of the human species. And the pejoratives stuck. Who knows why; perhaps it grew out of horrible childhoods, boys resenting their moms and letting that resentment leak onto all women in general. But for others—and I suspect you’ve been one of them—all that “ho” business is just a casual, thoughtless, and childish way of perversely asserting male dominance to cover insecurity. You know, of course, that the word is short for whore, which means “a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money,” but I don’t believe you think that has anything to do with your aunt. As for skank, when it’s not meant to refer to a steady-paced reggae dance, it has other meanings, such as “sleazy person,” and even insinuates intent to swindle or deceive, but for some reason, I’ve never heard anyone use it to describe a man, only women. It’s not a very interesting word, root-wise, as it only goes back to the sixties. So do me a favor and find a more articulate, more original way to express your anger at your aunt, or anybody else, when you’re talking to me. Cool?
IMPERFECT LOVE
Have I ever mentioned to you that my name, Hill Harper, is a tribute to both my maternal and paternal ancestors? I think of it as a kind of acknowledgment, as if I were standing in front of them and saying:
Hey, if it weren’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be here. . . . Before and after y’all were forced into slavery, you struggled to create a tradition of African-American achievement from generation to generation, straining against the heavy limitations that society imposed on our race and culture. You struggled out of slavery and through Jim Crow to achievement against the odds, at the pinnacle of which I am standing today. I wouldn’t be here without you!
Does that mean that the generations that came before me are responsible for my achievements? Hell no! Were the Harpers all lucky sons-a-bitches with silver spoons in their mouths from the get-go, whereas most of the Brothas of the same race were born into hardship and poverty? Bullshit! Something even worse than poverty, known as slavery, was the case in this country for earlier generations of Harpers.
All I can really thank my ancestors for is putting me on this earth with lungs that could breathe and legs that could walk, and some examples of African-Americans who strove for success and finally got it—examples I could focus on, if I chose to! And I am doing that. And I want you to do that, too. I’ve pointed out to you on many occasions that it’s up to us to do what we do with whatever we happen to be given.
Was everything my father or mother did wisely thought out? Ha! Are you kidding? Was I ever hurt by a family member, made to feel neglected, underappreciated? Who isn’t? Do I also respect my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, and my uncles, and feel gratitude toward them, because they did what they could? You’d better believe it!
HOW WE HEAL
I don’t know much about your aunt, but from what you’ve told me about your pops, Jarvis, I have some inkling of what he must have gone through. You said Jarvis wasn’t a bad dad until he got laid off and couldn’t find a job. Obviously, after that he no longer felt like the principal protector of the family and started to pair low self-esteem and booze. When drunk, he’d take out his frustration and feelings of ineffectuality on his wife with behavior that got more and more out of control and increasingly violent. That’s when your aunt had to step in to help.
Should you ever forgive your pops for that? Grudges are cancer. Hate feeds it. Forgiveness cures it. I’m suggesting you try to comprehend the things that caused your father’s destructive behavior. That’s a starting platform. Eventually, it might offer you more than one option for evaluating your pops. And it might even begin to heal some of those old wounds from him that you don’t wanna even admit you have. Wounds heal, but unresolved issues don’t. Scars tell stories of resilience and survival. Don’t be scared to get scarred.
What about your aunt? I believe you when you say she did a sorry job of parenting, that she was cold and detached. You’ve mentioned several examples. It doesn’t erase the fact, however, that she did make the decision to take you in and support you when your father went away, rather than just letting you go to a group home. Why she did this is the most important thing about her to strive to comprehend. You see, this conversation you and I are having isn’t about the quality of care she provided, but about the fact that she did provide some kind of care by taking you in. The only other interesting or helpful aspect of the issue is the ways in which you used that care, and we know that part of the way you used it was to make a series of decisions that made you end up where you are now. Whether there was lots of care or only a little, the results could have gone either way. The same goes for me: As I said way, way back when we started communicating, what happened to you could have easily happened to me. . . .
Maybe this is a cruel thing to say, but just taking you in and saving you from the claws of child welfare was more than she owed you. Can you really resent her just for not wanting to give more? Resentment about somebody not giving enough always comes from one identical source: a failure to own your own life, claim it as yours, take responsibility for it, and say to yourself, “Well, I’m the one running the show here, so whatever happens, I’m responsible.” Believe it or not, a true understanding of that fact can produce an exhilarating sense of freedom.
Do you remember R. J. when he was two? What kind of things did he do? During the period in every child’s life they call the “terrible twos”—when an infant first learns that he’s actually a separate being, that his consciousness is more than a suction machine attached to his mother’s breast or bottle, the moment he learns that he’s the one in control of his actions—he starts to enjoy all kinds of mischievous acting out. Almost everything he does is to say to himself over and over, “I’m the one who threw that spoon from my high chair—all by myself. . . . I’m the one who grabbed that piece of candy and stuck it in my mouth without waiting for somebody to feed me.”
Did you see R. J. take his first few steps? Did you see a look of pride, mastery, and excitement on his face? I don’t think there’s a
child in the world who’s thinking, “Mommy, why aren’t you holding me off the ground longer, rather than making me walk on my own now!” No, he couldn’t have been more delighted about being a “little man.” As a matter of fact, a lot of moms who are overly attached to their kids dread the arrival of the terrible twos, because that’s the moment when their child realizes he’s not totally dependent on them.
I’m using a metaphor here, of course. But in one fundamental way, you’re like that kid embarking on the “terrible twos” as you move into a mode of independence and life planning. In fact, your aunt is entering her “terrible twos” as well, in a way, having put off making her own family in order to take responsibility for you and your brother.
You know, Brotha, you’re heading toward thirty, way beyond the age when people are thought to need parenting. You’re a grown-ass man! I’m just your friend. Even so, sometimes I get pleasure out of trying to take care of you, out of thinking of you in a paternal way. But does that mean that a few years from now, when you ask me to do you a solid and I just might not be able to do it, you’ll go around saying I betrayed you, left you high and dry, that “I ain’t shit?” I could never believe that.
Peace,
Hill
ANCESTORS
P.S. Someone I admire, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, wanted to write to you about using your time wisely while you’re in prison. Dr. Chavis is cofounder, president, and CEO of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and president of the Education Online Services Corporation. Here’s his letter:
Dear Brother,
When you are incarcerated, don’t just serve time; make time serve you. The time that you now have before you will be a time for reflection and future planning, but you must make sure that you use the time you’ve been blessed with and the life you’ve been blessed with. You must see your life as a blessing, not as a curse, and that is what I mean by making time serve you.
