I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere.

I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it.

I was born in India - but never really lived there.

It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.

Remember, I'm West Point, where I was born. My father went there.

I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 if you were black and looked back to your ancestors and saw nothing but slaves all the way back to 1619. Look forward another 50 or 60 years and saw nothing but slaves.