Category Archives: Neo Jim Crow

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment (Music Video)
Min King X Pyeface feat. Scarface

After serving 24 years behind bars for Bank robbery, 6 years in the feds, and 18 in California’s maximum security prisons, Min King X AKA Pyeface had hit the ground running, when he was released in July of 2019.

No other rapper in Hip Hop has done more through art-activism (Artivist), in the past three and a half years to highlight the plight of the men and women behind bars than the George Jackson of Rapp. A reference to George Lester Jackson, the 1970s prisoner and activist, whose murder in San Quentin during a prison riot, led to the worst prison riot in US history, at Attica, three weeks later, and a name given to King X by fellow prisoners, when he lived amongst them.

Anthem to Abolish the 13th Amendment features the legendary Godfather of Southern Hip Hop Scarface, whose long-standing political rap flows clearly impacted and influenced the early rap lyrics of both Ice Cube and 2Pac.

Also included amongst the political graphics is the artwork Incarceration Nation. Created in July of 2017, by California prison artist C-Note, as a promotional piece for the August 19th 2017, Millions For Prisoners Human Rights March, held in Washington DC and across the US, including Internationally, Incarceration Nation has become America’s premier artwork on mass incarceration.

Incarceration Nation (2017), Graphite on paper, Donald “C-Note” Hooker

IN ANY EVENT

IN ANY EVENT
Manifesting a dream by sticking to the script on the team of the righteous what can be better than this
Probably guided although there’s a tendency to drift
The race is not to the Swift
Not to the gifted
But to all who patiently preserve will be uplifted

IN ANY EVENT
it’s not the goal but the process to which we endure
it’s not the gold but the struggle to become pure
sure to win with the love of God
rising above sin to beat the odds
what we’ll receive in return is blessings of the spirit
The ability to discern written down in lyrics
To serve as a legacy never-to-be-forgotten
A theme that can never be switched

IN ANY EVENT
we’ll make it make sense
IN ANY EVENT
By sticking to the script
IN ANY EVENT

Copyright 2020 Kenny Jacobs II
aka Kool The Poet

Unprecedented Quotes

These are The Words of a Genius

UNPRECEDENTED QUOTES

created by way of desire to inspire hope
Now they know when at first they didn’t
Now it show and many are smitten legitimate skills learned through self-education self-made elevation earned as a chosen occupation
These are its revelations
equipped with remnants of the greats that passed away
Reminiscent of the beauty and brilliance that’ll never decay
Always its sway seems to resurrect even through extreme poverty and disrespect
It’s been tried and true
It’s rise is expedient
Producing good fruit
The words of a genius
Never before known but exceptional and sound
originated to epitomize perfection and cultivate a style
service with a smile used as a mechanism to cope
who knew it would give several people hope
These are the words of a genius UNPRECEDENTED QUOTES

Copyright 2020 Kenny R.Jacobs II
aka Kool The Poet

Today We Are Sisters

Today we are sisters
Tomorrow we won’t
unless for reparations
together we fight
I am Pro Choice
I am Pro Life
just because she’s in prison
She still has rights

About Paintoem:
Painting by: C-Note
Poem by: C-Note

Today We Are Sisters is an original work of wax on paper. Done by Donald “C-Note” Hooker in 2018. Today We Are Sisters tells the tale of the 150 California female prisoners that were forcibly sterilized from 2006-2010.

An artist update:

Anyone who observes the body of my work can get a sense that I fashon my work on history. One of the very unique aspects of the 21st Century is the faux belief that we as a species are not the 20th Century. What did the 20th Century bring us? For us Blacks in America, mass lynching and Jim Crow. The century began with a World War, mechanized killing, and mustard gas in War trenches. It went on to produce a Second World War, the gas chamber killings of millions of Jewish people, the mass killings of hundreds of thousands of Japanese through the splitting of the atom. A whole swath of humanity living in the northern hemisphere were under the threat of nuclear annihilation as a result of the Cold War. Kids who have been born post-Cold War, are absolutely clueless of the psychological burden of this everyday fear. The Cold War was an existential threat to our daily lives here in the United States and across Europe. The 20th century also brought us various notions of population control, and these ideas originated from the left of the political spectrum. In the United States, the party that is out of power professes to have the moral high ground in our society. So you get a sort of political preachiness, a righteousness about what they stand for as opposed to the group that is in power. Being a Black male in the United States, we have been orientated that the political left has our back. But in the 20th Century, the Democratic party is the party that the Ku Klux Klan came from, and listen to these lines in my poem, The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

