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has written 565 articles for the OB Rag!

A Silence Regarding Arab and Jewish Students That Needs to be Broken

April 25, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

The war between Israelis and Palestinians is affecting Arab and Jewish students in our schools, requiring educators to tend to the learning and emotional needs of both groups of young people.

But many Arab students claim that they aren’t getting the amount of attention that their Jewish counterparts are receiving. These students took part in a focus group as part of a study conducted by a doctoral student who is from the local Arab American community.

Students say they’re feeling alone, unheard, extremely uncomfortable with the way the armed conflict in Gaza is discussed on their campuses.

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 The Beat of the Drums Goes On

April 17, 2024 by Ernie McCray

(Written for a Black Student Union Coalition Conference)

by Ernie McCray

Sometimes I hear
the beat of the drums.
African drums.
In moments of quiet solitude
when my mind
is in tune
with my people’s
never-ending struggle
for liberty and justice
in America,
a country we built,
from daybreak
to sunset,
with our backs
bent over under the weight of cotton sacks.

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Muslim Students Need a Different Vibe

April 9, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Well, it seems
that my friend, Lallia Allali,
a renowned leader in the Muslim community,
is no longer
welcome
to tend to the learning needs
of Arab students in San Diego City Schools
ever again,
in spite of the district’s supposed
restorative justice practices wherein it claims
to be about cultivating relationships that help build and sustain
school cultures
that are positive and welcoming
for students, staff, and families.

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Listening for Sounds of Hope From a School System

March 5, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Like a bat
responding to vibrations
from its echoes,
I listen
for feedback
from those whom
I’ve asked
to try seeing matters
through the eyes
of Lallia Allali
who says that what she’s seeing
is a lack of support for
Muslim students

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Oh, I Could Dig It If Everybody Was Like Me.

February 13, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

One often hears
how dull life would be
if everyone was the same
but I beg to differ,
thinking non-braggadocious-ly
that it would be flat out cool
if everybody acted as I do,
like woke up everyday
and, no matter what else they did that day,
took time out to read,
to pet a dog,
and wrote some prose and poetry,
some of it for a progressive blog,
and listened to and danced to
some music that allowed
them to breathe in the day soulfully and deeply,

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On Being an Only Child

January 24, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I was an only child
and what has been said
about folks like me
is that we are likely to be spoiled
and lonely
and selfish
and go about life without social skills
and all I can say is
I didn’t get the memo
about any of this
because I, when I was a kid,
was too spoiled
as a billionaire
would be to being broke and on the skids.

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Man, Could I Have Put a NIL to Good Use

January 9, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I hadn’t been paying too much attention
to these NIL* deals
college athletes have at their disposal,|
how well they’re compensated
for having their name, likeness, and image displayed,
but I was just reading how
some of these jocks
are making millions of dollars
and I say more power
to them

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‘I Wish We Would Try Seeing Through Lallia’s Eyes’

January 3, 2024 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Lallia Allali,
a friend of mine,
was removed as the chairperson
of a committee
that advises San Diego City Schools
on programs and services for English Learners –
for posting a graphic on social media
that portrayed Israel as the killer of babies,
and I must say
that’s not a vision
I would ever use
as an expression of my views
regarding the war
that’s raging
between
Palestinians and Jews.

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‘My Generation of Seniors Need to Make Amends to Our Off-Spring for Supporting a Man Who Nearly Brought Our Democracy to its Knees — by Not Ever Voting for Him Again.’

December 28, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 28, 2023

I’m but one of America’s nearly 60 million senior citizens, an 85-year-old. That’s an age filled with concerns, all kinds of concerns, concerns about walking into a room not knowing why, concerns about aches and pains that come in several degrees and recent concerns about rises in ageism.

Oh, the list of concerns could go on and on, ad nauseum, but I have a particular concern that has, for a while now, bothered me tremendously, one that stands high on my list of worries.

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Wishing Well Kind of Wishes

December 26, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

As the world spins
seemingly out of control
I find unfolding in me
the kind of wishes
one would make at a wishing well
in a fairy tale,
wishing that
Secretaries of State
in America’s states
will rise early every day
and stay up late
ensuring that
a former president
who is filled with hate,
like a rattle snake
overflowing with venom,
will not be a candidate
in his or her state,

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We Can’t Let Anne Frank’s Hopes and Dreams Die

December 11, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray 

I’m remembering
walking up a stairway
in Amsterdam
through narrow doorways
looking into nooks and crannies
in Anne Frank’s hiding place,
an annex attached to a home
where she chronicled
in a diary
that stands as a gift to humanity,
the trials and tribulations
of her people,
Jews,

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Can You Have Longtime Friends Who Were Never Your Friends?

November 29, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray 

I ran across
a picture of me
and two of my closest friends
growing up,
and I thought
of something I read that said:
“You can be friends with people
for years
and it could take years
for you to realize they were
never your friend”

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No Salary Ever Made Me Stop Reaching for My Dreams

November 14, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

I read somewhere that
“A salary is the amount your employer
pays you to forget your dreams.”
And my take on the idea is
are you kidding me,
with some of the poorly paying jobs I had early in my life,
sweeping and mopping
and buffing and dusting
in between
wiping tears from my eyes
and cussing?

