May Sly Stone’s Love Live On
"May Sly’s love live on/ in us as we continue the fight/ for all that’s right." by Ernie McCray
Sly Stone. My man. Gone. I can feel his loss in my bones. Loved that man from the first time I heard one of his songs and that intense feeling of affection has stayed strong as time has moved on. I heard of him passing on my smartphone shortly after starting a new day and the first thought that came my way was about love, how he proposed that we love each other something we must do more of every day as we live according to the snarly hatred our president spews each day trying to separate us by creed and ethnicity and gender and race. Sly’s passing reminds me that we have to more than ever keep our minds on unity and peace as a species, keeping in mind that we’re just everyday people and it “makes no difference,” he sang, what group we’re in or how much we weigh or the color of our skin or the length of our hair and no one’s better than anybody else anywhere as it’s just: “Different strokes for different folks! And so on, and so on, and scooby-dooby-doo oooh, sha sha!” May Sly’s love live on in us as we continue the fight for all that’s right.
Ernie McCray is an activist for love and peace who acts and sings and writes both poetry and prose, a man who rises each day to do whatever he can, no matter how small or grand, to make the world better in some way.
Unapologetically.