Opinion

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

Published

11 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.

Oakland Post

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Advice

COMMENTARY: If You Don’t Want Your ‘Black Card’ Revoked, Watch What You Bring to Holiday Dinners

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

Published

3 days ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

The ‘aunties’ playing cards. iStock photo by Andreswd.

By Wanda Ravernell
Post Staff

From the fourth week of November to the first week in January, if you are of African descent, but particularly African American, certain violations of cultural etiquette will get your ‘Black card’ revoked.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

It could take until Super Bowl Sunday for reinstatement.

I don’t know much about the card table, but for years I was on probation by the ‘Aunties,’ the givers and takers of Black cards.

How I Got into Trouble

It was 1970-something and I was influenced by the health food movement that emerged from the hippie era. A vegetarian (which was then considered sacrilegious by most Black people I knew) prepared me a simple meal: grated cheese over steamed broccoli, lentils, and brown rice.

I introduced the broccoli dish at the Friday night supper with my aunt and grandfather. She pronounced the bright green broccoli undone, but she ate it. (I did not, of course, try brown rice on them.)

I knew that I would be allowed back in the kitchen when she attempted the dish, but the broccoli had been cooked to death. (Y’all remember when ALL vegetables, not just greens, were cooked to mush?)

My Black card, which had been revoked was then reattained because they ate what I prepared and imitated it.

Over the decades, various transgressions have become normalized. I remember when having a smoked turkey neck instead of a ham hock in collard greens was greeted with mumblings and murmurings at both the dining room and card tables. Then came vegan versions with just olive oil (What? No Crisco? No bacon, at least?) and garlic. And now my husband stir fries his collards in a wok.

But No Matter How Things Have Changed…

At holiday meals, there are assigned tasks. Uncle Jack chopped raw onions when needed. Uncle Buddy made the fruit salad for Easter. My mother brought the greens in winter, macaroni salad in summer. Aunt Deanie did the macaroni and cheese, and the great aunts, my deceased grandmother’s sisters, oversaw the preparation of the roast beef, turkey, and ham. My father, if he were present, did the carving.

These designations/assignments were binding agreements that could stand up in a court of law. Do not violate the law of assignments by bringing some other version of a tried-and-true dish, even if you call it a new ‘cheese and noodle item’ to ‘try out.’ The auntie lawgivers know what you are trying to do. It’s called a menu coup d’état, and they are not having it.

The time for experiments is in your own home: your spouse and kids are the Guinea pigs.

My mother’s variation of a classic that I detested from that Sunday to the present was adding crushed pineapple to mashed sweet potatoes. A relative stops by, tries it, and then it can be introduced as an add-on to the standard holiday menu.

My Aunt Vivian’s concoctions from Good Housekeeping or Ladies’ Home Journal magazine also made it to the Black people’s tables all over the country in the form of a green bean casserole.

What Not to Do and How Did It Cross Your Mind?

People are, of all things holy, preparing mac ‘n’ cheese with so much sugar it tastes like custard with noodles in it.

Also showing up in the wrong places: raisins. Raisins have been reported in the stuffing (makes no sense unless it’s in a ‘sweet meats’ dish), in a pan of corn bread, and – heresy in the Black kitchen – the MAC ‘n’ CHEESE.

These are not mere allegations: There is photographic evidence of these Black card violations, but I don’t want to defame witnesses who remained present at the scene of the crimes.

The cook – bless his/her heart – was probably well-meaning, if ignorant. Maybe they got the idea from a social media influencer, much like Aunt Viv got recipes from magazines.

Thankfully, a long-winded blessing of the food at the table can give the wary attendee time to locate the oddity’s place on the table and plan accordingly.

But who knows? Innovation always prevails, for, as the old folks say, ‘waste makes want.’ What if the leftovers were cut up, dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried? The next day, that dish might make it to the TV tray by the card table.

An older cousin – on her way to being an Auntie – in her bonnet, leggings, T-shirt, and bunny slippers and too tired to object, might try it and like it….

And if she ‘rubs your head’ after eating it, the new dish might be a winner and (Whew!) everybody, thanks God, keeps their Black cards.

Until the next time.