Thank You For Writing Us

Hi, my name is Krystal Clark. My inmate number is 435064. I’m in WHV, the valley of death. This prison is the valley of death. We keep on getting harassed, retaliate, by calling the radio station. They won’t let our calls go through. Most our JPays, we don’t get. Thank God I finally got one today, and I got in touch with him.

This warden. He is terrible. First off, I want to thank everyone who’ve been writing me and getting in touch with me. I really appreciate it. It’s been a lot of people from all over the world been writing me. I really appreciate it. I shared it with the ladies. We are happy, and thank God for the radio station. I will not stop calling it if even if I had to go on another way, I would not. So I’m still sick. I’m really not doing good. They just let me sit here and suffer. My feet turn blue and black. Like I’m not- my hands is pink. I saw [inaudible] today, she the director, now she got upgraded, and I’m asking them like, “What is it going to take for me to die?”

This is terrible. The warden will not talk to me. They lied about [inaudible]. They put me in a room made me stay four and a half hours. He hid me from the attorneys in Lansing. And then I get a paper they write in saying they gave me food, medicine, all this stuff, they lied and said on paperwork, and cameras can prove this.

The food: they don’t even have enough food to feed us. They feed us raw beef, potatoes. Man, the food is terrible. Like this, this kitchen is disgusting. Like every time I go, I get sick. I get harassed by Sergeant Walker. I had grieved him a while ago because I was in infirmary and I was really sick and some stuff had happened.

They heard me on my grievance. Every time this man see me, he just talks to me like I’m a black slave or something. And I’m not racist. This is a lot of racism going over here. I be scared to even go to the chow hall because he threatened me and tried to get all the inmates to go against me and telling me he gonna have red tags come shake my room and take everything I got. “I own everything I got, sir.” He said he didn’t care, hollering at me. It’s unstoppable. I can’t talk to the warden. I can’t talk to the deputies or nothing because every time they see me and they know who Krystal Clark is, they don’t want to do nothing. They just, “Oh okay, okay.” This is so sad. This is so sad.

They acting like they fixing our stuff inside, but what about the inside? We living in this defective, stanking, molding water that we shower in, and they making a shower in cold water because they don’t want the mold to come up. It’s already too late for that. We can barely breathe in that. Headaches. I’m swolled up still.

I’m trying to get help. No one is hearing me. They don’t care. They trying to act like nothing is wrong. Like I’m mental or crazy. This is ridiculous. And you come in here, they come in here and want to tell us about our rooms. You talking about rooms that we live in, and you ain’t worrying about the outside and the stuff that we drinking and we eating and got a shower in. You’ve done not concerned about that, and they don’t want to give us tickets talking about “We got protesters out.” They all want to talk, get mad, and talking about people coming out there on Saturdays. This officer [inaudible], he’s talking about, “We ain’t got nothing coming.”

You not making us as a joke. And I have to tell them, “Sir, I’ ve been down here 12 years. You just don’t know what I’ve been through and what I’m going through. I never looked like this, sir. And you can make fun of it.” Like this man is getting [inaudible] You got officers, not too long ago, I tried to contact this lady, say 18 hours, in over 18 hours, almost falling asleep. Nothing they eat, but we get punished for this, we get blamed for this. [inaudible] Y’all don’t want to know. I got white spots, all that going on in my body.

You got fungus. This is ridiculous. I’m just overwhelmed. I’m so overwhelmed. I try not to stress, but what could you do when you have all these people supposed to be here to help us and they dial planned this; they all working together. There’s so much racist going on in here. Like I never, like I know about it, but I’ve never had been through here like really like this.

This is not right. This is not right. I wrote them so many times. They know what’s going on in this prison. They do. They walk through, they know exactly what’s going on, but they get the inmates to get out here and plant flowers so they can look good. But what about us? And then the government, you want a second chance, you will ask families, people out there to vote for you and you ain’t even trying to help us and let us go? We deserve to go home. It’s so many people here, innocent just like I am. I got [inaudible] by a racist judge.

The prosecutor. Ain’t nobody doing nothing. And we living in here in this. They treating us like its wrong. It’s terrible. We got some good guys, some good people on our side, but when they try to help us, they fall down. This is unstoppable.

No one is here, and everybody is just in here. And then they got the inmates turning against. I’m getting threatened by by inmates, running up on me due to [inaudible]. And the warden won’t even hear me. Every day, I’m getting approached by a woman and her girlfriend threatening to pin drug cases on me.

I don’t bother nobody. I don’t get into. I’ve got none against gays. it’s not me. I don’t bother. But every day I’m getting picked on. He let the inmates do what they want to over him, so he won’t have to do it. He got a problem with inmates. They do what they want. This is not right. I’m getting approached and [inaudible] the sergeant embarrassed you in front of the whole chow hall. And then when you speak up, you get threatened to go to seg, I’m tired of living like this. I don’t dude, my headaches. I just started three more things for my eyes.

