Columns

Feeling Hope with My Offspring

June 19, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I dined
at a rather nice café
the other day
where a host,
in this lovely place,
in a very friendly way,
led me
and my twin daughters
and my oldest grandson
and his wife
and their three sons,
to an outdoor table,

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Feeling Glee Over a Witch-Hunt

June 16, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

An ex-president
getting a portion
of his due
through an indictment
and now an arraignment
that are about as overdue
as a book checked out of the library
in 1892,
makes me want to dance a jig,
bad back and all.
And the claim
that the charges against him,
amongst other things,
have been
a witch-hunt, from the get-go,
makes me want to chuckle

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G.O.A.T. Talking to Ease My Mind

June 15, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Pondering
some of what’s going on
in the nation
and the world,
I was in a low-grade funk
and then
I turned my TV on
to two talking heads
on ESPN
who were going on and on
about who was
the G.O.A.T.,
the greatest to ever play
in the NBA,

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Making Amanda’s Dream for a Better Us Is Up to Us

June 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Amanda Gorman
gifted us with
“The Hill We Climb”
at an
inaugural celebration,
a poem inspiring hope
which hangs on weakly
by a thread
in our nation,
a poem a parent had
removed from a school
because in her narrowed way
of looking at things

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Tina Turner: Simply the Best

May 31, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Tina Turner.
Gone.
I first saw her on stage
around 1957
or ’58,
and it was love at first sight.
Couldn’t help myself,
if I tried with all my might.
Not with the way
she and the Ikettes
moved and grooved

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One Love Story Giving Rise to Another

May 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I was moving
my old bones
to the music of San Diego’s
Hoover High School Mariachi Band
which put me in a deeply responsive mood
for what was next
that afternoon,
a premiere of
“A Chicano Love Story,”
a documentary
featuring Linda and Carlos LeGerrette,
two of Cesar Chavez’s
most valued right-hand
woman and man.

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Lay Those Pistols Down, Ja!

May 23, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

Hey,
LAY THOSE PISTOLS DOWN, Ja!
Enough of
all that jive foolishness,
flashing guns on videos
as though you’re a gangster wannabe
or some kind of an OG.
If it’s attention you want
you’ve already got that,
it seems to me,
because on a basketball court
your fans eat up
your razzle and dazzle
and wizardry and artistry
with unadulterated glee.

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Sleepover at Grampy and Maria’s House

May 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Two of my grandchildren,
Lyric and Marley,
Lyric almost ten,
Marley, eight,
slept over
the other night
and things went great.

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Feeling a More Caring World

May 12, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Had a nice weekend at the
“The 2023 Annual Conference of
California Community College
Trustees”
at the
Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa
with mi querida
who is a trustee.

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Reflecting on Ralph Yarl and Guns

May 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

On the subject of racism and guns
in our nation
I can’t get Ralph Yarl
out of my mind,
how he,
a Black teen,
got lost one day
and, as people in such a situation do,
he knocks on a door

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Aging Is No Stroll Through the Park (But It’s Good to Be Alive)

April 21, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Made it.
85 earthly rides
around the sun.
And most of it
has been a ton
of fun
but this aging
has been no
stroll through the park, Jack,
or anything close to that,
as parts of me, like my back,
up and quit on me a while back,

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Ernie McCray Turns 85 Today — Aging Memories

April 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I’m at an age
when my life
consists of mostly memories
and sometimes these remembrances
come to me
suddenly
and randomly,
as I can, in one moment,
remember
a time when I was
down, up against it,
overwhelmed
with cares and woes
like a man adrift in a dark churning sea,
a swallow away from drowning,

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Bothered, Yeah, Right

April 5, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Wow!
Somebody
finally
indicted
a man
who can’t open his mouth
without committing
a major crime,
after a lifetime of thuggery
of all kinds,
and one of his attorneys
is talking about
how we
should be
bothered by

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Feeling Thankful as I Near 85

March 29, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I’m almost 85.
And with more years behind me
than ahead of me
I am thankful
to still be alive
and to have been brought to life
by a mother who
loved and befriended me
and guided me
towards a nice path
to take on my life’s journey,
a voyage
I’m thankful for
just for the gifts
that have been bestowed on me:

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It’s Not Drag Queens Our Children Shouldn’t See

March 14, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

How silly are we,
as a society,
to talk about
getting rid of
drag queen performances
to shield the productions
from the view of our children
as though our kids
sneak out at night
going to drag venues
and strip clubs
and the like.

Yikes.
Are homo sapiens’
brains on strike?

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A Shout Out to the Students at Muir Language Academy (Regarding a Discussion About Black History)

March 8, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Oh, I so enjoyed
sharing my experiences
with you
bright young people
as an 84-year-old Black man
who has
sat at the back of the bus
and put up with
a whole lot of other stuff
and, somehow in all the
huffing and puffing
against such,
managed to
keep the love in me
untouched.

