How To Meet a Black Leader

2009-10-07
By Ethelbert Miller

I really don't know many of today's black leaders. I didn't go downtown to the recent  Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Weekend in DC and hang out and attend the parties. Now and then I'll run into Julian Bond and he might refer to me as "the poet." I once spoke to Jesse Jackson but never met Big Al. I've spoken to Cornel West once or maybe twice. I did review one of his books for NPR. Marion Barry might remember me if we were standing on a corner. Mayor Fenty always smiles but that might be because he is always running for office.
 
In the old days I would videotape all the Black leaders who came to speak at Howard University. Dick Gregory once told me to put my camera away. His reasoning even today makes no sense - but maybe there is a footnote somewhere like weapons of mass destruction behind a toilet in Baghdad.
 
I guess the best way to meet a black leader these days is to have a police officer bop my head and have a friend place it on YouTube. Depending on the number of hits (not on my head) I could attract a few black leaders. I can see the press conference, and the cries of racism and the demand for justice. Maybe someone will read one of my poems and my book sales would increase. Maybe I might even get to meet Alicia Keys if my case reached the celeb stage and benefits were held in my honor. If I met a Black leader maybe I could be on a t-shirt. "Free E" in red, black and green?
 
Since, I don't know any black leaders I spend my time getting to know- the people. I started compiling what I now call "Fanon Moments." These are the things black leaders often miss or seldom talk about.

Last week I saw a Fanon Moment across the street from Howard, near the McDonald's on Georgia Avenue. There was a black man - maybe 50 in age doing nothing but standing near the bus stop clapping his hands over and over. If I were Zora, I would have engaged in conversation, however the cases of mental illness in the black community are too numerous to  count. We seem to be a race in need of medication. We tend to become  "wretched" over the smallest things. We seem to be angry all the time, at ourselves and each other.

For a moment a few months ago we were all happy sipping our Obama. It kept us warm back in January. Maybe around Christmas I'll go shopping for another black leader. Do they still attend Kwanzaa gatherings? What about police department balls?

E. Ethelbert Miller is an award-winning poet and director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University.