My Sacramento is full of unique and lively people. I live in a huge, white, luxurious house. There are huge windows to see the big and luscious green trees. Everyone in my neighborhood trusts each other. We leave our car doors unlocked and our doors open for everyone to be welcomed in our homes. Everyone knows each other and we go on community walks every Friday. The sky is almost always blue and cloudless, as if someone painted it. On rainy days we all come together in a hosts home and play games like twister and chess while our kids play in a separate room. I go to sleep while listening to the sounds of jazz and classical music. 

What a fortunate life I have, right? Yeah, no. My Sacramento is full of loud and chaotic people. I live in a neighborhood with broken down houses at every corner and my houses walls are molding and breaking down. No one trusts each other, it's every man for themselves. Everything is locked and there are bars on the windows. If you don't lock up your belongings they will get stolen. Everyday you hear either a medical truck or a police siren passing by. The violence in sacramento is outrageous. Every couple weeks you see kids posting RIP on their instagram while wearing obituaries on their necks instead of jewelry. Sacramento is not the place they want you to think it is.

In Sacramento, people are always telling us that we have freedom of speech, say what you want, and your going to be heard. Yet when people of color start to believe them we get killed for it. Speak up today, 6 feet under tomorrow. That's just how it is in MY Sacramento. 

For those of us who do survive we ́re stuck with the systems that are set up for us to fail. The school to prison pipeline targets people of color. Jails want money and the only way to get it is if people go to jail. They want money and they don't care how they get it. Nothing major, that's just how it is in MY Sacramento.

There's good things in Sacramento but what they don't tell you is you want to come in but we want to get out.