Because whites don’t wanna
do nothing about changin
the situation
about Black acclimation
into fabric Americana
wit your dirty lies
about apple pies
and second amendment aggrandization
Cause when was there ever a time
we could do
what we wanted to do
as a Black man or woman
legally armed
with a gun in our hand

Change California law
when Huey went to the State capitol
opened and carried
Killed Philando Castillo
in Minnesota
as a illegally armed
Black motorist
Standing on her own property
as a licensed gun owning Black woman
Michigan would rather imprison
a pregnant Swatu Salam Ra for two years
than let her use
their “Stand your ground” law
Due take notice
these were all liberal States

So when it comes to an African-American exercising his or her gun rights in Blue State America, they don’t want to extend that to them. These stories are endless and can go on and on. Republicans would argue, that in the course of a mass shooting, if somebody was armed they could mitigate the casualties. Well at a mall in Alabama on Thanksgiving, there was an African American who was a former United States Army serviceman, Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., the 21-year old was armeo and carried out such protection; however, the police showed up and straight killed him, thought he was a suspect.

In 2017, while listening to Los Angeles Public Radio Station KCRW local news program Press Play, hosted by Madeleine Brand, the topic was reparations for forced sterilization here in California. From my programming notes, forced sterilizations were legal from 1909-1979, 20,000-sterilizations took place between 1919-1953 (majority of sterilization), and Spanish surnames were disproportionately sterilized. What shocked me, was from 2006-2010, 150-women prisoners were forcibly sterilized, and these are the alleged reported cases. Now this whole news story was about righting the wrongs of California’s Eugenics program by providing reparations, and that they were actively seeking victims of this practice in order to give them their due reparations; however, nowhere in this conversation was the reparations for these women-prisoners. This is why in the paintoem Today We Are Sisters it contains the following lines, “Today We Are Sisters/tomorrow we won’t/unless for reparations/together we fight.” In the 20th Century Eugenics was legal in California and outlawed in California. But why in the 21st Century the state was authorizing eugenics against its women prisoners? And why did it take until 2014 to outlaw the practice? But they really didn’t outlaw the practice. In the United States, the practice of slavery isn’t outlawed, there is a constitutional exception if a person has been duly convicted of a crime they can legally be enslaved. With the 2014 law, “Such surgies can be performed to save the life of the mother,” SB 1135.

As an artist, I like to give voice to the voiceless. In my work Life Without the Possibility of Parole the story of women doing life without the possibility of parole in a California women’s prison, the vehicle for telling that story was a white woman. In Strange Fruit, the story of mass suicides in a California women’s prison, the vehicle for telling that story was a Black woman. So I was looking for an opportunity to tell a Brown woman’s story. And since the story of eugenics in California was the targeting of persons with Spanish surnames, this gave me an opportunity to tell a Brown woman’s story. Me being an absolutely stupid guy, and using my observations, women are very catty, and they themselves are always discussing how they don’t support one another. This is why the piece is called Today We Are Sisters. Because no matter what side of the abortion debate you are on, forcef sterilization is anti Pro-Life, and is anti Pro-Choice. But remember I said I was just a stupid guy, and I will stick to that story. So imagine my surprise when this work received no love from several women who told me the point of view, as I was informed by them, assuming they have more expertise than I do, as I am not a woman, that some women should not be in the enterprise of reproduction.

[Editor’s Note ]: This Paintoem, like all Paintoems, are given to the public, to have free use rights, so long as acknowledgement is given to the artist(s).

