In the follow-up to his award winning national bestseller, Letters to a Young Brother, actor and star of CSI: NY shares his powerful wisdom for young women everywhere, drawing on the courageous advice of the female role models who transformed his life.

Letters to a Young Sister unfolds as a series of letters written by older brother Hill to a universal Young Sistah. She’s up against the same challenges as every young woman: from relating to her parents and dealing with peer pressure, to juggling schoolwork and crushes and keeping faith in the face of heartache. In his straight-talking style, Hill helps his young sister build self-confidence, self-reliance, self-respect, and encourages her on her journeys towards becoming a strong and successful woman. The book also includes contributions from admirable women like Angela Basset, Ciara, Michelle Obama, Tatyana Ali, Nikki Giovanni, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrikck, Eve, Malinda Williams, Kim Porter, and more.

Introduction

The first time it happened was in Atlanta, during one of my initial stops on the tour for my newly published book, Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny. It was standing room only, nearly 300 people, yet during the reading and discussion portion of my appearance, I kept catching the eye of the same person, a young lady in the audience. She was tall and graceful, with a stare that both questioned and captivated. I was expecting her to ask a question during the Q&A time, but she didn't. She remained silent and waited till the time came to form a line for those who wished to have me sign their books. It was a long line, but she stood, and waited patiently, for her turn.

"LaTonya," she announced as I flipped open her book to find the page on which I usually sign my name. I smiled and repeated it to myself: LaTonya. For some reason, I hesitated and held the pen over the page a few seconds longer, and looked up at LaTonya. I suppose I was waiting for her to say something; she seemed poised to do so. But after a few seconds, when she still hadn't, I signed the book, gently closed the cover, and handed it back to her. LaTonya began to step away, then she stopped, turned to me, and said, "Can I ask you a question?" Of course she could ask me a question, but she knew that already. I had been answering all kinds of questions since I arrived at the bookstore. The uncertainty that I heard in her voice spoke of her fears about her ability to ask, rather than of her fears about my willingness to answer. She seemed to be seeking permission from herself to ask me the question. "Sure," I said. But she thought it was too late. The next person in line, a young brother, was already standing square in front of me, his arm reaching out, handing me a book to sign. I looked up at him and the dozens of people standing behind him, all waiting. "Don't leave," I told her. "I'll talk to you as soon as I'm done." LaTonya nodded her head, then walked away; and I got back to the business of signing books, meeting and greeting the rest of the young brothers and sisters who were in the line.

When the event was over and the last book had been bought and signed, I looked around for LaTonya. I wanted to make good on my promise, and I was also really curious about the question she wanted to ask me. But she was nowhere to be found. I didn't know whether she'd waited until she absolutely had to leave or she'd changed her mind about asking the question.

As I was gathering my belongings, the bookstore owner came over and handed me a note. "A young lady left this for you," he said. Right away, I knew that it could only be from LaTonya. Her handwriting was at an upward angle and it definitely seemed as if she had written the words in a hurry. I pictured her in the bookstore, standing at the counter, near the cash register, rushing to write the question that she had dared, despite all her apprehensions, to ask:

In your book, you talk about young men being the "newest perfect model" and being "unreasonably happy." Please tell us sisters what is good about us. Do you think that we are also capable of being unreasonably happy? If so, what can we do to get there because I haven't been truly happy in so long I can't even remember when the last time was.

LaTonya wanted encouragement that was directed specifically to her, specifically to sisters. But why ask me? Because I was a man? From that moment I started searching the bookshelves for books that addressed the issues affecting young women like LaTonya, but all I kept coming across were books by women or psychologists. While these books were helpful, most came from the same vantage point, of women talking to women. I even found a few books written by fathers to address the needs of their daughters, but it made me wonder about young girls who didn't have fathers. Where did they get their advice? I even started to learn things I had never thought about, such as the fact that many young women derive elements of their self-esteem from their fathers. In a time when nearly two-thirds of ethnic girls are raised in fatherless households, where do those girls get their self-esteem? How do they develop healthy, platonic relationships with men? When do they get to hear a loving, supportive male voice? As often happens in life, by asking myself these questions I opened myself up to more. Much to my surprise, questions like LaTonya's were questions that I would find myself being asked again and again throughout my book tour.

