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Books by E. Ethelbert
Miller
How We Sleep
on the Nights We Don’t Make Love
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Fathering Words /
In
Search of Color Everywhere
First Light: New and Selected Poems /
Where are
the Love Poems for Dictators? /
Whispers, Secrets and Promises
Beyond
The Frontier: African-American Poetry for the 21st
Century /
Season of Hunger/Cry of Rain
Synergy:
An Anthology of Washington D.C. Black Poetry
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From Orenthal to Obama: Who Has the Juice?
By E. Ethelbert
Miller
It was difficult for me to look at O.J. being sentenced
yesterday and not think of the automobile industry. The
downfall of Detroit is also evident by the won/lost
record of the Detroit Lions but that's another E-Note.
June 17, 1994 and we are all watching the police chasing
a white Ford Bronco. The first reality show? Remember
all the discussion around O.J. and race? Remember when
we looked at O.J. on the cover of magazines and wondered
who "painted" him darker?
Orenthal. I was
never an O.J. Simpson fan. My sister was always annoyed
by how his head moved when he was doing television
commentary. O.J. had a head that moved one way and a
body that moved in the other direction. Maybe this is
what made him a great running back. My image of O.J.
will always be frozen in 1973. The last game in the year
he ran for 2,000 yards. I can still see O.J. running in
the snow becoming for the moment mythical. Today one
only has to look to Orenthal to discover the Oracle of
our lives.
O.J. represents how we view and interpret truth as well
as justice in our society. The fact that his life is
being overshadowed by Obama at this moment represents
our best opportunity to understand the change that is
taking place in our society. How do we measure what's
going on with our economy right now? Who do you
believe—Wall Street or Orenthal? Why? Consider how we
once measured our lives by watching the O.J. Simpson
trial. Today we are all wearing Obama caps and waiting
for January 20th. What's going on?
In many ways O.J. represents an obsolete black man. The
star football player and media personality reduced to a
vanishing line phone or telephone booth. Who killed the
old technology?
Who murdered our old industries? Do we blame it all on
greed? O.J. yesterday said he only wanted his stuff
back. How many of us want the world back after climate
changes? We pay no attention to O.J. today because O.J.
does not represent the "new" O. Obama is change we can
believe in. No one believes O.J. is innocent and didn't
kill Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman back in 1994.
Overlook the fact that he was found innocent in 1997. We
refuse to accept the verdict the same way we refuse to
hold the oil companies accountable to anything.
Explain the Orenthal and perhaps we unlock life's deep
secrets and we save the planet and ourselves. O.J. is
going to jail and many of us are heading for the
unemployment lines. O- for many of us. Obsolete. We can
no longer interface with the highly technological
revolution that is transforming everything at a pace
that will accelerate if it isn't regulated. The economic
markets out of control almost represents the internet.
What happens when we begin to see the emergence of
"pure" democracy? How do you regulate that? Enter -Obama
and hooking up an entire new generation like the
electric line that once blocked for O.J. Where we once
counted yards for O.J. we now count votes for Obama.
As the world turns hot—climate warming as well as wars
and (silly) pirates—Obama replaces Orenthal. The rebirth
of the cool. Obama as slick as a new cell phone. A black
man who loves his BlackBerry. A man who breaks the
chains while another is taken away in them. In the old
days the networks could follow the white Ford
Bronco—today we can create our own fantasy O.J. game.
Did he do it or was it you? A way of life is ending and
some of us are holding onto those memories of O.J.
rushing for 2000 yards in the snow. It's either that or
hoop dreams with Obama in 2009.
Mr. Miller has served as a visiting professor at
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and adjunct professor
at American University. In 1996 he was the Jessie Ball
DuPont Scholar at Emory & Henry College. He was
scholar-in-residence at George Mason University for the
Spring 2000 semester, and the 2001 Carell
Writer-in-Residence at Harpeth Hall School in Nashville,
Tennessee.
more bio
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Willie Brown's World
Ran into Quincy Jones the other
night. He was in town for a book signing, and I caught up with him at
1300 on Fillmore for supper.
Quincy had just been inducted into
the California Hall of Fame. He was talking about Barack Obama's
inaugural. And like everybody else, he was trying to figure out how to
get on the stage at the official inaugural ball. I told him, direct the
band for Aretha Franklin and you'll be right up there.
As I was leaving, this brother
comes up and says to me, "Willie Brown, even with the housing market and
the economy, this has been a really great year for black people."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because we got
Obama."
Then he said, "But you
know, come to think of it, it was a good year for white people, too."
"Why's that?" I asked.
"Because they finally got O.J."
SFGate
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O.J. Simpson statement before sentencing
/
OJ Simpson: Fallen star who fumbled
American dream
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The 5th Inning by E. Ethelbert Miller
The 5th Inning is poet and literary
activist E. Ethelbert Miller's second memoir. Coming after
Fathering Words: The Making of An
African American Writer
(published in 2000), this book finds Miller returning to
baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the
metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life.
Almost 60, he ponders whether his life can now be entered
into the official record books as a success or failure.
The 5th Inning is one man's examination
of personal relationships, depression, love and loss. This
is a story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or
in the batters box. It's a box score filled with
remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the blues.
To see a clip of Ethelbert reading
The 5th Inning click here:
http://www.eethelbertmiller.com/etube |
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posted 6 December 2008 |
