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…

Why won’t they champion CRT rather than run from it? — Civil rights were obtained through multi-racial political coalitions It’s time to talk about Critical Race Theory and liberal Democrats. First, some context. To their credit, there are no modern civil rights gains legally without liberal Democrats supporting the laws in the 1960s and trying to protect civil rights into the current era. Liberals embraced the hard push by…

Malcolm X, born today in 1925, made it plain always — Although equity, equality, and freedom are presented as values upheld by the United States, they have represented an empty promise to those of African descent. In a 1964 speech at the founding rally of the organization of Afro-American unity, and civil rights, Malcolm X asserted that Black people had “to…

What do you mean Jimi Hendrix didn’t play Black music? — Thank God, I am what I am I’m on stage at some bar in Western Maryland. My man, George calls me up and asks me to sit in on a few numbers. Some songs by Jimi Hendrix. I am in college. I play bass guitar and at the time, I was nervous, but this was the moment…

A lesson for writers and readers — Alex Haley The late writer, Alex Haley, is again the subject of historical controversy. Haley, the author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and the genealogical memoir, Roots, is a legend of a writer. I once had a chance to interview Alex Haley. A media friend told me they could arrange it…

The most painful of observations — Mauricio Garcia’s ethnicity is meaningless The writer Arturo Dominguez wrote a very thoughtful essay this week about Latinos who are, in effect, white nationalists. Most won’t likely benefit from spreading hateful ideas, but some continue to be active participants, spreading racial hate and violence. Mauricio Garcia, the man believed to be responsible for shooting and…

The selective outrage over everything but white supremacy — America’s racial caste system I read online on social media (someone I know personally wrote it) recently that the problem in America is the “race hucksters or race hustlers.” This person, who was outraged, argued that the real issue in American race relations wasn’t white supremacy in America but those who used “race” to…