Meeting and speaking with groups of young brothers was not a new experience for me. I'd been doing it for years already. Stepping into a role as mentor to the young men whom I met during my tours, press junkets, and speaking engagements was a choice that I had made long ago, quite consciously and happily. My grandfather Harry Harper was a doctor who made sure that if any young man or woman desired an education, he helped them get into college. I was raised in an environment where passing the proverbial baton of experience and wisdom was not an option but an expectation, a privilege, an honor that meant something—to the people at both ends of the stick, so to speak. It was our way of saying, and of showing, that we matter. To each other first and foremost, and to the world ultimately and defiantly—We matter.

What I had not prepared myself for was the sight, in event after event and city after city, of so many women, of all ages, in my audience, holding the book, so aptly subtitled MANifest Your Destiny. Young sisters, some barely into their teens, others not yet out of high school, but already wearing the disappointment and disillusionment that people often ascribe to adulthood. There were twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, older professional sisters who had surrendered an hour or two of their evening—sacred time—to listen to a brother speak. These women had interest and empathy for the young men in their lives, their brothers, nephews, sons, friends, but they also had questions. They wanted to know why I had written a book only for men and not for women. Until those women started to ask their questions, that thought hadn't occurred to me. When Oprah opened a school, it happened to be a school for girls and it made sense. After all, she had once been a young girl and knew firsthand what they needed at that age because it was many of the things she had once needed.

I knew everything about the mirror that I was holding up for young Black men. Yet what mirror could I hold for Black women? What images would they find rippling underneath? Would or could I have any understanding of all the complexities of identity that go along with being a Black woman? Would I understand and be sensitive to all the limitations and lies that our society places on Black women and girls? Would I, as a man, be able to "get it"?

To be fair, inasmuch as I have been nurtured and supported by a strong circle of men, my life has been equally shaped by the hands of women. My mother spent her life defying stereotypes, statistics, and any other type of crippling categorization. She has been a trailblazer. As a Black female anesthesiologist, my mother had to grow accustomed to standing alone, to breaking new ground. She made many personal sacrifices in order to be relevant and successful. At a time when most women, especially African American women, were afterthoughts when it came to higher education and career ambitions, my mother chose to walk her own path into the white maledominated world of medicine and surgery. She chose never to stand in another person's shadow and didn't care that society expected her to be at home baking bread instead of bringing home the bacon. I have been informed by so much of my mother's journey. Even the painful memories, like listening from my cracked bedroom door to the ugly fights she and my father would have before and after their divorce. For my mother the choices she made proved fulfilling. The lessons that I learned from watching her were innumerable. My mother's experiences gave me insight into the various negotiations Black women must make to claim the professional and personal landscapes of their lives.

My aunt Ercelle, my mother's sister, chose to be a mother, wife, and homemaker. She loved everything about being the strong, nurturing, feminine presence in her household. Her days were spent shuttling kids to piano lessons, being in the PTA, cooking three meals a day for her family, and being a faithful wife. She made it seem effortless and without sacrifice because it was exactly the life she chose for herself. I asked her one day if she wished she had had a successful career and she smiled at me and said, "I did." To my aunt, there was nothing more important than providing a stable, loving environment for her husband and children, and she taught me so much about the value of selflessness.

My paternal grandmother was another Black woman who left a tremendous impression on me. She had an amazing ability to create both home and community for everyone around her. Every morning that I awoke in her home, I was greeted with a huge homemade breakfast. That was important to her, for us to begin the day with a meal she had prepared—scrambled eggs, little Vienna sausages, grits, and toast. It was her way of showing that she cared, her way of sending us off into a new day, into the world, with sustenance that was more than just physical. It was a habit that she passed on to my father. Those mandatory morning breakfasts defined every single day that I spent under his roof as well.

