There are millions and we are all different — Roll Call — Reginald Dwayne Betts. Martin Espada. Monica Youn. Edgar Lee Masters. Lawrence Joseph. J.P. Howard. The list is long. Millions worldwide. Poets who are also lawyers. Lawyers who are also poets. It feels like it is not a fit but it is for me. Always fit. For many, like Evie Shockley…

My favorite guided spiritual meditation — Many nights, I listen to guided meditations to fall asleep. It is how I am wired. A soft voice to put me in the present and to focus on nothing at all but the immediate. It is how to live. No worries about tomorrow, yesterday, or some bill to pay…

White Supremacists, Of Course. — “Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.” — Derrick Bell Way back in 1995, Derrick Bell, one of the key players in the Critical Race Theory movement, wrote about the attacks on the movement from many different ideological spectrums. This is back when CRT…

Our political absurdity, on repeat — The Democrats don’t have enough votes to change the filibuster (cloture) rule. Senator Joe Manchin is fine with things as they are anyway. The Democrats can’t expand the U.S. Supreme Court because they can’t change the Senate rules and pass laws with a simple majority. …

A film with no end — Scene — Home of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. A film crew is interviewing the NBA legend. He is giving his thoughts, 33 years after he played his last professional basketball game. Kareem — Do I miss the game? Basketball? (Kareem laughs) But seriously, I left it all on the court. I have no regrets…

Here comes the okie doke — Here is what I would do on guns if I had total control over the legislative system for 24 hours and could re-design the nation’s national gun laws. At 12:01 am, I would pass a law that would ban all guns, in all situations. No ownership, no production, no sales…

Time to reflect, time to study — My grandmother, Hazel Lancaster, was born in Palestine, Texas. That side of my father’s family hails from the plantation-slave region of Texas. My grandmother attended Prarie View University, an HBCU and she is very Texas. I never once heard her mention “Juneteenth.” My family didn’t bring Juneteenth to my attention…