Hill Harper ‘A Conversation’ With Flaimahmy!

Before it was called The Conversation and before New York Times bestselling author Hill Harper set out to write his most recent book, The Conversation How Black Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships, he asked himself, “Am I part of the problem?”  Chosen by Essence as a must read, the book quotes Susan Taylor, The State of Black America 2008:  In the Black Woman’s Voice: “It took 100 years to set Black women and men apart from each other, but it has happened and the question now before us is, What are we willing to do about it?”

There are some alarming statistics:   In 2006, more than 80% of Asian American children, nearly 75% of White American children, and almost 70% of Latino American children were being raised in a home with both parents,  but fewer than 33% of African American children were living in a two-parent household.  Seventy percent of  African American professional women are single.

The book is filled not just with statistics, however.  It is a fun and easy book to read with real conversations among real people having open and honest discussions about themselves.  They are revealing conversations that we can all relate to.  Even Hill found something he had not anticipated when he began The Conversation, happiness, “I am happier now…than I’ve ever been with any other woman.”

Hill graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University; received a J.D., Cum Laude, from Harvard Law School; (he and President Obama were classmates) and received a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Hill is an outstanding film, stage and television actor, currently starring in CSI New York.  He is also a member of the oldest intercollegiate Greek letter organization in the country for African Americans, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

(Interview with Flaimahmy, November 6, 2009)

FM:  In your most recent book, The Conversation, How Black Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships, you use the expression “man up.”  What does that mean?

HH:  “Man up” is directed towards men and I believe that we as men have to find the courage to step up, man up, so to speak, to have the discussion with other men when  we know that they are doing things that are foul and wrong.  It’s very difficult, I’m just going to be very honest; it’s very difficult for women to check men in certain situations and men have to have the courage to start checking each other.

We have a tendency as men to basically turn a blind eye, to say “Yeah, that’s just his business,” even when we know our brother, our friend, our man is doing wrong.  Whether its mistreatment of a woman or women, whether he’s not dealing with his child or children or whether he’s just not acting right, the way he dresses; it’s as simple as that.  Sometimes it’s just about, ”You need to pull up your pants and start wearing some clothes that are appropriate.”  We have to start holding each other to task.

I think that too many of us abdicate the responsibility and say, “You know what, that’s just his business and I’m going to stay out of his business.”  We are at a crisis point in our community and in terms of our relationships.  We can’t afford to just let folks say, “Oh, it’s their business.”  We’ve got to start getting in people’s business and manning up and that’s what that means.

FM:  Would you make a distinction between what “man up” means for a man in his late teens to mid-twenties as compared to a man in his mid-twenties to late thirties?

HH:  No, there’s no real distinction.  It’s acting appropriately or acting inappropriately, I don’t care what age you are.  Now, there are things that we do; I’m not talking about ladling expectations on someone.  I’m saying that if you are a teen and you become a parent and you are in your thirties and you become a parent you still are a father.  Now, there are different things you may have to do to navigate your life but there are certain responsibilities that you have to take on in either case.  It’s not about drawing distinctions in terms of age, it’s about actually showing what is appropriate behavior and what is not appropriate behavior.

I’m not attempting to represent myself in any way as the person who is the arbiter of what “good” or “bad” behavior is.  I’m just saying that we as men who have friends who are men know when our friends, no matter what age we are or they are, are acting foul and wrong, then we have to start discussing it with them rather than turning a blind eye.

FM:  While writing your book you came to realize that love is a choice, that we choose to be in love or out, committed or not, vulnerable or not.  What prompted these realizations?

HH:  I didn’t even know the book was going to be called The Conversation when I set out to do all the interviews.  I interviewed over three hundred different people; some people  who had been married for over seventy years; some people who had been multiple divorced, some people devoutly single, some people who were dating, some people who were newly married, all over the map and certain strains started to come up as you’re talking to people and certain realizations came up.  For me the conversations that the book refers to exist on three levels.

First, the conversation with yourself, having an open, honest, vulnerable conversation with yourself; looking in the mirror and really being honest.  Second, the conversation with partners or potential partners and not sending a representative but again being completely honest and vulnerable.  And, third, conversation with community and family, the greater conversation.  Those are the three levels of honest conversations and we all have to have that.