And there are also the women in my life whom I call my "surrogate sisters." Women who have become my best friends in this world. These women are part sister, part mother, part best friend, part healer, and part life coach. With them I can be honest and open. If I'm having a problem in a friendship or relationship, I always feel comfortable going to them for advice and help—and it's not because they always agree with me, because a lot of times they don't. They offer a different point of view from my guy friends. I often see things in black and white ("He didn't repay the loan in the time he said he would so he doesn't respect my friendship"), but these wise women help me see the gray area (being unable to make good on a promise might leave a brother feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable). We all need somebody who allows us to be ourselves and who helps us to become more. Just witnessing the way they walk through their lives leaves me in awe. Not only do we have an amazing friendship, they know that I have their back and they mine in everything we do. All of the work in this book is aided by them directly or indirectly. I am a living testament that deep, amazing platonic friendships can and do exist between men and women, and my life is the better for all of my surrogate sisters.

The more I thought about the enriching impact the women in my family as well as my female friends have had on my life, the more I realized that I did possess a mirror to hold up for young women—a mirror uniquely filtered through my perspective as a Black man. I did know the images they would see—or, at least, the images that I would attempt to imprint, with pen and paper, in their consciousness, in their vision of themselves as people who could and would make a difference, as people who profoundly matter.

During that first bookstore event in Atlanta, when LaTonya said, "Can I ask you a question?" she was offering me permission. Permission to begin an honest dialogue, Black man to Black woman. This dialogue began with LaTonya's question and continues with all the other questions I have been asked, in person and via e-mail, by the countless women who have read Letters to a Young Brother and decided to reach out to me. Too often in our society, men try to brush off or redirect women's questions and concerns, not because they don't think they matter but because they think they aren't qualified to answer them. But segregating women's concerns as "none of men's business" doesn't do men or women any favors. Reaching out to young brothers while ignoring the invitation to have a dialogue with sisters is not only a refusal to engage with sisters but does a disservice to our larger community.

As my tour wore on and I saw sisters standing there, I realized that they were there to hear what I had to say, not in spite of the fact that I am a Black man but rather because of the fact that I am a Black man. Certainly, they, like the brothers, were there to hear me say to them that their lives, goals, and dreams do matter. But also many of the sisters showed up to offer support and encouragement for what I was doing for young brothers. This book, in turn, is my effort to lift up women as so many women have lifted me.

To be clear, praise is not the sole focus of Letters to a Young Sister, though the letters definitely speak to the possibilities and the potential for progress that sisters have in themselves and in their lives. The "Young Sistah" and I explore the ways young women sometimes sabotage their own ascension and how to avoid these pitfalls. Additionally, the letters address misconceptions that sisters have of brothers and that brothers have of sisters, and how to avoid falling prey to them in friendships, business relationships, and romantic relationships.

Many of the questions I am asked by women have to do with the lies they have been told by men. The thing about lies is that they hold just enough truth, warped and misrepresented though it may be, to invoke fear. That's what makes them so dangerous, so poisonous to the spirit. When we start to believe them, we allow them to influence and eventually impair our vision—our vision of others and, perhaps most damaging, our vision of ourselves. Sometimes the messages we take in are subtle, yet they make us believe our goals are not achievable, our lives are without value. Sometimes they creep in so slowly that we are unaware of the intrusion. My hope is that this book will educate, uplift, and inspire. As young women read it, they will hear the voice of a man—a Black man—encouraging them and explaining to them how and why they truly are queens, constantly reminding them that they are beautiful, magnificent, brilliant, and deserving of unreasonable happiness.

Just as I told people about my first book, there's most likely nothing in this book that you haven't in some way heard before. But hopefully, as you read it, you may receive and understand it in a new way. In other words, all of the issues that the "Young Sistah" and I discuss are not new, but perhaps the way they are read and understood will be. I truly believe there are no coincidences, and it's not a coincidence that you are reading these words right now in the place where you are. That means that you, right now, are ready for a shift. A shift that will close the gap between the you that you are right now and the you that you truly want to become, a change that allows you to move in emphatic and powerful ways to DeFINE Your Destiny.