Links to other Paintoems:
Mprisond
My Dilemma
Tears of the Mothers
Black August-Los Angeles
More Paintoems

Today We Are Sisters (Paintoem) available in prints

CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???

Tic
Toc
goes the clock
On the mystery
of the history
Of
who am I
And
who are you
And
who are we

Maybe
to better understand me
I should try and understand you
So when I heard of the demise
of the Indian tribes
from the White perspective
was that they had put too much trust
in the treatise they signed

Now you
can better understand
why Sandra Bland
told that policeman
I HAVE RIGHTS!!!
and ended with
losing her life

But that has nothing to do
with the perversion
of the aversion
towards the Chinese
whereupon our first immigration law
was to get rid of them all

or the Japanese version
who will tell you
that internment is a diversion
it was imprisonment

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

You see no one knows
what the Poles went through
in World War II
where six million died
half of them Jew

or in 1891
the single day
worst
mass lynching
in America
took place
in Louisiana
against the Italians
cause being a Catholic back then
was like being a Muslim today

or that
in 1848 through 1860
in a twelve year span
out here in California
they lynched
163-Mexicans

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

No one knows what a Black woman goes through
cause it was a Black woman who started
hashtag Me Too

and White privilege
means many different things
to many different body
but to the Black family
it means access to their body

How many times did the slave masters rape Black women
so many times I ain’t got a clue
so you’re not a clown
when you look around
and see a lighter shade of Brown
just ask the African, the Aztecan, and the Mayan
how that happened
These women had no choice!
there was no Twitter to give them voice!

Some say Thomas Jefferson was a great man
but how many times did he have to rape that woman to produce six children
and when we called him father
he denied us
and all of America told us
Yousa lie!
But in 1998 DNA gave us proof
that for over 200-years Black folks had been telling the truth
then I heard somebody scream who did not look like me
HOW COULD THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE HAVE ENSLAVED HIS OWN CHILDREN!

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
some of Their story
all we ask
is just a simple task
Can’t Black Lives Matter
Too???

I want to set the Record Straight!
hashtag Black Lives Matter ain’t got nothing to do with no cops
It got something to do with a civilian
and his name was George Zimmerman
and he shot and killed an unarmed Black teenage boy
by the name of Travon Martin
and there was NO JUSTICE FOR US!
and just like all the other civilians before him
with Dey Lynch Mobs
and Dey Gang Rapes
so much was going on Rosa Parks had to investigate
and this was some twenty years before she refused to go to the back of the bus
80-years removed from slavery so much horrors had been thrusted upon us

In 1944
in Alabama
Recy Taylor
was twenty-four
she was walking home from church
when she was abducted by six Caucasian boys
She said, “Please don’t hurt me, I have to go home to my children.”
Five hours later
Her father found her on the side of the road
beaten and raped
Now I comes from a woman!
We all do
And when I heard this story
I cried
but when I heard her sister tell it
I died inside

Dem boys wasn’t content with just raping my sistah
Dem boys played inside my sistah
My sistah never had any children after that
Dem boys went all up inside my sistah’s body
My sistah never even gotten pregnant after that
Dem boys played inside my sistah’s body!

You see history
is His story
but what about
Her story
now that you’ve heard
Our story
We have a daunting task
Such an overwhelmingly daunting task
For YOU TO ASK
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER
TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Here is the audio version:
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???

Editor’s Note: To For more epic poems by this poet, check out: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End! (BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN)
The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

Here are audio links:
The Criminalization of our American Civilization (This Is Not A Manifesto)
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
It Must End!: BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN

White Noise

High ceiling
windowless room
soundless
except the white noise
of bright lighting
humanless
except me
furnitureless
except door’s knob
queasy
of uneasy
a hot mess
but nevertheless
I wait
in this Twilight Zone
of a disaster
seconds
turn into minutes
minutes
turn into hours
still feet
a quickend pace
a slow jog
complexity of thought
rise and fall
like a statistical graph
wondering
searching
Did I see?
Crashing the disturbance
of the undisturbable
Deputy good cop
and officer bad cop
hurled accusations
of machinations
I could not have done
I remained silent
silence brokered for a cigarette
to which I refuse
until
the swiftness
of wiffness
of roasted caffeine
filled the room

by
Donald “C-Note” Hooker

[Editor’s Note]: White Noise, was a work created by the artist for the “Everything Coffee,” prisoner art exhibit in New York.

