It’s Not About Grit

“I got bullied for liking girls. I got bullied for, for being Black. I got bullied for not wanting to be down.”

 “I was followed. I was harassed . . . I wasn't able to learn in my school. I had to leave.”

“And then one day, on Thanksgiving, my grandfather told me straight up. He was like, “I don’t want you here no more. Get the hell out!”

“One day when Andrea was walking home from a school, a man followed her in his car. He followed her until they arrived across from her house.”

“Nobody was there. And nobody see it. . . . When I get to my home, I decide to wear a knife.”

“And I’m trying to do this because we can make a change. And I hope all the people who see this will have a reaction.”

“The way I act now has a lot to do with my past relationship. The guy I used to date 4 years ago. . . . He always tried to put me down.”

"I’m a Instagram junkie. I love Instagram. I have a lot of followers. 10K. Everyone says, ‘Oh my God! You’re famous!’”

“I feel like a pretty princess in my pictures versus how I really see myself. In the mirror, it’s crazy, like, do I really look like that?”

“It started since I was 16. I started to think that I’m fat. At the time, because I cut my hair very short, like a boy. And then, people start to say I look fat.”

“One day I decided like to, not to eat. . . . I keep like, skipping my meals a lot. . . . One night I got my stomach ache. I couldn’t even walk properly. I have to crawl.”

“A Gay-Straight Alliance basically means the school, or some faction of the school, is taking a stance against homophobia . . . knowing that there’s a GSA at City-As [-School], I would go so far as to say it can save a kid’s life.”