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Keeping the Spirits of Lost Ones Alive

November 8, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

There’s a meme
that reads
“Be the things
you loved most about
the people who are gone”
and when I think about it
I can see that
I’ve been doing that all along,
keeping the spirit of lost ones alive –
through how I live my life,
|going back to my teens

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America’s Stand Should Be With the Seekers of Peace  

November 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I turn on the TV
and I hear the news
that Hamas
had taken the lives of
hundreds of Jews
and my eyes teared
and like dust being vacuumed
my breath was sucked away
just thinking that human beings
can treat each other this way
putting them in harm’s way
as they listen to music being played
and then I became equally dismayed,
knowing that Netanyahu’s
retaliation to this horrible display
of heinous madness
would be more deadly

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Remembering Tommy   

October 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

The seventy
and eighty
and ninety-year-olds
and beyond
compose a generation
whose days,
after so many yearly journeys
revolving around the sun,
are moving on,
yet,|
though their days will be done,
along with their memories
of a war that was won,
the ending of Jim Crow shenanigans
and marches in the street
for peace and justice and equality
that faced firehoses and snarling dogs
with bared teeth
and so many things –

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We Should ‘Make America Governable Again’

October 5, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

What if the slogan,
“Make America Great Again,”
was replaced
with a more hopeful
and promising acronym
such as
“Make America Governable Again”
like the time
when the powers that be
set, although rather unenthusiastically,
its slaves free
or when they laid down highways
allowing motorists
to travel the country
more easily and economically
or gave birth to voting rights
for all of our citizenry.

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One Thought Leading to Another   

September 28, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

When I think of one thing
that one thing,
especially if it’s something
that makes me cringe,
leads me to think
of something a bit more promising.
I mean,
for example,
when I think about
climate change,
my mind sets in motion
dreams of gentle rains
or if the thought is about
the armed conflict in Ukraine
I wish war,
like old soldiers,
would just slowly fadeaway

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Reflecting on a Life Filled with Music

September 25, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernest McCray

I find myself lately
from time to time
thinking about the good time
I had on stage,
just a wee bit of time ago,
doing some rhymes
of mine
and poetry of a friend of mine
and the work
of poets who rank
among the best of all time,
poems referring to a people
still rising,

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Jesus Living On in Chicano Park

September 13, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Every time I’d look over
at my good brother, Jesus Nieto,
while a rapper
was doing his thing
to funk beats
or while other music played
or while the Kumeyaay elders prayed,
blessing this rather sublime day,
he’d be sitting back in his wheelchair
wearing that soft gentle smile of his
on his contented face

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‘Oh Well’ Is Way Past its Time  

September 7, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

We seem to be a country
that looks at its most pressing
social and political problems
with mystified eyes
and shoulder shrugs
that say
“Oh well.”
Like we dismiss
the nation’s propensity
for mass murders
that break hearts in two
with a prayer or two
and get right back
to whatever it is we do.

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It’s Nice Having Sha’Carri Back

August 29, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Sha’Carri Richardson.
I just love that young woman.
Watching her win the hundred
in a World Track Championship
puts a smile on my face
like the one she planted there
when I first saw her race,

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Thinking of a Wonderful Place  

August 24, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I look at a picture of me at a mic
and my son, Guy,
playing the guitar at my right
and I think,
“Man, I’ve had a great life”
because that moment, in the photo,
captured me having the time of my life,
giving a graduation speech,
via a song,
to people I dearly loved
as sure as I was born,
students at Muir,
a K-12 alternative school,

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With the Help of Hollywood We’ll Define Ourselves

August 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I see the movie industry
as a huge answer to
the way our society
defines Black people
so negatively
because Hollywood is a master
when it comes to painting an image
of a people,
as I remember growing up
watching many a movie
that made the world seem

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Slavery Was a Sin Against Humanity

August 8, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

There’s an unsound
idea going around
that slavery
benefited those held in bondage
by giving them the opportunity
to learn trades
like blacksmithing
and carpentry
and whatnot.
And in some places
there are intentions to teach this sham
about slavery being a “Job Skills Program”

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Remembering Tony Bennett

July 26, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Tony Bennett,
a singer for the ages,
is gone
but not the memories
of what he,
with a delivery
that encompassed
an incomparable
style of grace and ease,
could do with a song,
making standards,
old show tunes,
his own,
in ways that made you hum
and sing a song

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To My Old Lady

July 25, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Hey,
Maria Ester Nieto.
I was just thinking
how many years ago
we used to refer to our girlfriends
as our “old lady,”
with no thought
that a day might come
when your squeeze is just that,”
an old lady,
a beauty like you
turning eighty,
rocking it,

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What Does it Take to Be a Peacemaker?

July 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I had the honor of hanging out with some kids
at the Youth Peace Camp
at the
San Diego First Church of The Brethren,
and I enjoyed every single second I spent
with those beautiful people,
leaving them at the end of the evening,
with a glowing smile on my face
which I maintained
listening to some soulful
old school rhythm and blues
as I kick-backed

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Getting Away from It All with Ahmad Jamal

July 7, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Sometimes when
I need to momentarily free
myself from humanity
and all its insanity,
I’ll listen to my man, Ahmad Jamal,
tickle the ivories
as only he can,
captivated
with the way|
he can finger the keys
in a tinkling fashion

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A Note to ‘the Luckiest Guy in the World’ — Bill Walton

June 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Hey, Bill,
loved “The Luckiest Guy in the World”
30 on 30 documentary.
It reminded me
of when I first saw you play
in high school,
in a game
where you, excuse the cliché,
literally blew me away
as you and your crew
descended on some poor team
like a tornado,
with you
swatting their shots
away in ways
that made them
not want to take shots,

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