All posts by Phillip Vance Smith, II

Authoring A Bill From A NC Prison Cell

Incarcerated people should participate in government. In 2020, I co-authored a bill that will combat prison violence and promote rehabilitation by offering release to those serving life called The Prison Resources Repurposing Act. Legislators paid attention. The bill didn’t pass, but we fight on. Please, encourage all incarcerated people to explore their ideas for change. It will make a difference.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Phillip Smith is an accomplished writer, across many genres, and the work he has done for WITS can be found here, but he has done much more. Phil is currently the Editor of The Nash News, a publication produced by residents of Nash Correctional facility, the archives of which can be found here. In addition to being an editor and writer, Phillip is also pursuing his education.
If that were not enough, Phil is politically active. He is co-author of the above-mentioned Prison Resources Repurposing Act. Not only did he take the initiative to write a Bill – which I find phenomenal in itself – the bill is designed to give those who live in prison hope, a desire to better themselves, and to have a positive impact on a correctional system that is currently lacking hope and sufficient rehabilitative tools. Phil’s interview with Emancipate NC can be found here.
He penned an article for Prison Journalism Project, was mentioned in the the Univerity of North Carolina’s UNC North Carolina Law Review – The Prison Resources Repurposing Act, authored The Cost of Incarceration, and also wrote the article Long Distance Love And Its Benefits For Women. In addition, Phil was featured in NC Newsline in 2022, as well as June, 2023.
Phillip Smith’s accomplishments are extensive and will continue to grow. As a matter of fact, I am absolutely certain I have not included them all here. What is clear is he is a hard-working individual, laser focused on positive endeavors. I am grateful to know him and to be able to share his work.

Mr. Smith can be contacted at:
Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

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what is prison really like?

what is prison really like?
she asks…so I muse…

it is stale breath
in chow lines
crammed behind vikings who
haven’t showered in months

or…racial divides
like lawmakers
fistfights over what to watch
street outlaws vs love & hip hop
MAGA vs #BLM
acronyms of the violence
we kill to view
acronyms of the society
we thought we once knew

in this zoo
hallways twist in a maze
leading past a monkey’s cage
fronted by plexiglas that displays
thieves = chimps
rapists = orangutans
killers = gorillas 
broken men who fall here
only to be broken again 

in a pool of blood
from a shank’s puncture wound 
seeping out like the hope
left in courtrooms

yet…it can be an awakening
of the spirit and soul 
to encounter dickinson, hughes,
angelou, emerson, and bukowski
then to mimic them in my own 
gravely voice 
rubbed hoarse by decades of
silent activism
in my cell 
with a pen as a shovel 
digging me out of 
this hell 

while staring at her face
across the visitation table 
i repeat her question
but more as a question
to myself 

i muse…before asking… 
what is prison really like?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Phillip Smith is an accomplished writer, across many genres. He is a student, an advocate, author of NC HB 697, editor of The Nash News, and we love to see him here. His accomplishments are extensive, and he has no intention of slowing down. I am grateful to be able to share his work.

Mr. Smith can be contacted at:
Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

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Living The ‘Black-American’ Dream

I was about fifteen years old when we moved into a yellow, three-story country home in an upper-middle-class community in Georgia. It was a new house in the type of neighborhood where good southern people waved as they drove or walked past. Lots of teenagers lived in the neighborhood, and there were times when it didn’t matter that I was the only black kid around… and then there were times when it did.

My mom had been married for a few years by then. The success of her and my stepfather’s careers as computer engineers was beginning to show. They drove nice cars and wore business suits to work. They spoke the speech of the successful, not the patois of the impoverished black communities that spawned them, and our new home was the first sign that my parents were living the Black-American dream.

I was living the Black-American dream, too, for the most part. I loved that house. It had a wraparound porch with an old-style swing, a basement, and a two-car garage. The front and back yards seemed endless. Across the street lay a pond where people sat in lawn chairs, with fishing lines slung into the water when the sky was blue and the clouds were few. Some nights I swung on the porch watching the sun set over the shimmering pond, a whisper of wind chimes clanking on the peaceful breeze from a far off house serenading me.

It was the early nineties, the golden age of the Super Nintendo, Trapper Keeper, and America Online. It was an era of societal reconstruction, and most of the country thought of racism and prejudice as ancient relics, only worthy of a few paragraphs of study during Black History Month, not a current in-your-face injustice. Most white people considered African-Americans equal because we had gained the right to live where we wanted, as long as we could afford it. Some would say it was true, and my parents were living proof.