The idea of choice and choosing, that you choose to love yourself, conversation number one.  You choose to love partners, potential partners, conversation number two and you choose to love your community and family, conversation number three.  Those are choices and how you act within those choices I really do believe begins with looking in the mirror.

FM:  You quoted an alarming statistic.  In 2006 less than 33 percent of Black American children were living in two-parent households, while just forty years earlier, in 1966, 84% lived in two-parent households.  What do you think we can do to change this?

HH:  Well, that is what my whole book is about, we have to have “the conversation.”  We have to start talking cross-gender, openly and honestly.  We have to start communicating across gender. What I found in doing the research for the book is that a lot of women speak amongst themselves about a lot of these issues and a lot of things that are going on.  And, to be quite honest they pass a lot of misinformation amongst themselves.

I was astounded how little most women really know about men and what men want even though they believe they do.  That’s what’s crazy.  And, the same holds true for men.  We don’t talk as much about these things but when we do it’s amongst each other.  When men and women tend to talk about these things it’s usually between men and women who have some measure of sexual negotiation going on.  Either there is a hope for a future or there was a past.  That information is oftentimes colored by that.  The way we are going to change that horrible data point is by communicating.  And, that’s not the only one, 70% of Black professional women are single.

You know, we get married the least although we have the highest divorce rate, which makes it doubly bad.  There is something going on between Black men and Black women that is not right, not healthy and we have to start talking about it by starting to get on common ground and learn more and respect each other more and build friendships.  It’s not so clear to me that we are even friends anymore.  That’s the most dangerous thing.

FM:  Your grandfather had an expression, “If you don’t want to get shot, don’t go where the bullets are.”  Tell us about your “bullet” territory, in particular,  and what for some men in general could be their “bullet” moment.

HH:  “Bullets” is understanding a bigger picture and what your bigger goals are.  You know we are all human so we’re all going to make mistakes; we’re all going to do things that if we had hindsight or if we had more information or if we weren’t in the situation we were in we would have made a different choice.  So therefore there is an idea of, “If you don’t want to get shot, don’t go where the bullets are,” that tend to not put yourself in situations that aren’t in line with your goals or purpose.

If your purpose is to, for instance, be faithful and be in a relationship and build a strong foundation and trust then don’t put yourself in situations where that’s tough.  For me, for instance, I know when I’m in public with someone I’m fine.  They can be flirting with me, whatever, they can say things…I’m good because it’s public.  But, in private space I know that I’m susceptible so if I don’t want to end up doing something that I don’t want to do with somebody I shouldn’t invite them to come have a glass of wine at my house or I shouldn’t invite them up to my hotel room and think we’re just going to watch a movie.  These are extreme examples, but I’m just trying to give you an example; I know where my “bullets” are.

I can call someone up and say, “Hey, would you like to meet downstairs at the pub or the bar and have a glass of wine?”  I know I’m fine.  I’m not going to do anything that I didn’t want to do.  But, in a private setting I may want to, but that’s just me.  I have to know where my “bullets” are.  There are some guys I know, they can’t even meet somebody for a drink and they’re in trouble already because their “bullets,” that’s where they go.  There are guys I know, and women, they could actually have a nice glass of wine with someone in private and know that there is no chance that something would jump off or happen because that’s just not where their head is and they know nothing is going to happen.  Everybody has their own barometer so if you don’t want to get shot don’t go where the bullets are.  You have to know where your bullets are.

FM:  You have a chapter called Status vs. Potential: Looking at the Obamas in which you meet many young Black men who state that they “want a woman like Michelle” and many young Black women want to “meet a together brother like Barack.”  Tell us about status versus potential.

HH:  Well, I hope that folks read the book because I can’t break it down as well as I’ve broken it down in the book.  Basically the idea is that many of us walk around saying the type of person that we want to date is some variation of, “I want someone who is on my level,” or I want this or I want that.  However, if you really look at a relationship like the Obamas when they first met they weren’t on anywhere near the same level.

Most of the women I interviewed for my book didn’t know what I was talking about when I gave them the scenario that they would have taken a pass on dating a future president because they wanted to date someone on a level of status right now rather than dating potential and the idea of what can we do together, what are we going to be able to build together, rather than what do you have right now or what you do not have right now.