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Being Woke Is Essential for a Hopeful Future

February 28, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

At a time
when we
should open our eyes and hearts and minds
to ways
we can
learn the rich stories
that make up
who we are collectively
as subsets
in the vast world
of humanity,
along comes someone like
Ron DeSantis,
the governor of Florida,

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On Being Honored in Bayard Rustin’s Name

February 21, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Just being mentioned with Bayard Rustin
would be enough to fill me with glee.
But receiving the Bayard Rustin
Lifetime Achievement Award
is mind blowing for me.

Makes me feel
like Bojangles
dancing a soft shoe
down a stairway
in a Shirley Temple movie
or on Old Broadway.

Because Bayard was a hero of mine.
Big time.

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Black History Month Has Come a Long Way

February 13, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Black History Month
has come a long way
since a beginning
that was filled with
controversy over celebrating
it in the month that has the fewest days
when Black History, so much of it
American History,
could be integrated in historical studies
throughout a school year
and there have been those

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We Have to Put and End to ‘Here We Go Again’ (In Memory of Tyre)

February 6, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

All that physical torture
that Tyre Nichols went through,
to me,
was way too much
déjà vu,
in the form of
“Here we go again,”
created by roguish so-called “peace officers”
committing sins against Black humanity,
stomping and punching
and tazing and spraying
and kicking
and then watching their victim
as he lay dying,
justifying
their brutality
shucking and jiving
and lying
about Tyre having done some reckless driving

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It’s a Joy Seeing My Hometown Tucson’s Appreciation of its Diversity

February 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Oh, I’m practically overflowing
with joy
having my name
living on in perpetuity
as a
University of Arizona
Basketball Ring of Honor honoree,
mostly for the reason that it highlights
just how far Tucson, my hometown,
has come
since my growing up days,
as I was the second Black basketball player
to perform at the U of A
and now there are

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Remarks for My Ring of Honor Induction – After Arizona v. UCLA Game

January 24, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

Back when I was playing
in the old Bear Down Gym
doing my “Easy Ernie” thing,
draining 2’s
and what today|
would be 3’s
and snatching rebounds
like I was taking back
something that had been stolen from me,
I couldn’t have dreamed
that all that balling
would someday
result in my name hanging from a rafter
in the University of Arizona’s
Basketball Ring of Honor,

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Keepers of Martin Luther King’s Spirit of Love

January 20, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Two people kept Martin Luther King’s
spirit of love
breathing
for me
on MLK Day,
Steve Phillips,”
writer and founder of Democracy in Color,
and Grammy Award winning jazz trumpeter
and film score composer,
Terence Blanchard.

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One Sees a Lot in a Lifetime

January 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

You live long enough
you see a lot of things,
both good and bad
and in-between
in a lifetime
and I find myself
from time to time
remembering things I’ve seen
over my more than
three-quarters of a century
of being alive and breathing,

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Looks like a Lot of Same Old Same Old (Reflections on the Speaker of the House Vote Fiasco)

January 11, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

America today is a bit
whacky
and almost
out of control,
when we should be reaching
down deep in our souls
to make our nation
at least not a country
where one turns on his TV
to CNN or MSBNC
to a scene
where one US Congressman
is being restrained by a fellow Congressman
to prevent him
from going upside the head
of another Congressman

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Loving Ideas About How We Can Live — from Black Lives Matter

January 4, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I just put down
a wonderful read
titled
“How We Can Live”
which was written to give
young people,|
our children,
a few loving
principles to abide by
during these times.

The book’s ideas
come from
“Black Lives Matter’s”
efforts to encourage society
to change its ways,

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Kwanzaa: For Peace and Good-Will Beyond the Holidays

December 24, 2022 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

So much is said of Peace and Good-Will
during this time of year
and wouldn’t it be wonderful
if we adhered
to such
in our
everyday lives?

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Musing of a Dad

December 16, 2022 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Had so much fun
the other day
with my offspring
at a nice café,
with one brief
moment
when I had to
wipe a couple
of tears away,
as I shared a story
about one of my two
children who passed away

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Our Country Can’t Survive if We Can’t Think in Ways That Are Wise

December 12, 2022 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

A silly
lie spewing Black man who
would rather be
a werewolf
than a vampire
lost a
|frighteningly and ridiculously
close Senate race
to a dignified Black man
who was born to inspire,

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Feeling Joy for Brittney’s Return Home

December 9, 2022 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Woke up this morning
after a nice sleep
last night
and turned on the news
to a scene
that had me
brimming with delight,
the incredibly beautiful sight
of Brittney Griner
boarding a flight,

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