The Sorcerer’s Brew

I was first awoken
by its smell
It was carmel
smell
in my mind
roasted
and toasted
to perfection
like an erection
so orgasmic
like reaching out
for a lover again
on the morning after
washing over the tongue’s tendrils
like the baptismal cleansing
that washes away all sins
this caffeinated liquefied warmth
with all its herbal toxicants
of sugars and spice
tho it brings nothing nice
but sin
to do
again and again
Lust
a lust
a desire
an indescrible addiction
for more and more
caffeinated liquefied warmth
sips unending
its herbal toxicants
of sugar and spice
amongst the souls it treats
so
damn
nice

by
Donald “C-Note” Hooker

[Editor’s Note]: The Sorcerer’s Brew, was a work created by the artist for the “Everything Coffee,” prisoner art exhibit in New York.

INCARCERATION NATION

My country
is still not free
This sordid land
of hypocrisy
Of thee I sing
Land where my fathers died
Land where the slaves did cry
on every mountainside
Prisons reign supreme

About Paintoem
Poem by: C-Note
Painting by: C-Note

Incarceration Nation is an original work of ink, graphite, and wax on paper. Done by Donald “C-Note” Hooker in 2017. The painting was inspired by the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in August of 2017, and is the sequel to his first political work Black August-Los Angeles. The red dots represent the location of the state sanctioned deaths of: Travon Martin in Florida; Michael Brown in Missouri; Sandra Bland in Texas; Philando Castile in Minnesota; Freddie Gray in Maryland; Ezell Ford, Wakiesha Wilson, Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) & Oscars Grant in California; and Charleen Lyles in Washington State. The poem written later in the year was inspired by the NFL players “Knee Protest.”
” I was looking at other iconic American verbal expressions of patriotism,” says C-Note. “And My Country, Tis of Thee, also known as ‘America,’ is probably third on that list. The creative juices to create the poem had nothing to do with the painting; however, together they make an excellent one-two punch, as a political work of art.”
The painting Incarceration Nation was given to the California Prison Focus as a donation. However, you can still buy prints of this piece, and other related products, at Fine Art America

[Editor’s Note ]: This Paintoem, like all Paintoems, are given to the public, to have free use rights, so long as acknowledgement is given to the artist(s).

Links to other Paintoems:
Mprisond
My Dilemma
Tears of the Mothers
Black August-Los Angeles
More Paintoems

Incarceration Nation (Paintoem) available in prints.

California Prison Focus is a 501(c)3 non-profit whose work as a prisoner’s news source needs generous public support. Click here to their website’s donation page

California Prison Focus • 1904 Franklin St • #507 Oakland, CA 94612 • contact(at)prisons(dot)org • (510) 836-7222

MR. WARDEN

They call me Mr.Warden
and in my mansion
there are many rooms
Rooms of despair
where nobody cares
If you live or die
Where nobody cares
if you scream or cry
So addicts beware
the high you receive today
Will be the low
I’ll give tomorrow

About the Paintoem
Poem by: Donald “C-Note” Hooker
Painting by: Donald “C-Note” Hooker

“I tell people all the time how important your sketch pieces can be,” says C-Note. “The painting is an unfinished work. The poem, I was thinking about addicts, addiction, and A.A., and how if drug use don’t kill’ya; you’ll likely end up in here.”

[Editor’s Note ]: This Paintoem, like all Paintoems, are given to the public, to have free use rights, so long as acknowledgement is given to the artist(s).Links to other Paintoems:
Mprisond
My Dilemma
Tears of the Mothers
Black August-Los Angeles
More Paintoems

Mr. Warden (Paintoem) available in prints.

