Coming From Where I Come From

"I’ll never forget the time when I witnessed a neighborhood friend lying bloody on a police car fighting for his life after being shot multiple times. My family and I were forced by the police to exit our home with nothing but pajamas on, while they searched our porch for evidence because after my friend had got shot, he ran to our house for help, so there were drips of blood on our steps. I even witnessed a lot of my peers, whom I walked those very same streets with, get caught up in the negativity that surrounded us daily, which wasn’t a hard thing to do because, for some, it was all they knew".- Excerpt from A Black Girl Once Told Me To Never Give Up