Author: Ernie McCray

I was raised in a loving and alive home, in a black neighborhood filled with colorful characters in Tucson, Arizona. Such an environment gave me a hint that life has to be grabbed by the tail as tight as a pimple on a mosquito's butt. With no BS and a whole lot of love. So, from those days to now I get up every morning set on making the world a better place. On my good foot*, and I hope my writing reflects that. *an old black expression

Malcolm X and Police Accountability on My Mind

 Ernie McCray  July 11, 2018  0 Comments on Malcolm X and Police Accountability on My Mind

Photo of Malcolm X poster labeled "NOT FOR SALE"

By Ernie McCray

I attended a meeting the other night at the Malcolm X Library about a proposed Amendment to the City of San Diego Charter to create a Commission on Police Practices.

I couldn’t help but think of Malcolm throughout the evening because he would be pleased at the very idea

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Simply for the Children’s Sake

 Ernie McCray  June 27, 2018  0 Comments on Simply for the Children’s Sake

Baby's head witth shadow of Donald Trump

I was singing the blues
until I heard the news
that children
being torn from the
arms of their parents
was coming to an end,
if but for a minute,
a breather
from evil being played
out in my face,
beautiful innocent
brown skinned children,
screaming “Mami! Papi!”
as Mami and Papi
are pulled one way,

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Dreaming of Racial Harmony

 Ernie McCray  June 7, 2018  2 Comments on Dreaming of Racial Harmony

At 80 I find myself still pursuing the same dream in which I’ve indulged myself all my life, a dream that someday the races of people would get along in harmony. Or at least try.

I say try because it seems to me that it’s been our failure to even pursue such a dream that has gotten in the way of it becoming a reality.

But, I’d dare say, there’s no better time than now for us to find ways to embrace each other. I feel that way just because of how the world is.

I mean you can sit down, after a long day of being retired, and turn on the tv and see a man, on this occasion a representative of the NFL, privileged beyond belief, telling football players (most of them black) that they can no longer protest police brutality at their knees while the flag is being sung to.

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Feeling in Tune With ‘La Neighbor’ and Logan Heights

 Ernie McCray  May 30, 2018  0 Comments on Feeling in Tune With ‘La Neighbor’ and Logan Heights

By Ernie McCray

I just finished reading a collection of essays, “La Neighbor: A Settlement House in Logan Heights,” written by a longtime friend, Maria Garcia.

Maria and I go back a ways and we’re soulmates in so many ways. We’re writers, and activists, who’ve taken to the streets many a time in the pursuit of equality. We’re educators who modeled, in our schools, how to treat children with respect and

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Reflecting on What Could Have Been

 Ernie McCray  May 22, 2018  2 Comments on Reflecting on What Could Have Been

Ernie with sunglasses behind screen

 

(Photo: Maria Nieto Senour)

Reflecting on my 80 years I find myself still dreaming of a better world. Not some “Kumbaya” singing fantasy world, but one where people, at the very least, try to find ways to understand and appreciate each other. A loving world.

But that was not the dream of my generation. Getting our hands dirty in pursuit of a world where concepts like “peace and justice and equality” rang true, just wasn’t something we cared to do.

We were called the “Silent Generation”

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Oh, If We Could Listen With Heart Like Nipper

 Ernie McCray  May 9, 2018  0 Comments on Oh, If We Could Listen With Heart Like Nipper

By Ernie McCray

When I was a child there was a commercial about a dog named Nipper who was supposed to be listening to his “master’s voice” on a windup disc gramophone. I thought about him early one morning recently.

On this morning I woke up a little earlier than usual because my iPhone SE startled me awake, vibrating and buzzing like crazy, kind of like those European police sirens.

And, hey, I’ve got to say I didn’t know I had an app for such as all that. I shut that little device up by grabbing it like a cowboy wrestling a steer he’d just roped only to find out that its histrionics was regarding an article about a book Arizona Senator John McCain had written. I was forced to question the very notion that I was in possession of anything approaching a smartphone.

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Putting My Love in Play

 Ernie McCray  April 25, 2018  0 Comments on Putting My Love in Play

Man holding a stained glass heart

Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

I recently wrote a rhyme about all the love I’ve enjoyed for 80 years, and now I’d like to share how I’ve put that love in play.

Regarding that, I have to say that loving has been easy for me because my life’s work has been dedicated to schools which are perfect places for spreading love.

And my intent, all along, has simply been to make my world more just for all human beings – beginning, in a moment in time, when I was in grade school myself.

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Still Loving After All These 80 Years

 Ernie McCray  April 17, 2018  1 Comment on Still Loving After All These 80 Years

Still Loving After All These 80 Years
(The Formative Years: More to Come)

Infant sitting on table next to birthday cake with one candle

If I’m breathing April 18th, 2018,
I will be 80 years old.
And to brag a little bit,
I lived those years
with a lot of love in my soul
and that’s quite an ac-com-plish-ment
for someone with
COLORED written on his birth cer-ti-ficate
if the truth be told,
considering I first said “Hello”
to the world
in Tucson, Arizona,

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Shedding Tears of Hope and Joy as Children Make America Great

 Ernie McCray  March 29, 2018  0 Comments on Shedding Tears of Hope and Joy as Children Make America Great

I’ve lived a life
among children,
as a child initially, obviously,
and who knows how many
young ones there are
with whom I’ve had the honor
of being in their company
as their teacher
or their vice-principal
or their principal

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Overcoming Gloom In a Grand Canyon State of Mind

 Ernie McCray  March 21, 2018  0 Comments on Overcoming Gloom In a Grand Canyon State of Mind

View of Grand Canyon from the rim

By Ernie McCray

Overcoming Gloom In a Grand Canyon State of Mind

The other day

I sat in my living room

caught up in thoughts of my daughter,

feeling a kind of gloom

that seemed to loom

over me

like a petrifyingly dark full moon

in a horror movie

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Oh, I Love Those Children

 Ernie McCray  March 2, 2018  0 Comments on Oh, I Love Those Children

Crowd of young protestors holding signs protesting gun violence

Oh, I love those children.

Those beautiful bright young
high school Floridians,
boldly taking
the leadership
so needed to dampen
our warped relations with guns,
standing steadfastly
as one,
in the faces of the NRA’s,
ne’er-do-well whores
who masquerade unconvincingly
as well meaning politicians,
demanding that they
simply do something
about the situation
or face their votes
in future elections.

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An Email to NewsManager@FoxNews.com

 Ernie McCray  February 27, 2018  4 Comments on An Email to NewsManager@FoxNews.com

Laura Ingraham’s put down of LeBron James on your network was so out of line and unnecessary and ridiculously insulting and dismissive. What does his grammar have to do with anything or his perceived “lack of education”? Why should he, in a country where he has the right to express himself, “Shut up and dribble”?

As a 79-year-old black man, it’s refreshing for me to see young black people like this great athlete speak out on what’s happening in the world — in this case, expressing his views on our president — who really “doesn’t give a fuck about the people” as he pointed out.

The “people” being those who don’t support his hateful, racist, mysogynist, sexist, xenophobic, abusive, disgraceful, dictator-loving, ill-informed, unintelligent, illogical, jingoistic, bewildering, divisive, predatory, blow-harded, clownish, non-Christian,

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