On her latest single, “Saturn”, R&B singer SZA belts, “I hate this place.” SZA dreams of Saturn, a place where good deeds are rewarded. Here on Planet Prison, I consume female-empowering lyrics to help decode my own pain and suffering as an unwilling contestant in a brutal pageant. Here, I must vie against my fellow inmates for the “titles” of commutation, clemency, pardon, and resentencing, leading to the ultimate “crown”: freedom. Here, good deeds are not rewarded.
My contest against other contenders for the crown feels eerily similar to the way many recent Miss USA describe their work environments—including the late Cheslie Kryst (succumbed to suicide); Noelia Voigt (stepped down); Miss Teen USA, Umasofia Srivastava (resigned); and Claudia Michelle, Miss USA Social Media Manager (resigned): toxic, hostile, and depressing. I feel among good company.
One of my sponsors sent me the article, “The Dazzling Life and Shocking Death of Cheslie Kryst,” by Dodai Stewart, New York Times, Sept. 27, 2022. Stewart describes Cheslie as “…radiant. She looked like she had it all: a signature mane of long curly hair, long legs that were stunning in gorgeous pantsuits, and a megawatt smile.”
Like Ms. Kryst and the other Miss USA beauties, I keep my baton twirled, resume relevant, and my skill set polished. I’m a journalist, so I keep fresh stories pressing from the top bunk of my petite cinder block cell. The same bed I talk sports, apply makeup, and check my topknot. But, as Umasofia Srivastava said, “my personl values no longer fully align with the direction of the Miss USA Organization.” I feel the same way about the Central California women’s facility (CCwf) where I’m hostaged.
I am a devout Christian, Black, and a trauma-informed expert on domestic violence-induced PTSD. I know from experience how to alleviate hyper-vigilance, to mitigate triggers, and to move someone from struggle to productive healing. But the drastic culture shift towards toxic masculinity in the women’s prison where I’m housed keeps me in vicious cycles of depression. My abusers are mostly white men and Black men purporting to be women. The enablers are white women and women of color from the LGBTQ+ community. The walls are closing in and the devil’s at my door. The constant systemic betrayal takes a toll on me. Breaks my heart.
I’m bullied and discriminated against by my governor, Gavin Newsom, who unconstitutionally housed me with men wearing the same inmate uniform I wear, my facility lieutenant (demoted from captain) Jonathon Cuske, and his sidekick, my so-called “counselor,” Daniel Johnson. Three white men, Jonathon and Daniel, my direct overseers, have gone out of their way to sully my impeccable record with falsified write-ups, while my fellow contestants engage in sexual favors for gain.
The sabotage got so bad this year I petitioned the state to allow for an End-of-Life euthanasia plan for women like me who have their quality of life crippled. Women like my friend Blacky, a trans man who attempted suicide twice after being sexually assaulted and beaten by the cops, and women who suffer extreme suicide ideation, like my friends Melissa and Vegas, who cut their beautiful skin in vital places.
Like Ms. Kryst, the late Miss USA, I’m athletic and academically gifted. She was captain of the cheer squad and track team. Me: captain of my basketball teams—whole arm in the rim like Vince Carter! I made honor roll and Dean’s list in high school and college. Ms. Kryst became a lawyer fighting for the wrongly incarcerated. I was a Highway Patrol Officer, now fighting like the bogeyman for the wrongly incarcerated.
In the NYT article, Ms. Kryst’s moster described her as “highly functioning” depressed. Dr. Christian Drake, a clinical associate professor of psychology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine (who did not herself treat Krsy but specializes in women’s health), asserted in the same article that high-functioning despression is not identified in the D.S.M.
But Dr. Drake acknowledges that the term high-functioning depression does highlight “that a person can experience significant distress and significant symptoms of major depression and not have it evident to those around them. Even people who are quite close.”
As Dodai Stewart put it, “Ms. Kryst was clearly functioning in the professional sense—perhaps even over achieving—but she was still suffering.”
This is how I feel grappling with boredom, abuse, and mental and physical pain, in a deteriorating institution I’ve out-achieved. Here I facilitate the prison facilitators. I’ve worked as a college tutor; clerked for Sierra Vista High School main office, Computer Literacy classes, and for the custody Watch Office. I’m also a personal trainer; I’ve instructed aerobics, spin class, and circuit training, and trained women for the firehouse/camp.
Using writing as self-defense, I work with outside organizations as curator, organizer, journalist, and editor. I hone my creativity chapbooks, essays, poems, songs, wordart stories, curricula, and legislation.
Like Dr. Drake said, “it’s important to keep in mind that the way that someone appears in public or in their professional life doesn’t reflect the whole of their functioning.” Like Cheslie, I make depression look good. Seamless. Effortless.
CCwf culture is so mentally debilitating it’s a daily battle to maintain my best emotional and psychological self. No wonder Noelia Voigt declared herself “abdicated from Miss USA” in May 2024 on her Instagram, citing, “mental health concerns for her decision.”