I don’t know what to do no more, like it’s too much. Every time I try to write this up, I feel. Walk around here and try to stay strong like nothing is wrong. It was like I said, if I show my sickness, no one don’t care. I got to be normal because people tried to walk on over me. You know what I’m saying?

And take advantage right now, because I got to use this walker and I’m sick. And it hurts because the staff, you go tell them, the PCs, the officer, the warden, you gon’ tell them, they go right back and tell the inmates to start more problems. This place is terrible. You got the sub roaring from your windows. You can not breathe.

This mold is, and then they hid it so the lawyers attorneys won’t see it, but come on, now everybody knows they painted stuff and what they had. They know they rolled it. This is not right. This is not right. Every time they come, I get retaliate. This is unacceptable.

The government, come on. You know what’s going on in this prison. I’m not the only one speaking on this. You been here at this for years, and you letting us do this, eat leftover food. This is sad. Food ain’t no good. They ain’t got enough to feed us. Like this is crazy. The water we drank, y’all not drinking the water. Y’all bring in big bottles of gallons of water in here every day.

And most of your officers say how the water stank when they tell them, “No, they not drinking that water.” But we forced to drink this. We’ve forced to shower in cold water, and air cold affect the air blowing all over us because y’all don’t want them to see the mold. It’s already too late for that.

This is not fair. This is not fair. And every time they see me, they telling me, “We heard you on that.” I don’t care what you heard me on. I’m speaking in a truth, and you give me a lie detector test right now. I take it. I’ll tell you the truth. This is no faking, no lie, no nothing.

These people in here- it’s terrible. It’s terrible. Like I said, the people who do try to help us, they get in trouble for helping us, doing their job, because they want them all to be crooked. The doctor is so sad. She saw me, yet it’s just antibiotics, antibiotics. No nothing. It’s trying to send me to the hospital, but [inaudible].

My eyesight leaving like this. I’m swolled up, getting hives all over my body. I’m trying to get- this crazy. This is crazy. And I think I got in touch, cause I’ve been trying to get in touch. This is crazy what they doing, and they get away with it. I know one day the sergeant had told me he said, “Well, ain’t nothing going to happen. Y’all can fight and do what y’all want to do, fight, that ain’t gonna go away, nothing gonna happen to us.”

And it gets me like that. I got never seen it. Me and my brothers and my family, they [inaudible]. This is ridiculous like they did us and they can get away with it.

I guess they want me to fall, but I will not stop fighting. I will raise my voice or whatever I have to do to help all us, the ones can’t help themselves, these people need to go home, and y’all just holding us. I just told him, “Y’all let the people go home.” [inaudible]

What about life? What about our life? You know, and then it just let us black people get treated like nothing, you know? And I don’t never ever play racist games cause my kids is mixed, but I’m just saying what a [inaudible]. Like you’re not trying to do anything. They in here trying to take these classes, that’s a coverup. I mean, I’ve been out here 12 years, this place held me down, it didn’t help me, it held me down. I pray to God I make it alive out of here. Like this is crazy. Like I’m just sitting here. This is crazy, man. You got to watch where everywhere you go, because you got people trying to attack you, you go to chow-

It’s just ridiculous. Even when the officers hear stuff about you or know like you, you got to deal with that. Nah, this is not right. This is not right. And then I’m speaking my voice, so they always want to attack me. I don’t care. This is not right, like I want my life back, at least help me well.

No one has tried to. They want to downplay like nothing is wrong. Like this is crazy. Especially when you got an allergies and stuff, y’all just don’t know what every day how I feel. I swell, hives, rashes. My skin is. This is a shame, man, this is a shame.

This is so terrible, like this is bad. This is is sad. You could barely- because they won’t connect your calls, they think we stupid like we don’t know what they doing, but my family the other day they doing this and then mess with our JPays. This is pitiful. They not trying to help us. They try to kill us, and that’s what they doing.

They are killing us. They are killing us. Feces, we got a few bathrooms, blood, feces, cause they ain’t take care of these older people. They don’t know how to take care of theyself. You know, this is sad. They bring these old people, food they can’t even eat. We got to go eat the same thing. This is ridiculous.

This is sad. This is sad. I tried, you know, I try to hold and stay strong, because as soon as they see me sitting on my weakness, I get attacked, so I’ve been trying to stay like up, walking around, trying to get around laughing, you know what I’m saying? But in that role, I’m so sad- it’s so messed up, man.

This is crazy, man. This is crazy. We need real help, like really good help. I guess but like the government, all of them, the government, Washington,  they all should be in trouble for this. They all should be in trouble for this, y’all running for second chances to get second chances and it’s all about people out there. What about prisoners? Every prisoner is not bad. If someone probably made mistakes when they was young they’ve been down here at 30 or 40 years, come on now! there’s, this is not right.

No, one’s thinking about that. It’s just let us ride and die. But I thank y’all so much, so so much. I’m so happy to talk to someone. I really appreciate y’all, and thank you so much.

These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.