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Books by E. Ethelbert
Miller
How We Sleep
on the Nights We Don’t Make Love
/
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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The Meaning of Barack Obama
By
E.
Ethelbert Miller
Charles Johnson
just sent me a copy of his essay that's in the latest
issue of Shambhala Sun (November 2008). "The Meaning of
Barack Obama" is written from Johnson's Buddhist
perspective. It provided me with an opportunity to
develop more probes; ideas that scholars might need to
examine under conditions of deep thought and reflection.
Johnson begins his essay by mentioning how the general
election in November might be an opportunity to take the
temperature of racial attitudes in American at the dawn
of a new century.
I like Johnson's medical reference here. I've always
felt the major question of the 21st Century is the one
that appears in The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara.
"Do you want to be well?"
Thank you Minnie Ransom. Sorry Dr. DuBois—we are moving
beyond the Color Line. Is America well? Do we have
"race" fever? Back in 1877 we caught what was known as
Liberia Fever. Obama Fever should make us all reach for
the thermometer. But what is America's normal
temperature? One man's hot is another man's cold.
Johnson writes in his essay that "race is our grandest
lived delusion and grief-causing fiction."
I don't know about
this. It seems we give race a bad name these days. We
talk about race as if it was a bad hairstyle. Do we want
everyone to have cornrows? I don't think so. Why don't
we look at race as being one of the wonderful things to
celebrate instead of something to shed? Why must we see
Race as a cocoon and buy into the concept that only
butterflies are free? What is this about? I think the
struggle is against racism and prejudice and not race.
The challenge is similar to the one Ellington faced. How
do we keep this Big World Band playing together? Should
only white people get to solo? Pass me some more
Strayhorn and let's get this composition right.
I thought I heard
Johnny Hodges say...
The focus on the belief that the upcoming election is
about Obama and race misses the big picture. Obama is
more representative of the technological transformation
of our society. How his campaign is being run is what
will determine the character and the content of our
lives. Obama is opening the door to a new form of
participatory democracy. His impact on local elections
should help us better organize. What he has done is
refined his skills as a community organizer and placed
it on a national level.
Let's bring in
McLuhan here and see how Obama represents the new global
village. His ancestry is very symbolic but too often we
examine it without looking at all of the symbols. Mother
from Kansas? How come we don't talk about the Kansas of
John Brown? Kansas key to the making of America.
Bleeding Kansas as important as throwing tea into the
ocean around Boston. Father from Kenya? Where are we
always tracing man's beginnings back to? Early
footprints always seem to be around Kenya and Tanzania.
Indonesia? The largest Muslim populated nation in the
world. Obama is influenced by all of this.
America's biggest
future challenge might not be race but instead religion.
Even Obama seems reluctant to use his middle name. What
will it mean if he is elected and sworn in and folks
hear his middle name mentioned? What will it mean when
he places his hand on the bible and takes the oath? A
coming together of Islamic and Christian roots? Obama is
not a Muslim but his grandfather was. This will only
keep us divided if we are backwards looking. If we look
forward we begin to see a new world attempting to move
beyond the duality of things. We are moving beyond black
and white because even television long ago moved beyond
black and white. People are finally able to see color.
Whew...didn't it
take us a long time? Now we are talking about going
digital. Are you ready? No place for racism in a digital
world. Many of us will be left behind and might as well
be pirates living off the coast of Somalia. Like Palin's
Rapture many of us might get left behind if we can't
even "imagine" where Alaska is. Which brings one back to
Obama and the link to Hawaii. In a symbolic way America
by moving further West has now come closer to the East.
If you wanted to know who was coming after Reagan (and
California), well it looks like Obama and Hawaii.
The symbolism here
shouldn't be lost and perhaps that's why we need to look
to creative writers and poets to help usher in the new
era. It's why I advocate that we need to pursue
visionary literature and recognize at this historical
moment we are the children of Whitman.
Back to a probe. Some scholar(s) need to examine Iowa
and the issue of race. Why did so many white people in
this state vote for Obama? Was it about Obama's race or
was it how he ran his campaign? What really happened in
Iowa? Remember how certain places were almost linked to
whiteness? Iowa was one of them. Ironic or symbolic?
Obama is the face of our changing world. If we find him
exotic it's only because we have always found the exotic
in names, places and style. Obama brings it all together
under the sphere of the cool. The man is Miles coming
after the hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question
is whether the rebirth of the cool will coincide with
the return of the Cold War. We only have to monitor
Russia's actions the next few months. Is it just a
matter of weeks before Russian boats return to the
Caribbean?
Charles Johnson in his essay writes about how Obama and
his wife Michelle are avatars of a new black America.
The word avatar has begun to enter our vocabulary. Is it
now possible to "dream" a world? Might we be capable of
creating the Beloved Community - on line (at least)?
Something to ponder
especially when we know that too often worlds collide.
Which might bring us back to Johnson's Buddhist
principles and beliefs. Maybe race is an illusion as
much as this thing we now call life. Which brings me
back to those early Obama speeches that came out of
Iowa—Now's The Time. Sounds very much like Charlie
Parker and Miles.
Obama represents the new music. Many of us can hear
it—we just can't play it yet. November is either a major
concert or just another dress rehearsal. We could all be
stuck in our black and white costumes and going nowhere.
Our horns broken by our own hands.
Source: Ethelbert
Miller @
3:47 AM / Thursday, September 25, 2008 /
http://www.eethelbertmiller1.blogspot.com/
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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 16
November 2008 |
