Opinion

OP-ED: The Most Difficult Part of Being in Prison is Separation from Family

Published

10 years ago

January 28, 2015

By Troy Williams

The most difficult part about doing time in prison is not living in a 4-foot-by-9-foot cage. It’s not having to live in that cage with another man. It’s not the constant threat of prison riots or interaction with a prison guard who believes it’s his duty to enforce punishment.

The most difficult part about doing time in prison is being unable to have meaningful contact with your family.

In the article, “Without Family Visits and Phone Calls, the Soul, Heart, Mind And Spirit Deteriorates,” Richard Johnson wrote, “When someone goes to prison and is isolated from family and friends, the alienation can be extremely devastating on a number of fronts.”

I agree.

Two months ago, I paroled from San Quentin State Prison after serving 18 years of a life sentence. If it weren’t for the unconditional love and support of family, what I chose to do with my time in prison would have been very different.

It was through letters and Sunday morning phone calls that my elderly mother encouraged her grown son to be a better man. It was her unwavering support after everyone else had given up that gave me the strength to look deep inside.

It was the letters and visits from a child who begged to know, year after year, when her daddy was coming home that gave me the will to change.

My oldest daughter was eight years old when I began my sentence. She would write me discussing “the-world-is-coming-to-an-end” situations that children go through. By the time I received her letters (which in most cases took up to 30 days) and wrote her back, the problem was long over.

Ultimately, she was left having to blindly figure her way through life. She didn’t know that her father wasn’t ignoring her need for connection; he just wasn’t receiving her mail in a timely fashion.

I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call, and my child’s caregiver couldn’t afford transportation to travel 600 miles every weekend to visit.

In fact, if it wasn’t for programs like Get On The Bus, my child would not have been able to see me the last eight years of my incarceration nor would she have been able to introduce her son to his grandfather. Get On The Bus is a non-profit organization that provides transportation, free of charge, for children and their caregivers to prisons throughout the state of California.

On one hand, I am fully aware that, ultimately, I must bear responsibility because it was my actions that took me away from my children in the first place.

On the other hand, society also has an obligation to balance punishment for a crime with the benefit of a father being in his child’s life.

The children commit no crime, they long for the comfort of their father, and few care enough to show them compassion. Then society wonders why 70 percent of children with parents in prison end up incarcerated.

Troy Williams.

Troy Williams is a videographer and independent journalist based in the Bay Area. He owns a media production company, 4 North 22. For more information, contact him at troywilliams1229@gmail.com or visit 4north22.com.

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COMMENTARY: PEN Oakland Entices: When the News is Bad, Try Poetry

Strongman politics is not for the weak. Here in the U.S., Donald Trump is testing how strongman politics could work in the world’s model democracy.

Published

2 weeks ago

December 6, 2024

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iStockphoto.

By Emil Guillermo

As the world falls apart, you need more poetry in your life.

I was convinced on Tuesday when a weak and unpopular president of South Korea — a free nation U.S. ally — tried to save himself by declaring martial law.

Was it a stunt? Maybe. But indicative of the South Korean president’s weakness, almost immediately, the parliament there voted down his declaration.

The takeaway: in politics, nothing quite works like it used to.

Strongman politics is not for the weak. Here in the U.S., Donald Trump is testing how strongman politics could work in the world’s model democracy.

Right now, we need more than a prayer.

NEWS ANTIDOTE? LITERATURE

As we prepare for another Trump administration, my advice: Take a deep breath, and read more poetry, essays and novels.

From “Poetry, Essays and Novels,” the acronym PEN is derived.

Which ones to read?

Register (tickets are limited) to join Tennessee Reed and myself as we host PEN OAKLAND’s award ceremony this Saturday on Zoom, in association with the Oakland Public Library.

Find out about what’s worth a read from local artists and writers like Cheryl Fabio, Jack Foley, Maw Shein Win, and Lucille Lang Day.

Hear from award winning writers like Henry Threadgill, Brent Hayes Edwards and Airea D. Matthews.

PEN Oakland is the local branch of the national PEN. Co-founded by the renowned Oakland writer, playwright, poet and novelist Ishmael Reed, Oakland PEN is special because it is a leader in fighting to include multicultural voices.

Reed is still writing. So is his wife Carla Blank, whose title essay in the new book, “A Jew in Ramallah, And Other Essays,” (Baraka Books), provides an artist’s perspective on the conflict in Gaza.

Of all Reed’s work, it’s his poetry that I’ve found the most musical and inspiring.

It’s made me start writing and enjoying poetry more intentionally. This year, I was named poet laureate of my small San Joaquin rural town.

Now as a member of Oakland PEN, I can say, yes, I have written poetry and essays, but not a novel. One man shows I’ve written, so I have my own sub-group. My acronym: Oakland PEOMS.

Reed’s most recent book of poetry, “Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, Poems 2007-2020” is one of my favorites. One poem especially captures the emerging xenophobia of the day. I offer you the first stanza of “The Banishment.”

We don’t want you here
Your crops grow better than ours
We don’t want you here
You’re not one of our kind
We’ll drive you out
As thou you were never here
Your names, family, and history
We’ll make them all disappear.

There’s more. But that stanza captures the anxiety many of us feel from the threat of mass deportations. The poem was written more than four years ago during the first Trump administration.

We’ve lived through all this before. And survived.

The news sometimes lulls us into acquiescence, but poetry strikes at the heart and forces us to see and feel more clearly.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. Join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok