He’s Going Global in a Campaign for Racial Tolerance

All 15-year-old Brian Harris wants to do is get people to look beyond skin color, acknowledge their differences and accept one another.

A fanciful wish, perhaps, but when you’re young, idealistic and have had more than 20,000 people from all parts of the world writing to you--expressing similar desires--well, nothing seems impossible.

This attitude pushed Harris three years ago into writing to television talk shows, unabashedly angling for invitations so he could tell people about his idea for a pen-pal service called “Friendship Sees No Color.”

First came the “Faith Daniels” show. Then “Home”--twice.

Soon, the letters poured in, thousands of people of all ages confiding racial problems they’ve encountered, asking that he match them up with others who have the same concerns.

Gratified with the response he never doubted he would get, Harris has since launched “Friendship Sees No Color Week,” which begins April 29. About 50 people have signed up for the event, limited to Orange County. But Harris hopes to generate enough interest in the idea for it to one day go nationwide.

Designed to move beyond the pen-pal service and allow people of varying races and ethnic groups to get acquainted in person, the week will link strangers-turned-friends and pay for their dinner or entertainment at an amusement park. Two restaurants, the Red Robin in Stanton and Wild Bill’s Western Extravaganza in Buena Park, and Camelot Golfland in Anaheim are among businesses that will participate.

“What Brian is doing is really great, and we’re happy to support him,” said Brent Budge, general manager of Camelot. “It’s a great idea, this event--bringing everyone together to promote racial understanding.”

The purpose of Friendship Sees No Color Week is to “make you step out of your comfort zone and start meeting people,” said Harris, a Stanton resident. “I just hope that some of these people will take these friendships they made this week and continue them, or they’ll learn that the myths that they’ve heard about people of different races aren’t true.”

Harris knows firsthand about racial stereotypes. His father is black. His mother is white. Ask him what his race is and he’ll firmly reply: “black and white.” Period.

“Two halves make a whole and if I deny one of them, then it’s like I’m just leaving out one of my parents,” said Harris. “I’m set in my ways. I know who I am and what I am, and I’m not going to change my mind.”

A tall and lanky teenager who speaks so fast his words tumble over each other--”Sometimes, my brain goes faster than my mouth,” he explained--Harris attributes his pride in his racial identity to the way his parents, Smitty and Barbara, raised him.

“My parents never told me to pick one [race],” Harris said one afternoon, sitting in the dining room of his modest home, which is filled with toys and the laughter of his four younger siblings. “They said it’s something that I could be proud of, that I have two races that are part of me that I could go and explore and learn about that not everyone has.”

The teenager said he is ambivalent on currently controversial issues such as affirmative action and immigration. But when it comes to categorizing race, Harris knows exactly where he stands.

“We like to categorize people, putting people into groups because it makes us feel comfortable,” Harris said. “I mark what I am. What is ‘multiracial’? What is ‘other’? That really gives you no identity at all.”

For as long as he and his parents could remember, Harris has wanted for other biracial young people to feel the same pride in their diversity. His activism didn’t stem from any momentous incident. A child of pop culture, Harris was spurred into action by television talk shows.

“It seems like every show [whose topic was interracial marriage], one person in the audience would stand up and say, ‘Don’t you realize what you’re doing to your kids? They’re going to be ruined. Their lives are going to be a total mess. Nobody is going to accept them,’ ” Harris recalled. “It really bothered me because I knew it wasn’t true. . . . I wanted to go out there and tell people it doesn’t have to be like that.”

So began a writing spree to talk shows that netted him two appearances on the “Home” show, each visit resulting in 10,000 letters, he said. The young activist has been on the speaking circuit ever since.

At least once a month, he speaks to a school or participates in diversity seminars on various campuses, including UC Irvine and Chapman University. A couple of years ago, a high school and junior high in Utah flew him in to speak to their students about his experience as a biracial teen. Earlier this year, he appeared on “Mike and Maty” and “Leeza.”

NBC’s “Real Life” plans to do a profile on Harris and will film a speech he is scheduled to give to students at Chapman Tuesday. “Part of our curriculum is to understand how we are mutually responsible to our community,” said Suzanne SooHoo, a Chapman education professor who has repeatedly invited Harris to meet with students and staff on campus. “Brian is a stellar exemplar of a person who’s raised social consciousness against racism to a very high level.”

With the appearances come more letters. Letters from as close as the kid down the block to as far away as Canada, Jamaica and Africa. Prisoners have written. So have Barbara Bush and Bill Clinton.

Despite his newfound fame, Harris remains down to earth and lives a typical teenage life--schedule permitting. He plays football at school and pickup basketball on weekends. He does house chores and baby-sits his four adopted siblings, ages 2 to 6.

And, of course, he answers letters to his pen-pal service, connecting people to each other.

These days, the letters still stream in, sometimes a dozen a day. Some, sending along a self-addressed and stamped envelope, ask to be matched with a friend of a different race. Others just want to chat. A few even send money.

“So many people criticize the youth of today and here you are a shining example of a younger person taking positive action,” said one Anaheim woman who enclosed a check for $10. “Your time is worth something and this is a small token to pay for all your hard work.”

Even with a full slate, Harris still found time to make a 3.7 grade-point average last semester.

“With all the different problems that adolescents have in life, I think it’s amazing that someone like him would find time to give to other people,” said Mary Luebben-Morrill, assistant principal at Cypress High.

Swinder Cooper with the Orange County Human Relations Commission has worked with Harris in the past through the organization’s School Inter-ethnic Relations Program. Among the things she admired about the teen, she said, is that “he’s very understated.”

“The neat thing about Brian is that he’s very humble,” Cooper said. “He’s just, ‘Here I am and let’s talk and let’s get pass the talking and into action.’ ”