The Holidays Behind Bars: Maintaining Connection adn Fighting Despair

For incarcerated people and thier families, the holidays are the most painful time of year. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa musa and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian alvarez speak frankly about what it’s like to be locked up during the holidays, why inmate suicides, violence, and depression spike this time of year, and about the life-saving and society-improving steps we can take this holiday season to help prisoners maintain contact with the outside world.

content Warning: Discussion of suicide and depression.

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I’m Maximillian alvarez, editor-in-chief of the Real News Network. As we reach the end of an impossibly long year, all of us here at the Real News want to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. Whether you celebrate or not, we hope that this time of year at least provides some time and space for you to rest and to be with the ones that you love. But of course, as we do every single year here, we also want to take this moment to remind y’all and to remind ourselves that there are so many people in this country right now who will not be able to be with their loved ones this year. The nearly two million human beings who are locked up in the United States of America right now. The tens of thousands of immigrants who have been sitting and rotting in ice detention,the vast majority of whom without any criminal record whatsoever,they will not be with their families this holiday season and their families’ homes will be a little more empty this year than they were before.

Mansa Musa:

And to your point, Max, a lot of people will not be with their families and love ones. And especially those that are 2.5 million people that’s locked up under the criminal injustice system on the prison industrial complex plantations, they’ll not be. And I know for a fact, because I was locked up for 48 years, just shy of 50 years, two years shy of 50 years. And this was a hard time for us serving time as of the conditions that we found ourselves under. The visitations was sometimes restricted. The forms of interaction was sometimes restricted. so at some point in time, you find yourself sulking because you don’t have no outlet. But as time went on and years went on, one thing I learned from being in prison was that prisoners are resilient. And we would oftentimes find ways to find relief in prison during these times.

Homemade wine, getting drunk, putting on little skits and plays. But more importantly, as our thinking group, we decided that we wanted to involve our families in the prison system. And we created programs like family Days. So a lot of times around this time of the year, we would have an activity where our children could come in and spend a couple of hours with us in a festive manner Max.So yeah, but this is a hard time and a lot of people are depressed. And we hear at The Real News and Rattling the Bars wanted you to understand that don’t allow yourself to become depressed by the state of this country. If you don’t do nothing else, get a state of mind that you’re going to resist and you’re going to find souls in the fact that you’re standing up for yourself.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And one of the ways that we can stand up for ourselves and each other is to take care of one another, to reach out and offer a helping hand in dark times. And there are plenty of things that you can do this holiday season to really make a huge difference in the lives of people incarcerated and the many family members and friends and loved ones on the outside who are living this holiday season without them.And over the next 10, 15 minutes, man, so I wanted to kind of just talk to you a little bit about that. But first, I want to kind of ask if you could say more about your own time locked up, and especially what it was like for you and others around the holidays.Because I know

The Bleak Holidays Behind Bars

The popular image of prison life, often shaped by movies, can be misleading.While some facilities may offer a semblance of holiday cheer, the reality for many incarcerated individuals is one of stark isolation and restriction.Mansa Musa, reflecting on his own experiences, describes a stark contrast to typical holiday celebrations.

Instead of family gatherings and festive meals, Musa spent numerous holidays locked in his cell, subject to increasingly restrictive visiting policies. even a visit on the day after Christmas was a privilege, as facilities often designated specific days for visitation based on even or odd numbers, effectively barring access on the holiday itself.

The “Christmas meal” offered in prison is often a far cry from a home-cooked feast. Musa describes it as “processed meat, no dressing that’s undescriptive,” a outcome of outsourcing to corporations focused on meeting calorie counts rather than providing wholesome food. This lack of nourishing, comforting food contributes to the already bleak atmosphere.

The emotional toll of this isolation is immense. Musa points to a rise in suicides during the holiday season, stemming from substance use disorders or simply the overwhelming depression of being treated as less than human and cut off from society.

This disconnection extends beyond physical presence. In-person visits are increasingly replaced by scanned letters and video calls, creating a distance that further erodes the vital human connection to the outside world.The constant reminder of life continuing beyond prison walls, seen on television, only exacerbates the feeling of isolation and despair. This systematic removal from society, as Musa powerfully argues, diminishes one’s humanity.

Rattling the Bars: A Focus on Humanity

That’s a good question, Max. And one way to wrap this up. Eddie Conway, the founder of Rattling the Bars, emphasized showing people that we’re human. So rattling the bars is about humanity – showing people that you’re dealing with human beings. We had to question our own humanity when we looked at people as less than human and allowed policies subjecting them to inhumane treatment. The reason we did what we did was to show the population that they *are* human. So we created an environment where humanity would be on display, bringing in children and loved ones for quality time – not over a counter, not behind plexiglass, not on a screen, but allowing touch, hugs, and children to simply *be* children. “Daddy, look what I got. Mommy,look what daddy got me,” – and the same for mothers.

This created a sense of humanity, and the takeaway was that we *can* be human. now, I work with organizations that do what we call “adoptive family” work. We go to county detention centers and DC jail and give incarcerated family members a list, asking them to ask their children what they want for Christmas. Then we match donors with those wishes, so the child actually receives what they asked for.

If they ask for a bicycle, they get a bicycle. The impact is powerful: when they come to the office and get the bicycle, we can say, “This is the bicycle that your daddy got you,” even if they still believe in Santa. “This is the bicycle that your daddy told Santa to get you.” But irrespective, the connection is clear: your father, your mother got you this. This is the place you can come to get it because they can’t come out and give it to you. You see the smiles on the kids’ faces when they realize their family member provided this gift, and we get heartfelt responses from the incarcerated parent, writing letters thanking us as their child won’t stop talking about, “I got this from my dad.”

At the end of the process, we served our debt to society. We don’t have an endless debt. It’s crime and punishment.