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)

wpid-the-statue-of-liberty-american-school.jpg

This is my homagization

of Homer’s epic poetization

of the Iliad, which receives glorification

from western civilization

and it’s in that vein of creation

I present to you my poetization

on the criminalization

of our american civilization.

When was its commencization?

Was it with Christopher Columbus, and his infestation

of small pox, on the Indian population?

Is my street spill, a revisitation

on the orgins of this american civilization

whereupon european colonization

was the dominate manifestation

and natives suffered humilation

for christian propagation

and capitalistic subjugation?

With natives being stamped with ineptation

they turned toward their own population

for labor intensification.

Their prisons they went

their street people they sent

to their european colonizations

under a system of indenturification.

Yet this prove insufficient to raise a nation.

So it was the african slave occupation

that would work the plantation

to build the nation

so is it any wonder if this is the commencization

of your nation

that it would lack cultivation

of a so-called civilization?

2.2 mil, the U.S. prison population

the most incarcerated in the history of civilization.

Parents, siblings, spouse, children, are an exponentiation

of those who also feel the effects of incarceration.

You’re hauled-off to your local police station

without some rational explanation

you’re then given legal representation

to defend against a State’s accusation

of some penal code violation.

You’re lacking in bail funding capitalization

so you make an OR application

but the judge has some reservation

so you’re given over to the bailiff, for pre-trial incarceration.

After relocation

to a larger jail holding station

you’ll hear detainee conversation

of police report falsification

and witness testimony fabrication

to cheat you out of an adjudication

that will lead to your liberation.

Now you’re filled with frustration

from a lack of attorney-client communication

so you’re not filled with adulation

in the outcome of a jury deliberation.

Now it’s trial commencization

and the D.A.’s presentation

of the State’s accusation

of your alleged penal code violation

but because of your attorney’s lack of preparation

you’re given poor advocation

of the factual characterization

of what really happened with this situation

regarding the State’s accusation

so now the court issues its proclamation

from your negative jury ajudication

you’re eligible for rehabilitation

so you ask the judge for probation

but the D.A. doesn’t like this recommendation

so slithery-tongue prosecutorial persuasion

is spewed without hesitation

and you’re given years of incarceration

now lack of familial participation

will lead to inner feelings of alienation

that will further hearten your subjugation

and this is just one narration

Like the criminalization

thru politicalization

against those who seek euphoration

for their alleviation

to stressful american situations

by illicit foreign importation

of naroctic stimulation

for self-medication

Why are they stressing over the nature of the narcotic’ legalization

Are we not the Zolof Nation!

So what difference does it make how you seek your intoxication?

This is no way for a nation

to treat a spiritually devoid population

But why did I have such expectations?

Was it due, to my rationalization

of America’s constitutionalization

written towards man’s higher aspirations?

However, due to poor implementation

why should anyone believe in that documentation?

Sorid violations

of systematization

of womanhood molestations

are too numerous for citation

The preventation

of women representation

regarding congressional delegation

is just one manifestation

of this vilification

to constitutional implementation

Let’s not talk about the brutalization

of the black population

thru white intimidation

and his racial segregation

Tho lacking in sophistication

it did lead to black intepidation

thank God for white motivation

for national reconciliation

thru civil rights passation

and restoration

of our haloed constitutional documentation

So take this into consideration

Go visit another State on vacation

then leave out on probation

this is what we do as a nation

this criminalization

of our American civilization

and always a history of demonization

on the next population

of immigration

But for my final observation

It regards poor funding in education

for the eradication

of the minority population

Blacks statistically 12% of U.S. population

but 50% of its incarceration

Tupac citations

ain’t got shit, on my enunication

in this undercover operation

to conceal my true representation

for this was a manifestation

on the criminalization

of our American civilization

by Donald “C-Note” Hooker

Here is the audio version:
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)

[Editor’s Note]: For more epic poems by this poet:
It Must End!: BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???
The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

Here are audio links:
It Must End!: BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN
STRADIVARIUS: Play Her Like
CAN’T BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO???