From: Heart and Soul Magazine
By Niema Jordan
It’s February, and while some may be worried about the cold, a lot of us have our minds on the Africa-American legacy and, of course, love. We decided to chat with a man who has proved to care deeply about both, Hill Harper. Although it’s been more than a year since the first edition of his book The Conversation was released, Harper is still doing his best to make sure men and women become friends again in order to channel the incredible energy force called love, and build strong families to continue our rich legacy.
Heart & Soul: What can we learn about black love from our elders?
Hill Harper: As I talk about in The Conversation, it’s my grandparents’ relationship on both sides that I have to look to for inspiration about staying together and building a strong family. Unfortunately, just like many of my peers of my generation and younger, my parents didn’t stay together and I was raised by a single parent, so that example isn’t there for us.
H&S: For the folks who don’t have family to reference, to whom can they look in history for a model of black love and family?
They don’t even have to go as far as history. Just look at the Obamas. I think that they’re a good example of a strong African-American family where neither one would be as accomplished as they are but for the presence of the other, and that is what I’m talking about reinforcing. So many of us in our community are taught to be independent. Part of the problem with learning that type of lesson is that you don’t realize that the flip side of that is that you can only get so far by yourself. We all can be better and do more in partnership.
In The Conversation you talk about the shift from two-parent homes to single-parent homes. Why is the nuclear family structure important to the African-American legacy?
If you start looking at all of the data points that are negative for our families, they track one to one as our nuclear family began to disintegrate. Family is critical in our culture and for our success and our survival, and it always has been. There was a strategic effort during slavery to break up families. If you attempt to dis-empower an individual by breaking up their family, that shows there must have been recognition of strength and power of family in terms of our legacy.
What are some of the lessons you’ve learned since the book’s release?
What I’ve learned from The Conversation, which my intuition told me but now I know for sure, is that when we are communicating it is very difficult for us to ask each other the tough questions. It’s very difficult for us to really communicate because there’s so much baggage. Sometimes we’ve already created within a relationship or we bring in some past stuff that many of us, men and women, we’re not communicating. If we as men and women don’t become friends again and don’t communicate, then we can’t fix the bigger problems.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, what are some of the ways folks can use this holiday as a way to create dialogue about healthy relationships?
I recommend that people have what I call conversation parties (but they can call it whatever they want). That’s just inviting groups of people over with no agenda–folks can be married, single; the main thing is make sure it’s a mixed-gender group–and just enjoy each other’s company, but put questions in a hat and start talking about relationships and love and then folks get new ideas about how to love each other and how to be friends.
If you could say one last thing to our readers about the power and importance of black love, what would it be?
The power and importance of black love is the same power and importance of love period. I believe that love is an energy. It is a force and it’s meant to be given out. The beautiful thing about it is as you give it out, it’s reciprocal, and it eventually makes its way back to you. Love is the greatest thing we have, but it’s not meant to be held, it’s meant to be given. If you focus on the giving of love, the way the universe works, it has to find it’s way back to you
~lOVE 2 B lOVED
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