You have to remember that our First Lady was the primary breadwinner in their relationship even for the first several years of their marriage.  When she first met him she was a very successful attorney.  When they first started to date he had a hole in his car, didn’t want to take a job and wanted to write a book.  She was a very successful attorney in a private law firm making a six-figure salary.  There was a huge disparity in terms of their level.

There was also something that came up  in the book called the 5/95 rule, or 5/95 paradox and speaks to the same issue, that 95% of  the women are trying to date 5% of  the men and vice-versa, 95% of the men are trying to date 5% of the women.  That’s why we run around saying that there’s a lack and a problem or issue.  There always will be an issue if you eliminate a huge number of individuals as potential partners.

FM:  Can a man really “smell the scent of desperation coming off  of a woman,” and are men really revealing their “true character all the time?”

HH:  Yes and no, I mean those points that you are talking about are points that are made throughout the book by other folks in the book, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t.  I can be very clear and tell you that both of the examples you just gave me are examples of, in my opinion, us sending our representatives.  Many of us if there is some measure of desperation in finding someone, that’s fear based action and for me fear is false evidence appearing real, fear that we won’t find somebody so we are going to act a certain way to try to convince someone they should be with us.

The same thing holds true for men.  We try to act with some bravado, try to act cooler than we really are and all these different things trying to impress a woman or get a women to sleep with us or whatever and both of us are protecting ourselves so much by sending our representative rather than having the courage to just be vulnerable and be open and really be ourselves and laugh more, enjoy each other’s company more and have the courage to build a friendship first.

I think the most important thing in my book is the ”AFI” piece, attraction. friendship,  intimacy in that order.  Most of us go from attraction to intimacy and then try to build a friendship.  If we really focused on the friendship piece in a real way, in a real joyful way and not saying friendship in an I’m going to withhold sex way.  You’ve got to hear this very carefully.  It’s not about withholding sex.  That’s the way many people hear it.  It’s about building a fun friendship…two different things…two different approaches.

So many women, for instance, when I was doing the research for the book, weren’t able to tell me what men like to do to have fun.  In other words, I’d ask them what do they do on a date and what do they like to do and they would respond, ”What I like to do is I like to go bowling and I like going to the movies.”  I would sit there and say, “OK, ok, that’s interesting.”  I’d say, “How many times have you seen guys get together amongst each other and the guys say, ‘Hey Steve man let’s go bowling tonight; Hey Steve let’s go to the movies tonight?”  Guys don’t do that.  Why?  Because guys don’t do that together, because we don’t want to; it’s no fun.  What do we do?   “Yo, let’s go catch the game; let’s go down to the sports bar.”If you want to have a fun date why don’t you say, “Hey, let’s go get some beer; let’s go watch the game?”

That’s a very different thing.  Very few women do that because women oftentimes don’t put themselves in the shoes of guys.  Vice versa for guys.  There are a lot women who enjoy getting manicures, pedicures, getting massages and things…a guy going up to a woman and saying, “Hey, instead of going out to dinner, how about I take you to this great spa and we do a spa day?”  Wow, ok, that’s interesting.  We have to think about what each other’s likes and  then go out and have fun with it and enjoy the process.  So often we impose our own thing onto things rather than actually taking the other person under consideration.

FM:  What is the biggest thing that men and women do not realize about each other?

HH:  That when you peel back all of the layers and you get down to the fundamentals, both of us fundamentally truly want the exact same thing.

FM:  Of course, since this is Flaimahmy Magazine I have to ask you, “What do you think about Fly Mommies?

HH:  Well, I’ve had the pleasure of dating incredible moms and I think that mothers are beautiful and amazing.  My mother, she’s beautiful and amazing so I celebrate and support any Fly Mommy. The woman that I date in the book, Nichole, is a mom.  I hope folks check that out and your readers actually go ahead and read the book and enjoy The Conversation. I hope they’ll go to follow me on Twitter and let me know what their thoughts are about the book.

Check me out on Twitter because that’s the main thing I’m using these days to keep in touch with folks who are out there around the country and around the world.  So please send them over to Twitter.com/hillharper and we’ll stay in touch.

Tags: African American professional women, Alpha Phi Alpha, Barack Obama, celebrity news and gossip, CSI New York, Entertainment, First Lady, Hill Harper, Love, marriage rules, Michelle Obama, Relationships

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:04 am and is filed under Entertainment, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.