Voigt is the first title holder in the pageant’s 72-year history to voluntarily step down. To Miss Teen USA she had this message, “never compromise your physical and mental well-being. Our health is our wealth.” I find humongous value in this sentiment because it confirms I did the right thing when I filed a Reasonable Accommodation for time off in the Watch Office after I suffered an on-the-job mental breakdown in 2022.
A heavyset older Hispanic staff member walked into the small office I work in and bizarrely started blaming me for something he was responsible for. I felt targeted and confused, as he was not my regular supervisor; I hadn’t a clue who he was. After I caught him in multiple lies and attempted to confirm them in front of his colleague who knew the truth, he started threatening me. His colleague asked him to leave me be. I was a valued clerk. He slow-footed his way out the tiny room. As I turned back to my computer to clear my baffled mind, my eyes suddenly wouldn’t track. I couldn’t read, count, organize documents, or remember what I was trying to do. I was so scared of what was happening to my mind I started hyperventilating into a full panic attack. I ran into Lieutenant Corda’s office and attempted to explain what was happening. She was shocked, stating, “I’ve never seen you like this!” Lt. Corda calmed me down.
As Ms. Voigt said, my health is my wealth, and I refuse to go home with a broken mind. So I took necessary steps to protect my mental health, prevent future mental collapse, and heal. But my efforts were rebuffed by the one person assigned to help me in these critical moments. My incompetent counselor, Daniel Johnson.
I articulated to Daniel how in the real world, when I was a police officer, I could at least attempt to contact HR after a mental health crisis to request time off to heal. Not only is there an opportunity to go on paid leave, but I could see a therapist of my choice. Daniel gave me a blank stare.
Not once did Daniel review my electronic file to verify my impeccable record. And although I had never been issued a legitimate A-Day (unexcused absence) in 12 years, Daniel assumed I was a lazy Black, dodging work. To avoid being stereotyped, I proposed a staff-monitored program to help me recover. At first, Daniel would have none of it. Then he finally checked my file—and his whole demeanor changed. Quick to put a good slave to work, he sidestepped my brain injury, pivoted, and attempted to coerce me into the CCwf puppy program where he is a director.
Elsewhere in the NYT article, Dr. Drake said many Black women in the United States must “develop highly effective coping mechanisms against stress,” and mentioned a variety of psychological blows: “micro aggressions, generational trauma, limited opportunities, being under threat economically, professionally, constantly.” And that’s for women NOT in prison.
In a different article, “Miss USA resignation scandal pulls back curtain on pageant industry struggles” by Doha Madani and Kat Tenbarge, Former Miss USA Social Media Manager Claudia Michelle said she didn’t get paid for two months. She was told by a Miss USA employee, “this organization has no money.”
Here at CCwf I make anywhere from eight to sixteen cents an hour for labrious injury inducing kitchen work—loading heavy-ass crates of milk on flatbeds, pushing heavy-ass food carts, lugging heavy-ass steaming pans. It takes special resilience to productively struggle through this physically taxing job thatshould be reserved for younger inmates on disciplinary programs, not highly skilled and educated Black pageant contestants. I’m a graceful 45, but these jobs are doing their best to knock me out of the competition.
In 2021, Ms. Kryst penned an article for Allure magazine, saying: “Why? Why earn more achievements just to collect another win? Why pursue another plaque or medal or line item on my résumé if it’s for vanity’s sake, rather than out of passion? Why work so hard to catpure the dream I’ve been taught by society to want when I continue to find emptiness?”
Sadly, none of the reporting I covered about the three women stepping down mentions how their same avenue of pageantry connects to Ms. Kryst’s suicide. I can only theorize the impact of the day-to-day duties of Miss USA in a toxic environment and a continued career in entertainment creates specific damage and burnout for high functioning Black women.
Here, inside CCwf, there are cutters, the suicidal, those suffering suicide ideation, and now the euthanasia ideation I struggle with. Where do I go from here? I’ve reached the zenith of prison achievement, staving off regression, and still my administration, helmed by women of color, refuses to recommend me for resentencing, clemency, commutation, or pardon—the pageant’s crown.
But not all hope is lost: one good thing came out of the years-long pageantry entanglement. One May, 9, 2024, L.A. Times re-reported on the Miss Universe organization’s October 2022 suspension of its President and her firm, and the launching of an investigation into whether the 2022 pageant was rigged.
Miss USA may or may not be rigged, but the Miss Prison America “pageant” certainly is. Perhaps an investigation of the high-ranking women of color like CDRc Director Connie Gipson, CCWf Warden Anissa De La Cruz, and her Public Information Officer Monique Williams, should be asked why a Black, heterosexual, Christan woman from Compton exceeding resentencing qualifications can’t get an in-house boost toward the crown?
Because something is biased and rotten on this red carpet, and it’s not contestant Johnson.
Watch the throne.
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