The World’s Greatest Threat: Being Black With Self-Respect

They never likeded my swag
cause it was rooted in gang culture
cause out here in L.A.
WE DON’T PLAY.
Nineteen Sixty-Five
ain’t never died
year of the Watts Riots
cause thirty years later
Nineteen Ninety-Two
We kicked off some shit too
year of the L.A. riots
But who really brought it your way
N-Double-U-A
You know what dem Niggas had to say
about dem cops
Police brutality had to stop
But that was before Black Lives Matter
and that shit came from the Town
Oak Land
Where Huey P Newton was the Spokes Man
for the Black Panthers
and its Organization for Community Defense
you see it all makes sense
Now
that video recorders dun came around
But it didn’t to Rodney King’s jurors
who saw his Black ass take a beat down
from six cops standing around
Naw
six cops actively participating
in the demise of an uppity ass negro
cause who he think he was
that he can get away with running from the fuzz
It only took a dahz
of whites
to say
Hell No! To Black Liberation
if that shit didn’t disturb your sleep
Why are you surprised of white criticism
when Beyonce speak
of Female Black Liberation
so join Her Formation
But again this ain’t nothing new
in the Red White and Blue
maybe because whites refuse to have
that conversation
about Nationhood reconciliation
don’t talk about chipin in dem funds
for reparations
They can for the First Naytion
and American Japanese
but when it comes to Black folks
we only get sympathies
from overseas
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
It’s like fake news
in prison blues
that’s why my pants sag
and my Blue Rag hangs low
I’m all that’s negative
bet believe
If I didn’t make myself that way
they would have
wit their lies and alibis
targeting

A great wrong was done to
you my Black children
A great wrong was done to you
my Black child
A suspicion has been casted upon you
it’s called revenge
Revenge
for the wrong done to you
Revenge
for the wrong done
by hands pure as the white of snow
They just don’t know
when you will recomeuppance
You’re under suspicion
My children
My child
Just look into their eyes and you’ll see
Dis is why me brudda
Dis is why mee sistah
Dis is why mee children
you’re under suspicion
What y’all brewing in da kitchen?
We know it gots to be a special stew
full of wicked concoctions
each with our signed I.O.U.
CAUSE YOUR God is dat Voodoo
so we know He’s stirring dat stew
so we don’t want nothing from you Black America
cause we know you’re itchin
to get us in your kitchen
to serve us this brew
and watch it see
do what it do

So Black man whoa
So Black woman whoa
and that’s why you’re always remain
a threat
Da Black man or woman, with self-respect
So Black man whoa
So Black woman whoa
and that’s why you’re always remain
a threat
Da Black man or woman with self-respect

By Donald “C-Note” Hooker

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)

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

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

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.

THO HER NAME IS NOT GIBRALTAR, STILL SHE’S CALLED THE “ROCK”

She once belonged to a community that lived high in the California Franciscan sky.
Who was torn apart by war with the Sky.
They fell to Earth, but the Rivers would not let them settle their.
They drove them to the Ocean where they fell to the floor with other displaced people and called their name ALCATRAZ.
Once settled, they could not rest as other displaced people settled on top of them.
And so it goes, four other settlements settled on top until they were 30 miles below.
But a great shift in geological politics were to occur when the Farallon Tectonic Plate people went against the great North American Tectonic Plate people, and upheaved all the settled people.
Now the Alcatraz people lived on top of all the settlements, and the San Bruno Mountain people, the last to settle, now lives where Alcatraz once dwelled.
Having dealt with the pressures of 30 miles at the bottom of the Ocean, she’s now mightier and stronger than before.
Resistant to the wiles of the Sky.
Tho no longer held in her former elevated state, elevated nevertheless into her former regal and majesty.
Tho her name is not Gibraltar, still she’s called “The Rock.”

by C-Note

©2017 Donald”C-Note” Hooker

Tho Her Name Is Not Gibraltar, Still She’s Called “The Rock,” is an allegorical work that gives animation to the inanimate. It is the origins of Alcatraz. Alcatraz began as a mountain; who as the result of the elements, suffered erosion. The erosion was washed into the ocean by the rivers, where it settled to the bottom. More erosion and more and more erosion settled on top of that initial settlement that geologist call Alcatraz. Then two tectonic plates collided and caused the bottom settlement to be the top settlement, and the top to be the bottom. Having been buried 30 miles and under the pressure of the ocean, Alcatraz rocks are wheather proof. Doesn’t she now sit regal and majestic?

[Editor’s Note]: Tho Her Name Is Not Gibraltar, Still She’s Called “The Rock”, is a work that was specifically created for the Art Escape At Alcatraz, prisoner art exhibit on Alcatraz island May-June 2017, curated by Prison Art Touching Hearts.
Help P.A.T.H. in their mission of touching hearts through prison art and give a donation.

STRANGE FRUIT

California
is the place to be
Fun living
is the life for me
Spacious places
far and wide
Except at C.I.W.
home to women suicides

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

We create monsters
of ugliness
but we’re scared
to look at
our own creations.
—-C-Note

