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I didn't realize how close to home the Tops mass shooting really was. This Tops location was not there when I was growing up, much of what use to be there have long gone with the times.

What I do remember about that location is that I had to cross that intersection nearly every day growing up. I crossed it to visit my best friend Sarita, who lived on the same street as I did, but across Jefferson Ave. I passed this intersection to walk to school, to visit my cousins, to go to a nearby park, and when I became a young adult, I'd pass this location to visit my then boyfriend. This location was home for most of my upbringing. It's where I spent some of the best and worst parts of my life. It's where I lived when I decided to move away and see more of the world.

Now, it's the location where my mom would go to buy her groceries, where my sister use to shop and where my brother and his 3 year old twins were headed to only minutes before the shooting started.

I just don't understand how anyone can justify killing people based on nothing more than how they look.

Growing up, I didn't have much, we didn't live in a nice middle class neighborhood. There was crime, there was poverty, but there was also mothers and fathers and children playing and laughing. There were Grandparents and neighbors looking out for eachother. We didn't have much, but we had love and a good foundation. We were taught to be strong, to show love, and not to hate a person that we knew nothing about.

But this mass shooter, who only knew that this area was predominantly black, thought that was enough justification to go into their neighborhood and start shooting. No understanding of the people, of the love of the dynamics... just that they were black.

I am black, I was raised by my mom, with six siblings. I grew up with my grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles all within walking distance. We didn't have much, but we had each other and we had our friends. We struggled together and we overcame together.

We are more than the color of our skin, which is beautiful by the way. We are people who are tired of having to fight and die to justify our existence.