You ever have one of those days
when you just
can’t shake your blues
because your soul feels so completely
battered and bruised
and defused and confused
and mis and/or overused,
seeming as though
it will never ever again
be enthused and amused? [Read more…]
Don’t Shoot: Thoughts on AB 931
I was just about to write down my thoughts on a meeting I attended a little while back, but I thought I’d check my email first so I could really settle in with what I wanted to say.
One particular email in my inbox got my attention right away: news the San Diego City Council hadn’t taken a step that was necessary in the process of readying an amendment regarding the creation of a Commission on Police Practices for placement on the November ballot.
They just let it drop. And although that’s shocking to me, I’m not the least bit surprised because, and I can only speak for the years I’ve been in San Diego since 1962, our City Councils, on the whole, have never been about much of anything beyond empty “America’s Finest City” kind of platitudes. [Read more…]
Free at Last! Free at Last! (A Dad’s Reflections of a Life That Was Enough)
Guy Ernest McCray, my oldest son,
has passed away
and needless to say
that saddens me in
the deepest way.
Yet, at the same time,
knowing the grind
he had in life,
I find myself whispering to the wind
that he is now:
“Free at Last! Free at Last!”
Who Does He Think He’s Fooling?
“No collusion,”
the man, with way more talk
than walk says.
And he flies across
waters to Helsinki
to meet and greet
a Russian of ill repute
who is seen
as our number one enemy,
a man who slapped our country
upside the head
like a Mafia Godfather
putting an underling
in his place,
interfering with a presidential race,
utilizing the wizardry
of technology,
exposing our inability
to think critically,
resulting, tragically,
in a wretched excuse of a human being
ascending to the presidency [Read more…]
Building Trust With Police is Like Trying to Assemble a Jigsaw Puzzle
“Trust is the Issue” was one of our rallying cries at the City Council’s Rules Committee meeting Wednesday.
And the committee came through, voting 3-2 to pass the idea of creating a Commission on Police Practices on to the full Council.
That sounds hopeful to me but trying to build trust with the police in San Diego, for communities of color, has been like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. One with too many pieces – due to years of bad history.
My own history with the San Diego police goes back to when I arrived in town in 1962, my first Sunday here, shooting hoops with some guys at Mountain View Park until a few cops barge in on our fun: “Looking for some burglars.” [Read more…]
Malcolm X and Police Accountability on My Mind
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 of why we were gathered together, considering that he relentlessly tried to keep an eye on the police, especially in black communities where they have, throughout our country’s history, practically run rampant in black neighborhoods: cruising up and down the street flashing “the look”; messing with folks for giving them “the look”; taking somebody out because of “how they looked.”
And Malcolm would appreciate that the proposed commission would be devoted to holding the police department accountable for their interactions not only with communities of color but with all of the folks they’re supposed to “serve and protect” – like the members of Women Occupy San Diego, most of them white, who were mistreated by law enforcement officers at a protest a few years ago.
[Read more…]
1968: A Year of Loss and Hope
1968. A year of loss and hope for me.
One of my losses was my marriage which, after years of rough waters, sunk like the Titanic, unsaveable, destined for a rocky shore.
But one thing I had going for me in my depression was the love of the beautiful young people in my sixth grade class, the fun I had learning with them: writing poetry and prose with them; giving life to characters and situations in social studies with them; playing with numbers in a variety of ways, questioning current events everyday…
Did those young people ever keep alive what little hope I had for anything. They inspired me to “Keep the Faith,” to resist the madness in the war in Vietnam, to forever be “Black and Proud!” and willing to say it out loud.
But sometimes, that year, my personal life would just be too much to bear.
[Read more…]
Simply for the Children’s Sake
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,
and they, another way, [Read more…]
My Heroes in Matters of Diversity; A Shout Out to Community-Based Block Program
Dear Community-Based Block Program,
You all are so special to me.
I’ve come to love and appreciate you because I dream of a society, ours, that values its diversity and you are as diverse a group as I can imagine.
When I looked at you a little while ago at the Jackie Robinson YMCA, decked out in your finery, you were about the most beautiful sight I’ve ever laid my eyes on, just a hugging and pecking each other on the cheek and smiling and talking with your bodies and your hands, your love for each other aglow.
And you personified a little of everybody, gays, lesbians, bi, non-hearing, blind, skin tones from ivory to ebony, ethnicities aplenty: Mexican American; Latino; Chicano; Chicana; Filipino; Vietnamese American; Bi-racial; Native American; Afghanian American; African American; African; European American; Honduran American… [Read more…]
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. [Read more…]
Feeling in Tune With La Neighbor and Logan Heights
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 how to turn them on to the world of learning.
When a state law was passed requiring us, as school principals, to harass some of our families, our friends, like we were “la migra” or somebody, we, without as much as blinking, said a a loud “Hell! No!” to that.
Maria’s stories captured the spirit of Logan Heights’ old iconic Neighborhood House, a welcoming place that so many Mexican Americans considered the “heart” of their community. [Read more…]
Reflecting on What Could Have Been
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” and that we were, through and through, as quiet as an opossum playing dead. [Read more…]
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