Strange Fruit, is an original work of wax on paper; made in the form of a collage. Done by Donald “C-Note” Hooker in 2017. “When I had to do an expedited visual work for the Paintoem, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, I used an image from a magazine, but drew the background,” says C-Note. “I have a push, or thirst to bring attention to women issues. That’s what Life Without the Possibility of Parole is about. Strange Fruit, is to draw attention to a report that I read in the October 2016, edition of the San Quentin News. It stated, ‘During an 18-month period in 2014-15, the suicide rate at the California Institution for Women (C.I.W.) was eight times the national average for women prisoners and five times the rate for the entire California prison system.’ When I did Life Without, there was an aesthetic there. This was from a fashion magazine. This was of a white woman, a young white woman, on a very serious subject. I say to myself, ‘Hey, much support in the prisoner rights movement comes from older white women in the Catholic Church. This is an image of them. They see their younger selves in her. Promote the $#@! out of this work.’ I could have used that same racial device in Strange Fruit. With Life Without, it was about the aesthetics. It was about the shape of that image in the magazine. Later on, I realized how I could use race to my benefit. That device really did not go unnoticed to me when doing a work on women suicide. But I couldn’t play on white populism; I had to speak the truth. So a black woman had to be used. Blacks out number all the other races combined in incarceration. There are lots of ways of committing suicide, but I think the hanging is the most salient in our human conscious. That being the case, that brings in Strange Fruit. Strange Fruit is the title to a song, sung by Billie Holiday. The tener of the song is about all this strange fruit hanging from these trees in the South. What was this strange fruit? Nooses around the necks of dead African-Americans. That’s why the piece is entitled ‘Strange Fruit.’ That’s why there’s a noose around her neck. Why a collage? Because I had discovered with Life Without, collages create a certain depth perception. The poem, is a play on the CBS television show Beverly Hillbillies. ‘California/is the place to be/Fun living/is the life for me…’ In Black intelligentsia, and its grass roots also, they have really latched onto Michelle Alexander’s seminal work, The New Jim Crow (Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. So here is her thesis, that 21st Century mass incarceration, and post incarceration reentry, looks very similar to 20th Century Jim Crow laws in the deep South. People generally agree with her thesis, and actively use the siren call end the New Jim Crow. Incarcerated blacks even started the Neo Jim Crow Art movement, to which this piece is a part of. I hold up Sandra Bland as our 21st Century’s Emmett Till. Emmett Till, like Sandra Bland was a fellow Chicagoan who went down South. Emmett allegedly in 1955 made a whistling sound in the general area of a white woman. He was only 14 years of age. He was bludgeon to death. His mother, from the North (Chicago), wanted an open casket burial to which a Jet Magazine photographer snapped a picture of his gruesome remains. It was the shot (photo shoot), heard around the world. Well, I’ve been holding up Sandra Bland to go with the theme of this work. She is our 21st Century version of Emmett Till. What was her offense that caused her to lose her life? It started with a traffic stop; whose legitimacy is dubious at best. But an officer who physically feels the need to pull a motorist out of their car for smoking a cigarette? An activity that is associated with a high degree of stress, to which this encounter with this law enforcement obviously was. But I think anytime a person comes in contact with law enforcement, and especially an African-American with a white officer, it is very harrowing; because an African-American never knows where this thing is going. And Ms.Bland allegedly or apparently committed suicide while in a jail holding cell for a nonsensical lane change violation. To which the officer was fired as a result of this incident. In certain activist circles, it’s common to hear women say, ‘Prisons were not designed or intended for women.'”

Strange Fruit is still retained by C-Note until he can find a party interested in the work. 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

Strange Fruit (Paintoem) available in prints.

LIFE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE

Her name is K
at 23 she was told
She’s a throwaway
Life Without the Possibility of Parole
A walking zombie
without a soul
She begged and begged
for a new life
But spending rehabilitation dollars on her
made no cents

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

Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP) is a work that was created by Donald “C-Note” Hooker to draw attention to the 175+ women imprisoned at the Central California Women Facility (CCWF), who are serving a sentence of LWOP. These women are deemed unworthy of any State spending regarding rehabilitation. Eventho it is not uncommon that for some, this sentence will be commuted to life with the possibility of parole. This urgent, urgent, matter, first came to the attention of the artist in the 2016 Summer publication of California Prison Focus. “First I created the poem,” says C-Note. “It can take a very longtime to create a visual, so I started making collages, as a way to create a visual more expediently. My first use of this methodology, was for the poem, ‘It Must End! (BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN).’ The poem is based on a real life story.”
Life Without the Possibility of Parole is still retained by the artist. 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

Life Without the Possibility of Parole (Paintoem) available in prints.

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

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???

TRUE LOVE

So many women
lonely but free.
So many men
lonely but locked up.
So many souls desperate to meet
But Dr. Phil got his own take
nah, nah, them men you shake.
So much wisdom, from a man
who has hit the proverbial “relationship” lotto
some of us ain’t.

Women on the “View”
all divorcees.
There is the pure.
There is the dirt.
I spit on the pure
in hopes to dirty it up.
I hope the pure spits on me
to clean me up.

Some of our life travels ain’t pure.
Nor is some of our life travels dirty.
There is that middle ground you know.
That middle class.
Ancient China is known as the Middle Kingdom
the kingdom between Heaven and Earth.

1/3 of the world’s population are Chinese.
Will your loving God destroy 1/3 of Humanity?
Think about it!
Soviet Union 1/6th the world’s land mass
Chinese human pop, more than that
and they ain’t Christian.
My point being.
Because he’s locked up, don’t condemn.
Because she’s 40-plus, don’t condemn.
Don’t buy into the hype.

Bible Belt,
got the highest rate of divorce.
But just because a man
wants to marry another man
or a woman
wants to marry another woman
they pose a threat to Yo marriage?
Pleezze
Was not Daniel imprisoned
and amongst the lions?
Was not Jonah imprisoned
and in the belly of the whale?
And Moses
a fugitive murderer on the run?
Pleezze
Don’t assault me Dr. Phil
You don’t think George Washington wouldn’t
have been arrested by the British?

There is the ideal
and there is the real.
Some of us, most of us
didn’t hit the proverbial lotto Dr. Phil
We didn’t hit the ideal Dr. Phil
only the real.

I spit on the pure
in hopes to dirty it up.
I hope the pure spits on me
to clean me up.
This is the essence, of true love.
                    by Cn