Their success didn’t make my social life easy, although I didn’t have the problems a lot of black children had. Our refrigerator was always stocked full, our lights were never cut off, and my parents’ cars were never repossessed. Drug addicts in my area were privileged, white teenagers who smoked joints or rifled through their medicine cabinets for pain killers, not the stereotypical black crack heads depicted in the media as lazy midnight burglars hoisting themselves into unlocked windows in the dark of night.

Growing up around kids that didn’t look like me, added to my fragile, teenage insecurities, as did the way some of those kids felt about me. All of them weren’t heinous bullies. A few kids in my neighborhood made me feel welcomed and accepted… most of the time, but not always.

Our school bus picked up many kids from other housing complexes, and those other kids became my problem. By the middle of the first semester I had been called nigger so often that the bus driver didn’t know my real name. When he wanted to speak to me, he would say, “Hey, you.” My tormentors sat in the back and shouted up at me in the front. “I bet you want some fried chicken and watermelon, huh? You black-ass, pucker-lipped mule. Come on back here, and we got some grape soda to wash down your chitterlings. Nigger! I know you hear me, Nigger! Nigger! Nigger! NIG-GER!” Sniggering hissed all around me, even from some kids I considered my friends.

I sat straight with my eyes forward, determined to look dignified, as if what they said didn’t bother me and I was above it, but my bullies were bloodhounds, tracking timidity like fresh game. They never interpreted silence for strength. They rode me, and the bus, to and from school for months, until finally, I could take no more. One day I stood up, ready to confront a boy who regularly addressed me as Tarbaby. Four of his friends stood up to challenge me along with him. I plopped back down and rode home, holding back tears puddled in my eyes as they whooped and laughed at my cowardice.

It didn’t matter if I cried, or fought them, or shouted at the top of my lungs – none of it would have done any good. If those boys dished out brutal beatings, battering my body instead of splashing acidic insults burning me to my core, I wouldn’t have stopped them. I felt too weak.

Unfortunately, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about the bullying. I didn’t think my parents could stop it, and I knew they wouldn’t try. They were too concerned with their careers and rocky relationship to worry about me being picked on by a few rednecks.

I heard my parents’ arguments, muffled accusations and skirmishes escaping the crack beneath their bedroom door most every night. I sensed their pain like a wild animal senses a hurricane, and like a wild animal, I headed for the hills, fleeing as far away from their storm clouds as possible. I rarely spoke to my mother, and she sought me out only when she received a copy of my failing report card in the mail or if I did something wrong. Because I didn’t think telling them would do any good, I kept my pain concealed behind the outgoing façade of an obedient teenager who was quiet and always did his chores.

In a way, it didn’t matter. Once the school year ended, I didn’t have to worry about those kids anymore. I was free from their torture for a few months, the wounds they had inflicted becoming faint scars, the sting of which I no longer had to endure.   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Phillip Smith is an accomplished writer, and the above is an excerpt from his autobiography. I hope to be able to share more of it here. Phillip Smith is a student, an advocate, author of NC HB 697, and also editor of The Nash News. His accomplishments are extensive, and he has no intention of slowing down. I am grateful to be able to share his work.

Mr. Smith can be contacted at:
Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

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the inheritance

my father told me a story once
it was only one of a few… you see
he was a stranger
a deadbeat i barely knew… anyway
he ran me out the front door
into a ghetto summer outside
his little duplex was a waste of space
on chicago’s black southside
he pointed up forest avenue
like a man waving a gun
squinting at some invisible foe
escaping on the run
“your grandpa stood right here,” he said
“in a wife beater stained with paint
“he shouted to that midnight burglar
“I may be drunk, but I sho’ shoot straight”
he laughed and slapped my back
he doubled over to wheeze
then he stood up clutching his belly
reminiscing his fond memory
the ghetto sun faded
to a dark, blackish hue
my grandpa died a dirty drunk
and so will the father i barely knew
the inheritance

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. I am forever impressed by the people who contact WITS. Phillip Smith is no exception, and that is because after reading about his many accomplishments, and listening to him on youtube regarding a bill he has authored, NC HB 697, advocating for others, I know I would be hard pressed to do all he has done with so few resources. I hope we get to hear more from him, and I am excited to see all he accomplishes.

Mr. Smith can be contacted at:
Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

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